An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 11/?
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Rahadin/OC
Summary:
The chamberlain of Castle Ravenloft is charged with visiting the Abbey of Saint Markovia to observe the Abbot's experiments. There, a cleric of the Morninglord endures a crisis of faith.
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Henrik hated the festivals. And he suspected most did, but weren't willing to admit it, not even with their very faces. Henrik, however, could rarely help his own. No matter how hard he tried to maintain a smile, his true feelings inevitably emerged, pulling the corners of his mouth down into a scowl. He spent more festivals than not locked up in the stocks as a result, rotten eggs and lettuce thrown his way.
Today he was tasked with building the Baron's stage. Several other carpenters were there along with him, whistling in an irritably cheerful way as they worked. Henrik managed to keep his teeth bared, clenching them hard enough to make his jaw hurt. But it was the only way to keep himself from scowling. Even with a perfect attitude he was certain they would find some reason to punish him. His was the business of unhappiness, after all. The only reason he was even tolerated within the walls was because there was no denying that someone had to do the unhappy work of burying bodies. He completely expected that someday soon the Baron would declare it unlawful to die. Until then, Henrik van der Voort had coffins to build.
Sweat made his clothing stick uncomfortably to his body. Henrik asked for someone to hand him the nearby saw and was promptly ignored, the sixth of many such slights that morning. None of them wanted him there, that much was obvious. But the stage had been carried over in large pieces, and one of the bevels had come unattached and lost. It needed a new one if it was to support the dozen or so people the Baron had planned for it.
Fortunately, that chore made it so he didn't have to interact with any of them very much. Henrik attached the piece and then muttered a farewell, leaving it to the other carpenters to check that the new bevel was level. He had already checked three times, all too aware that they didn't trust him or his work. There was at least some satisfaction to be had in knowing they were about to waste time searching for flaws that didn't exist.
Henrik hurried away from the town square before he could be conscripted into another task. At sixty-and-two he did not have the energy or stamina of the younger journeyman. His bones ached and his joints swelled after standing for too long. With the festival only a scant few hours away he hoped to sit and rest within the quiet of his shop, where none were sure to bother him. How else was he to prepare for the din of the crowds and the exhausting performances and the drain of all the smiles and cheers?
His shop was on the east-end of town, tucked behind the Arasek's stockyard. The two-story building had a lonely, imposing air, which is how he preferred it. Henrik kept most of the windows on the second floor shuttered, which helped in blocking the incessant noise of the neighbors. The street was silent now, with most if not all preoccupied with preparing for the festival. Henrik unlocked the door quickly, and struggled to pull it open. It was a span of fine quality oak, which he cut and installed himself as a lad, but it was heavy on his weary arms now that he was older. Henrik allowed the door to swing closed behind him, making his way towards his workbench while anticipating it's dull thud, but the sound did not come. Instead, it opened again, heralding a visitor and potential customer.
Henrik turned, frowning. "I'm closed today."
The customer pulled the door closed, and managed to do so silently. "This will only take a moment of your time."
Righteous anger flared up in Henrik's chest, and several choice words regarding the visitor's audacity and entitled attitude were perched upon his tongue, ready to be used as a lash. But the man at his threshold was no one he knew or recognized, and a single glance made him realize at once that he was dealing with someone foul. Henrik glared at the man, a dusk elf of all things. But it was not like the dusk elves to look the way that this one did. Their kind generally kept their eyes averted and their heads bowed, trying to take up as little space as possible and often hoping not to be noticed.
This one was armed, dressed in studded leather and a heavy fur-lined cloak that not even Izek Strazni would have been able to afford. His head was held high in an air of superiority and disdain so unlike his kin, yellow eyes staring through Henrik hard enough to feel as though he'd been burned by ice. Henrik couldn't help reaching blindly for one of the tools upon his bench.
"All right, well, you'd better start talking then," Henrik demanded. He was not one to be easily intimidated, especially not by some fey-blooded fool.
The dusk elf took a step forward, his hands clasped behind him beneath his fancy cloak. Though he was a tall and lean thing, his presence appeared to take up enough room to crowd the narrow space of Henrik's workshop. It wouldn't be easy getting around him without a fight, Henrik thought. He squeezed the handle of the hammer he'd grabbed, finding comfort and reliance in the worn wood.
"I am here on behalf of Vasili von Holtz," explained the elf. "He is a friend, and will give his... undying support to Henrik van der Voort, if Mister Van der Voort will grant Lord Vasili the small token that was agreed upon their last meeting."
"I know what this is," Henrik spat. "And I already told Von Holtz that I'm through. If he wants his boxes he can take them, but I won't be taking in any of his so-called tenants."
The dusk elf produced a bulging coin purse and set it on the nearest workbench. "Lord Vasili has offered to double the pay to house them."
Henrik eyed the purse warily. The last time he had seen anything approaching that much coin had been right after the Doom of Vallaki, when more work had come through his doors than he was able to keep up with. He had eaten for years off of that. But this new sum, tempting though it was, wasn't enough to make him forget the glow of those red eyes in the dark. Six pairs of them, staring unblinkingly at him through the frosted windows while they scratched pitifully at the oak door.
He knew what they were. Fearful, Henrik had fallen back to conventional Barovian wisdom: do not let the creatures in. Do not invite them inside. All the coin in the world was meaningless if he wasn't alive to spend it.
"Now, you listen here," Henrik warned, his voice low and as threatening as he could manage it. "I don't care what you and Von Holtz and Fiona Wachter get up to at your so-called 'book clubs', but I won't have it here in my shop. You want to be fucked by the undead? That's your business. Do it in your own homes and leave the rest of us working folk out of it! Now you get the hells out of here!"
