Chapter 10: Just Following Orders

Over the next few days, wedding preparations livened up the castle to a point that made me feel unwell. With all of the extra bodies moving around in a hustle with quickened heartbeats, my hunger grew and I didn’t know how to tell anyone.

Velador became preoccupied with legislative hogshit required for his imminent rule. He had to conjure up a guest invite list from the neighboring kingdoms and baronies. His last days and nights of freedom were not spent with me as my veins cried out in hunger.

I sat with Melyianna in my chambers well after everyone had fallen asleep and she did not look herself. I asked, “Are you okay?”

“Thirsty,” she grumbled.

I nodded and said, “We need to find a meal soon. I haven't been eating the chicken or the duck or pork they’ve been trying to offer me.”

“They’ve given you duck? I settled for pork and all I felt was thirstier,” she sighed. She wore an almost clear nightgown that they must’ve supplied her because nobody in Mirewood wore that to sleep during the day.

“Madam Holsienne said she’s fitting me for a wedding dress in the morning. I’ll make her find us a meal,” I said.

“Is there a wine cellar? That could hold us over for a day or two,” Melyianna said.

“On second thought, there might be. Follow me,” I whispered and we exited my chambers in search of a wine cellar.

It was easy to travel through a sleeping castle and we found it underground. A few dozen kegs of wine, in all their glory, finally gave us a placebo to our hunger. We drank our fill and retired for the night.

Madam Holsienne and her trusty aide, Jissabel, arrived the next morning and I sat ready in the bed trying to remember why my head pounded so fast - it must be the influx of wine and the shortage of blood.

“Good morrow, my lady, how are you faring this morning?” Holsienne asked.

“I’m quite hungry and so is Melyiana. Accommodations will have to be made soon or people may just see the true duchess of blood and butchery,” I grumbled.

Young Jissabel looked petrified and Holsienne said, “Well, that is quite the statement to lead with.”

“You smell of wine,” Jissabel said

“What do you know of wine, youngling?” Holsienne asked.

Jissabel shrugged and I said, “Wine is a placebo for blood but it doesn’t last.”

“Suppose this was inevitable. Velador has given me permission to show you to the dungeon,” Holsienne revealed.

“Take me.”

“It must be at night, deary,” she said, clapped and ordered, “Now come! We have a dress to hem and haw over with hopefully less hawing than hemming.”

With a starving core, I followed them through the castle to a clothing closet of sorts and she said, “This was the duchess’, Velador’s mother’s, changing chambers. The wedding gown is ceremonial but your frame won’t fill it.” She gestured from waist to neck.

I squinted because I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted.

Behind Holsienne’s back, Jissabel mouthed with appropriate hand gestures, “Chesty.”

I flicked my brows upwards and said, “It’s quite wide.”

Madam Holsienne pulled a white and gold dress from the corner and it went from a normal size around the belly to ten times wider than the average person. At least it would give me breathing room between me and the others.

“Good, now disrobe.”

“You and Jissabel like demanding that of me,” I smirked and began slipping out of my simple dress. I felt each bony rib, yet again, while I pulled down the fabric. Won’t he just hold me there? I didn’t know why I even desired to be held there; it’s not an erogenous zone or anything.

Standing in only my underwear, Holsienne said, “No color, no breasts, no hips. I need to think on this.”

“I appreciate the rude remarks, truly, but I am only skin and bone right now…”

“Skin and bone is an understatement, deary!” Holsienne interrupted. She began pacing and said, “How am I going to fill this dress without ruining it?”

“When you finally provide me with a proper meal, I will fill out!” I cupped my chest and my hips while I said, “These and these fill out!”

The mistress clicked her tongue and said, “Velador will appreciate that.”

“Perhaps we should delay this fitting until then,” Jissabel said and knelt before me to begin pulling the dress up from my ankles. Her knuckles slid against my skin and thigh and although there was nothing sexual about it, my dehydrated body nearly forced me to bite her.

I quickly took the dress from her petite hands and finished covering up so nobody could shame my body anymore.

* * * * *

Later that evening, I tried to visit Velador but he left the castle and nobody would tell me why or where. Luckily Madam Holsienne knocked at my door to say, “I’ve bribed the prison guard for his own innocence; let us be quick about it.”

I nodded and followed and when we passed Melyiana’s floor, I asked, “We need to get Melyiana.”

“Jissabel is already down there with her,” Holsienne said and I just hoped Melyiana had the willpower to resist biting Jissabel like I had to earlier today.

Upon arriving at the dungeon, only accessible through a tunnel under the castle to a separate building attached to the wall, Jissabel sat cowering on a bench holding her head.

“What happened?” Madam Holsienne asked and knelt in front of the girl.

Jissabel mumbled something and I walked deeper into the dungeon. Eight cells sat along the wall on the left and I found Melyiana in the fourth. A prisoner or two occupied all except the last cell and torches illuminated the short corridor.

“I avoided the main arteries so there’s plenty left for you,” she said with blood staining her lips and chin.

A prisoner in the adjacent cell looked at me with concern. He tried to see the corner but the bars prevented his head the pleasure. I stared down at Madam Holsienne trying to comfort a horrified Jissabel and I entered the cell. I knelt along the unconscious prisoner and whispered, “Think he’ll turn?”

“I don’t think so. I knocked him unconscious before I began,” she replied.

“Hey, hey woman? What is she doing to him?” the curious inmate asked.

“He’s been inquisitive,” Melyianna mumbled.

I knelt and clamped down on the man’s unbitten arm and pulled our nutrients with my teeth. It rejuvenated me instantly and after I had my fill, I stopped so that he wouldn’t die from losing too much blood.

