The Wine Cellar (Short Story)

TW: gore/violence/death

Barbarians are storming the castle. Inside, we wait. The guards rushed us underground, yelling about “enemy men,” although I imagine them as Mother described them years ago, in the stories she used to read to me: scaled and with horns; and sideways eyes that cry tears of blood. My sister, Athena, older than me but not nearly as pretty, and heir to the throne, assures me that their scales are only paint.

“They are only attacking because they know we are stronger than them,” she whispers. “They are a colony under Father, but they still will not accept our religion. We are trying to make them citizens of God. They are only Barbarians because the demons they worship still hold their armies in their clutches.”

Her name is Athena because she is the wise one. I believe her.

We crowd in a cellar. I’ve been to this cellar once; after I reached too far across the table and spilled his goblet, Father locked me with the barrels of wine. There had been guests. Big men with big names. Athena, in secrecy, later told me that he only punished me because everyone had laughed—at me, and therefore at him. Athena thinks our father is a fool. I think he is mean, but I still love him.

In the dark cellar illuminated only by a few candles, Father, Athena, and I are alone with four servants and the cook. They hear, but they do not listen. We are safe with them.

But then Father speaks, and I am afraid. Quietly, he turns to Athena, puts a hand on her waist, and whispers in her tired ear; “The servants should be removed. We know that in order for the Barbarians to have gotten past the moat, someone must have let them in from the inside. They wouldn’t have gotten past the piranhas.”

I have to fight back tears. “Where’s Mother?”

Athena turns to me. She opens her mouth to speak. Father tightens his grip on her waist, and her jaw snaps shut.

“Your Mother,” he says to me, “has been taken by the invaders. Before they took her, she told me that I, King Darius the third, have to protect you two girls with my life. And that I will do. I cherish the two of you almost as much as I cherish my kingdom.”

Father’s kind words almost bring me to tears. When he is kind, he is the kindest man in all the land. He does not cry in the face of danger, because he is a brave King. I am just a Princess, though, so I am allowed to cry. I let the tears come, and Athena comes to my side as I drop to my knees, the moisture on the cobblestone beneath me soaking through my dress. I cry like a little girl. Mother told me once that “once she has bled, a lady shouldn’t cry.” But Mother isn’t here now, and so I weep.

If Mother dies, Father will take Athena as his new wife. I know that Athena would make a lovely and smart Queen, but I am partial to my mother.

The chef and the servants now exchange hushed whispers amongst themselves. One woman, perhaps eighteen, is crying, and telling the others that she does not want to die. She is wearing a brown dress, her face is covered in soot, and her hair is matted. I roll my eyes. Here, a woman with little left to live for than her bones and the dirty rags on her back is crying, in the presence of me, the Princess Aphrodite. It is not that she is crying, it is the insensitivity in her that she thinks it reasonable to cry in my presence when I have my whole life ahead of me, the riches of my family name, and my beautiful face and dresses, and my untouchable virtue to lose. I know that all her family is either dead or has forgotten her, she has no pretty dresses, no money, and has surely been touched in ungodly manners. 

I whisper to Athena, “That servant is crying. Doesn’t she know that my life is worth more than hers, that she is ridiculous to think her loss as great as mine?”

Athena rubs circles on my back. “Aphrodite, all she knows is that her life is in danger. When you are afraid, there’s no time for manners. You’re a proper woman, and here you are, crying.”

I cry harder.

I cry so hard I’m the only one that doesn’t hear footsteps. The servants stop whispering and crying. Athena stops comforting me. They are still, frozen. I reach behind myself and grab her wrist, moving it in a circular motion so she knows I want her to continue. But all she does is withdraw her hand. I shake.

The way into this wine cellar is through a wooden trapdoor under Mother’s wooden throne, then down a wooden ladder. The rest of the castle is made of stone.

Perhaps Father is a fool for leading us down here.

Above us, yelling. Incohesive words that make it impossible to tell whether they belong to the Barbarians or our soldiers. They sound angry. Harder, I cry. Father kneels in front of me and slaps me across the face. A vague and angry sound escapes my lips. He slaps me again, harder. I fall to the wet cobble floor and hit my head.

Now I am silent, and the world rings around me. Yells in a foreign tongue. A woman speaks, quickly, desperately, then she screams. It’s Mother. Mother is here. Oh, Mother, I’m so glad you’re here.

Her screams stop.

My vision blurs.

I’m moving. The ground shifts around beneath me. No, wait, it’s Athena. She shakes me violently until I sit up and she hugs me to her chest. “Everything is going to be okay,” she whispers.

For the first time, I don’t believe her.

A screeching. The dragging of something heavy. A table, maybe. Maybe one of the servants is moving a table closer for me to lay on, where they will caress my face and wipe my tears away.

