The girl's words continued, a litany of insanity, then suddenly ceased. Baxter blinked free of the mist that seemed to have descended upon him, staring at the child who was in the process of accepting a piece of wadded up cloth into her mouth and a rope about her head to silence the madness.

"It’ll have to be a bit later," Eleanor stated in a voice very unlike he'd ever heard before. She turned to stare at him, her normally swarthy face, pale as he suspected his own was. "I be sorry lass," she patted the child’s head in a shaky gesture of affection then leaned against the heavy iron side of the sink. "I couldn’t be takin’ it no more."

Baxter nodded in understanding. He too had been sickened beyond his ability to comprehend with the girl’s constant talk. They would have gotten nowhere, listening to it.

It was a relief, having Eleanor beside him. Her common sense took over in the dire of circumstances (which this could have been categorized) and she reached for the sponge. The meaning was clear. For now, they had to clean the child. Other issues for other times.

Both he and Eleanor seemed to understand this. He held the child's hands away from herself while rope was placed on the ground by his feet. Eleanor scrubbed the child’s white skin until it was red. Baxter could empathize with that as well. It was as if somehow, Eleanor could scrub off some of those marks that belonged on a body which had earned them, not upon a canvas where nothing had been done to deserve the treatment inflicted.

When the soap was rinsed off, a plain frock was brought out and placed over the child’s body in such a way that the pair of them always had hands upon her wrists. With her mouth full, she wasn’t able to speak and she could not close her jaws either to bite at either them or herself. Baxter wasn’t sure just how they were going to manage her after they set her free. Every time he relaxed his guard she was back to putting harm upon herself again.

"Maybe.. I should - " his voice faltered and he inwardly cursed himself for his cowardice. Eleanor looked up at him, then her eyes widened in horror as she read the meaning in his eyes.

"No you shall not, Baxter!" she hissed and he turned to gaze at her, his face a mask of misery. "She is a human child, not some rabid dog."

He winced at that. But then, perhaps she’d thought the same thing. He could not be sure. Truthfully, the child was broken beyond repair. He could not see taking her to a mad house as anything but cruel. Surely, someone in the castle had kept her until now. Still, the view of those marks, they were not all of the self inflicted variety. He had see enough of both to know the difference. He feared bringing her too much in the light in case her former "owner" might cause the same punishment again.

No - while it might have been a mercy to put the child down, he knew Eleanor was right. Still, he did not know what he might have done otherwise. Lord Jonal would be asking for him soon enough. Eleannor had meals to prepare.

"You should take her to the Queen," Eleanor said firmly, she nodded in agreement with herself as if the Queen would be the answer to their mute problem.

"I can’t. You know the throne history. They’ll…"

"Her majesty is different," Eleanor stopped him. "I’ll hear nothing disparaging, y’hear? She sends thanks for meals well done. She is different."

But gratitude to the kitchen was different than caring for a wild child hell bent on harming herself. Still - Eleanor was right. Baxter nodded.

"I will. Tomorrow."

He turned to the girl once more and bent so that his face was near to hers. "Listen to me. You may not cut yourself. You may not punish yourself. That is my job. And I have my ways of doing so. Do you hear me? If you try and punish yourself once more, I shall be very displeased. Nor do I want you to offer yourself. I am the one you will listen to. Only myself. Until I tell you who else you may listen to. And my first order is for you to stop this talk. It grates on my ears. If you can do this, I will take the cloth from your mouth."

While he spoke, Eleanor was gathering rope and beginning to work away at tying the child up. There would be some point where they would not be able to keep the child from harming herself. But if they could restrict her movements then at least it would localize the harm. Baxter sighed. He had never been so out of his depth before.

At the moment, he’d almost kill to be elsewhere and not be watched so completely by those guileless, empty eyes.

__________________

‘What will my death be like?’ he thought- and knew at once
with abrupt certainty, that it would be just like his life:
... the same balance of bearables.
~Amis