by Tony Roberts
“I’m afraid that my financial office may have been compromised,” Evas said, a worried tone to his voice. “And as an outsider, you would be unconnected to whatever is going on here.”
“Unless I’m the recipient of these missing funds,” Demtro grinned. He saw Evas’ expression. “Oh, worry not, Governor, I have no need of such funds. I’m making enough to keep me in comfort as well as supplying the good people of Niake and Bathenia with good quality textiles. Hmmm…. let me study the figures and when the money vanishes and I’ll see if some sort of pattern emerges.”
“My accountant says there’s no pattern.”
“There’s always a pattern – it’s just that sometimes they don’t look regular. I’ll need a list of your accounting office personnel and where they live. One of them has got to be on the inside of this, and I’ll find who it is and why they’re doing it. And more to the point, where it’s going.”
“My thanks,” Evas looked relieved. “I – trust you’re not going to ask for a fee?”
Demtro pursed his lips. “Not in money, no. But a nice trading concession wouldn’t go amiss. I hear the Tybar are negotiating with the empire; a trade deal is on the table and if it does come off, there’ll be sulphur and wool coming in from Kaprenia. I’d like a preferential agreement if it does.”
Evas looked surprised. “How do you know all this?”
“Governor,” Demtro smiled, “shame on you! I’m a merchant with big ears, and I also have the ear of the empress. Tsk tsk.”
Evas sighed. “Stupid question, wasn’t it?”
Demtro grinned and pocketed the lists Evas gave him. “I’ll report back in a sevenday or less if I’m lucky.”
“So quick?”
“Efficiency is my second name,” Demtro stood up. “Be seeing you, Governor.”
Demtro went straight to the dirtiest dive in town, the Black Rodent, close to the Aconia Gate. It was through that gate that most of the traffic that came into Niake entered, and off the main street were the structures and premises that Niake didn’t want those who came to the city to see, unless they were looking specifically for them. The Black Rodent was one such place. The lowest dregs of Kastanian society often came there for a drink, conversation or just a fight. Anyone innocent or unsuspecting frequently lost their money there, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
Demtro was well aware of the reputation and clientele and pushed past the two burly guards at the door. He got a long look from them but he ignored them. He was looking for his man, Renet. One individual, worse for a few drinks too many, lurched into his path and looked him over. “Huh, rich boy, care to give me some of your money?”
“No thanks,” Demtro smiled and went to push past.
The drunk pushed back and tried to punch the merchant but Demtro ducked and grabbed the man by the crotch and twisted hard. The drunk went down with a scream and rolled about the vomit and ale-stained floor, much to the amusement of those seated close by. Demtro wiped his hands together and stepped over the victim and carried on his way.
The barkeep leaned forward, his greasy tunic open to his bulging stomach, showing plenty of dark chest hair. “Don’t want no trouble, mister,” he growled deeply.
“I’m not here to cause any,” Demtro said equably, aware most of the eyes in the tavern were upon him. “I’m looking for a small guy, thin, short dark hair, crooked nose that’s been bent in a fight, two teeth missing from his upper jaw. Resides here. Is he around?”
“Don’t know of no guy by that description, mister.”
Demtro sighed and threw three gold coins on the bar top. The barkeep’s eyes bulged and the coins vanished in a blink of an eye. Demtro admired the speed by which it had been done. “Have you seen this man?”
“Upstairs, seeing Clora.”
“Clora?” Demtro said with interest. “One of your girls?”
“Uh-huh. Do that trick with the coins to her and she’ll be yours for a sevenday!” One or two men leaning on the bar laughed raucously.
“Thanks for that information. I might even try her out. She got a sister?”
Even the barkeep smiled at that. “Nope. Tough luck, bud.”
Demtro shrugged and found the staircase and went up. The rooms were along a corridor and noises of a bed being used came from behind just one. Demtro eased the door open and saw a girl riding hard, her long red hair tumbling down her back. Demtro admired the view and her athleticism. Must be still relatively young. He moved quietly to one side and saw, indeed, Renet as the recipient of the girl’s attention. Demtro eased himself onto the wooden stool by the window and waited, reading the lists Evas had presented him.
