“I think we have more pressing matters, Amber. The knight is about to die and we were seen in the square with him. Kingstown soldiers will come up here and find him dead. If we manage to talk our way out of that, then there are ten thousand of Volk's men on their way to rape and pillage.” Melissa put her hands on her wide hips again. “We need to go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“To Kingstown, to warn them?”
“They'd never believe two whores from The Warrens. And as soon as word reached them about the dead knight found in your bedchamber, they'd gladly hang us. We'll send a bird warning of the attack and then leave.”
“But leave and go where?” Amber persisted.
“We could make High Hunsley by nightfall.”
“On foot? That would take us until the morn.”
“Not on foot, Amber. We'll take a horse. I can ride, remember?”
Things were moving too fast for Amber. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and wait for all this to be over.
“And where will we get a horse from?” Amber asked.
“It's a shame the knight's horse was lame, we could've taken that. We'll have to take one from the stables. I'm sure we can persuade the stable boy to let us have one.”
Amber was beginning to see how Melissa's plan might work, when there was a knock on the door.
“Amber? Melissa?” It was the mistress. “There are Kingstown soldiers here to see you. They are saying you were seen with a knight in the square. They wish to talk to you.”
“Quick, on the bed,” Melissa urged Amber.
“On the bed? You want me to get on the bed with him?” The guard's face had turned as grey as a rain-laden cloud.
“Yes. Straddle him.”
“He's covered in blood.”
“And you'll be covered in blood if those soldiers come up here. Now do it, Amber.”
Melissa went to the door before Amber could argue further. Shaking her head, Amber went to the bed and climbed on top of the dying Jasper. He groaned as she sat upon him, but not in the same way as her other clients usually did.
The mistress was a women in her early fifties. Despite her age, she was an attractive women with cheekbones as sharp as a blade. As Melissa opened the door, Amber looked through the crack between the door and doorframe to where the mistress was standing.
“We're entertaining, Mistress,” Melissa said.
Amber leaned forward and buried her face into Jasper's neck, as if she were lavishing the skin there with kisses. She scattered her wild, blonde locks over the knight's face to conceal his identity. If Mistress had peered around the door to check the authenticity of Melissa's story, Amber was unaware, but seconds later Melissa closed the door.
Amber sat up, repulsed by the knight's blood, which had found its way onto the front of her dress.
“What did Mistress say?” Amber said.
“To finish up as soon as possible. The soldiers will not go away until they've spoken to us, she said.”
Amber had her hand on Jasper's chest. The colour must have left her face, she realised, for Melissa asked her what the matter was.
“He's stopped breathing?” Amber said.
“Are you sure?” Melissa said, stepping towards the bed.
“Feel for yourself.”
Amber climbed off the bed as Melissa picked up Jasper's limp wrist and checked for a pulse.
“You're right,” Melissa said. “He's dead. We better leave.”
They left the bedchamber and made for the back of the house. There, Melissa climbed out of a window and jumped onto the snow below.
“It's not much of a drop,” Melissa said, looking up at Amber. “The garden is raised here, anyway. I've jumped out of this window on many occasion, without snow to cushion my fall.”
“When?” Amber said, accusingly.
“I have secrets too, Amber. Mine concerns a lord who can't be seen in a whore house but still has his needs.”
“Lord Barley?” Amber said, astounded. “You serviced Lord Barley. But he's seventy-seven, if not a day.”
Melissa smiled cheekily. “Come on, Amber. Jump.”
“I'm surprised you didn't stop his heart.” Her words were in bad taste, she knew, as she remembered the dead knight lying on her bed.
Amber put her legs over the window sill and jumped. She landed inelegantly in the snow. Melissa pulled her to her feet.
