The Vista: A Desperate Remedy

IAM Prompt for November 22, 2023

The towering ramparts of the king’s castle broke through the haze of thinning midmorning fog. Proud banners perched atop the majestic towers were buffeted by a stout wind that blew down from the crags to the west, chilling the valley below. The heavens shone a great light, and with it, warmth, lifting a biting frost from the sea of emerald grasses below.

Nestled within a cloister of an abandoned monastery, a young woman by the name of Freja was busy preparing an important tincture. Her charge was handed down by the king’s steward directly, and so her hands were careful to brew it quickly and properly, lest she find her neck beneath the blade of the executioner’s ax.

The prince, a lad the age of ten, had fallen deathly ill. A great multitude of priests, physicians, alchemists, and apothecaries had been summoned from within the king’s realm and even beyond its borders to cure the boy of his consuming ailment. None possessed the strength nor cunning to heal him.

Freja had not been counted among this first assembly of healers, for she was considered a witch—a vile sorceress of ill-repute. Her face was youthful and fair, yet her hair was tangled and unkempt, adorned with bouquets of dried flowers and the wings of insects. Moth-bitten rags adorned her soiled and pungent form, for she rarely bathed, and she wore no shoes on her blackened feet even in the dead of winter.

As the remedy she had prepared cooled, Freja peered at the great monolith of the king’s fortress that lorded over the land. Its formidable parapets loomed over the quaint groves and hamlets below, casting hulking shadows that stretched across great spans of the countryside. It had been nearly five years since she had stepped foot within the castle walls. Her receiving an invitation was a sure sign that the king and queen had grown desperate.

After bottling the brew in a brown glass bottle, Freja adorned a hooded overcoat and closed the pages of her massive grimoire, but not before carefully tearing a single delicate page from the binding and rolling it up, binding the scroll with a section of catgut. She pocketed both the page and the bottle within her coat and patted them gently.

“A drip here, a drop there, save the lad who’s worse for wear!” she hummed.

With the scroll and medicine safely tucked away, Freja departed the chilly cloister and strolled into the dilapidated courtyard of crumbling stone walls and overgrown weeds. She held out her arm and played a shrill whistle with her cracked lips, summoning a disheveled crow from the husk of a nearby oak tree. The bird flew straight to her and perched gently upon her forearm.

“Little brother! How dost thee fare this fine, misty morning?” she gleefully asked her avian companion.

The bird responded by croaking a few meek squawks and affectionately pecked at her frayed ginger locks.

“Hungry, thou sayest? O, lament! Thou wast easier to care for as a man than thou art as a beast! Have thou not taken to thy wings after all this time? O, Edward! Thou art helpless!” she chuckled as she fished out a small garden snake from within the cleft her breasts.

The bird cawed excitedly at the sight of the writhing reptile.

“I have grown fond of this wee serpent. My bosom has kept it warm as the days of this year have waxed cold,” Freja explained as the snake wrapped its body around her fingers,” however, my heart is with thee and thy wellbeing! Partake of this serpent’s flesh! May it nourish thee well.”

The hungry crow snatched the snake from her hand and flew away a short distance to perch upon a crumbled coping where it tore its meal to pieces.

“Erelong thou should be more cunning than thou art,” she chastised the creature. “Should I find myself dead and gone, I fear thee would starve!”

She trudged through an icy puddle, dragging the rags of her skirt along the cracked and uneven ruins of the monastery’s courtyard tiles.

“O, Edward! Thou art a sweet birdie,” she cooed as she pet the crow on its back. It nipped at her fingers. “I must take my leave, little brother. For I have been summoned by the king. A rider comes hither to whisk me away, post-haste!”

Freja left the bird to feast on the remainder of its meal.

The gate to the abandoned monastery was chained shut, confining Freja within the derelict sanctuary. Cut into a sheer cliff face, there was no way to escape except through the gate or by throwing oneself over the edge of the walls. She waited behind the gnarled wrought iron bars for the king’s rider until she spotted a faint torchlight shone through the mist.

A man on horseback, just as she had expected.

The rider wore an iron helmet that obscured half his face and a thick, braided beard covered the rest.

