by Max Keith
“I have not.” The girl was pale, but she stood bravely enough. “And he’ll accept it?”
“If it’s a legitimate dispute? The law says he must. He’ll accept it, he’ll have his scribe write down where you may be found with his judgement, he’ll send you on your way, and then he’ll wipe his ass with your grievance.” She shrugged. “Like as not, anyway; you mustn’t expect too much, dear.” Dear was not an Alorin term, and it tasted foul in her mouth; it surely was a Lyria term, though. “You’ll be fine.” Easy for her to say, though, for she was on a horse. And Alorin knew the world well enough to understand what was going through the girl’s mind.
The Realm had many divisions, but one of them separated people who rode from people who walked. In a world where hiring a horse for just one day cost nearly a gold merganser, there was scant doubt on which side of the divide a villager like Annalene lived, had always lived. Would always live. And Alorin saw in the girl’s hateful eyes just what that meant.
The heralds were two young men, each in expensive green tunics now stained by a week on horseback among the trees. They looked like brothers; if not, their resemblance was probably magecraft. They came on, one taller and one shorter, and traded a knowing glance as they spotted Annalene in the road. “Well!” The taller one spurred up so that he could stare down at the girl, her lips pursed. The herald looked about Annalene’s age, barely out of her teens; his brother was probably a couple years younger. “You’re a likely-looking maiden. Come to sell yourself, woman?” The shorter one laughed as he came up. “We’ve already got a ginger following us, but there’s always room for one more.” Both looked down with rape in their eyes, so Alorin sighed and joined the party.
“No indeed.” Alorin spoke in a loud, clear voice before Annalene could answer. They hadn’t noticed her, sitting on Pixie in the shadows of the trees, but as she came out onto the road in the sunlight she saw their faces cloud over as they looked at her. They both would know from her silks and her beauty why she was there; they’d also know because only a woman of leisure would ride sidesaddle. But, because the two looked a bit stupid, Alorin went ahead and removed all doubt. “That’s me. I’m selling myself, if you’re buying.” She spared a moment’s disappointment: both the blonde young men plainly wanted her, especially the younger, but neither looked anything like the third thief. “Have we time for a quick fuck before your lord arrives?” And then she laughed, and so the lads did as well, while Annalene stood furious.
“I come bearing a grievance to your lord!” She did a fine job, Alorin noticed with approval, in keeping the quaver out of her voice. “I wish to be heard.”
“Oh, I hear you,” the elder replied, but Annalene he’d already swept from his mind. He smiled wolfishly at Alorin. “Your name, m’Lady?”
“I am Mistress Lyria,” she replied with smooth, smoky tones, her head high. “I sell pleasure, gentlemen.”
“No doubt about that.” The younger herald was eyeing her body as though he’d never seen a woman before. He licked his lips. His brother, though, cocked his head.
“Lord Whitemar will be along soon,” he warned, “and he expects discounts from whores.”
“Naturally.” Alorin twitched her long brown-dyed hair behind her ear. “His lordship may have me for free… the first time.” She winked, and the younger brother nearly shot his load right there. “Come find me this evening, boys. I’ll warm your tents for you.”
The cruel grin on the older brother’s face would have sent a lesser woman running; the younger one merely looked horny. He shifted in the saddle, burrowing deeply but quite openly into his trousers; there was no shame in a man adjusting himself before a whore. “We must be off,” the older one said loftily. “We’ll see more of you soon. Jalen?” He twisted around to jerk his head down the road. “Your horn.” He let his glance flicker unpleasantly over Annalene. “Wait there, woman. His lordship will dispose of you quickly, I expect.” He stared once more at Alorin before the two of them trotted away, the fading notes of a hunting horn hanging in the air behind them. Annalene glanced up at Alorin.
“’Dispose of’ me?” She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I already told you.” Alorin shrugged; no point in the girl getting her hopes up, especially if this was just a land dispute or something of that sort. “He’ll read it and send you away, then come find you later once he’s judged your case.”