Henrik's voice had raised to a shout, one loud enough that it might have been heard outside — if anyone was out there. His aging heart pounded. Harming the nobility was basically a death sentence, but so was harboring the unholy. Henrik’s only hope was to make more of a ruckus and hope the guards were nearby to intervene. He shouted again, demanding that the dusk elf leave the premises at once, and then reached for the coin purse. Henrik threw it hard at the man. The elf’s arm shot out, as fast as a viper’s strike. The purse was caught before it struck his face, and some of the coins spilled out, clattering onto the wood floor.
The dusk elf was calm, his eyes regarding Henrik as though he were little more than a bothersome insect. He tossed the purse bag onto the bench and began to walk forward.
Henrik raised the hammer and backed away. “S-Stay back!” His back touched the door to the storage room, and he fumbled with the handle before stumbling through. He hurried in, crouching behind the newest coffins he had constructed, a polished casket of pine and thick velvet lining. It was fit enough for a wealthy noble, and intended to be a showcase of his work. Henrik clung to it, the hammer still held in his trembling hand.
The door did not open again. Henrik waited, his ears straining for even the slightest sound, but there was nothing. Not at first, anyway.
The lone wailing of a woman reached him from a distance. Henrik turned about in search of it. He struggled to remember the last time he ever heard such a sound, for such blatant unhappiness was not tolerated in public and certainly not on a festival day.
Then it was joined by another, and another, and then eventually punctuated by the agonized screaming of a woman who must have just been beaten or stabbed. Henrik himself screamed, his voice joining at least several dozen others, but then he started to lose count of how many there were. Hundreds? Was Vallaki under siege!? Henrik stumbled and crawled away, pressing himself between two other coffins before slapping his palms tightly over his ears. It did nothing to dampen the horrific sounds.
The door to the storage room opened. The dusk elf entered, as calm as before and unconcerned with the sounds. He looked about the room with a cool gaze, seeming to count the coffins Henrik had displayed. The women all screamed in the meanwhile, and something about their pain and their fear reminded Henrik of his daughter, who hadn't spoken to him in well over a decade.
"What is... Gods, tell me what is happening!" Henrik grit his teeth against the noise.
The screaming appeared to swell and crescendo as the elf approached. Henrik's palms tickled with wetness and he drew them back, only to find blood pooled in the center of them. Terrible pain came after, rending his skull seemingly in two. He fell flat against the dusty floor, and accidentally inhaled some of the miniscule shavings of wood pulp and grain that coated it. Through all the agony and the tearing of his consciousness, Henrik somehow came to a singular realization... of the truth and real extent of his circumstances.
"It's you..." he coughed. "The Devil's Hand..."
Rahadin von Zarovich paused. Henrik's face was inches from the well-oiled leather of his boot, and he strained to look up past it. The screaming choir continued all the while, now a perverse song filling the space that was often his only refuge from the town outside.
"Who are they?" Henrik asked, feeling delirious.
Rahadin crouched into a squat to meet Henrik's gaze. His face had a curious look to it, as if he were seriously considering the question.
"Everyone I have ever slain," Rahadin said. "Or so I'm told. I cannot hear it myself, you see."
"Why, but...? They're all women," Henrik gasped. "Why are they all women?"
The chamberlain's eyebrows furrowed slightly, but he maintained that curious, unperturbed expression.
"Hmm, are they?" A slight smirk tugged at the corner of Rahadin's mouth. "You’re a rare one, then. Not many get the privilege of hearing Kasimir's Folly."
Henrik gaped at him, his mind made blank by the man's words. He hadn’t intended to mention the screaming at all, but sense and self-preservation had escaped him. Henrik felt insane. His thoughts were a mess of panicked declarations and questions and he found himself sputtering and babbling incoherently out of a crazed desire to voice them.
“The elf women, the elf women you killed the elf women-,”
Rahadin shifted his weight while he crouched and stared off at some non-significant part of the storage room. He seemed unbothered and unsurprised by the accusation, his expression a tad pensive, even.
”Yes. The price of denying my master his rightful bride. She spent her life toiling for their future, and they rewarded that effort with a hundred stones.” Rahadin then frowned. “A mercy killing, her brother called it.”
Henrik blinked and sat up, having suddenly realized that the screaming had faded away to dull and distant cries. Desperation wormed its way into the fearful pit of his belly.
“Y-Your master? Please, I didn’t know!”
The chamberlain glared at him, his eyes bright with disdain.
"Oh, you knew," Rahadin said, his voice low. "But it was more comforting for you to keep to Vallakovich's delusion that my master somehow has no reach here. What an arrogant notion. One that Kasimir Velikov once held."
Henrik cried out as a flash of steel entered his vision and flinched upon the feeling of cold metal touching the back of his left ear. Rahadin held his knife there while keeping a tight grasp on the top of Henrik’s head.
“Here is your new offer, swine. You can admit my master’s spawn and enjoy the binding word of Strahd von Zarovich that not a single hair on you will be harmed. Or you can refuse, and experience in full the disgrace of the dusk elves.”
The chamberlain demonstrated his seriousness by pressing the knife edge closer against Henrik's skin. The stinging pain was more than enough — Henrik babbled a plea for Rahadin to stop.
"Fine! Yes, please, I'll do it! I'll let them in!"
Henrik gasped in relief as the knife was pulled away. The Devil's Hand stood and glared down at the coffin maker with a scowl.
"Remember what Lord Vasili told you. There will be additional tasks."
Henrik nodded adamantly. "Yes, yes! I know, I'll do it. Whatever it is."
"Good," said Rahadin. "You do not want to give me a reason to return to this wretched hole."
The door closed loudly behind the chamberlain and Henrik slumped against a coffin, sobbing in relief.
Completed Chapter on AO3