“Freja the Witch, I presume?” he asked as his heavy boots pounded the ground.

“Just Freja shalt do, sir. I trust thy journey was without trouble?”

“Keep thy words to a minimum, sorceress, lest thou give me reason to take off thy head.”

“Have mercy, sir,” she said contritely.

“Had not His Majesty sent for thy aid by name, thou wouldst be rotting here alone for the remainder of thy days. The elixir. Dost thou have it?”

“It is here, sir,” she answered, clutching the brown bottle in her hand.

“Give it here, then,” he ordered, stretching out a gloved hand.

Freja did not relinquish the bottle.

“Dost thou know how to administer the remedy? If thy knowledge is lacking, thou wouldst easily kill the young master instead of save him,” she warned.

The rider was stern and obstinate. He was keen to avoid being caught up in any webs of trickery that Freja may attempt to weave. He was warned of her cunning. He was told that the young and fair-faced witch was dangerous.

“And what if I run thy heart through with a blade and take thy remedy to His Majesty without thee? Surely among the king’s court there is a healer clever enough to treat His Highness the boy?”

“I assure thee, noble rider, there lives no such person. Why art thou here to fetch me, if none other has been proven worthy?”

“Very well, then. I see that I have no choice. Mayhap a good deed can stay thy path from Hell.”

The rider withdrew a large iron key from within his cloak and unlocked the gate. As heavy chains fell to the ground, the gates swung open with a grating creak. The rider drew his sword and pointed the tip at Freja’s breast.

“The accursed words of the Devil and his ilk hath no power in this holy place, but as I take thee away, thou shalt not speak a word. Place this in thy mouth and face thee away from me,” he ordered, giving her a wooden rod gag. She bit down on the wooden rod and the rider tightened a leather strap behind her head. Before being sat upon the horse, Freja’s hands were bound together with rope.

The horse carefully trotted down a narrow, winding path that was carved into the cliff face. Once at the bottom, the rider belted a sigh of relief.

“A treacherous climb, and an even more harrowing descent! Why dost the king and queen think so highly of this stinking wretch to send me all this way to fetch her?”

The precarious cliff path gave way to a dirt road. It led through a shady wood, over a bridge spanning above a crystal clear brook, and through pastures sewn atop rolling earthen mounds.

Planted at the bottom of a shallow valley was a cozy hamlet with thatch roofs and wispy columns of white smoke billowing from stone chimneys. The dirt road led directly to the squat village, as did several other roads that were splayed every which way across the kingdom.

At the center of the town square was a well and a few merchants peddling various wares. Freja peered around at the people there and discovered that they were just as unkempt and filthy as she was. The shadow cast by the castle crept close-by, threatening to plummet the hamlet into an early night.

The rider took them through the village at nearly a gallop, heading straight for the castle that loomed in the west. Soon they met its colossal shadow, and the chilly air around them grew frigid. They passed through an orchard bursting with bulging stone fruit, and as the horse brought them closer to the castle, they began to see trees bearing fruit of a different kind.

Hanging from both branches made by men and nature alike, the bodies of those who failed to heal the young ailing prince swung by their necks.

“Witness yon fallen at the hands of the wrath of the king! Verily, thou shalt hang as well if thy potion’s bite proves weak,” the rider warned.

Soon they arrived at a massive iron and oaken gate barring the way to a great lift. The castle and its towers soared directly above them, with the lift being the only way to ascend into its halls. Clusters of rotting bodies decorated the gallows that flanked either side of the entrance.

“Hail to ye, guards! I have returned with the witch by the name of Freja. Make haste and hoist open the gates so we may ascend at His Majesty’s behest!”

“At thy command!” a voice of an unseen guard roared.

The colossal gate lumbered upward at a thunderous crawl. Pebbles trembled, creatures scurried, and bones rattled as the mighty gate climbed its tracks.

Horse and all, Freja and the rider rode the deafening lift. The grinding gears and hulking chains sang a screeching song that made their skin crawl and their blood chill. Once at the top of the tremoring ride, they made their way through another series of gates until they slowed at the castle barracks. Freja witnessed a grisled man bound with shackles being placed in a cell barricaded with an iron door. The man resisted against his captors. They beat him over the head with a short club and shoved him into his cell.

