by Megan Derr
The way Culebra brightened at the word 'bath' made her laugh briefly. "I hope your meeting goes well, but I won't lie and say I hope it goes quickly. I would not mind avoiding a horse for a little while and a real bed again ... "
"Spoiled brat," Cortez said, chuckling. She started to say more, but someone knocked on the door. "Lay on the bed, highness, and draw your cloak up." Culebra obeyed, and Cortez opened the door to let servants bustle in with a tub and bucket after bucket of hot water. They dumped most of water into the tub, but left buckets two beside it. Another servant set a tray of food on the table at the foot of the bed.
Cortez gave them each a coin, waited until they had gone, and then locked the door behind them again. "All right, highness. Your bath is ready. Would you like some help with your clothes?"
"You don't have to wait on me," Culebra said. "I'm sure you must be sick of it by now."
"It's fine, highness," Cortez replied, surprised she meant it. She walked across the room to him and began to help him strip off the layers of clothes, piling them up neatly and deciding she would take them to have them cleaned when she left to go find the local temple. In the meantime, she had some spare clothes to set out for him.
He really was beautiful, and if he had been a whore, Cortez would have paid him generously. Eyes, if he'd just been an ordinary travelling companion ...
Except, she realized none of that was true. He was beautiful, and no doubt at least a few people had enjoyed exploring every last bit of that body, but she looked at him and felt ... nothing. Or something that was not lust, anyway. She was not certain what it was and did not care to figure it out.
She gently took his arm and guided him to the bath, listening to the way he carefully counted steps. Eyeing the distance between the bed and the bath, then the bath and the door, she said, "It's about ten paces to the door from where you are now, highness, probably fifteen or so from the door to the bed, and the table is at the end of the bed. I am going to lock the door behind me then slide the key back under the door."
Culebra nodded. "All right."
Going to the bed, Cortez gathered up his dirty clothes. He followed her to the door, stopping a few paces back. Cortez hesitated, suddenly reluctant to let him out of her sight—but he was going to be locked inside, and taking him with her was out of the question. He would be fine. She shouldn't have been worrying anyway because her only real concern was Fidel.
"Do not answer the door for anyone else, Culebra. Not even servants. I will knock three times, then wait and knock three more times. If I do anything else, anything else at all, do not open the door. Do you understand?"
"Yes, quite," Culebra said. "Granito and Dario have used similar tricks before."
Cortez shook her head, not certain what to think of someone who was so used to such a life. It sounded exhausting and lonely. "Obviously you are better at this than me, highness. Enjoy your bath. I'll bring back clean clothes for you. In the meantime, I've left a spare shirt and breeches on the bed."
"Thank you," Culebra said quietly.
"Be careful, highness," Cortez said and left.
She dropped the clothes with orders to have them waiting for her to pick up later and then wandered off into the city. Roldan was not a city she visited often. It was too small to have much in the way of work for her and out of the way of most other cities. It was really only useful as a stopping point to or from Belmonte.
Her memory of the temple where the Brotherhood was headquartered was hazy, but proved not as hazy as she feared, as she reached the end of a narrow street and found the rundown little temple tucked back exactly as she recalled. The fence fronting the courtyard was dilapidated at best, bent and broken from neglect. She pushed open the creaky gate and walked down the uneven stone path, ringing the bell at the front in greeting and not surprised when it did not work because the clapper was done. Drawing a dagger, she rapped it against the side of the bell and slipped inside.
Dust, incense, and wine permeated the place. Cortez was amused to see the priest sitting at the altar, using it as a table while he read—and whatever he was reading, it was not a religious text. "Good day to you, Father."
He looked up at her, and Cortez's levity died. She had expected some harmless, lazy priest who used the temple as a cheap and easy way to live. It was hardly the worst reason she had seen someone become a priest.
But the eyes that watched her were hard, sharp. "Well, well, the Black Princesa. Strange rumors have been slithering around about you."