They sneaked across town, hiding like criminals whenever they saw someone. Manfred Oxbridge was the town's bird fancier. He looked at them with suspicion when Melissa spun him a story about how she'd fallen for a Kingstown soldier and needed to send him a letter declaring her love. “I doubt you can even write,” the fancier scoffed. Melissa could write, Amber knew. She was born to a steward who had tended for a lord. Writing letters had been one of her father's principle duties; he'd taught his daughter how to write in the hope that she would follow him into a similar profession. As a whore, Melissa found little need for writing letters, but Amber knew her friend hated the presumption that she was illiterate. “I know it's hard for you to believe,” Melissa said to the fancier, “but I can write just as well as I can fuck. And I'm very good at the latter, as you well know. I'm sure your wife would be interested in knowing of our acquaintance, Manfred. Now, give me a quill and a piece of paper.”
Melissa wrote the note and then parted with half a silver crown for the pleasure.
“Manfred will read the note,” Melissa said as they made their way to the stables. “He's a nosy bastard. He's also best friends with the The Warren's town crier. Within half an hour most of the town will know of the coming attack. People will have chance to escape, Amber. But we'll be gone first.”
There were two horses left in the royal stables. As Amber couldn't ride, it was decided they would take only one horse. The stable boy didn't take much persuading; Amber kissed Melissa while the boy watched, then they both kissed him and stroked his manhood just three times each before it was all over. He saddled up the horse with a red face and then told them to have it back by dusk, otherwise he would likely lose the cock they'd just stroked. Before they left, Melissa told him to go to the town square and listen to the town crier. Amber hoped he would heed her words.
The town disappeared behind them as they rode the path that would take them east of Drewton Hills and through The Caves to High Hunsley. Melissa held the reins and rode the horse like it was the most natural thing to do in all the world. Amber was sitting behind her in the saddle, with her hands around the older whore's waist. The snow was thick beneath the horse's hooves. Amber knew little about horses, but she'd heard soldiers talk about how their mounts had succumbed to broken legs while running through snow. You can't see the holes beneath the snow, one soldier told her while she licked his earlobe. If the horse puts its foot in one of those holes, you'll end up on your back. And of course, when a horse breaks its leg, it’s good for nothing. The young man told her how he'd killed his mount with just a simple dagger. Took a full five minutes and the thing squealed like a pig.
As they approached the rocky sides of Drewton Hills, Melissa slowed the horse to a walk.
“We have to be careful,” Melissa said. “So many rocks and holes up here, the horse could break—”
“It's leg. I know.”
“Since when did you become so smart?
“Since I slept with a hundred different men, each with a different story to tell.”
“A hundred? You're being modest, Amber.”
Amber knew Melissa would be smirking.
“I stopped counting at a hundred,” Amber said.
“On your second day, then,” Melissa teased.
Amber listened to the wind howl like a wolf as it weaved through bare trees and jagged rocks. She glanced over her shoulder at the path they'd taken up the hillside. The Warrens was just a blur on the horizon, almost lost in the winter haze. She felt a sudden pang for her old life.
“Did you ever have a fa
vourite?” Amber said.
“Favourite what? Favourite meal? Favourite tipple?”
She slapped Melissa on the back. “You know what I mean. A favourite customer.”
“Once. When I was eighteen. He was much older and knew just what to say to get me to give my services to him for free.”
“What happened?”
“I thought I loved him, but I soon found out that half the whores in The Warrens loved him too. Next time he came to see me I put his cock in my mouth and bit him so hard he screamed like a babe in arms.”
Amber laughed. “Poor man.”
“Poor? He was getting it free right across town. Anyway, it was a while before he could use it again, or so I heard.”
Amber smiled.
“I take it you had a favourite?” Melissa said.
“I still do. He comes to see me often.”
“Tell me you don't do it for free, Amber.”
“He insists on paying.”
He was the only man who had ever made her wet. She remembered how once she had climaxed with his manhood inside her; something prior to that day she had only ever achieved with her own fingers. She had hidden it from him, though, enjoying the waves of pleasure privately behind her closed eyes.
