The Lord of the Crows

Part 3 - Pathetic

My sense of smell recovered first.

I sat by the stream, a little further upstream, thinking about my own reflection. In fact, I was thinking about this guy, a stranger watching me from that glassy, ​​green water that reflected the forest. The forest looked the same, as if stretching further along the surface of the water, so I had to look the same as the reflection did.

Pathetic.

It was the only expression that came to my mind and the only expression I could describe myself with in the most comprehensive way. I looked miserable, as did the hundreds of those poor souls, cripples and beggars, I passed by at the city gates every day.

Maybe even more pathetic.

I ran my hand over my unshaved chin and frowned. My hair and beard, suddenly covered with the locks of gray hair, were overgrown, tangled up from lying and stuck with sweat and dirt, and made me even uglier, older and more repulsive.

Then I became aware of my own smell.

Hair, clothes, bandages, everything on me smelled. My skin smelled of stale sweat soaked with the heavy smell of grass, clothes and bandages absorbed the stench of drugs and the stench of poison that still seemed to be leaving my body. I couldn't take it anymore. I tried to take off my shirt, suppressing the urge to rip it off, but I couldn't.

My arms twitched, my shoulder ached, and my neck and back seemed stiff. Eventually, I collapsed on the ground panting, covered with sweat, and leaned my back against the wet stone of the stream bank.

"Do you need help?"

I almost jumped. The voice belonged to a younger woman, of a mild face, in clothes like the one worn by the elder lady who took care of me. I concluded that she was probably one of the women who was looking after the inhabitants of this strange village.

I pursed my lips, not answering her right away.

"What are you doing here alone? You should have called someone to help you if you wanted to take a bath."

Her voice was a bit harsher, disapproving, but her posture was still mild.

I looked at her.

"I was ordered to fetch water myself."

She jerked.

"Who ordered you to do that?"

I tried to shrug:

"Daina. I guess she's the one in charge here. "

She raised her eyebrows.

"She is", her tone was more restrained now, but I did not pay attention to that. In any other situation, I would ask if she didn't approve, but now I neither wanted nor had the strength to get into the nature of women's conflicts. Instead, I tried to smile and turn everything into a joke.

"I think the lady in question only tried to let me know - in a rather nice and polite way - that I smelled like an uncleaned barn and that I might consider taking a bath."

I got up slowly.

"I didn't know it would be such a challenge to take off my shirt."

She smiled and reached for the bucket.

"Come on, I'll help you with your shirt and your hair. You can take a bath while I bring you some clean clothes."

"You have to be more careful, dear lady. It's not safe to offer help like that with undressing to an unknown man," I tried to make a joke as she pulled carefully my shirt over my shoulders, paying attention not to damage bandages or injure half-healed wounds.

She laughed and reached for the bucket.

"With due respect, dear lord, a man who is not able to take off his shirt is not able to tear mine. Lean in."

My hair fell over my face and hid the expression on my reflection. The words, uttered jokingly and without malice, the ones which I would have laughed at on different occasion, hurt, much more than the poisoned wounds. I didn't say anything. I indulged in the trembles resulting from the touch of cold water and her soft fingers running through my hair, untangling it.

She smelled nice. Like fresh grass and wildflowers.

It wasn't until she finished and disappeared among the trees taking my dirty shirt with her and leaving me to take off the rest of my clothes and wash myself that I realized I hadn't asked for her name.

I looked once more at the reflection of my deformed body and stepped into the icy water.

Water heals.

And the coldness dulls, kills everything that water fails to heal.