If the rest of the Brotherhood functioned half as well as the rumor mill, likely it would rule the country, possibly the world. "I'm sure they've been exaggerated. I only came to see if Father Yago had left any messages for me." She emphasized his name because, while many of her brothers—former brothers—might have hated her, they would not dare cross Yago.
Standing up, the priest closed the book and moved around the altar, finishing the bottle of wine in his hand before throwing it carelessly aside. Leaning against the altar, he crossed his arms over his chest. "Yago has left no messages for you. Is it true you have the Basilisk Prince?"
Cortez wanted very badly to know who had spread word that she had Culebra and how they knew. Even Yago did not know what she was about—unless, of course, he had picked up some information and put the pieces together. But if that were true, he would have sent her a message or sought her out. So it had to have been someone else.
Well, if Yago had figured it out, then it was likely someone close to him had as well and not been capable of keeping his stupid mouth shut. Cortez stifled a sigh. She looked over the scruffy, ill-kempt man in front of her. Killing him did not feel right, but her skin still prickled, her instincts screaming that there was somebody whose death did fit.
Unfolding his arms, the man reached into the pocket of his threadbare, stained, and torn robes and extracted a small bell. He rang it and a few minutes later another three men appeared from the back.
Two of them she recognized, and not in a good way: she had gotten into fights with them before and won every time.
Cortez drew her sword. "I did not come here to cause trouble. I only wanted to know if Father Yago had left me any messages."
"Give us the Basilisk Prince," the head priest ordered, pushing away from the table and drawing daggers from his robes.
"How do you hide so much in those robes?" Cortez asked. It was obvious they were headed for violence; there was nothing for it, but to gain the upper hand. She would not kill the head priest, but his men would not be so lucky. "I suppose there is plenty of room with such a small dick."
The man just laughed. "Where is his highness? Tell us and maybe we'll let you live."
"Why is this necessary?" Cortez asked and tensed as the other three came at her with swords
"You killed Goyo and still Yago fawns over you. A whore like you should have stayed on her back."
Cortez almost rolled her eyes. Instead, she threw the dagger she still held in her left hand, catching one of the men in the stomach, where he had not bothered to wear leather. That threw off the other two enough that she was able to run at them and take them by surprise. She drove her sword into the gut of one and then went after the last one.
He proved to be a bit more of a fight, especially in the tight confines of the narrow, crumbling, sad excuse for a temple. She blocked his sword, reeled back as he shoved forward, and barely got her sword up again in time for a second block.
Back and back he drove her, big enough that his strength simply outstripped hers, but she'd dealt with bigger. When her back hit the wall and he paused a moment to revel in his looming victory, she dropped her sword, braced herself against the wall, and slammed her foot into his groin as hard as she possibly could.
When that had its usual, predictable effect, she kicked him to the ground, drew her second dagger, yanked his head up, and slit his throat. Dropping his head, she retrieved her sword and stalked across the temple to the man still standing there, waiting. He came at
her when she was halfway to him, twin long daggers catching the light.
Killing him did not feel right, but that did not mean he couldn't be hurt. He was not as skilled as the men she had just killed and disarming him proved to be almost pathetically easy.
When he had no means of fighting back, Cortez subdued him by way of smashing the hilt of her dagger into his nose. Then she grabbed a fistful of his greasy hair and dragged him across the temple and up the short stairs to the dais where the altar stood.
Bending him over it so the blood pouring from his nose covered the altar, Cortez said, "Blood of the living to honor the dead. We live because you died. Life and death cannot exist without each other. In the name of the Basilisk, amen."
He tried to sneer at her recitation of the old prayer, one not used by Brothers because they refused to honor the Basilisk so, but it was still very common to the tepid Church sanctioned by the crown.
Cortez let go of his hair, grabbed his wrist, and laid it on the altar. Drawing her dagger again, she pressed the edge of it against his wrist until it began to bleed, until his skin leeched of color. "When you decide to kill someone, make certain you are capable of doing it. If you are ever stupid enough to challenge me again, corpse-eater, it is not your hand I will remove."