We finished, wiped our mouths, locked the cell and walked back towards our escorts. In fact, Jissabel left and Holsienne asked, “Satisfied?”

“He should wake up woozy but still human,” Melyiana stated and soon we exited the dungeon.

“Then we can try the dress fitting in the morning again,” Madam Holsienne stated.

“Very well,” I replied and returned to my chambers until then.

* * * * *

After a successful dress fitting, Madam Holsienne brought me to the castle’s kitchen and introduced me to the head cook - a chubby fellow with a long beard he kept inside a cloth so the guests wouldn’t find stray hairs.

“As is custom, the duchess will choose the women’s main course,” Holsienne explained after the cook stopped staring long enough to digest her words.

“Yes, of course. Been a while since we held a wedding,” he smiled at her and glanced at me.

“It’s true. I am a vampire,” I blurted to clear the air. I ended with a wide enough smile to reveal my teeth.

“Yes, I know. The women, see, they talk around here and word reached my ears yesterday but I didn’t actually believe it,” he mumbled while fidgeting with the loose handle on a rolling pin.

“Now that it is cleared up, can you list the menu choices so Yyrdra can decide?” Holsienne asked.

“Hm, yes, for the women’s meal. We typically do poultry - chicken, duck or goose,” he listed while holding up three fingers in succession.

I truthfully didn’t care so I randomly chose, “Duck, I suppose.”

“Good, easier to work with than goose and less bitey than the bastards!” he laughed but soon realized his phrasing. “Not that you are bitey or anything, duchess.”

I smirked and asked, “How many people are we expecting?”

Holsienne asked, “Hasn’t Velador told you?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since the nobles voted,” I answered.

Holsienne said, “Oh, well, there might be a couple hundred guests. All nobles and their families and nobility from neighboring allied kingdoms.”

“A couple hundred? That should be a full room,” I said, suddenly extra nervous for this event.

But then a guardsman ran by the kitchen and swooped back in saying, “Ah, Lady Yyrdra, you must come with me to meet Velador.”

“Why? Is he okay?” Holsienne asked.

“He believes your life is in danger,” the guard shouted.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Scouring the castle, looking for you!”

“Wait a moment,” the cook said. “He came by an hour ago, said he was traveling to the cattle farms to purchase several cows to be butchered for the wedding.”

The guard looked flustered, took a step further into the kitchen and said, “I’m just following orders.”

Something about his heartbeat changed when the cook questioned him. Something felt off. Suddenly he pulled his spear back and threw it straight towards me. I dove out of the way and Holsienne shouted, “What in our duke’s name are you thinking, lad!”

I jumped up and grabbed the cook’s rolling pin.

The guard pulled his sword and shouted, “There cannot be a vampire on the throne!” as he charged towards me. He had to run around a preparation table so it gave me time to position myself properly. As he swung for my head or neck, I jumped back quickly. His sword clanged against hanging pots, as if sounding the drums of war. I swung the rolling pin at his arm, striking his wrist bone which I’m sure stung.

“Enough! Get out of my kitchen with this violence! Only I can dismember things in here!” the cook shouted.

The rogue guard didn’t care. He kicked at me but I leapt backwards again. I parried his sword with the pin and smacked it out of his hand with another quick motion. I kicked the sword by it’s hilt and it slid under a different table. The guard pulled his knife and I began wailing on him with the rolling pin until it broke against his arm.

He shouted in pain and I knelt on top of him with rage in my eyes. I shouted, “I have done you no harm!”

“Don’t bite him, lass!” Holsienne yelled.

He used the opportunity to throw me off and jumped to his feet. He ran into the hallway and I leapt over the table, admittedly difficult in the dress, and shoved him into the stone wall. He struck his head and collapsed to the floor.

To my left, a guard looked on in confusion and to my right, a couple of noblemen stared at me in disgust. Holsienne ran into the hallway and noticed their angry faces so she shouted, “It’s alright, this man tried to kill your duchess! Where is the duke? Where is Velador? This castle must go on lock down!”

I breathed heavily for a moment, and although I was full for the moment, the easy access to this assailant’s neck taunted me. I remained in control of my thirst and fought it until word that Velador returned reached my ears.

* * * * *

“We must postpone it then!” Velador yelled after hearing about the incident. The unconscious guard hadn’t given us a name or motive other than his prejudice.

“He failed. Why postpone it?” I asked.

“The invites have already gone out, my lord,” Minister Tolston reminded.

“Then rescind them,” Velador commanded.

“We have time before the wedding date,” Holsienne stated. “A couple weeks, in fact.”

“I will not have the potential for another attack loom over us until then,” Velador argued.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Tolston asked.

“We think a couple nobles intend to spark a rebellion and take the throne in hopes that the Crasmor Kingdom will support their rule,” Velador announced and placed his left hand on the hilt of his sword, resting snugly in its sheath. “Finding evidence to charge them is proving difficult unless this assassin talks.”

“I can probably make him talk,” I suggested.

“No,” Velador denied immediately.

“The Crasmor are our neighbors, they may historically detest us but to incite a coup? They don’t seem smart enough to think of it,” the minister stated and sat down.

“We think it’s been in the works well before Yyrdra came into the picture and she could be the last piece they need to be persuaded,” Velador stated. “The wedding is postponed. Send out updated letters, please.”

“As you wish,” Tolston said and rested his head on his fingertips.

While I tried to process Velador’s diction, I began to wonder how far along this renegade guard’s orders traveled. Did it stop with a pompous, hateful nobleman or extended beyond borders to a foreign king? If I was thrust into a civil war before this wedding even occurred, I would wholly regret not having my way with Velador back along the serene banks of that lake.

“Yyrdra, we should talk in private.”

With both palms up and extended, I agreed in a perturbed tone, “Yes, we should.”