I bore silent witness over the evening as Holofernes’s personal aid hustled drunken men from the room, one by one, until only the four of us remained. And then he let himself out, shutting the flap securely behind him.
Holofernes leaned over and whispered something in my Slayer’s ear. Her face colored prettily, but she smiled and said, in a condescending tone I’d never heard from her before, “Ku-Aya, remain where you are until you are called for.” Then the two of them rose, each bearing their flask of wine, and retreated to what I assumed must be Holofernes’s bed chamber.
A sickness began to roil my stomach, but I told it sternly that whatever happened in that chamber was nothing more and nothing less than what my Slayer wished, and if she needed me, she would call me. But she would not need me- warriors do not need scholars in the midst of a battlefield, nor widows their handmaidens in the boudoir.
They were not so far off that I could not hear, faintly, the murmurs and sighs of pleasure, the rustling and jostling of silks and skin. I turned my eyes to the tent’s ceiling and recited a few particularly archaic Egyptian spells to myself in a futile attempt to keep my mind elsewhere. The movements I heard became more frantic, and then- dear stars, it sounded as though they’d torn down the bed curtains in their passion. Now my face burned, and to this day I could not tell you if it was embarrassment, shame, or envy.
And then- silence.
“Ku-Aya,” my Slayer called softly. “Bring us towels.”
My eyes flew open in shock, but I quickly shoved it to one side. I was a maidservant, after all- although she’d never requested such ministrations of me during her husband’s lifetime. I set my jaw and found the towels, wet one with perfumed water, and brought them into the bed chamber. As I’d thought- the bed curtains had been pulled down around them. Holofernes, wrapped contentedly in the hangings, appeared be sleeping already, head burrowed in his pillows. My Slayer, however, sat straight-backed on the other side of the bed, naked but facing away from me. I walked around to her, careful not to trip on any of the strewn covers.
Because I was watching the floor so diligently, I did not at first see what my Slayer held. No, what I saw was a think trickle of blood making its way down her ankle. I felt a surge of rage that she’d been so treated, and as my eyes flew up to her face I did see, at last.
It was a head. The head of Holofernes, those cold eyes now blank with death, was cradled in my Slayer’s lap.
The fingers of her left hand were twined tightly through his black hair, in her right she held, loosely, a curved blade of bronze. Both it and her torso were stained crimson.
“Will you wrap it for me while I clean myself?” she asked softly.
“I- I-” I stammered, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
“It is best done quickly, Ku-Aya,” she said gently, “So that we may be away.”
The realization that we had never been in more danger shocked me back to my senses, and I took a renewed grip on the towels. “Of- of course, my Lady,” I said.
“Thank you. Then place it in the satchel, and help me dress.”
My head was swimming with questions, but I did not ask them. I felt… I felt that, Watcher or not, it was not my place to know. All I needed to know- all the Council needed to know- was that the water demon was dead by decapitation. It mattered not the specific circumstances. I took the head in one of the towels, then wrapped it in another, and did as my Slayer had bade me. She, for her part, cleaned first the sword, and then her body, until she looked no more or less rumpled than one might expect after a night of drinking and… excess. The sword she replaced where it had hung by the head of the bed.
“It’s a pity,” she murmured. “It felt beautiful in my hand.” She gave it a final, loving caress, then turned away, face unreadable.
Once everything was arranged so that no casual observer would take alarm, we removed ourselves from the tent, ignoring the sidelong, knowing glances of the guards. As we had done every night, we walked out into the desert, me with our sack of provisions on my back. No one thought to stop us, just as no one thought to order a chaperone for us. After all, if Holofernes himself had not thought it necessary, why should they?
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