by Cerise Noble
I rolled him off me while he blinked stupidly, his now-limp dick obscene on his bloody body. I grinned, picked up the quiver, retrieved Lorenzo’s knife from the slower guard’s cooling neck, tucked the torn red dress around my body, and went to find the woman I'd left hiding. It was not an easy task. She had hidden well, and I told her so when I found her.
“Wait,” she said quietly but urgently. I paused as I tugged her out of the shadows. “You're hurt.”
I glanced down. “A lot of that's not mine.”
She shook her head. “You'll never get past the guards looking like that.”
She does have a point, Fortuna. “Hurry up.”
She tore strips off the bottom of the dress and bound my arms, tucking the knots so that it was hard to see that the blood wasn't just part of the sleeves. She also pulled the rent fabric together and tucked it, tying a belt around my waist and another around my hips to keep the dress closed.
Looking like so much detritus, I led the way to the edge of the camp closest to the forest. It was a long, tense many minutes while we looked around, finding the guards and the soldiers who were awake, and then waiting for them to be at their farthest points from us. Or at least, that's what I was waiting for. She was waiting for me, terror in the glassiness of her eyes and her rapid breaths.
It's not getting any better than right now, Fortuna.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the shadows and into the forest. For once, Fortuna smiled, and we were not noticed or pursued.
We didn't get very far before dawn, and I found myself starting to stumble with exhaustion.
“Come on.” I stepped into one of the small streams that crisscrossed the forest, little rivulets of water. She balked. “Come on. Whatever your name is.”
“Sandra.”
“Sandra. Come here.”
“I don't—why?”
I rolled my eyes. “So they can't find our tracks as easily. I'm sure they've discovered the dead men already.”
“Dead men?”
“Soldier, remember? Come on.”
“No, I—I don't think I want to.”
“Sandra. Come here. Now.”
“I—I think I'll go. I should go.”
“Dammit, woman, I'm too tired to switch you, but I will do it if you don't follow me.”
Her face got red with humiliation. “You're just like him! Why did I ever trust you?”
I scrubbed my face. “Fortuna help me, this is your last warning.”
“No, I—”
She bolted. I groaned. My arms were aching, burning with the sweat that kept the cloth uncomfortably damp and rubbed salt in my wounds. My feet were hurting. I'd worn nothing but the stupid slippers Sandra had in her tent, not my boots, for hours as we ran through the woods. Once again I cursed Lorenzo for taking my daggers, armor, and boots. I considered letting her get herself lost and leaving her to Fortuna, but I remembered my promise, and sighed.
Fortuna, can't you just trip her up? Not break her leg or anything, but send her in a circle so she trips on her own feet and falls into the stream? No? Well, I guess I have to go catch her.
I ran. This time it felt good to stretch my legs. I'd been holding back all night, keeping to a pace she could maintain, my slowness making me clumsy as I tried to help her through all the underbrush. It wasn't hard to locate her. She ran like a cow, not like a deer. I gathered my strength into my core, my lips stretching into a satisfied smile as I listened to the forest come alive in my silence. Leaping lightly over fallen logs and weaving around thorns, I came up diagonally behind Sandra. She had a determined, fearful look on her face, but I didn't care.
I tackled her. She went down like a felled cow would, bleating and moaning in terror. I grabbed her hair, turning her head so that she had a good look at my face. Something in it must have frightened her more than the unknown, because she stopped slapping at me and shrunk down inside herself.
“You. If you want to be safe, if you want to be taken care of, you need to do as I say. Now. Come. On.”
I lifted her to her feet and marched her to the part of the stream closest to where we'd tumbled in a heap, and pulled her into the water. We walked like that for at least half an hour, with her sullenly trudging while I prodded her along. When there was a spot sufficiently covered with moss and other cushiony green things, I pulled her out of the water and up a gnarly tree. It is difficult attempting to pull someone into a tree when she is stubbornly refusing to climb. It's a good thing I'm strong, Fortuna.