“Falling in love is a fool's game, Amber. It will only ever lead to disappointment.”
“He's different, though. He has a good heart, I know it.”
“If he had a good heart he wouldn't be fucking a whore. He'd have a sweet girl he fell in love with at fifteen and married at sixteen.”
“Not everyone is that lucky, Melissa.”
“Is he a soldier? Maybe he has a girl back in Kingstown. His idea of romance is probably thinking of her face while he's inside you.”
“Has life really treated you so badly, Melissa? And, yes, he is a soldier. He's called Marcus Delorous.” Amber felt a touch of guilt when she thought of the information she had gleaned from Marcus and then passed onto Graff. But I had to, she told herself. I didn't have a choice. “I doubt I'll see him again now. Maybe he'll die in the attack on Kingstown.”
“There'll be plenty more men the same as him, Amber. Probably loads waiting for you in High Hunsley. I'm sure you'll be as popular there as you were in The Warrens.”
Amber thought about starting again; new job; new customers; new friends. The thought saddened her. She was startled from these thoughts by Melissa pulling up the horse.
“Look,” Melissa said, pointing. “In that tree.”
Amber narrowed her eyes in order to focus. Sitting on a branch in a leafless tree was a girl no bigger than Amber's outstretched hand.
“Is it a fairy?” Amber said. She thought of the game of kneebones she'd played with Jasper Courcelle in the inn below the brothel and shuddered.
“I think it is,” Melissa said in a hushed voice. “Let's go take a look.”
“It will fly away.”
The last time Amber had seen a fairy was when she was a girl of eight. Her father had taken her into the woods and they'd seen one, albeit briefly. She remembered how elegant the fairy had looked as she flew away on soft wings, like a butterfly with the body of a young woman.
“She might not fly away,” Melissa said, trotting the horse. “Sometimes they're tame.”
The fairy was singing. Amber thought it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.
As they approached, the fairy spotted them and became quiet. The lace-like wings on her back ceased their gentle flapping too. Amber thought the fairy would take flight, but she didn't.
Melissa dismounted. “Come on,” she said.
Amber followed, creeping towards the tree. The fairy was just a few feet away, sitting on a branch, as naked as a newly born babe. Her long, slender legs were crossed, concealing her modesty. Her golden hair fell over her shoulders and over the mound of her small breasts, reaching down to her navel like searching fingers. Gold speckles sparkled in that hair when they caught the winter sunshine. Her face was sleek and beautiful, like a doll.
“Hello,” Amber said. Some fairies could talk the language of man, she knew.
“Are you two whores?” the fairy said in a high-pitched voice.
“Is it that obvious?” Melissa said looking beneath her own furs at her heaving breasts.
“Perhaps it's the smell of men’s come that gives it away,” the fairy said.
Amber was taken aback by the remark. She suddenly felt thankful that she hadn't spoken to a fairy as a child. Her father would have likely stepped on it for speaking so crudely.
“Do all fairies talk with such a crude tongue?” Amber asked.
The fairy shrugged her naked shoulders. “Perhaps it was man, and whores like you two, who taught us to be so crude. Men are the worst, though. Some use their little fingers on us, did you know that? They keep us in little cages as sex slaves.” Amber wondered if the kneebones she'd played with had once belonged to such a slaved fairy. Could Jasper have enslaved these beautiful creatures for sexual purposes?
“That's horrible,” Amber said.
“Ack,” the fairy scoffed, flapping a hand. “They haven't caught me yet.”
“Do you have a name?” Melissa said.
“Finlay. What's yours?”
Amber and Melissa introduced themselves. Amber offered her finger to Finlay in a handshake gesture. “Don't you be sticking that inside me,” Finlay said before bursting into raucous, high-pitched, laughter. Abashed, Amber withdrew her hand. “Where are you going, anyway?” Finlay said, once she'd composed herself again. “It's a bit cold up this hillside for two townly whores.”
