Antony wasn't going to call her on stage. He was going to be chivalrous. Or he was planning on kicking her out and was going to use this as his excuse. The hell with it, she said to herself. She pushed through the opening in the tent.
Surprise, dismay and anger chased across his face, a professional facade bringing up the rear. "My lovely assistant," he smiled. He stepped behind her. "I told you to stay away tonight!" he hissed in her ear. Jennia simply smiled at the audience and gave a little wave. "Very well," he said, "you asked for it." He peeled the cloak back over her shoulders.
Chapter Four: A Story
Her smile wavered.
She was completely naked before strangers. She grew wetter, and she wondered if her sex looked as swollen as it felt. The crowd gasped; loud, pleased murmurs and applause broke out. To her amazement, the women seemed as excited to see her as the men. "I've gotten a head start on you, darlin'," said Antony. "Show the good people everything the charms do for a woman."
Her trembling hands put a charm at each breast; they spread and latched on to her nipples. "See?" said Antony, his breathing a little harder than it had been at this point the night before. "The charm will cover even breasts as generous as these." The toys began pulling and sucking at her nipples; they gripped her breasts harder than they had the first time. An involuntary cry escaped her, and a drop of moisture slid down her inner thigh.
Antony stood two paces away from her, half turned toward the crowd. The charm was already rippling relentlessly up and down his thick, stiff cock, much sooner than it had the night before. He was as excited as she was. "The third one now," he said through tight jaws.
Jennia wanted him inside her, not the charm, but she obediently placed the last shining sphere against her clit and braced herself against the table. It spread to cup her sex, formed a thick, curved shaft and with no further caress forced its way inside her in one powerful push that knocked her against the table. The charms above mauled her breasts, squeezing and biting hard at her nipples; the charm below fucked her so hard she knew she'd have trouble standing when it was done with her. Through it all, she and Antony never stopped staring at one another, arousal linking them though neither was in arm's reach of the other. Antony's body arched toward her in a long, agonized curve as he spasmed in the charm's grip.
The cock inside her throbbed and grew. She wailed in time with its thrusts. The world outside her body fell into a blur.
The charm remained wrapped around Antony's cock, gently squeezing, gauging his readiness for a second bout. He paid little attention to it, transfixed as Jennia came over and over again, juices spurting around the charm buried inside her. That should be me, she belongs to me, his mind whispered. Were they alone, Antony would let himself become aroused again and would fuck her senseless, but he was a professional. He gathered the reluctant charm into a ball, and performed his customary flip-and-catch into his waistcoat pocket.
No one noticed. Every face in the crowd was red and intent on the girl, restrained only by social convention from attacking her, one another or themselves. The charms would continue until their owner either removed them or was spent; some women might be an hour or more at it, and Jennia looked as if she might be one of them. Her orgasms were unceasing, and though they might take a ribbing the next morning from their neighbors, several of the men had taken out their cocks.
Antony had made twice as many charms that day as he had the day before, and if his audience satisfied themselves before Jennia finished he might not sell them. "Now, now, darlin', save some for me!" he called, breaking the crowd's concentration. He stepped between Jennia's legs, blocking sight of her from the crowd. He grabbed the charm and slid its length from her; wetness drenched his hand. He'd never get her musky scent off his fingers--at least he hoped not. Jennia whimpered, and the charms at her breasts shrank and dropped away until she lay gasping on the table top, her legs dangling over its edge. Antony wrapped her tenderly in her cloak and guided her to a hay bale behind him before her knees crumpled.
When the night ended, not only had he sold every charm, he'd turned people away. "Next year, friends, I'll be back next year!" he told the disappointed crowd.
"Will you be bringing her back?" called a man.
"Come see me and find out!" he laughed.
The tent emptied out. Tomorrow he would take the tent down and stow it in its magic box--he'd paid another mage to make it for him after the Magda disaster--and they would move on toward the western border. Now, he had to stow Jennia in the wagon and walk away before he did something rash.
One thing he did know: She wouldn't be doing that again. Antony couldn't keep her; she was promised to someone else, and he wouldn't be foolish enough to entangle himself again, however much he might yearn to. But while he had her with him, even if he couldn't have her himself he wouldn't let anyone else have her, either--even like this.
