by Ahimsa Kerp
“North Port isn’t so far.”
“No, but there are a lot of cursed soldiers in Gaulang right now—you can’t even step foot into a tavern near the harbor for the crowds. Who knows how many voyages we’ll have to make to get them all out there, and then there’s Hairng to contend with, and then hauling back whoever’s left alive. The northerners aren’t like to lie down easily, especially not after what happened in Plum Grove. It’ll be an ugly affair, mark my words.”
Lyrie wriggled herself up, a sight Terryll appreciated. “It is a bit exciting, though, don’t you think? All we ever hear are the tales of heroes long dead. Men have gotten as soft as their women. It’s about time we had a new war so we can have some new heroes.”
“It hasn’t been that long. You’re just too young to remember, and I’ll tell you something: war doesn’t make heroes, bards and skalds make heroes to gain the favor of the victors once the fighting is over. It’s a no good business, I tell you. Who cares who sits on the throne in Fairnlin? It makes little difference to us here, or anywh—”
A soft knock sounded at the door.
“It must be Mistress Nedra,” Lyrie said with a pout.
Terryll frowned. “I told her I meant to stay longer. What can she want? See what she’s after, won’t you?”
Before Lyrie had her silk chemise halfway on, the door burst open. A soldier strode through the doorway past a blustering Mistress Nedra and stopped to regard Lyrie.
Mistress Nedra wormed her way around the soldier and smiled apologetically at Terryll. “I’m t-terribly sorry, Captain Payce,” she stammered, “I was coming up to tell you, but—”
“Enough,” the soldier cut her off. “Return his coin and send him on his way.” He turned his attention back to Lyrie. He was a big man, taller than Terryll and longer limbed, though not as stout. He wore chainmail with a goldenrod cote-hardie over it, and held a long-handled iron mace in one hand like he meant to use it. “Clean yourself up and get downstairs with the others,” he commanded Lyrie. “Quickly.” With that, he left to bang on the next door down the hallway.
Mistress Nedra rushed forward, offering the copper bits Terryll had paid back to him.
Terryll waived away the coin and began dressing. “Keep it. Just tell me what this is all about. Who’s this man to barge in here and order around paying customers?”
“He’s a man-at-arms, servant of Lord Melden Klaye.”
“Lord of what?”
“Lord of Sunspar.”
“Lord of blackspur more likely,” Terryll scoffed.
“Will you fight him to defend my honor?” Lyrie teased, licking a finger and dabbing on blue eye powder.
“Bite your tongue,” Mistress Nedra warned her. “And don’t bother with that—get downstairs.”
Lyrie pecked a kiss on Terryll’s cheek and scuttled out of the small room and downstairs. Terryll finished buckling his boots and clasped his long-bladed curtelaxe to his belt.
“I really do apologize,” Mistress Nedra said, more composed now that the man-at-arms was out of sight. “He came without any warning, and I don’t want any trouble. Your next visit will be free.”
“Don’t fret yourself,” Terryll told her. “It’s not your fault. I got my coins’ worth. Just keep all those knaves down at the harbor away from my girls while I’m gone, won’t you?”
“I wouldn’t worry about them. None of their likes can afford Lyrie.”
“None of their likes are to be around much longer either,” Terryll remarked. He handed her the extra thirty bits he promised. “For Lyrie. Take good care, and I’ll hope to return soon.”
“May the Passions watch over you, Captain Payce.”
Terryll smiled thinly and walked out. At the bottom of the stairs, Lyrie and all the other whores were lined up in front of Lord Melden Klaye of Sunspar. Terryll didn’t dignify the young lord’s presence with so much as a glance.
Basilides looked at the wall tapestries with disinterest. As big as the keep of Toli Verk, Earl of Gaulang was, it was a keep much like any other keep Basilides had seen: wood framed with plaster walls, long torch-lit corridors, and excessive tapestries, armament, and hunting trophies adorning the walls to distract attention from the rough workmanship. Of more interest to Basilides was the reason for his being here, sitting in the anteroom to the Earl’s private chambers. One of the Earl’s courtiers had found him in his usual place—tending to the poor in Fishers’ Square—and not so much requested his presence as demanded it.
