Claws of Eternity ✔️

Chapter 3: The one that carries poison

GISELLE

Giselle went to her chambers, not willing to talk to anyone, not even Rosa, even though she repeatedly tried. The only one Giselle let in was her servant Jorge, who brought some fruit and water. He looked much younger than her, but he's served her mother before so Giselle knew he must have been older. Giselle stared at his olive skin and dark hair while he peeled an orange in front of her. Jorge was... different. People thought he was mad, or an idiot, because he spoke nonsense most of the time. He referred to things by certain names he's made up and sentences he said usually meant nothing. Giselle, on the other hand, knew he was neither mad nor an idiot. Giselle understood him most of the time.

"The One That Is Alike is troubled." He said, he had a heavy accent, Giselle couldn't really place it but she assumed he came somewhere from North Africa.

"Well, Amalia wants to see me burn for witchcraft, I am sure I will eventually give her enough proof." Giselle was quiet and frankly, tired. Of her own existence.

"The Girl must be stupid, then, to think The Same One can burn." Jorge said and Giselle stared at him, not really understanding. A devious smile was planted on his lips and Giselle thought he looked like he knew something nobody else did. He called Giselle The Same One, or The One That Is Alike, and sometimes the names of different flowers, mostly Rose. Giselle never knew why.

"Can you let me know if someone needs me?" Giselle asked him and Jorge nodded, leaving her alone in the room.

Mostly, Giselle wanted to be alone. She didn't have a lot of people near her, only Rosa and Adam, and Jorge if one can count him in. Ever since she's been a little girl, she's realised people don't really like her, especially girls her own age. Giselle never was good at anything they were learning, such as knitting, or sowing, or playing any instrument at all. Her father, Adalhard, knew it, and he usually let her run outside and play with boys when she was little. He even played with her when he was healthy. Later, he claimed Giselle had to learn how to be a woman, because it was time for her to do her womanly duties. The truth is, Giselle thought her father needed her, because she reminded him of Giselle's mother. They had no one, Giselle and her father. He had lost his only son to war, his second daughter to marriage and his wife to madness.

Giselle sometimes thought that to be the biggest mistake he's ever made, raising her by himself. He often said Giselle had her mother's character, but he was the one to handle her complete upbringing. As a Lord, residing in Carcassonne, he mostly didn't care about opinions around him, he was strong-willed and clever, but warm, loving and kind. Giselle was his weak spot, as well. Rosa used to say he raised Giselle as a boy, as a son he missed so much, and spoiled her as you should spoil your wife.

All Giselle's mother left for her was a bunch of pagan books, ones Giselle knew by heart, with mysterious creatures and beings and gods. Giselle learned a great deal out of them, for example, how a god is only a god if you've been raised to believe he was. Some other culture believes in their god just as strongly. Those books and a few wise sentences that Giselle hasn't forgotten are all her mother's left her. Everything else, Giselle had learned from her father. He taught her how to read, how to shoot a moving target, and how to use a knife – not to cut carrots but a throat. He said Giselle wasn't strong enough for a sword, which she didn't appreciate, but she knew he was right. She was weaker than almost all the boys, but her father used to say she had the surviving instinct of a rabid dog. If someone wanted to spar, she would fight, and bite, and claw her way to victory.

Some time later, Giselle's father got sick, he couldn't leave his bed anymore and everything stopped. Giselle couldn't shoot targets anymore or practice, because no one would allow.

Jorge entered Giselle's chambers, his face a twist of discontent. She immediately knew what he came for, it was that time of the month.

"The one that carries poison is here." He said. Giselle took a deep breath, preparing to walk out of the door.