When he finished counting the take, Antony turned and found Jennia still sitting on the hay bale wearing her disguise, her cloak wrapped tightly around her and her eyes on the ground. "Jennia? Are you all right?"
"Fine. I'm fine," she whispered.
"You don't look fine. C'mon." Antony put his arm around her, helped her up and walked her toward the wagon.
"What about that girl?"
"What girl? Tassie?" Antony glanced back over his shoulder; Tassie stood by the tent, waggling her fingers at him. She was really rather a sweet one: a farmer's daughter, generous in and out of bed, easy-going and uninterested in romance. This wasn't the first time they'd shared a hay rick in Rabny Ford; he liked to pretend he didn't remember the names of his women, but in actual fact he never forgot. He waggled back at her. "She can wait. Let me get you settled."
Antony helped her into the wagon and followed her inside. "You're going to want to latch the door tonight. Open the skylight for air. I don't think anyone will climb onto the roof to get in, and besides, Dolf will keep an eye on you."
Jennia shucked off her mask, snood and cloak, and pulled on her chemise; her breasts rose and fell as she put her arms over her head, and he groaned inwardly. She climbed onto the bed to sit cross-legged. "I suppose I should get used to it, being stuck in the wagon."
"No, you won't. This is your first and last performance."
"What? Why?" she cried, scrambling off the bed. "Have you changed your mind? If you're going to send me on my way, give me my share and I'll go right now while it's dark!"
"No, no, no, sit down. You didn't enjoy it. Well--" He put his hand to his nose, and her rich scent curled his toes. "All right, you enjoyed it. But you didn't enjoy it. Do you know what I mean?"
"I don't understand you."
"Well, you obviously got excited, but--"
"No," she said, "I understand what you're saying, and yes, you're right. I did...and I didn't. What I don't understand is how you can be so mean to me one minute and so kind the next. I think on the whole you're a kind person trying to be mean for some reason." He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, and an uncharacteristic tightness seized his throat. "What happened to you?" she whispered.
Antony flinched. Might as well tell her. Perhaps it would drive her further away when she realized just how damaged he was, both as a man and as a mage. He pulled the fold-out chair down from the wagon wall and sat down. "A woman happened to me, that's what."
"Tell me about her."
"Her name was Magda." He rubbed his eyes, and Jennia's scent enfolded him again; it stifled the fine black wrath he preferred when telling the story. "She was beautiful, one of those pale, slim girls who looks like a moonbeam come to life."
"Very poetic," Jennia smiled.
"Yes, isn't it? I was all poetry and she was all prose. I suppose that was the trouble."
"So you were in love and she wasn't? Did she turn you away?"
"Oh no, she was my betrothed, or so I thought. We'd already begun building a life together--saving money for a home of our own and so on. She was holding the money for both of us. I was traveling
a lot, but not like this. I was visiting small towns that didn't have their own mages. It was my practicum after I was accepted into the Mages Guild. I used to come here a lot--Rabny Ford is one of the few towns I still go to that knew me when. I avoided it for a couple of years after what happened...happened." Antony sighed. "I should have been a weaver like you. Weavers can work their whole lives, they don't run out of weaving."
"Our hands stiffen with age," she replied.
"Yes, but mages--we only have so much magic in us. When it runs out, there isn't any more, and that can happen at any age if you're not careful. I'm getting ahead of myself. Magda stayed behind while I did my practicum, until a messenger found me: she was ill, in fact, she was dying. I rushed back and sure enough, she was on her death bed."
"Couldn't someone do something for her? A doctor?"
Antony shook his head. "They'd tried everything. The only thing left was magic, but it would take so much magic that no one was willing to do it. It'd cripple a mage. But...but I loved her. So." The tightness in his throat choked his voice back, but he hadn't let himself cry over this in a long time and didn't want to start now. "So. I healed her. It took more than half my magic, but I loved her. I couldn't just let her die when I could save her. My magic didn't matter." He got up and drank a cup of water from the barrel to cover his emotion.