Amber thought about pointing out that Finlay was the naked one on this cold winter's day, but she considered it might be an opening for further crude remarks.
“We're going to High Hunsley,” Melissa said.
“You might not want to go there,” Finlay said, looking left and then right as if she were about to tell a great secret and was checking that no one else was listening. “I saw Volk-folk there on the evening past. They had a prisoner, too. A young woman. Took her from Kingstown, they did. Then some soldiers and a wizard came looking for her, but I haven't seen them since.”
“What young woman?”
“I don't know. Mayhap she was the princess or something. Or mayhap that wizard bearer woman, the one who gives birth to wizards.”
“Wizard,” Amber said. “She'll give birth to one wizard and another wizard bearer.”
Finlay began inspecting the nails on the end of her long fingers, seemingly uninterested. “Whatever.”
“What did her captors look like?”
“Strange looking men. One had dirty, shoulder-length dark hair, a hook hose, a missing tooth. Right ugly, he was.”
Amber felt a chill run through her. “It's him,” she said to Melissa. “Graff.”
“Are you sure?”
“There can't be many men working for Volk who look like him. Melissa, what if the information I passed on helped them to kidnap this young woman, whoever she may be.”
“There's not much we can do about that now.”
“Maybe I don't want to go to High Hunsley if Graff is there.” She felt sick at the prospect of seeing him again.
“Well, we can't go back, so we have little choice.”
“One other thing,” Finlay said. “There's a Kingstown army of around a thousand men headed for the gates of High Hunsley. They're a little mad, too. Seems they think King Merek of High Hunsley has something to do with the taking of the young woman.”
“They must turn around,” Amber said. “Kingstown will be attacked this very night.”
“A thousand soldiers is nothing to a city like Kingstown,” Melissa said. “They'll have plenty more to protect the city.”
“Not what I've heard,” Finlay said. “Somebody told me that Kingstown is light on soldiers.” She put a hand to the side of her mouth and whispered: “The king's fault.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Fairies know eve
rything. We're always listening, always watching.”
“Then we must get to High Hunsley and make them turn around,” Amber said. She already felt guilty about the information she had passed onto Graff and the impending attack on Kingstown it may have caused.
“One more thing,” Finlay said. She pointed at Amber: “You're pregnant, my love.”
“What?” Amber snorted as if Finlay had said something ridiculous.
“I can smell it on you. All women reek when they're pregnant, to my nose, anyway. I'd say you were about three months gone.”
Melissa lay a hand on Amber's shoulder. “We'll get it seen to. There are people who can rid you of it.”
Amber felt faint, like her legs could no longer carry her weight. “But it could be Marcus's. I let him finish inside of me.”
“Amber Tilly,” Melissa said, shaking her head. “Did I not ever teach you anything?”
“Or it could be Graff's. He finished in me too, but I didn't have a choice in that.”
“Of course, it could belong to neither. I've heard of women becoming pregnant despite their men pulling out.”
“I can't help you with the father, I'm afraid,” Finlay said.
“Let's just get to High Hunsley,” Amber said. “I can only sort out one mess at a time.”
They went back to the horse and set off on their way. Amber didn't remember much of the journey, her thoughts were with Marcus, Graff, Kingstown, and the babe that was growing inside her.
CHAPTER 22
The sleigh cut through the snow, the sound of which Cassandra found hypnotic. Beside her, Haze was a silent passenger. The colour had left his face. His leg was far from colourless, though; despite the string Graff had tied around his upper leg, blood continued to seep through his trousers. He isn't going to make it, she thought. And there goes my escape plan. She cursed herself for being so selfish. She had grown to like Haze. If he died, she would feel alone. She reached out with her chained hands to touch him. He was cold.
“Haze, are you all right?” she whispered.
“I cannot feel my leg,” he said. His teeth chattered.
Battle for Elt: The Taking of the Wizard Bearer Page 20