Presently the girl finished and suddenly noticed Demtro sat there studying. Her intake of breath was followed by Renet’s snarl. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking notes,” Demtro said, looking up. “Like to see how the experts do it.”
Renet threw on his clothes and stood up, not looking too pleased. “Anyone teach you to knock?”
“Oh yes,” Demtro said airily, “but they also told me never to interrupt someone who was busy. Bad manners, you see.”
“You’re so funny, you know?” Renet snapped. “So what do you want?”
Clora was rapidly redressing. Demtro tossed her a coin. She caught it and blinked in surprise. “Come here,” Demtro beckoned her. Obediently she slid off the bed and stepped up to him. It only took two; the room wasn’t that large. “Kneel.” Clora did. “Wait for a moment until I’ve finished with this gentleman here.”
Renet smirked. “Gentleman? Huh – you’ll be calling her a lady next.”
“She may well be,” Demtro smiled. He passed Renet the list of names from the accounts office. “Look these people over. Any of them living a life over their station or acting oddly, or even having odd friends, let me know. They’re clerks.”
Renet took the paper and slid it into one of his many hidden pockets. “And my remuneration?”
Demtro tossed him a coin, too. “That’s for starters.”
Renet nodded appreciatively at the coin. “At least you’re a decent payer, even if you’re a pain in the ass.”
Demtro chuckled. “It has been said. Report back to me in a sevenday.”
Renet nodded and left. Clora looked up at Demtro coquettishly. Although not a smooth skinned as some women he’d met, she was pretty enough, and young. Demtro ran a hand down the side of her face. “How old are you, Clora?”
“Sixteen, I think.”
“Not sure, darling?”
Clora shrugged. Not unusual. With no money, family or prospects, many young teenagers in her position went into the business of selling themselves. Demtro didn’t press her for details of her background; it wouldn’t be a happy one. “What would you like me to do?”
Demtro leaned back and smiled. “Ahhh, now there’s a question! How would you like to earn yourself a small fortune? You’re young, pretty, and facing no future whatsoever. I can offer you one. Interested?”
Clora looked at him blankly. Clearly she had heard this all before, and yet here she was still selling her body for a pittance, paying most of her earnings to the barkeep in return for living in the back rooms of a disreputable tavern. But what alternative did she have? She had no education, little knowledge of how the world worked, no skills, no family, no benefactor. The only assets she had were her body and looks, and they wouldn’t last forever. Once they went what could she do?
Demtro leaned forward, then got up from the stool. He pulled her up and looked at her closely. “Hmm, a little on the skinny side, but I can soon correct that.” He stroked her breasts. “Nice and firm. Good. Turn round would you, Clora, please?”
Clora looked at him a little oddly but did as she was bid. She felt him unclasp her remaining clothes and she was naked, her clothing on the floor around her ankles. She felt his hands run over her bottom and waist, and it unnerved her a little. She was used to being groped and fondled, and she knew what they were after, but this man wi
th the gold coins was different. He was examining her in a different way.
“I think you could wash up beautifully,” Demtro said, squeezing her buttock. He turned her back to face him and she smiled hesitantly. Demtro smiled back. “It’s alright, little one, I’m not going to do anything unpleasant to you. I wish to take you away from this place and come live in my house.”
“Really?” Clora was taken by surprise. “You really mean that?”
Demtro nodded. “But please don’t think you’re going to be a wife or anything like that – I’m not the marrying kind! No, you’ll be working for me, like that man you were just paid by does from time to time.”
“Does he? What would you want me to do?”
“Some of the same you’re doing now,” Demtro said. “But not all the time. No, I would like you to be a special kind of employee of mine. You would live in my house, and keep it clean and tidy. It would be rent free, and I would pay you a retainer each sevenday. For each special task I’d set you I’d pay you more.”
