A Murderer's Memoirs-Chapter 4

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I still dream of the raven with the growing eye. Sometimes I drown in it, drowning in a pool of blood. Other times it simply follows my every move, observing and watching and doing nothing else.

I do not believe in foolishness or superstition, but I believe that something watches over me and guides my steps. Somehow I have found favor with something that wields great power, and my life is now in its hands.

We rode our horses to a large country manor. I had never seen anything like this before. The grasses surrounding the estate house were perfectly manicured; the flowers were strange, vivid and fragrant. A grand fountain flowed with clean clear water and the house... the house was massive and beautiful. This beautiful place would be my home for the next 2 years.

I was taken indoors, my leg was tended to and in due time I was able to move about again as easily as before. While it healed I was cleaned and groomed by women who gave me sidelong glances and knowing looks. Upon my benefactor's discovery that I did, indeed have knowledge of speech, a tutor was appointed to me with the task of polishing my speech and instructing me in the finer points of culture and etiquette. I was given a different, more elegant name, as Tarris was considered too foreign and brusque. I learned to read and write, paint, play music on a variety of instruments and everything and anything required for a woman to entertain civilly. It was my benefactor's great joy (and the source of a great deal of gossip among the help, I imagine) to find that I was also skilled in entertaining in ways practiced behind closed doors, thanks to my early upbringing.

I became his mistress at the age of 14. I was dressed in the finest silks and given any trinket my heart desired. However, my mind was hungry for knowledge I had been deprived of for so long, and my greatest pleasures were found in books and learning. I amassed quite a library, and I studied everything I could find, from the lessons of ancient philosophers to the works of botanists and inventors. I found myself increasingly fascinated by darker texts full of recipes for poisons, antidotes, illustrations of foreign weaponry and exotic demons of stealth.

Eventually my studies led me to the myth of a goddess of death and blood, Ahandora. Her animal was the raven... a raven such as the one who haunted my dreams. I became obsessed with this creature that had become superior to all men and had, through various schemes and manipulations, gained such power and freedom that she was beholden to no one, not even the gods.

My studies took me into ever-darker places, and I found myself resenting those who I came to see as oppressors rather than as benefactors. My daydreams were of blood, stealth and freedom, and my hatred of my master and his hypocritical kindness grew. I was infected by it and could barely stand the look of him, but I hid my emotions well and did as he asked in order to gain his favor.

Life went on in this way for some time, autumn passing into winter, winter warming into spring, spring blazing into summer. The leaves were again crimson and gold on the trees when the raven turned its eye back on me.

Since taking me as his mistress, my benefactor had darkened considerably. Outwardly he was still a respected and honorable man, but gossip and whispered tidbits shared at dinner parties and balls hinted at the change that had come over him. He began to revel in the pleasures of the flesh, and his explorations would take him from the fine white powders supplied by secretive apothecaries to thorough exercises in carnal sins behind my bedroom door. His wife had long since despaired of him and became a recluse, broken by her shame, and his children took refuge in their city house, far from the new depravities of their father.

The autumn of my 15th year, my benefactor chose to entertain friends in his country home. He selected only men, and all were powdered, perfumed and as depraved as my master, if not more so. They used me in every way imaginable, for I was the highlight of their entertainment, although on occasion they delighted in delighting each other. I rose to the occasion and brought them to the very gates of heaven and back, even though I seethed with rage and loathing within.

For six days, I tolerated these goings on. On the sixth night, one man who had perhaps inhaled a pinch too many of that intoxicating white powder drew a slender lovely little dagger as he lay with me. His companions laughed as he tenderly sliced the flesh above my left eyebrow and the blood slowly oozed down my temple. I remember his tongue, long, profane and impossibly red reaching out and tasting the blood slowly pulsing from my wound... and after that, I remember only hatred and rage.

I killed them all that night. I slit their throats and dismembered precious parts of their anatomies, driven by a rage so intense I cannot even recall the doing of it, only the wanting. It subsided only when I stood in the center of the room amidst their blood, corpses and mangled organs. I felt only half-sated and continued throughout the manor, killing all the arrogant servants and gossiping housemaids in their sleep.

I bathed when I was done... I dressed in my finest silks and collected all the fine jewels and valuable pieces I could find, and stepped lightly over the carnage on the floor to the stables. I mounted the very best horse and rode into the newly dawning day with not a single glance over my perfumed shoulder.

I have been many things in my young life... child-whore, animal, mistress, courtesan, cold-blooded killer... but my greatest role was yet to come. I could not possibly imagine the path chosen for me by the bloodied raven of my dreams as I rode my splendid mount into the city... but that is a tale for another day.