She found it quite by accident.
They had made love into the wee hours of the morning; and now, as dawn bloomed without, Jezrael prostrated himself in the middle of the bed, and Anya straddled him and began to rub his back. It was something she’d taken to doing recently; Jezrael said it helped him sleep, and she loved touching him, he had such a lovely strong body....
But this morning there were knots of tension in his broad shoulders, and as she began to unravel them he groaned tiredly, his face in the pillow, and shifted beneath her. The movement made his muscles roll under her fingers and that was when she found it: a raising of the flesh, like a welt, and when she touched it he yelped.
"Don’t." The pillow muffled his voice, but the command was unmistakable.
Since they’d been lovers, Anya had grown accustomed to encountering Jezrael’s small woundings, mostly pencil-thin leftovers from his days as a fencing student, before the Brotherhood; but his tone made her frown. He’s tender. Must be something new, I’d better have a look.
She plunged her fingertips into the brown velvet density of his feathers, parting them to get at the skin beneath; and she saw that the object of her search was not a welt but a scar, a raised scar, just beneath the edge of his left shoulder blade. It was perhaps the length and thickness of her forefinger, and as she traced it gingerly she felt Jezrael stiffening.
"Anya, stop."
She relented. "Does it hurt?"
"No." He raised himself on his elbows, as if to put distance between his body and her questing fingers. "No, it doesn’t hurt. Really I can barely feel it, but—God, Anya, don’t," and something like a shudder went through him. "It—brings back some unpleasant memories," and he spoke so softly she could barely hear him.
"Jezrael." Anya was truly puzzled now. "How did you—"
"I don’t want to talk about it." He dropped into the pillow again, suddenly thick-voiced; and the defensive rigidity of his body echoed his words.
But Anya slowly flattened her palm against his shoulder, careful not to touch the scar, and beneath her hand he was trembling.
"Jezrael," she whispered, "Jezrael, tell me what’s bothering you. Tell me—how you got this."
"Anya, damn it." He turned over abruptly, toppling her, and sat up. "If you must know, it was a belt buckle. My grandfather’s belt buckle."
And he started to cry.
At last he wiped his eyes and tried to smile at her, though the effort failed. "It's just as well. I don't like thinking about it, but we're going to be married, and you've a right to know." He grimaced. "I daresay if you'd kept looking, you'd have found a few more."
Anya was still struggling with the implications of the scar. "You—your grandfather beat you."
Jezrael looked suddenly thoughtful. "No. Not usually."
"Then what happened?"
For a long moment he didn’t answer, only pulled her into a fond embrace, her back against his chest. Then he said, "I suppose I should start at the beginning.
"I don’t remember much of anything before I was—oh, four or five. Certainly nothing about my parents, though I was old enough to understand that they were dead. And for the first few years...."
He laughed softly, without rancor. "Everything was fine.
"The trouble started when I was about ten. It was nothing much at first, only that Grandfather got a bit snappish with me when he was angry, and if we passed each other in the hallway he’d push me—literally push me—out of the way. Things when on like that for about a year. Then one summer I was helping him build bookshelves, and I accidentally brought the hammer down on my thumb, and I swore, and he slapped me."
Jezrael sighed raggedly. "That was when he started hitting me."
Anya said nothing, only pressed her cheek to his, feeling the seeping moisture of his tears; but at last she murmured, "Why?"
"I think—" Jezrael hesitated. "I think it was because I reminded him of my father."
She turned then and stared at him. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, Grandmother said—" At her sudden questioning look he stopped. "No. He never hit her. Never laid a hand on her, as far as I could tell—which was for the best, she was a frail thing. No, when Grandfather got angry I was his whipping boy. And she tried to stand up for me, but he’d tell her that a little knocking around never hurt a boy any, and...I think she was afraid of him anyway."
He cleared his throat. "Anyway. I asked Grandmother if he’d ever done this to my father and she said yes, lots of times. I don’t remember, of course, but I’ve got—oh, impressions of my parents. Mother was rather serious and sad, but Father was always smiling, always laughing. I told Grandmother that and she agreed with me—and apparently that was a problem. Father was just a pleasant sort, in love with life and all that, and determined to have a good time, and Grandfather saw him as immature, irresponsible—not fit to carry on the family name, and all that rot. But he did."