Once she was high enough for the leaves to shield us from casual observers, and the quiver was stowed, I pulled out the knife I'd taken from Lorenzo. Her eyes got big as I cut one of the straighter branches, a thin one, no larger around than my thumb, and stripped it of bark, smoothing it as much as I could. It was still twisty, but it wasn't sharp.
She started to edge towards a lower branch, and I gave her a glare.
“You do it, and I'll just catch you, then I'll cut a second switch. But don't think I'm not going to wear this one out on your ass first.”
“Please.” Tears shimmered in her eyes.
“You know how this world works. The strong make the rules. I told you I would take you somewhere you would be protected. You came with me. When I tell you to walk through water so they can't find us as quickly, I'm doing it for your own good. Now turn over and present your ass like a good girl, or I'll start counting. Whatever number I get to is how many spanks you're getting first, before I even start the switching. You understand, Sandra?”
She nodded, miserable. Then, carefully, she turned over and stretched out, laying her hips against the wide branch I was straddling, tucking her feet against a smaller branch to one side and holding on to a smaller branch on the other side with both arms. She laid her cheek against the peeling bark, and I reached over, brushing blonde hair out of her face.
“Good girl.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and I pulled up her red skirt. Her buttocks were mottled red and blue and black, bruises from Lorenzo's spanking the evening before. I breathed in deeply, wanting very much not to damage her, but needing to prove my point. I smoothed a hand over her ass, and she flinched.
“I'm going to give you two dozen stripes. If the switch breaks before then, you're done.”
Her eyes flew open. “Breaks? Literally breaks? Oh, god, Jesu, please, please—”
“Shh.” I stroked her face. “Shush. It's all right. I'm not going to switch you that hard. It won't take hard to get through to you, not with all these marks on you.” I made my voice stern. “If you weren't so sore already, I wouldn't be so lenient. I would whip you until the switch broke, no matter how long it took. But since you're sore, it'll still hurt, but it won't be as hard.”
“Please—”
“Shush.” I cut another branch and peeled it while she began to cry. “Stop your crying. This isn't a switch.” I had cut a short gag, twice the width of her mouth, and I pressed it between her lips. “Bite down and be quiet.”
She nodded, sniffing. I laid my left hand on her tailbone, holding her carefully in place, and lifted the switch. I snapped it down across the fullest part of her buttocks, and in barely a second, a crimson line had bloomed. She keened, the stick only blocking part of the sound.
Fortuna, apparently we need to get this over with quickly.
I snapped it down on her bottom, with eleven more stripes landing higher and lower than the first. She was kicking and crying, snot-nosed, and pleading through the stick. I stroked her cool-hot skin, goose-bumpy and welted. My arms hurt, throbbing where I'd been cut.
“Be good for a little longer.”
I pressed my hand against her tailbone again, and laid down six stripes diagonally to the right, and six diagonal to the left. She sobbed, and I stuck the switch in the quiver.
“Come on now, good girl. You're done.” I gathered her up, and she fumbled away from me, but I didn't let her. “Come here. I don't want you to fall.” I stroked her back. “Good girl
, Sandra. It's all over now.”
Eventually her tears slowed down. Not long after that, her weight settled against me, and she fell asleep. I shifted back so I was more stabilized in the tree, commended my spirit to the vagaries of the universe, and fell asleep, also.
Fortuna decided to play nice again. We woke unharmed, and reached the borders of Brackish Bay by the evening. I was already suspicious of when the wheel would turn, given the number of times I'd felt my vision go hazy or my steps falter. It turned almost immediately.
“Identify yourselves!”
I halted, a hand on Sandra's arm to keep her still. “My name is Marri, and this is Sandra. We seek sanctuary in your city.”
We were standing outside the gate of the outpost closest to Rari's homestead, having skirted her land in order to come to a safer place.
“Marri?” The guard peered closely at me. “You are the one he's looking for!”