“Move out of order again and thou shalt receive a beating thy bones shalt not forget!” barked one of the soldiers.

“Robert the Mad Butcher,” the rider muttered. “He’ll do worse than hang, he shalt.”

Outside the throne room, the rider prepared Freja to meet the king and queen.

“Thou wilt do well to follow instructions within His Majesty’s throne room. Show the utmost respect or thy head shalt surely roll from thy shoulders.”

Freja nodded. Her restraints remained.

Once within the throne room, the rider forced Freja to kneel before the king and queen before kneeling himself.

“Your Majesties, I have delivered Freja the Witch at your behest. Shes carries the remedy for His Highness the prince.”

“Rise,” the queen said. “Remove her restraints, courier.”

“Yes, my queen,” the rider cut the ropes around Freja’s wrists and removed the rod gag from her mouth.

“Young sister, how dost thee fare?” the queen asked.

“S-sister?” the rider asked, bewildered.

“Speak thou not out of turn, lowly courier,” the king sternly reprimanded.

“Forgive me, Sire.”

“Abigail, thou art as radiant as ever,” Freja smiled. “Matthias, thou hast grown a beard. It suits thee.”

“My son—thy dear nephew—has fallen deathly ill. Thou hast the cure to his ails, dost thou not?” the shrewd queen inquired.

Freja fished the brown bottle from her overcoat.

“Here it is, sister.”

“Thou shalt administer his care, for the whole host healers in this land adorn the trees with their corpses. Thou art the only one left,” the dour king told her.

“Take me to His Highness, then,” Freja said.

The halls of the castle were somber. Faces of the servants were stony and colorless. They all averted their eyes from Freja the Witch.

Imposing mahogany doors sealed the boy’s bedchambers. Servants heaved the formidable portals open, and as the ornate wooden slabs gave way, a rush of miasmic air blew past Freja and the king and queen who accompanied her. The young master’s pallid form writhed feverishly within a sea of velvet linens.

“My young master, thy time is hastening,” Freja whispered as she caressed his sweat-drenched face.

“Touch thou not my son any more than thee must,” the king ordered her sternly.

Without another word, Freja aided the prince in consuming her remedy. Soon, color returned to his face and he opened his eyes. Just enough strength returned to his bones that he was able to sit up in bed with Freja’s aid.

“Auntie…” he murmured.

“My son!” Abigail exclaimed, shoving Freja out of the way and embracing the prince.

“My heir…” Matthias sighed.

But alas, nearly as quickly as the boy had been revived, he began coughing and Queen Abigail screamed and recoiled. Upon the front of her dress was a fresh smattering of blood. A crimson froth bubbled from the lad’s mouth and his eyes were white and lifeless. The boy lurched, convulsed, and quickly died.

“What hath befallen us? What sin have I committed to deserve such utter ruin and rebuke?!” Abigail wailed.

“Witch! Thou art an assassin!” Matthias roared. The king withdrew a dagger and held it to Freja’s neck.

“Thy son was beyond saving with potions and leeches, but O Great King, I know of another way to save thine heir!” Freja wheezed through the king’s choking grasp.

“Liar! Thou art the Devil’s consort! Thou shalt pay for thy failure with thy blood! To Hell with thee!”

“Cut my throat and thou shalt lose thy son forever!" Freja exclaimed, holding the scroll from her grimoire to the king’s eyes.

“To Hell with thee, spawn of Lilith!” the king bellowed as he pressed the edge of the blade against Freja’s neck, spilling a bit of her blood.

“Cease this!” Abigail pleaded. “If thou take the life of my sister, I shalt make thee a widower king!”

Matthias’s trembling hands remained poised to murder Freja where she stood. His eyes were wild and his body quaked.

“No remedy brewed by earthly hands hath the power to save him. But there exists another way. The secret to raising thy son from the grave is written here in this scroll,” Freja claimed.