Light pours in above us, and relief floods over me. The trapdoor is open. The royal guards have defeated the Barbarians. My table is waiting for me, above, with pillows and blankets and a calming cool cloth for my head.

A thud. A squelch. They echo.

Athena helps me to my feet. I know that I am awake now, because that feeling of dread has returned.

She holds my hand and we near the open trapdoor. Father is standing, examining something on the floor. The invaders yell into our wine cellar. Dangerous words in a safe place.

Father crouches, and picks something up off the ground. First, I think it’s a bucket. But buckets don’t have hair. I think they’ve sent down the head of a servant as a warning.

I gag.

Athena drops to her knees. I realize slowly, too slowly, that none of our servants have long hair. They cut it before it reaches their chin so it doesn’t get in our stew.

This hair is long, and golden.

Father loosens his grip and Mother’s head drops to the ground.

My feet move, puppeteered by disbelief and a morbid curiosity. I grab a candle off a stand on the wall and hold it as I crouch down to look at what would be my last memory of Mother, the graceful and beautiful Queen. She is no longer beautiful. She is a monster, a ghost, a Barbarian. Her eyes are looking in opposite directions, her skin purple and covered in bruises, her hair no longer flowing with braids. Her beautiful locks have been cut, and bald patches dotted with blood reveal where it’s been pulled out. Sword cuts on her face and in her hair. I wonder if one man did all of this, or if they hacked at her with their swords until they cut off her head. Blood trickles from her lips. Perhaps they cut out her tongue because she was screaming too much. Perhaps some of them took a few curls with them as trophies of the hollowed out Queen.

Someone yells down through the trapdoor. My sister’s name.

I look up. A Barbarian jumps into the cellar.

This Barbarian is fair-skinned and has green eyes. He’s young, too. Athena’s age. He doesn’t look like an invader. “Oh,” is all he says when he sees me.

It takes me a few seconds before I scream and run from the attacker, dropping the candle in my hands and nearly slipping in what could have been a puddle on the floor or a pool of royal blood.

Servants and chefs press themselves against the wall. The boy follows me into the cellar and I cower behind my sister, having already forgotten the empty eyes. Athena doesn’t move. The boy comes straight up to me, surely hoping to kill me. I retreat from Athena and hide behind my father. He’s hidden himself in the back of the cellar, drinking straight out of the hole in a barrel he’s carved with his sword. Wine drips down his chin and stains his silks. It is a sorry sight. But seeing my father here, like this, still a drunkard, gives me a sense of relief—not everything changes.

The invader stops in front of my sister and hands her something. I can’t see it from this far away. Athena holds it close to her chest, then places it on her head. It’s a crown. I’m too afraid to understand.

Then he whispers something in her ear. He touches her shoulder, and she doesn’t flinch. She’s unafraid. It looks rehearsed, like a gesture that’s been done a thousand times before.

She shakes her head, and whispers something I can’t hear.

Father stops drinking, watches them. He stands up, withdrawing his sword from its sheath and nicking the side of my face in the process. I cry again.

The invader walks quickly, takes long, confident strides across the cobble floor towards the King.

He stabs my father in the chest. This is a dream. I’m having a night terror. None of this is real. It’s all impossible. It had to have been one of the servants, one of the chefs or a handmaiden. Someone was able to let down the mote in the early hours of the morning. But there are always guards watching. Perhaps it was one of them. One killed the other, then let down the mote. Yes, that’s it.

Athena walks towards me, drops to her knees in front of me. My father has fallen to the floor. The invader is a dark statue. “Aphrodite, listen to me.  Everything is going to be okay.”

This time, I believe her.

She turns me around so that she’s against a wall and I’m facing her. “Don’t look at any of that. What you can’t see can’t touch you.”

I nod and fall into her arms. She holds me, delicately rocks me, like I’m a child. 

***

My sister is Queen. The young Barbarian who jumped into the cellar to kill father was no savage. He was our cousin, from a distant land, next in line for the throne. Athena married him. She told me that if I told anyone the truth about what happened in the cellar that day I would be hanged for treason. I know she is lying, but still, I say nothing. My sister is a wise Queen, and her new husband is kinder than our father.

So the story goes, the invaders were Barbarians, who assassinated the King and Queen. The story goes, King Neil, the nephew of King Darius, was a spy amongst savages who came to the castle in time only to save the two Princesses. It is a sad story.

The newly crowned King and Queen have promised to grant the Barbarians their independence. They have yet to carry this out.

My sister sits on her wooden throne, her legs crossed and holding a goblet of wine from the cellar beneath her. She wears our mother’s heavy crown, pulled from the head now buried alone in the rose garden. I stand, watching, from the shadows. She sips her wine, licks her red lips and smiles. She whispers something to her King. Silent words, covered by her hand. When she stands up from her throne, an echo fills the hall as her feet land on the cellar door.