I considered whether to run or not, but I had Sandra to look after. He had a sword out, warily keeping space between himself and me. The other guard closed in on Sandra, and she whimpered.
“Take care with her. She needs protection. Do what you will with me, but she's not of my patrol, she's not a soldier.” The guard put cuffs on her, and she began to weep, cursing my name. I raised my voice. “She's not a soldier! She needs protection, she needs sanctuary!”
“We'll take her to Stephanie. She'll decide.”
“Gods be damned, take my word for it! She's not a slave!”
Sandra broke down, her knees buckling under her. “I am, I am—”
Her moaning was too much for me. “Shut up, you stupid woman! Listen to me, not her. She is not to be harmed. She is not to be beaten. Any punishments she earns are to be meted out to me. Do you understand?”
The guards frowned at me.
“We'll take care of her,” one said. “She won't be harmed.”
I nodded, relieved, then held out my wrists. “Take me where you will, then.”
The guard turned me around and locked cuffs on my wrists. I breathed steadily, reciting the words of my poem in an effort to keep calm. They led us through the gate. I passed more soldiers than I remembered seeing before, and was gratified to know that Roy and Gerard were not as clueless as I had at first suspected.
We were taken to separate cells in a large building in the center of the town, our ankles cuffed together and our wrist cuffs fastened to them so that we were forced to kneel. I shifted my shoulders. The left one had been aching far more than I thought it should, but I hadn't had time to examine it. I continued to recite my poem silently. Before long, even though it was dark outside, a woman came to take a look at us.
She touched my arm. “Are you injured?”
I couldn't put my finger on why she was familiar to me, with her short, dark, curling hair and her full lips. “Yes.”
She frowned and began to examine me. “Devon! She needs a physician!”
A man I hadn't noticed before in my hazy exhaustion came closer. “What's wrong?”
“She's cut. I can't tell if these are infected.”
He came into the cell and began to remove the red fabric tied tightly around my arms. The fiber stuck to my wounds, and I cried out. There was a black rim around my vision, and then he was calling for a full-length tub, whatever that was, and soap and alcohol. People bustled in.
There was a man's voice, stern and officious. “You have to keep her bound. Roy's orders.”
Another man's voice joined the first. “She'll be bound, but she's not going very far. I'm surprised she got all the way here. These injuries are at least a day old. We'll need to open them up again to clean them. I don't think they were properly cleaned, if at all.”
I was lifted and laid into water so hot I flinched.
“Shh, shh, I'm here, hold my hand.” The dark haired woman clasped my hand, and I obeyed, too tired and sore to do anything else.
The man slid a blunt tipped knife between my skin and the fabric, then sliced through it with a few sharp tugs. I moaned, a sharp tearing pain ripping across my forearm. Someone poured cold liquid over it, and I flinched as it turned into a blazing fire.
“Oh, Fortuna!” I jerked up, but firm hands pressed me down.
I heard her voice again. “I'm right here. Hold on to me, Marri.”
How does she know my name? Oh, yes. I told them when I surrendered at the gate.
There was another set of tugs, and then the tearing pain. I cried out. The cold turned to fire again, and then again, farther up on my arm, close to my shoulder. Always there was her voice, soothing and calming.
“You're doing very well, Marri. Hold on to me. Good girl.”
I clutched her hand. She ran her thumb over my knuckles. The men made concerned sounds, and there was a scrubbing pain on the underside of my upper arm. I began to cry.
“Hold on. Good girl. You're a good girl. Just be still.”
“Jacqueline, I need you on the other side now.”
She started to let go, and I clutched at her. My left hand wouldn't move from where it was, and I realized it must be caught fast.
“It's alright, Marri. I'm just going to the other side.”
There was a sound of disapproval, and then my left hand could reach my right. She transferred her fingers from my right hand to my left and walked around above my head before settling beside my left side. My wrist was fastened again, and my right, also. I continued to cry.
