Igor

(It's a little late for Halloween, but I found this story jotted in a notebook and thought I'd share it.  If nothing else, it's sure to remind me to do my anti-scoliosis physical therapy.)

His back hurt.  That was one of the constants in his life.  Sometimes it burned or spasmed or shrieked up his neck or down his leg, and usually it ached—as his spine crushed the muscles inside the curves and stretched those outside and pushed his ribs around. He did not know what it was like to be without pain; he had been born twisted.

His mother had been horrified, when he’d emerged, his ear nearly touching his shoulder.  Some of his earliest memories were of horrified faces quickly withdrawn, of repulsed voices asking what was the matter with him.  Nobody ever smiled.

In those days, his parents still had hope that he would grow out of it, and subjected him to many agonizing traction treatments.  But when it became clear the mutation of his spine had damaged his brain, his parents topped bothering.  What was the use?  He would never be able to even speak clearly; grunts and gesticulations were all he could manage.  He was doomed to be the village idiot, no better than an animal.  And everyone knew that animals didn’t have proper emotions or feel pain the way people do.

He knew he was inferior.  For years, he thought “ugly” as much his name as “Igor,” and responded accordingly.  He could not jump or dance like the others; his every attempt at lightness ended in broad clumsiness.

Yet nature had another trick to play on him.  Had he been straight, he would have been a world champion; twisted, he was merely prodigiously strong.  He could lift carts and sheep and fallen trees, and in this way, he earned a slight living—enough that he neither froze nor starved.

In this way, also, he made his tormentors afraid of him.

His heart hurt.  That was another of the constants in his life.  His heart hurt, and he hated everyone.

Then the stranger came.  He was tall and straight, with an aristocratic profile and sleek black hair graying about the temples.  He arrived in an elegant black carriage with an unfamiliar coat of arms painted on the side.

Immediately, Igor jumped forward to hold the horses, hoping for a tip.  The horses did not balk from him as long as they remained under the stranger’s hand.  But the moment the stranger jumped down, the horses kicked and blew, wild to kick him.  Igor hung on grimly, grunting with effort.

The stranger observed this with dark eyes, then laid one hand on the nearest horse’s neck.  Both animals calmed immediately.

“You are strong,” the stranger said, looking Igor up and down.  His voice was cool, neither praising nor condemning, and Igor basked in it.

“I have business to attend do,” the stranger went on.  “Watch my horses while I am gone.”

Igor nodded enthusiastically, even as the stranger strode off.  He remained there nearly three hours, guarding the horses, not moving to the left or to the right.

The stranger returned and saw this.  Without a word of thanks, he mounted his carriage, and tossed Igor a silver coin for his service.

A silver coin was more money than Igor had had in his life.  He stared at it in awe, then clutched it to his chest possessively.

The stranger came visiting often after that, and each time, Igor leapt forward to hold his horses.  When other entrepreneurial souls tried to take his place, he beat them back mercilessly, and the stranger did not rebuke him.

With his increasing wealth, Igor purchased a brush and bucket so he could care for the horses in the stranger’s absence.  He gloried in his newfound position.  But the more proud he became of his duties, the more hostile and suspicious the other villagers became.  Young women had been sickening; some had died.  And always, it was worse after the stranger visited. 

It became so bad that the next time the stranger visited, the villagers met him in a mob, bearing foul-smelling herbs, wild roses, and crucifixes carved from mountain ash.  They surrounded the carriage, and Igor saw they meant to hurt him.  He roared and lunged at them, swinging a stick and breaking bones until they scattered.

On his carriage, the stranger watched coolly, not interfering. “I’m told your name is Igor,” he said, when the last villager had fled.

Igor signed that this was correct.  He knew the stranger’s name, too—Count Dinu. 

“We are alike, Igor,” the Count mused.  “At once monster and human.  Come work for me.  Do all I say, and you shall have food, live in a castle, and have as much money as your shriveled heart desires.”  And he smiled at him.

Igor would have licked burning coals for the Count.  He prostrated himself and swore in gobbled grunts to be his.

Two decades passed.  The Count did not treat Igor well, but he kept his word.  Igor brought him supplies and showed him where beautiful young women lived.  He was despised by all he met, and he despised them in turn.  None could match the Count.

But Igor made a mistake.  The girl he found, a succulent sixteen, was courted by three men, two foreign, each brave and upright.  They waited until noon and then stormed the castle while Igor was away.  In Igor’s absence, they stabbed the Count through the heart, sawed off his head, and stuffed his mouth with foul herbs.

Igor came upon them as they left, congratulating one another and embracing the girl.  Wild, hot agony scorched him and searing cold flooded his brain.  He tore all four of them apart and howled and fell to his knees and beat his chest, but it was too late.  His master was dead, and he could not bring him back.

For a year and a day, he remained in that castle, feral and agonized.  And then he set out into the world, to find a new master.