She left him there, bent over the altar, dripping blood and shaking with fear. Outside, she made her way quickly back to the inn, worried that they had known all along where to find Culebra.
When she finally reached it, however, all seemed well. The courtyard was quiet, and she could smell dinner being served in the main hall. Moving stiffly, she went to see if Culebra's clothes were clean.
The servant recognized her from earlier and handed the cleaned clothes over. Cortez gave her a coin and hastened back to the room. She knocked three times, waited, and then knocked three more.
"Just a moment," Culebra called through the door, the words just barely audible. Cortez waited impatiently as she heard him fumble with the key, barely resisting the urge to shove the door open when the tumblers finally gave. Stepping inside, she shut the door and, taking the key from him, quickly locked it again. "I have your clothes. Did you eat?"
Culebra replied, "Yes, I ate. How did your ... inquiry go?"
"Poorly," Cortez said. "I know you were looking forward to a real bed, highness, but we must go."
"Help me dress," Culebra said in reply, and he dropped his clothes to the floor to begin pulling off the ones he wore. She bundled them up and shoved them into her bag. Retrieving the newly laundered clothes, she quickly helped him into them and then got his boots on and laced up.
One plate of food had been left untouched, and while she wanted simply to leave, she knew eating would do more good in the long run. Picking up the plate, she wolfed it down as quickly as she dared, interspersing bites with swallows of raw red wine.
When she finished, Culebra was standing patiently by the door, already cloaked and gloved. Cortez looked around the room for anything forgotten, then grabbed her bag and took his arm, leading the way to the courtyard and then through the walkway at the very back which led to the yard and stables behind the inn.
The boy she'd paid earlier saw her and immediately bolted into the stable. By the time they reached it, he had brought her horse out, saddled and ready. Cortez situated her bag, checked the supplies in the saddlebags and, pleased with everything, gave the boy another coin.
She helped Culebra into the saddle and then swung up behind him. Dusk was falling when they rode away, making it easier to ride through the city.
"So what happened?" Culebra asked when they were well away.
"The Brothers here were not happy to see me. Somehow word has gotten out that I have you. I feared as much, given our run-ins with the Order, but I had hoped it was simply confined to them."
Culebra sighed softly. "I see. That's unfortunate. Bad enough we have our destination looming over us, now we must watch our backs?"
"All will be well, highness. One way or another. I have not gone to this much trouble to let anyone die."
"This is the land of death," Culebra replied. "If people are meant to die, they will die."
Cortez did not bother to reply, simply urged the horse to a faster pace so they could get as far away from the city as possible before they were finally forced to stop.
Chapter Eleven: Shadows
"Get your hands off me, you corpse-eating refuse pile," Dario snarled and slammed his knee into the bastard's groin then brought his bound arms up to slam them into his head.
When the man dropped to the ground, Dario kicked his side for good measure. "Seriously, watch where you put your hands. I know tying people up is the only way a carrion feeder like you gets to put his dick in something, but don't confuse me with the farm animals you tie up in the barn."
Fidel, already tied to the wall on the far side of the room, burst into laughter. Dario shot him an annoyed look—and barely dodged away from the fist that came flying at his face.
He had nowhere to go, not really, not when he was in chains. Two more guards came in and, ignoring the bastard still curled up in a ball of agony on the floor, helped the second guard secure Dario to the wall, wrapping additional chains around his ankles.
The man he'd leveled slowly climbed to his feet, face still pale. "I will kill you."
"Go ahead and try," Dario snapped. "But I promise that if you kill me, your boss will be feeding you to the farm animals instead of giving you an hour off to fuck them."
Snarling, the bastard punched him. Dario grunted, but did not respond. At least it felt like his nose was only battered, not broken, though he was not going to enjoy the smell and feel of blood in addition to the fact he already smelled like a barnyard himself.
