Annoyance

“Whom are you talking to Mistress?” A female servant asked as she had just entered behind Grisum.  She was of no particular notice to Grisum, just a gifted indentured servant given by the lord who claimed her land.

     Grisum looked up. “You speak to me?”  She turned her head to look at the girl who spoke.  This bubbly full figured girl, no woman, carried a bucket of fresh water.  She set the water down near Grisum’s chair.   The servant’s appearance looked as if the girl had not worked a day of hard labor in her life.  Her green dress had a simple high waist just under her perky breasts.  The skirt of the dress fell just above the girls ankles showing trim heals.  The girl wore no shoes but that was what Grisum liked,  no dirty shoes would be drug across her hall. 

     The female servant approached the table.  She placed a hand foolishly on Grisum’s shoulder, brushing the glistening black silver hair aside.  “I can tell you are lonely.” Empathy glistened in the girls rich blue eyes.

     Grisum did not reply.  She just turned a her head a little bit more to look at the hand.  The young plump fleshy hand that touched Grisum’s should.  A hand that violated her by being placed on her shoulder.  This was a touch that if there was skin underneath it would have caused Grisum’s skin to crawl with revolution.  This intimate touch was the first in a hundred years.  Was the girl touched in the head?

     The servant spoke again.  “My mother talked to herself too.”  She paused not paying attention to what was about to happen.  “She was terribly sick...”

     Words were mumbled, “incantos, incindos, mortis!” and the lich raised her right hand.

     The girl’s arm flickered with a small flame at the finger tips. The girl’s eyes widened in fear as she screamed in pain. The flame quickly drove up the flesh, getting wider as it gained momentum and more flesh to burn, turning the girl bit by bit to ash. The girl’s hysterics ceased when the flame reached her throat. The ash floated down to the floor.  Some of the girls ash fell on Grisum but the lich did not care.  There was a faint smell of burnt flesh that floated around the room. 

     Another servant came into the room to clean up the mess. 

     Grisum looked at the pile of ash on the floor with revulsion.  The new servant that entered did not look at the lich, she just brushed the ash into a dust bin.  The servant left with the bin not giving a word to Grisum which was exactly what the lich liked. 

     Grisum thought, that girl had no right to touch her.  A peasant touching her!  The outrage, but the girls touch made her mind drift.  Drift to above her castle cave, drift to the sand that once had been her home.  If a lich could cry, Grisum would have...