"And then what happened?" she prompted.
"And then...then she left me. She'd been planning it since before she got sick--she'd planned to be gone by the time I got home from my rounds. Before she got sick she'd cleaned me out, every cent we had worked together to save. I had no claim against it--I'd trusted her with it, given it to her. It was hers by law. As soon as she recovered enough, she told me she'd fallen in love with someone else while I was gone and was marrying him. And then she left. Even though I'd just saved her life. She took everything, my heart, my money, my magic..." He looked at the ceiling, blinking back frustrated tears. "This is all I can do. I'm no good at anything else. I'm only twenty-five and I have the magic of a sixty-year-old. I have to make it last the rest of my life. So I do this," he said, the sweep of his weary arm encompassing the wagon, the horse, the tent, his aimless existence. "The charms don't take much magic each, and I figure that as long as I'm healthy enough to travel I can make a living. And when I can't, it won't matter." Antony got to his feet. "Anyway. That's how I ended up like this--crippled--more a hedge mage than a Guild mage. She took everything from me." He paused heavily. "Well. Those troubles are past for me. You have troubles of your own right now. I'll leave you alone."
Antony climbed down from the wagon. Jennia let him go, though she dearly wished to take him to her, kiss his dark brow and show him not all women were ungrateful and bitterness should be in the past. More, she wanted to show him that he was worthy of love himself, for she heard what he really said. She wasn't sure what the future would hold--would he want her to stay with him?--but she knew her thoughts of marrying Starret were over. Antony had taken his place in her heart, a place she had to admit had been vacant all along. She went to the door to call Antony back.
He was standing by the tent with his arms around Tassie. "No, she'll be gone soon, and I'll be glad of it," his voice floated back to her.
Jennia retreated into the wagon and latched the door. She'd be gone soon. He'd be glad of it. By the gods, she would be too. She brushed traitorous tears from her cheeks until she fell asleep.
Antony woke her early the next morning, and they ate a silent breakfast at the inn. He packed the tent back up with the help of the two burly men who'd set it up, hitched Dolf to the wagon, and the little entourage moved on to the west and the next small town.
That night, two travelers arrived at Rabny Ford. One was a rangy young man with sharp little eyes and a dull little chin. The other was an older woman, gray-haired, beautifully clothed and sternly majestic. The innkeeper was suitably impressed, in any event. "What'll it be, gentles? Will you be needing rooms for the night?"
"Possibly," said the woman.
"What she means is, it depends," said the man.
The woman rolled her eyes. "We're looking for a girl, a runaway apprentice. We have reason to believe she may have come this way."
In a nearby corner Tassie and her father were nursing ciders after a long day's work; her ears pricked up. "Girl, eh?" said the innkeeper. "What did she look like?"
"She's very pretty," said the weak-chinned man. "Comes up to about my shoulder, taller than Guildmistress Hamblin here by a good three inches I'd say, dark reddish hair, nicest hazel eyes. Prettiest girl I ever saw. Marrying her, in fact--"
"Be quiet, Willet," said the exasperated Guildmistress. "She may also have in her possession a distinctive fawn brown cloak, very richly woven."
The innkeeper scratched his chin in false uncertainty. "Mm, I'm not sure I've seen a girl like that, and this is a small town--"
"Eh, Trompkins," interrupted a tipsy man at the end of the bar. "What about that girl who came with the mage? Came with the mage! Ha! S'funny! She had red hair jus' like that, and tits like this--" he made his hands into big rounds in front of his chest-- "and come to think on it, she had a brown cloak on. Couldn' tell if it was nicely woven or not, wasn' really lookin' at the cloak--"
Tassie quickly crossed the room and took the tipsy man by the elbow. "Stop bothering the gentles, Alber. That girl's eyes were blue, not hazel, and I think the cloak was gray."
"No, t'was definitely brown, and her eyes were hazel like yours, Tassie, but not so brown as yours. Your eyes are nice too, even so. They were headin' west to Fairhill. I asked. He won't be back till next year, though, gentles, so you'll have to wait. S'worth it, though!" Alber cackled.