“Blasphemer! Only the Lord hath the power to raise the dead! What you speak of is heresy!” the king spat. His anger grew and tighter his fingers wrapped around Freja’s throat.

“By my power, Edward lives,” Freja gaspsed through the king’s strangling clutches.

At this revelation, the dagger fell to the floor and the king released her. She coughed and wheezed.

“Thou, but a duke from a foreign land, became king at my father’s passing. Dost thou realize thy predicament, knowing that the rightful heir to the throne draws breath?”

“How can this be possible? Thou art a liar!” the king cried.

“My lips speak the truth! By my power, my brother lives!” Freja exclaimed.

“Thy power is from the Devil!” the king snapped.

“Enough! My son is dead and thou art quarreling with my sister like a child! Thou art the king. Thou wilt do what thou must to save thine heir!” Abigail demanded.

“Thou suggests heresy. Thou hath taken apostasy upon thee!” he shouted.

The boy’s head dangled lifelessly into his mother’s lap. His face was stained with her tears.

“The Lord hath abandoned us. My womb has become barren and our only heir ascends to Heaven as we speak! Edward’s line shalt surely assume thy throne. Woe! Woe to thy kingdom!” Abigail wailed.

Matthias bridled. His body heaved great breaths of despondency and salty sweat dripped from his brow like crestfallen rain. He stumbled to the door and crashed against it.

“Do what thou must…” he muttered before shuffling away.

“What must we do to save my son?” Abigail asked.

“Have thy servants take His Highness to the chapel. Once thou have done this, have two of thy most trusted captains bring to me in the chapel the murderer, Robert.”

“That fiend? Why dost thou have a need for hellspawn such as he?”

“Verily, I tell you, an empty vessel is only worthy if thou hath something with which to fill it.”

“Thy riddle confounds me,” Abigail said.

“Do as I ask and thine eyes shalt be opened,” Freja said, tucking the king’s dagger away in her overcoat. Abigail obeyed.

The prince’s body was taken to the candlelit chapel and laid upon the altar. The priest was expelled from the chambers, wailing and cursing them in the name of the Lord the entire way he was dragged. Robert the Butcher was delivered bound with chains into Freja’s hands.

“Why hast thou delivered me into the house of the Lord? I spit upon thy mercy, and the mercy of thy god!” Robert shouted angrily. He spat on the ground. The rider who had fetched Freja was one of the two who had brought the murderer. He struck Robert in the face with the pommel of his sword.

“Silence, swine! Thou shalt find no mercy here,” the rider barked.

At the sight of Freja without ropes to bind her nor gag to silence her, a veil of confusion and concern fell upon the rider.

“What is the meaning of this, that the Devil’s mouthpiece be permitted freely in God’s house?”

“It is not thy place to question the will of the king,” said Abigail from a dark corner within the chapel.

“Queen Abigail,” the rider answered, “forgive me.”

“Thou shalt deliver thy prisoner into her hands, lest thee find they neck beneath the executioner’s blade,” Abigail told him.

“At once,” he and the other man answered in unison, bowing their heads. Robert flailed against them mightily. Freja swiftly blew a glittering dust into the murderer’s face and he fell limp to the ground.

“Place his body upon the altar as I prepare myself,” Freja ordered them. They obliged as she stripped down to naught but her gossamer undergarment.

“Avert thine eyes, brother, for the temptress bears her shame in God’s house plainly,” the rider whispered to his cohort.

“Silence thy lips and take thy leave, lowly courier,” Abigail snapped.

He and the his brother-in-arms obeyed.

“I pray for thy success, sister,” said Abigail.

Freja, armed with the king’s dagger, stood over Robert and the prince upon the altar. She unfurled the scroll and read it aloud in an unholy declaration:

“Weep, thou mortals, young and old!
Death comes for all at times unseen,
For thine eyes have closed and heart gone cold,
But yet there is hope in pow'r unclean!"

Freja plunged the dagger into the chest of the sleeping Robert, slicing open the way to his heart. Abigail gasped. With bloodied hands, Freja withdrew the still-beating organ and presented it aloft.