“Oh.” She looked back down the road. “So… he won’t question me, here and now? I thought he would.”
Alorin laughed. “Gods, Annalene, his lordship’s hunting. Game by day, cunt by night; that’s what he’s after in these woods. You’ll be lucky if he decides your case within the month.” Still chuckling, she nudged Pixie slowly down the road, nodding at Annalene to follow. “Might as well go meet them,” she went on. “He knows we’re here, now.” Shuffling along on the sandy track, the girl followed uncertainly. She was trying hard to look as though she wasn’t worried.
When the Count’s retinue came into view, it was led by perhaps the most magnificent looking man Alorin had ever seen. It wasn’t that he was handsome, nor impressively mounted on a massive stallion, nor even that he was attired at an expense that could have fed five families for a week. No, he was just… well, virile. Even from a distance, he gave off an air of excited, self-assured manliness, of a promise of sexual excellence that shouted rather than whispered. His beard rolled golden down his chest like a spreading waterfall, his blue eyes twinkling with keen attention. Both women stopped short, each drained of their breath, before they recovered; plucking herself together, Annalene rushed toward him with her petition held high.
As for Alorin, she merely began thinking about how to kill him.
The killing was never the hard part, all things considered; usually, what was harder was the escape. And this Count Clerent was not a man who traveled lightly.
Pixie shifted, sensing the great stallion’s interest, while Alorin made her count. The lordly man at the head of the hunt, now gazing with frank humor down at the little figure of Annalene, was surrounded by a small army. Five men, all beautifully mounted and all richly clad, made up the hunting party; they trailed in the wake of the bearded man with their bows at hand, eyeing the two women with the greedy look of rich men no longer satisfied with the women they’ve been using.
A small staff, three men in the robes of mage, High Sheriff, and cleric, rode behind, partly obscured by the dust of the trail, and in the rear Alorin could make out perhaps a dozen or so camp followers: cooks, apprentices, whores, farriers, and grooms, all looking spry in the noontime sun and all chatting gaily enough. She sighed; she’d handled more difficult targets before. She assumed she could deal with this one.
Provided, of course, she cleared her debt.
She tore her eyes away from the way the bearded man swept to a halt before the bowed head of Annalene, and studied the long knot of curious, bored wealth before her. She was looking, naturally, for a man tall, finely knit, with that cragginess of face that bespoke years of hard living, yet with a certain air that said there’d been better blood in his family long past. Strong, solid legs, a broad chest, muscles beneath his leather armor that stood out like bumps on a King’s Road; his hair dark, his eyes a piercing green. And with, presumably, a sturdy cock as well, though it was the balls that mattered more to her. Surely, she thought, among the followers…
She found him almost immediately, though, among the better-horsed men with the bows. And when she did, the resemblance quite took her breath. Again.
The man she saw was on the far left, clothed and mounted almost exclusively in dull black, his horse fine but shaggy, the whole ensemble relieved by nothing but a silver charm on a fine chain about his neck. Alorin felt her heart beat just slightly faster, for she would be fucking this man at the earliest conceivable opportunity; this very night if she could, though to be fair she assumed the splendid man at the front of the parade would assert his prerogative and take her first.
&nb
sp; Still, it would hardly be the first time she’d taken two in one night.
Whenever it happened, though, Alorin knew that the man she was looking at held her debt in his loins. She felt her lips curl into a triumphant smile, and at the same moment she became aware that the man in black was staring at her from beneath his thick dark eyebrows.
No, not at her. At her hair, at the way the afternoon sun set her brown hair on fire. When in its natural silver, it had always been a good weapon for her, the shining Kaye hair, bedazzling and beguiling friends and foes alike. Hells, her friend Drinn of Fiveoaks worshipped her for her hair alone; he’d been trying to bed her for years. And now the blue-eyed man was staring at her with that same Drinnlike intensity; even when dyed, it still shimmered down her back.