Basilides was not left long waiting. After disappearing briefly, the courtier stepped from the Earl’s chambers and ushered Basilides inside. The room was large and well lit by a balconied window at the far end. A robed figure stood at the window, peering away at the city below.
The Earl himself sat at a desk beside the fireplace. He was a big man, somewhat shrunken by age, but still wide-shouldered and muscular. His head was bald—freshly shorn—but he had a thick, golden mustache and beard that were peppered with gray.
“You are the leech from the harbor?” the Earl asked, looking up from a map he was examining. “The healer?”
“I am a healer from the Order of Balin, yes, my lord.”
“We’ve heard of your deeds. Some of the common folk say you perform miracles.”
“I merely perform my duty, my lord,” Basilides said, bowing his head.
The robed man at the window turned and stepped toward the fireplace. He was hunched over and walked with difficulty. His robes were much like Basilides’, but were crimson instead of gray. He was a master physician. “Tell me, leech,” he said, “how would you treat a man with a melancholic lung?”
“It depends on the symptoms, master. Melancholic lung can have many forms.”
“A dry melancholic lung,” the old man specified.
Basilides pursed his lips. “Still I could not say, not without examining the patient.”
“Who was your master?” the physician asked, an edge in his voice. “Where were you trained?”
“I began my training in the south, in the village of Liraeus, under the care of Master Garson.”
“Outside the realm?”
“To begin with, yes, but I learned many things from Master Garson and from the elders of Liraeus, and afterward—after Liraeus was sacked and burned and Master Garson slain—I returned to the realm and completed my apprenticeship with Master Aldon in Fairnlin.”
“Are you familiar with administering ethers at least?”
“Familiar with the practice, but I perform it rarely, and never with a patient suffering a melancholic lung.”
The old man shook his head. “You’ll not do. Be gone.”
Basilides bowed his head and turned to leave, but the Earl held up a hand to stay him. “We haven’t the time to find anyone else, Master Dooley. He’ll do well enough to follow your instructions. Just tell him what needs to be done.”
The old physician pursed his lips, but nodded his assent.
“It’s you then that suffers the melancholic lung, my lord?” Basilides asked as he approached the Earl.
“Indeed, to my great misfortune.”
“Indeed,” Basilides agreed, still not comprehending why he was here. “Will the good Master Dooley be leaving? Is that why you require my service?”
“It’s not Master Dooley that will be leaving—it is us, leech. The war for the throne has begun and we sail on the morrow to North Port.”
Lyrie kept her eyes downcast, occasionally glancing up to catch the eye of the young Lord Melden Klaye as Mistress Nedra had taught her. Melden Klaye was far from being a big man, but he was beautiful. His straight brown hair—parted down the center—hung shoulder length, framing the well-tanned, almost feminine features of his face. He wore knee-high boots, tight breeches, and a goldenrod doublet over a white tunic. Lyrie had seen his like, the pampered nobleman, many a time, but never before in this context. The Minx’s Den was a high-scale brothel, but it was still a brothel, shunned by any good-named lord and freque
nted mostly by rich, older merchants and craftsmen. This young lord was a rarity, and he interested Lyrie. She’d caught his eye the moment she came down the stairs, and though he had turned his attention back to the other girls, she was certain he would pick her.
Lord Klaye was taking his time, looking over each of the girls with great care, sometimes approaching one of them to feel her breasts or run a finger between her legs and sniff it. It was a bit odd, but Lyrie thought little of it. She’d once seen a man bend every girl over and sniff all of their arses before finally settling on the ugliest of the bunch. Each man had his own tastes. The man-at-arms who had nearly beat down the door upstairs loomed near the front doorway, watching his master silently.
Lord Klaye at last came up to Lyrie. She pretended to be modest as he lowered his face to sniff and run the tip of his tongue between her breasts. When he raised his head, his dark eyes startled her with their intensity. She was usually the one to hold a man’s gaze, not the other way around.