For a brief moment he smiled. "I’m rather more like Mother as I get older, I think, but when I was eleven or twelve or so I had a good deal of my father in me, and Grandfather couldn’t stand it. He was angry. So angry—at my father, first for being young and foolish and irresponsible, and then for dying. I never understood that. And at me, for being like Father. He told me he’d get it out of me if—" and he caught his breath.
His expression had grown strained; and quietly Anya finished, "If he had to beat it out of you?"
"Yes. And—and that’s what eventually happened."
He slid his arms around her, as if to reassure himself of her nearness. "I was fifteen when it happened. I hadn’t started my mustache yet, that came later, but I’d grown my hair out—it was the fad that year at school, and at the time I was in Sikarta. So I came home for the summer holidays with a ponytail."
He rested his chin on her shoulder. "I saw Grandmother first, and I came upstairs to drop my bags. When I came out into the hallway, Grandfather was coming out of their room, and—"
Jezrael broke off, shivering suddenly; and Anya twisted in his embrace, pressing her face against his chest.
"It’s all right," she whispered, "it’s all right," and after a moment he found his voice again.
"I know he said something about my hair, and I said something back to him, but I don’t remember what. All I remember is that all of a sudden I was lying at the foot of the stairs, and Grandmother was screaming, and I was spitting blood—my mouth was bleeding where he’d punched me, and I’d bitten my tongue when I fell."
Anya held her breath. "Jezrael, was that when—"
"No. Not yet." He frowned pensively. "Then Grandfather came down the stairs and yanked me up and pushed me into the kitchen—I was still trying to figure out what was going on, what had just happened. He pushed me into a chair and got the scissors. Said he was going to cut my hair."
"Did he?"
"Oh yes." This time Jezrael’s laugh was sharp and bitter. "He cut it as short as he could, and then he—he shaved me."
"Oh, Jezrael, no." Automatically Anya reached up, found the silken curtain of his hair. "Not all of it?"
"Every bit." His voice was oddly flat and dead. "And then—then he dragged me out to the mirror at the foot of the stairs—"
Anya cut him off, puzzled. "There’s no mirror there."
"Of course not. I took it down when he died. Grandmother didn’t like it, but I insisted—because every time I looked in that damned thing I could still hear him saying I took you to raise to make you a man, boy, not some sissified dandy like your father—but anyway, he shoved me in front of the mirror, and made me look at what he’d done to my hair, and then...." Jezrael trailed off, his voice cracking. "I did the one thing he couldn’t forgive. I cried."
He was crying now. "That was when he beat me."
Anya started to speak but Jezrael continued, sounding suddenly, oddly distant. "Thank God, I don’t remember much of it—I fainted from the pain, but he just kept hitting me till Grandmother and the cook pulled him off me...and next I knew, I was in bed, with Grandmother sitting there sponging my back, and I—I could feel myself bleeding. Probably could have used some stitches, but Grandfather wouldn’t let anyone call the doctor for me. I stayed in bed most of the next few days, it was weeks before I could stand up properly....
"And then, when it was time for school to start back—it was my finishing year, and I’d been all excited about it—he had me transferred to the Drakeswell Academy here, so he could ‘keep an eye’ on me, and I had to go along with it like nothing was happening." He paused, drew a huge shuddery breath, his tears still streaming liberally.
"He didn’t live long after that anyway, not more than a few months, but—Anya, I know I shouldn’t feel this way—but damn it, I was glad when that bastard died!"
And he pressed his face into her hair and sobbed.
Anya was silent, utterly appalled. That anyone could be so cruel to someone so kind—but despite the thickness in her throat, she didn't cry as easily as Jezrael did. Wish I could.
"He should be proud," Jezrael said thickly, shattering the silence. "Now that I’m in the Brotherhood, and I’ve learned how to lie, and cheat, and steal—God, I hope he’s proud." He made an odd strangled noise in his throat. "Anechka—"
Anya smiled in spite of herself. She still hadn’t figured out where Jezrael had gotten the odd nickname he’d bestowed on her, but right now that didn’t matter. "Jezrael, darling, hush."
In response he only blew his breath out hard. "I’ll never lay a hand on you—or our children—in anything but love. I swear it."
She could feel her eyes starting to seep at last. "I know that, love."
"I won’t be like him, Anya." There was something new in his voice, a note of fear, of dread. "I won’t."
She pushed him onto his back and stretched her body full-length against his, winding limbs round him possessively, trying to quiet, trying to console. "You’re nothing like him, Jezrael."
"I hope you’re right," was all he said. "God, I hope you’re right."