She wavered, then, her eyes sliding involuntarily toward the head of the line, where a little farce was playing out. “O ho!” The bearded man, the leader of this crowd, the man with such an air of nobility, was laughing heartily in Annalene’s face. “The wench has a grievance!” He’d taken Annalene’s offered petition and waved it over his head now as he wheeled the mighty horse on its hind legs, facing his men. “A grievance of some importance, she says!”
“Allow me, my lord.” The man in the priest’s robes, his silver metal hat swinging from his saddle in the midday heat, urged his horse forward to accept the grievance. Alorin watched closely; a gold chain thumped and jingled against his chest as he moved, the chain bearing the linked lions of a Lord Seneschal. “I shall dispose of this matter.”
“Indeed, Tatlock.” The grand man’s voice was as rich as all the rest of him, his gloved hand dropping the grievance deliberately into the cleric’s hand. “You always do.” The bearded man nodded toward the other hunters, then flipped his stallion neatly back around; his hooves nearly caught Annalene’s pale face as they kicked to a landing. “The Count Clerent of Whitemar,” he announced in the lofty tones of the old formula, “accepts this, your grievance. Be at peace, for justice is at hand.” He tossed his head, through with Annalene. “You see the man back there, the mage with the red hood? You go give him your name and your village, and Tatlock will have a decision to you as soon as he is able.” The green eyes dripped languidly across the young woman’s body. “Or you can, of course, wait with me for the decision. I’d be honored to let you travel with us and share my cock!”
The hunters laughed, joined dutifully by the followers; ashamed, Annalene went scarlet as she passed the five men with the bows, shooting a glance of utter hatred up at them. Alorin, meanwhile, decided she’d waited long enough. “My lord?” she purred, her voice pitched just high enough to carry among the hunters. “May I steal a moment of your time?”
The green eyes passed over her and through her. “More than a moment.” He took in the silks, the fine lines of her horse, and knew exactly what she was. He smirked, the beard rippling. “You’ve got a grievance as well, then?”
“I have not.” Pixie was growing difficult to manage around the stallion, a reaction the bearded man seemed to enjoy. “Although, since a grievance seems to be a necessary preliminary to sharing your cock, I shall certainly write one. It will take but a moment.”
“O ho!” The lord threw his head back in a strong, nasal laugh. Behind him, past the hunters and the clerks, Alorin saw a gang of four sluttish women, all in silks and all sidesaddle, glaring at her with narrowed eyes. Rivals. “Gentlemen!” The hunters watched her now, all of them joining the fellow in dull black as they stared at her, licking their lips and studying her body. “We’ve another cunt to join the hunt.”
“Another cunt to join the hunt!” They all joined in the chant, most with great enthusiasm; she noticed one, a small man with sharp, dark eyes, quite young, staring at her with an intensity she found unsettling, an intensity she’d seen in the woodsman and his wife. He wore a tunic embroidered with a green tree.
“Erm, m’lord?” She heard the cleric speaking in very low tones now, studying the grievance. “I fear this… well, this document… it concerns Sir Hobb, yonder.” He nodded toward the young man of the green tree.
The green eyes never left Alorin’s breasts, her chemise pushing them high and proud behind the shining silk. “Sir Hobb and that grievance can go hang for the present, Tatlock,” he growled. “Go on back with your friends.” The seneschal flinched, glanced over at the rest of the hunters, and then bowed as he backed his horse away. Alorin let her grey eyes go hooded and smouldering for the man with the golden beard, knowing she’d be killing him soon and deciding at once that she’d do it after sex.
There were times that killing was, well, sort of fun. Certainly it felt good. So it was both Lyria and Alorin who grinned a challenging and open-mouth grin at the hunt’s magnificent leader, forcing the skittish horses together as she pushed her hand straight down to where his body met his saddle. She expected to feel nothing, really; his clothes were thick anyway, and they’d be reinforced at the crotch. But as she gripped the leather and squeezed, her eyes bold in the man’s smiling green gaze, it was the thought that counted. “I’m ready when you are, m’lord,” she murmured.