“I’m a man with voracious appetites, sweetling,” he said. “Think you can satiate them?”
“No woman could ever satiate a man of your likes, my lord. But I can sweeten your lips and satisfy your hunger like the richest of honey cakes, and when you grow hungry again, I’ll always find great pleasure in feeding you more.”
“What’s your name, sweetling?”
“Lyrie.”
Lord Klaye nodded. “Very well, Lyrie, gather your belongings. You’re going with me.”
Lyrie had already begun to grab his hand to lead him up the stairs when she realized what he was saying. “Wait, going where?” she asked, puzzled. Mistress Nedra never let the girls leave with a client.
“Perhaps you should take another girl,” Mistress Nedra suggested, stepping forward. Lyrie is still young and not the most robust of girls. One of the older ones would be better for travel.”
“I’ve made my decision,” Lord Klaye said simply.
“Where are we going?” Lyrie asked.
“Hush,” Mistress Nedra told her. “You can’t take her, my lord. I won’t sell her. She’s got too many years left in her and she brings a good price. I stand to lose a lot. I must insist you take one of the older girls.”
The man-at-arms stepped forward, spinning his mace between his fingers. Lord Klaye put a hand out to stop him. “You have two choices, mistress,” Lord Klaye said. “You can either take my five marks and give me the girl, or I can go fetch the band of Ordained camped outside town. Even the Earl himself won’t have the power to stop them if I attest that you force your girls to perform buggery with beasts and animals to entertain your clients.”
“I do no such thing,” Mistress Nedra said, shocked.
“And who do you think the Earl will believe, one of his own bannermen or a whore?”
“My girls will vouch for me.”
“They won’t be able to vouch for anyone once the Ordained slit them open from neck to cunny and burn them to cinder along with your whole damned brothel. Ordryn is the least forgiving of the Passions, mistress. His servants demand obedience and take vengeance when disobeyed.”
“I-I…” Mistress Nedra could only stammer. The other girls glanced at each other warily.
“You needn’t threaten our fine mistress,” Lyrie said. “If you want me so badly, I’ll go with you. Just give me a moment to gather a few things.”
Lord Klaye smiled at her, then turned to his man-at-arms. “Give the mistress her five marks and make sure my sweetling has everything she needs for our journey, then take her to our camp. Lyrie, I will be seeing you again soon.”
Lyrie returned his smile. The man was a rogue and a bully, but she couldn’t help but want him. The harbor of Gaulang was a mess of ships, as it had been since the Earl barred outgoing voyages five days earlier. There were some two-hundred vessels—the most Terryll had ever seen in one place in all his years and travels—and with the berths wholly occupied by the ships belonging to the Earl and his bannermen, the captains of the merchant vessels had been left with nothing to do but moor their ships together in the middle of the harbor, leaving only narrow water lanes between them.
Terryll sat in a skiff, listening to the harbor boy paddle along, admiring his own ship, Black Zefferus, where she floated at the end of a line, dwarfed by the larger carracks around her. She was a caravel, built in the south islands with a highly rare and expensive black teak wood. Unlike the carracks, she had little freeboard and only a single stern castle. Her cargo capacity was minimal, but she had four masts and could outrun and outmaneuver any ship in the harbor, which was a good bargaining point with many of Terryll’s less scrupulous clients. When he finally reached her, Terryll gave the harbor boy a copper bit and climbed his way onto deck. His first mate, Alwyn, stood waiting for him.
“We’ve received our orders,” Alwyn said, handing Terryll a folded piece of parchment sealed with the Earl’s sigil. Terryll broke the wax seal and read over the document. “We sail in the morning, men.”
“With what as cargo?” Alwyn asked.
“Flour and beans.”
Alwyn snorted with distaste.
“It’s better than what Lord Verk’s chancellor wanted us to carry,” Terryll said. “The daft cunny would have sunk us to our rails carrying spears and iron shod for the cavalry.” He regarded his crew that was gathering around him on deck. “Still, we’ll be sitting low in the water; we best offboard anything we don’t need. Rig the main masts for the square sails and stow only enough water for seven days.”