Clora stood there uncertainly. “You mean I would be free of this place? Would I be allowed to buy myself some things?”
“Of course, Clora. No more paying your protector money you earn. No. You would earn me money, yes, but the money you’d earn me wouldn’t come through your hands.” He smiled down at her. “Of course, from time to time I’d like you to warm my bed but it wouldn’t be all the time. No, you’d have much more freedom to come and go through Niake. You might even see places outside the city.”
She gasped. “You mean – one day I might even get to see Kastan?”
“Oh, most likely,” Demtro grinned. “What do you say?”
“Oh, please! I hate this place and the horrible people who beat me. Please! Please take me with you!”
Demtro picked up her clothing and passed it to her. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. “Go and dress and collect what you have here.”
Clora almost wept. Nobody had kissed her that tenderly before. At least, she couldn’t remember if anyone had. She hurriedly dressed and stood there almost like a lost little girl. “I have nothing. What is your name?”
“Demtro. Come. You’ll need a change of clothing. Those are a little dirty and need throwing away.”
“Oh, I’m so happy!” Clora said, clinging to his arm. Demtro had a moment where his heart was stabbed by his conscience, something he’d hoped had gone for good, and he almost went back on his intention, but then his business mind crushed it. Her life would be better with him, and although he would be using her as much as anyone had up to now, surely in life everyone used others. It was true of business. He had something people wanted so he used their desire to set a price higher than he ought in order for them to make him richer, and he paid others for raw materials at a higher cost for the same reasons. Use and be used.
The empress used him for information, and he used her in return in order to get money. He didn’t need her money really, as his business interests paid for a living, but to be truthful he loved money and being able to buy people. And, he admitted to himself, he loved the danger of it all. Buying and selling and negotiating with fellow traders was so tiresome at times, and he craved the life of a spy. All he was doing was employing a pretty young girl to add to his spying abilities. Renet was all very well poking here and there, but sometimes the female form was just as useful in obtaining information.
He would just need to train her in the ways in which he wished her to become adept. Also she needed feeding and a wash. Getting her out of the Black Rodent might have been a problem but a few more coins thrown at the tavern owner soon changed his mind. Clora huddled into the crook of Demtro’s arm as she shrank away from the greasy, overweight man. He had been cruel to her.
His house, in the merchant quarter, was spacious and tidy, and airy. Clora gasped in amazement as she looked round. “You live here – by yourself?”
“Yes – and now so do you.”
“But – you must be terribly rich!”
“I get by,” Demtro said modestly. “I like this style of life.”
“Where is my room?” Clora asked. Her ‘room’ in the Black Rodent had been a shared pokey little space with no door. No doubt her place would be taken fairly quickly. The tavern owner would find a replacement soon enough. One poor teenage prostitute wasn’t going to be missed all that much. In these days of poverty and austerity there were plenty waiting to join the queue, and because there were so many prices were low.
“Let me show you.” Demtro led her up the wide, black wooden staircase and along a corridor lined with paintings and with rugs underfoot. Clora’s threadbare slippers felt the springy comfort underfoot and she gasped, looking down. Then they were at a door and Demtro opened it inwards, revealing a room, floorboarded, with a rug in the middle, a double bed with sheets and a window that was latticed and looked out onto the main street below.
“Oh, by the gods! It’s beautiful! This isn’t for me, surely!”
“All yours, Clora,” Demtro grinned. “As long as you look after it, of course,” he added seriously.
“Oh, of course I will!” she remained in the doorway, staring in wonder at the space. After spending the last few years huddled with one or even two others in a space, often the floorboards not covered by anything, sharing fleas and lice with each other, this was a dream. She was wondering whether suddenly it would be all taken away from her cruelly.