Pixie soon forced her to quit the game, the stallion too much for her; the lord stared hard at her, and then laughed his rich plummy laugh as he let the beast have his head, surging briskly up the road. Alorin reined hard at the roadside, watching as Annalene stood in the brush, unsure what to do. The line of bowmen soon approached her, the man in black appraising her with cool eyes. “Your new traveling companions,” he said sardonically, his voice deep and full as he jerked his head back toward the four sluts who now sat whispering into their hands. “May you have joy of them.”
“’Tis you lot I plan to spend time with.” She drew herself back up, playing the role once more; a whore was always on display. “They‘ll find that out soon enough, sir.”
“My lord,” he corrected gently, “for I’m a nobleman, too.” He nodded at her then with a strange and secret smile; over his shoulder, she caught an unnerving glance from the young man with the green tree, Sir Hobb. There was peril in that glance, especially once it passed from her to Annalene.
“Well, my dear,” she told the girl, bending down from Pixie’s back, “I’m afraid it’s farewell. I thank you for the food.”
“Oh.” The young woman glared after the noblemens’ horses. “Shall we meet again, Lyria?”
“I expect not.” Hoped not, in truth; the girl was a bore. Nearly three days sitting in the forest together, and the conversation had never once been anything better than bland. “Good fortune to your and your village.” But by then, the whores had advanced near enough that Alorin had to replace her false smile, making sure her eyes did not show it; there would be a struggle for the first hour or so, she knew, to establish her place in the hierarchy here. In truth, she hoped she’d be welcomed, albeit warily, and despite the slight drop in their income; the four of them looked tired and drawn, their cunts no doubt tired after a week with all the same cocks. “Well met, ladies!” she called happily.
But that hope flew away on the afternoon breeze, for the enthusiasm with which the four women greeted her would have fit into a very small bag indeed, and Alorin was no fool; she knew the reasons at once. These women would sell themselves on the open market for maybe one gold merganser, full service; at contract rates, like for this hunt, they’d have presumably settled for less by maybe two roights or so.
So they were counting on perhaps a bit shy of two gold mergansers apiece per night, easily; over a week or two on this hunt, they’d be making perhaps triple what they could expect to make out in the villages. Alorin would be cutting into that, starting immediately, and for two reasons: she was new, and the whores knew the men would be gravitating toward her pussy simply out of novelty. Apart from that, though, Alorin well knew her worth: she knew she was far, far more sexy than any of these four girls, although the redhead did have a certain vivacity that her sisters-in-legs lacked.
“Well met, she says.” The sweeter-looking of
the two dark whores spat from her saddle. “Perhaps, bitch.” The other three just glared as the dark lass confirmed what Alorin had guessed. “Listen now. We’re on contract at one merganser less a roight for everything: upper, lower, and rear, for any of the men of rank here. You want to fuck one of the followers, you reckon your own rate.” She paused for a derisive snort from the golden-haired wench on the other end of the line, who looked the ugliest of the four; she’d be the one servicing the grooms and apprentices, then. She, and the other dark one. “I’m Jesseney. You can eat with us, but if you fall asleep in our tent I’ll gouge your eyeballs out if you give me any sauce. Hear me?”
“Of course.” Alorin could have happily slit this Jesseney’s throat clear across already, but she sensed that would be a bad move. So she smiled amiably. “Don’t mind me, ladies; the men won’t want me. I don’t take it up the ass.”
“You do now,” Jesseney replied bluntly. “It’s in the contract, and Sir Hobb and Master Hosmer both like it that way.”
“No worries.” Alorin shrugged and pushed Pixie into line as the hunt got going once more. “I’ll just charge less.”
“Cunt.” That little hiss came from the redhead, whose lip curled into a nasty sneer. “You do that, and we’ll all gouge your eyeballs out.” She’d already be in demand; a price cut would guarantee the others would be shut out. So she tried again.
“So I’ll charge more.”
“Go back to where you came from, you shit.” The redhead was enraged now; of course. A higher price would make the men think she was even more special. Alorin raised her hands in conciliation, and turned back to Jesseney.