“I call upon ye, Gods of Olde! Look upon thy servant adorned with blood and hasten the deliverance of thy power!”

Freja held the heart above her face and allowed the spurting crimson to drip on her forehead and down her face. She drained the remaining blood from Robert’s heart into a chalice meant for taking part in Holy Communion.

“I give to ye of my own heart, the red fount of life, from my own veins I give it freely to ye!” Freja declared, slicing her palm with the dagger and squeezing the blood into the chalice.

As she performed this profane ritual, a furious thunderstorm brewed outside the chapel windows. Lightning clashed against the stone walls and deafening thunder roared. The stained glass of the chapel shattered, giving way to violent wind and rain that invaded the holy place. The candle wicks alight with flame cowered and sputtered. Abigail wailed in fright.

Freja then held the chalice aloft and peered upward toward the heavens.

“Give pow’r to this mortal blood, for with it I shalt raise the dead to life!”

With a single lash, a finger of lightning whipped through the window and toppled the crucifix at the head of the chapel. The bolt struck the chalice, yet, Freja remained unharmed. The cup smoldered. She stepped down from the altar and lifted the prince’s head.

“Consume thee of the blood and its pow’r and take the life that belonged to another!”

Freja brought the rim of the chalice to the prince’s cold lips and poured the boiling blood into his mouth. She laid his head to once again rest on the altar.

As the storm raged, the young prince’s body stirred. First his fingers, then his lips, his eyelids. Slowly he rose, stiff like a corpse, until he sat up straight on the altar.

“My son!” Abigail exclaimed. She began to run to him.

“Stay thyself!” Freja warned with her hand outstretched. Abigail froze with bated breath.

The prince shuffled his body from the altar and slumped onto the floor. Bloody spittle drained from his slumping mouth. His skin was pale and his expression bore a voracious violence. He stood there in the ruined chapel, hunched over like a ghoul. The boy let out a long, droning moan.

“Young Prince! It’s Mother, love! Come hither, Bartholomew!” Abigail coaxed the boy to embrace her.

“Sister, heed my words, your son—”

“Come, come!” Abigail coaxed the boy further, who shuffled toward her. She ignored Freja’s warnings and knelt to accept her son’s rigid embrace. “O, my son! My one and only!”

Like a snake striking its prey, the boy lunged at this mother’s neck. He tore into her flesh with his teeth and ripped it open, spraying a jet of blood that painted the ceiling. Abigail shrieked and fought against him, but his ravenous hunger would not be satiated easily.

As the boy feasted upon Abigail, Freja grasped the dagger and thought to perhaps kill him with it. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn the blade on her new creation.

The screams of the queen summoned the rider and his comrade, swords drawn.

“What horror have thou wrought in God’s house?!” the rider shouted.

“The queen!” Freja screamed.

The men wrenched the prince from atop his mother. His nightclothes were drenched in blood and a clump of skin and flesh hung from his teeth. The boy swiped and lunged angrily at the men, growling at them like a feral beast. They plunged their swords into the boy’s chest, yet the undead prince did not relent.

“The head! The head! Take off his head!” Freja shrieked.

In a single swipe, the rider slashed the lad’s head clean from his shoulders. The body slumped onto the ground atop his half-eaten mother. His head rolled and rested gently against the fallen crucifix.

“Arrest her! Thou shalt pay for thy transgressions, foul witch!”

Freja was beaten over the head with a pommel and bound with chains.

“May Hell swallow you up forever!” the rider bellowed. “Take her away!”

Days passed.

A gallows had been erected in the nearby hamlet that lay nestled in the valley. Swinging in the frosty air, the entrails of Freja the Witch dangled about her blackened feet. While she had still drawn breath, her belly was sliced open and her guts pulled out, and hot irons applied all over her naked body. She was hung from her neck, still writhing in the agonizing throes of a tortuous death.

Not a single soul dared venture near the accursed corpse, lest there be a lurking demon that had fled from her body, poised to possess them. Not vultures nor rats nor any creeping thing would feast on her flesh.

Except for one.

Perched atop Freja’s lifeless head was a lone crow with tattered feathers, hungrily pecking at her vacant face.