“You’re here, there´s nothing I fear~ And I know that my heart will go on. We´ll stay forever this way~ You are safe in my heart and my heart will go on~” Music filled the little tavern we were in. My violin supported Hannah´s beautiful singing voice, captivating the hearts of our slightly drunken listeners perfectly.

The whore was among our listeners in the packed room as well, doing what she could do best. Whoring and gathering information of course. She told all of them the same story over and over again, something about a unicorn in the north we wanted to protect and so on.

“One more, my saint!” The tavern owner said, giving out one mug of beer after another. Truly, the whole town was there at this point because of the uniqueness of this event. For once, music was quite rare to come by in a small village, especially those we played. And second of all, I was there.

“Your wish is my command!” I said playfully and nodded towards Hannah. Breathing in, she prepared herself for the next song.

“What would I do without your smart mouth? Drawin’ me in and kickin’ me out …” While the violin was certainly not the right instrument for this song, I somehow managed it nonetheless. Hannah didn´t get every note right either, even though we trained for about a week already, but that wasn’t an issue at all. We mostly glossed over these mistakes and nobody noticed. Otherwise, we would simply laugh it off with the other folks in the tavern. We never tried to portray ourselves as perfect after all.

After hours and hours of caressing the strings of the violin, Hannah and I slowly let it come to an end. She was already considerably exhausted and her voice failed from time to time as well, making it the perfect timing to stop. I mean, the whore must have escaped somewhere when I closed my eyes, only listening to Hannah´s voice and the sounds of my violin.

Loud applause filled the room as Hannah and I bowed in front of the audience, hand in hand and smiling brightly. Shortly afterwards, I placed the violin back into its case and joined Hannah as she talked with the townsfolk about completely and utterly unnecessary things. But I was the saint, and Hannah my maid so we kind of were forced to socialise with others.

And we somehow had to gloss over the behaviour of that whore after all. Well, officially, she was only my courtesan since we started our travel, so it wouldn’t affect my reputation too much, even though she was supposed to be a fine and proper lady.

At last though, we withdrew back into the single room we could get without throwing others out. There were only two beds in there, but as the whore decided she wanted to sleep in the same room with us, there was only one realistic solution for Hannah and me. Well, it was never a problem for Hannah that we shared a bed, which was quite fascinating considering her past. But as I never touched her indecently, and I was incredibly innocent when we started sleeping together, she never thought of me as someone who would do these things to her.

And I would not. I only had interest in her warmth. Her heartbeat. Her life.

“… hey. Why are we playing songs all night? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to … you know?” She asked quietly.

“Sometimes … violence isn´t the best answer. We want to sway the hearts of the villagers and give the whore a stage to do her thing. We could go around hurting people, but we cannot do that with our guards around. And remember, I am the saint. I have a reputation to lose, and I cannot imagine a better way than burning villages to the ground to lose everything. And … I need others to know where I am.” I muttered. Hannah didn´t reply to my statement, and thus, drifted into sleep slowly. Her calming heartbeat, the lifting and lowering of her chest, and her warmth made the perfect place to follow her into the dreamland … but I couldn’t.

I didn´t know how Hannah did it, or if she even heard these noises, but I certainly did. Even though I tried to ignore it, the noises the whore made always brought me back to the time I spent with Jacob, how I was forgetting it constantly and needed to reread the piece of paper every morning.

But even that ended around three as her man was probably too exhausted to continue. I was sure she wanted more, to satisfy all of her inhumane desires, but I was incredibly happy that it finally ended. I closed my eyes, only to listen to her footsteps in the hallway. Barely clothed, she opened the door to our room with her key and strolled into the room. At least she closed the door shut again, but I wasn’t entirely sure this was the best. She reeked of alcohol as she walked through the room, halting in front of the first bed … which was coincidentally also the bed Hannah and I were in.

I still had my eyes closed as she crawled onto my side of the bed and pulled me off Hannah. I laid on my back as I opened my eyes, which must have been overflowing with hatred. Her hands were just barely over my shoulder at this point, her knees to the side of my thigs as she looked into my eyes, completely intoxicated by the alcohol.

“We … we need to t-talk.” She said, nearly drifting into sleep in the process.

“You need to get off me, otherwise you won´t survive much longer.”

“Oh, please. We both know you need me for the time when you turn Tom into a vampire. Because that’s when you will feel horny, am I right? He told me you were moaning like the good slut you are as Arthur bit you.” She said, a bit of drool falling onto the mattress right beside me after I pushed her head to the side.

“And that will be the point where your life is over.” I concluded and showed her my sharp canine.

“Oh my … I don’t think so. Could you really hurt you own child like that?” Her, my child? Well, she probably meant Tom, but even then, I couldn’t see why I would ever see him as my child.

“He won’t be my child.” I said slowly, even though I wasn’t sure myself how I would view Tom after he became a vampire.

“That’s the way your race reproduces … naturally he will be your kin.” The whore said and chuckled quietly.

“I´ll still kill you.” I said threateningly.

“Fine. I´ll guess I get running then while you and Tom are whoring around.” She muttered and looked out of the small window, as if this was her chance to escape.

“What do you want?” I asked as she made no signs of going into her own bed.

“I want to help your memory a bit. You are reading that thing each and every day, so I suppose you want to hear what we did as well?” I did not. Interacting with that whore was already taxing for me, knowing what I did with her would make everything worse. This was certainly one of the times I was happy about my amnesia.

“Why would I want that?” I asked and grinned devilishly.

“Because it was a really strange experience. You felt nothing, no matter what I did, but you were still doing exactly what I wanted.” She said, inching closer to me with her face.

“For the two minutes Tom was away?” I said, pushing my knee into her belly as she wanted to lay down on me.

“Two? Oh, apparently you misremembered that as well. The assassin needed to be hospitalized. Tom was away for more than two hours. Do you want to hear everything?” I did not. But I also knew I needed to know. The stark contrast between her story and my memories was too much to overlook.

“… write it down.” I relented and closed my eyes in resignation. I would read that stuff, day after day, and I would probably like to go up in flames in the process. But I also wanted to feel complete. I didn´t know exactly what I was missing from my memories and I also didn´t want to think about it. But still, not knowing why I was like this felt wrong.

“Perfect … and now back to business. I know where they went.” I nodded swiftly, and then pushed her off me gently. Drunken, she struggled to stand up and walk to her bed, but neither did she expect any help. And if she would sleep in her own puke, I couldn’t care less.