“That’ll be cutting it close,” Alwyn remarked.
Terryll shrugged. “Either lose the extra water or lose the ale kegs.”
“The water,” Alwyn agreed and the crew voiced their assent.
By the time she reached the outskirts of Gaulang, Lyrie wished she hadn’t refused the man-at-arms’ offer to carry her knapsack. Everild was his name—that much she had learned from him. He ignored every other question she asked and strode silently forward, pushing his way through any crowds and keeping an unrelenting pace that forced her to run periodically to keep up.
He led the way out of the city through the south gate, and Lyrie was taken aback to see it was more crowded beyond the walls than it was in the city itself. Hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers mulled about in makeshift campsites comprised of tents and wagons. They were a pitiful lot, Lyrie, decided. She had in her mind expected to see warriors on horseback with silver armor and glimmering shields heeding the Earl’s call to arms, but the majority of these men were on foot and were nothing more than scrawny farm boys or old men. Only a small fraction of them looked to be fighting men, either men-at-arms or mercenaries.
Lyrie was attracting a lot of attention, she realized, and she felt foolish for having worn her best gown and not wearing a headdress, as was the custom among women in Gaulang. A woman with uncovered hair was seen as a temptress, which was certainly desirable in her profession, but here she was the only woman in sight except for a few bedraggled camp whores who weren’t worth a copper bit, and without the head-dress, none would mistake her for a proper lady.
A toothless man with an axe strapped to his back strode from one of the roadside camps and grabbed Lyrie by the arm.
“I ’fink I’ll try some of your cunny, whore.”
Lyrie gagged at the stench of his rotten fish breath. She tried in vain to yank her arm free but the man laughed and pulled her closer, and then Everild was there—a blur. There was a dull cracking noise and when Lyrie opened her eyes the toothless man was on the ground trying to staunch his bleeding nose.
“She’s not for you,” Everild said flatly, and then he continued on down the road, leaving Lyrie to scurry along behind him.
When the toothless man was safely behind them, Lyrie grabbed at Everild’s sleeve. “Everild, thank you for that.”
He stopped and looked at her, and for a moment she thought he would return her smile, but instead he grabbed her by the wrist and twisted it until she thought it would break. “
When we get to camp, you will stay in the tent,” he whispered over her gasping. “A war is no place for women, not even whores, and especially not whores like you. You’ll stay out of sight and when we leave on the morrow, you’ll dress as a boy. The Earl has forbidden whores and other hanger-ons from traveling with the fleet for wont of space, but Lord Klaye means to smuggle you aboard whatever ship we’re on. If it were my choice, you’d not be going along with us, but Lord Klaye has his desires, and he is not one you want to deprive of his desires. Am I understood?”
Between the pain in her wrist and the realization she had just become a camp whore, tears filled Lyrie’s eyes. All she could do was nod.
“Very well then. Keep close and keep quiet, whore.”
The following morning, Basilides watched the sunrise alongside the Earl from the aft castle of The Valor of Gaulang. It was not a peaceful sunrise. The shouts of sailors and dock workers loading ships cut through the chill morning air, and some ten thousand soldiers clogged the streets, waiting to board whichever vessel would be taking them to North Port. It was a scene the likes of which Basilides had never witnessed.
The ocean breeze shifted and blew the smoke from an oil lamp on the aft castle deck into the Earl’s face, triggering a dry rasping cough that shook his entire body. Basilides extinguished the wick with the brass snuffer hanging there by a rope, then went to the Earl and grabbed the thumb of his right hand. Startled, the Earl tried to pull his hand away, but Basilides held it firm, pressing with his fingers onto the tendon atop the Earl’s thumb. His coughing seized as abruptly as it started. The Earl stared at him in amazement as Basilides continued to probe his hand and fingers.
“Enough,” the Earl said, pulling his hand free. “What’s your name, leech?”
“Basilides, my lord.”
“And your surname?”
“I haven’t one, my lord. I’m an orphan. Master Garson named me, and he merely called me Basilides.”