"You're drunk, old son," frowned the innkeeper. "Go off and sit with Tassie and her da now and stop bothering us. Beg pardon, gentles. Can I get you anything? I have a private parlor and two good rooms, and we can even get you up a fine dinner if you please. Roasted capon, mutton chops, a bit of fish? I have a fine local plum wine in the cellar, too."
"Yes to all of it," said Guildmistress Hamblin. "The two rooms, and dinner to be laid on in the parlor. Bring the wine now, it's been a long day. Oh, what is it, Willet?" she snapped.
"Shouldn't we be off to find Jennia, though? That had to have been her! If we stop here tonight we might lose her trail, mightn't we?"
"Not likely," the Guildmistress said, detaching his tugging hand from her sleeve, "and if a mage is involved then we need to send back to Nuttalston for a Mages Guild representative."
"But that will take forever!" Willet whined.
"This town is often used to change horses, yes?" said the Guildmistress. The reluctant innkeeper admitted it was so. "Then you'll have a post boy who can take a message for me. I'll pay you just as any carriage would." There was nothing the innkeeper could do but take the money.
Tassie swore to herself. She waited until the Guildmistress and her companion were ushered safely into the private parlor to smack Alber in the head. "You just made terrible trouble for Antony the mage, idiot!"
"Ow! I was on'y tryin' to help! Hey, where you goin'?"
Tassie hurried up to the innkeeper. "Trompkins, can you spare another post boy? We have to send word to Antony and that girl!"
"Aye," he nodded, "I'll light him along right now. Mister Onyx can't be more than three hours away--I'll send Ernie. I'll tell the other boy to take his time going off to Nuttalston, but they'll be back by morning. And they're on horseback. They'll catch Antony up even if he leaves Fairhill tonight."
"If they get caught together, it's marriage to that oaf in t'other room for her, and jail for him. Antony told me so. He loves that girl, Trompie. He never said, but I know him."
"Ain't you sweet on him yourself?" said Trompkins.
Tassie shrugged wistfully. "He's a fun one, Antony Onyx, and I'll miss seeing him his once a year. But I'm not for him and he's not for me. Time I married anyway and ended my wenching ways." At the innkeeper's hopeful expression, she laughed, "G
et that boy down the road to Antony, Trompie, and I'll consider it the start of your wooing--but I've told you, I won't be a barkeep's wife."
"If you marry me, I'll take up your father's farm, Tassie, and work myself to the bone for your sake!"
"Then get that Ernie down the road!"
Trompkins the innkeeper hurried out the door, calling for his post boys.
Chapter Five: A Sanctuary
Dolf had pulled the wagon into Fairhill late enough the day before that Antony hadn't pulled out the tent. Instead he'd found a comfortable spot in the stable's hayloft for his bedroll and left Jennia alone in the wagon with Dolf to watch over her. They had said very little on the journey--she'd had better conversations with Willet. But it didn't matter. They weren't so far from the border. Starret had to be along here somewhere; this was the main route to Nuttalston, and he had to be on his way home. Didn't he?
She'd been asleep a few hours when a frantic knocking on the back door right beside her head woke her. She looked out the window; a boy about twelve years old stood on the little porch. She opened the window. "What is it? What's wrong?"
The boy tugged his forelock. "Tassie's compliments, miss, I been sent from Rabny Ford. There's gentles as is lookin' for you."
"Gentles?" she said, waking up fully. "What kind of gentles?"
"Tassie says to tell you," and here the boy screwed up his face, eyes straining upward so that he might remember the message clearly, "she says the Guilds are comin' for you and himself, and you better hotfoot it out of Fairhill this instant."
So the Guild had caught her trail. "Guilds? Did you see anyone? Which Guilds?"
"It's a lady from the Weavers Guild. I don't think the man with her's a Guildmaster, leastways he doesn't look like one."
"What does he look like?" At the boy's answer--no chin, small, blinking eyes, nasal voice--she knew instantly it was Willet. "Jon got sent to Nuttalston to the Mages Guild. Guess Mister Antony's in trouble, miss, though I don't know what the Weavers Guild wants with 'im."
The Mage's Toy (Aria Afton Presents) Page 4