“Shh, shh. We need to clean your wounds.”
They continued the work they'd done on the right side, cutting off my makeshift bandages and dousing them with cold fire. I thrashed, but couldn't go anywhere; my ankles were bound, also. I tightened my grip on Jacqueline's hand until she sucked in breath, but I didn't care.
Chapter 7
I woke up alone. I was lying on a soft mat in the same cell where I'd lost consciousness. I tried to move and realized I was bound, but not tightly. My wrist and ankles were cuffed, but only one of the ankle cuffs was fastened to a ring in the back corner. I tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced me to lie flat. I gave up and closed my eyes again, determined to recover as quickly as I could. Who knew how long Sandra would behave herself before my foolish attempt to protect her backfired, and I found myself thrashed for some misdeed of hers? There was a soft tunic covering most of my body, loose enough to not constrict my wounds.
I stretched slowly, carefully, trying my best not to completely disrupt my bandages or the freshly scrubbed and newly healing cuts on my arms. I should thank them, Fortuna. They probably saved my life. It was not unheard of for soldiers to die from small wounds when marching through the swamp. I came all the way awake with a start, and sat up, despite the throbbing in my head.
“Governor Roy. I must speak with him.”
“Why?”
It took me a minute to focus on the woman outside the cell. I frowned as I tried to remember her name. “Jacqueline?” She nodded. “I have news, information for him.”
She held up the quiver I had stolen. “This?”
“Yes.” My heart sped up, and I wondered what they thought of it, bloody, muddy, and smeared. “Please. It's important for the whole city, for all the outposts.”
A man spoke up from just outside my cell. “Why?”
I swung my head towards him, and had to close my eyes for a moment to regain my sight. “It's the plans. Their plans.” I frowned, swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
The woman answered. “That's Roy. Our master.”
I examined him for a full minute. He wore a chain around his neck with a medallion on it, carved or cast with the sigil of the House of Brackish Bay on it. He also had a ring filled with tiny numbered keys on his belt. His hair was short, and a large scar ran across his jaw and throat. He looked the way William had described him. I took a deep breath.
“There's an army two days from here.”
“I know.” His voice was deep, dark, and resonant.
“Those are their plans.”<
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“I read them. How do I know you're not one of their spies, sent to give me misinformation?”
“William the Poet will vouch for me.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the woman. “William? Where is he?”
“What do you mean, where is he? He sailed to your island days ago. Or at least one of the outposts. I jumped ship before it landed, but he should have been here long before now.”
“I have not seen him. I would have. He—my daughter is his apprentice.”
Oh, Fortuna. That's why she's familiar. “Katherine.”
“You know her?” There was no disguising the hope and fear in her voice.
I frowned. How was it possible that they had not made it to a port in Brackish Bay, when I knew for a fact that the ship they were on had made it and had traded with the merchants in the outposts?
“I know her well. We traveled for months together, to Zalactown and Cinitar and Ken's Corner and—”
Both of them stood bolt upright.
“Ken's Corner?” Her voice was a cry of dismay, his of accusation. He continued.
“How the hell did William let her go to Ken's Corner?”
I squirmed, feeling again the shame at nearly getting her raped by continuing my mission to find Simon's bones without William's permission, even after I'd discovered she had snuck out after me. “I, uh. I might have gone without permission.”
“Why would you do that? Didn't William tell you how dangerous it was?”
“Yes, he did. But I—” My mission seemed very foolish now. “I wanted to find Simon's bones. So that you could bring him home. If you wanted to.”
Roy's voice softened. “I would like to do that.” It hardened again. “But a dead man's bones are not worth your skin, and especially not worth Katherine's. Was she harmed?”
“No. Maybe.”
Jacqueline threw the cell door open and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Maybe? Maybe? What happened, tell me everything!”
I winced. “My lady, um, everything?”
She looked to Roy, a plea in her eyes. “Master! Please make her tell me.”