Demtro left her there and went downstairs to the scullery and pulled out the big brass bath. The fire was still blazing away, sending heat through the building via the pipes that led from the hood that hung over the fire, and he filled a large kettle with water and hung it on a hook suspended over the conflagration. He added more cold water to the tub and waited for the water to heat up in the kettle, then when it was steaming, added it to the tub. He repeated this a few times, then tested the water and nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Clora had come down by this time and was staring in wonder at the warmth spreading through the room. She had never experienced the likes of it before. The outside was getting dark and Demtro threw a curtain over the single window that looked over the rear of the property. “A bath, Clora. Something you’re going to have.”
“I’ve never had one!”
“I know,” Demtro wrinkled his nose. In the past the empire had possessed public baths but these had all fallen into disuse and the buildings were now used for other things. The pipes in Demtro’s house were a remnant from times gone past; new houses often didn’t have such pipes as they were expensive to make and to maintain. He also had sweet smelling salts. Being wealthy had its rewards. Clora was going to smell much better than she did at present by the time he had finished with her. “Take all your clothes off.”
Clora shrugged herself out of her threadbare attire. She was used to baring herself and so she didn’t think anything of it. She stood there, half smiling, hoping everything was going to be fine. The man had been kind and gentle with her so far so there was nothing to suspect.
“Sit down in there, Clora. I’m going to wash you.”
She gingerly stepped into the water and found to her pleasure it was comfortably warm. Sitting down, her knees up to her chin, she uttered a sigh of satisfaction. Her skin was soft but here and there were marks where someone had struck her. A fact of life for a woman who sold her body, working for a man who paid for her lodgings and food. Demtro slipped off his jacket and knelt by the tub and began washing the girl, using the scented salts to cleanse her skin of the dirt that had built up, and to leave it smelling fragrant.
Her hair was the most difficult part; it was matted and greasy and infested with lice. Demtro gently urged her to duck her head under the water a few times and Clora obediently did so, compliant. All the fight had been long beaten out of her and she’d learned to be obedient for fear of attracting the stick or short handled whip the tavern owner liked to use.
Demtro used the long wooden comb he had to tease out the knots. One day he’d
get a decent hairdresser to see to her, but that was for the future. This winter he would use to mould her into one of his agents, a woman who would use her body to gain information for him. Part of him doubted the morality of what he was going to do, but another part told him she would have a much better life with him and she would be much freer doing what she did for him, rather than being an abused object at the hands of a little landlord.
“You do know, Clora, that I will ask you to sleep with certain people from time to time. I’m not doing all this out of the kindness of my heart.” He decided to be open with her, as much to ease his conscience as anything else.
“Yes, Demtro, you said. I’m used to doing that. You won’t beat me, will you? I’ll be good,” she said tonelessly.
“No beatings, no. I’m going to teach you things this winter. You won’t have to use your body on anyone, except me of course, during that time.”
Clora nodded; she’d expected that. Men always wanted to sleep with her, no matter what they said. She’d always been told she was pretty, and to be truthful many of the women around her were less attractive. That was why she was the first the visitors to the tavern always asked for. She got no more rewards than the others, and the tavern owner had told her she was just another girl who worked for him. If she had refused, she would have been beaten. One girl had been so defiant she’d been beaten so badly she’d been crippled and then had been thrown out to roam the streets. She hadn’t lasted long. That lesson had taught her more than any other not to argue.
But Demtro was gentle with her, even when he spoke. She wasn’t used to that and it unsettled her. His washing and kneading relaxed her and she felt her eyes growing heavy. He gently encouraged her to stand and step out onto the stone flagged floor of the scullery, then proceeded to stand her in front of the warming fire and dry her with a thick cloth.
His hands weren’t rough, even when he touched those places other men got excited by. It made her tingle in a nice way, and she found herself getting excited; she didn’t very often look forward to performing with a visitor but this was one of those times she actually wanted it to happen. Demtro dragged a straight-backed wooden chair over and finished drying her. He’d noticed that he’d turned her on and was never one to turn down an opportunity – it was the merchant in him. Slipping off his clothes he sat in the chair and pulled her down onto him so she was straddling him, her back to the fire, warming her nicely.