Oh, well. Maybe that was why the corpse-eater had grabbed his ass. Dario just beamed as the other guards dragged the man away.
"I thought you said we should lay low and behave until an opportunity arose," Fidel said dryly.
"Fine," Dario said. "When he grabs your ass, enjoy the ride."
Fidel made a face. "No, thank you. I may be a criminal, but I prefer my partners be washed and know how to fuck properly and well."
Dario grinned, but winced when that did nothing to make his poor nose feel better. "I really wish they would let us bathe."
"I am sure your new friend would be willing to negotiate bath privileges."
Dario gestured crudely with his free hand, making Fidel laugh more. As their laughter finally faded, less amusing thoughts settled back in. "So we are in Belmonte now," Dario said. "Even with that insufferable hood I could tell that."
Snorting, Fidel replied, "The fact we rode through an entire city in hoods and chains and nobody stopped to ask if all was as it should be proves we are in Belmonte."
"True enough."
"I wonder how much longer we will have to sit in the dark wondering what is coming next," Fidel said with a sigh. "Me, I am rather tired of it. I do not have your patience. Not in things like this."
Dario lifted a brow. "When do you have any patience?"
"On jobs. Dealing with Cortez. That's about it."
"What did you do for the Brotherhood? You do not seem to be a killer like Cortez."
Fidel shrugged. "I often was her back up in case things went wrong. Mostly, I was a thief and a messenger. Especially a messenger."
Dario eyed him, not quite believing it, even if he knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. He was nearly as short as Fidel and compact. Nothing like Granito, who had been tall and broad and nearly unstoppable. But Fidel was a messenger, the coy criminal term for those sent to intimidate. "No, I am sorry. How do you intimidate anyone when I know children bigger and louder and meaner than you?"
"How many children do you know who can wield daggers well enough to flay a man?"
The matter-of-fact tone was far more chilling than the words themselves. Fidel clearly was not bragging, only stating what was. "I certainly can't. I don't think the palace chefs are
that talented. Do you often flay for the Brotherhood?" Bits of information gleaned from years of keeping one ear always turned toward the cults suddenly tumbled into place. "Dagger," Dario said, annoyed it had taken him so long to figure it out. "You are the one they call the Dagger."
"Just so," Fidel said with a crooked smile. "I only flayed a part of a man's arm once, and that was after he did something so terrible that even the Brotherhood would not tolerate it. He tried to do it a second time, and that is when they sent in Cortez to end the matter once and for all."
Dario shook his head, amazed. "Incredible." Fidel just shrugged. "I am impressed they captured you, then. You must have been difficult to take down."
"As I said when we met, I killed two of them in the process. They nabbed me as I was travelling through the tunnel roads. I was only a day away from being back in Piedre. That will teach me to relax my guard, and I thought it was a lesson I had already learned so well." He sighed.
Dario winced. Culebra had always wanted to travel through the famous tunnels roads that cut straight through the mountains between Piedre and Verde, but he and Granito had always forbidden it. The tunnels were dangerous, and once entered, there was no way out except through the entrances at either end. They went on for miles, and it took even the hardest traveler two days to get through the longest of them. All told, it took a week, which was still better than the long way weaving through the mountains.
The sound of footsteps drew their attention, and a moment later the door flew open. A man walked in, someone Dario had not seen before, though he surmised the man was probably the owner. Whoever their captors were, they seemed to like helping themselves to houses instead of using inns and hotels like normal people.
But he had not seen any reason to call them normal, so he supposed that made sense. The man hovered in the doorway, clearly terrified of them. What had the bastards said to convince him they were the bad ones? It was not even worth asking about.
Instead, Dario just closed his eyes and rested against the wall, tunelessly humming a hymn while the man slowly shuffled in and set down plates or bowls or something. When Dario heard the door close again, he opened his eyes. A bowl of soup sat next to him, smelling of lamb and potatoes.