by Max Keith
Franx’ smile was slow, so slow. “Ah.” He let his eyebrows rise. “See? I told you she’d dye her pubes.”
Cashel sighed and shook his head. “I really did think she’d just shave it all off.”
“Nah. She’s not interested in looking like a virgin.” He shrugged. “Still, it must have been quite a sight. She’s pretty striking as a ginger.”
Cashel scowled. “You’re sounding like Drinn now, all dewy-eyed over her.” The mage considered, then nodded to himself.
“I’m just saying.” He joined the bard on the wall. “Drinn would drink her piss just to see where it came from. Me? No. I simply recognize beauty when I see it.” They both stared vacantly up the hill. “I gave Drinn some… some devices, we’ll say.”
“Devices?”
Franx nodded. “Mage stuff. You’ll see the effects presently.” A slow, heavy, sunny minute crept by, a slight breeze stroking the treetops. And then the smoke began rising, thin at first, but billowing soon enough. “That’ll be the poplar…” The smoke spread. “Wait for it…”
A flash of green flame flared through the entire neighborhood, the force of the explosion knocking both men into the garden beyond the wall. “Motherfucker,” Franx cursed. He’d landed in a rosebush.
The sky stayed green, a pulsing wave of light that left shadows even after Cashel closed his eyes. “Mage stuff?” he asked dryly.
“It is possible,” muttered the mage, “that I miscalculated the amounts.” He squinted toward the smoke, hoping he’d see the warrior and the valkyrie appear without being on fire. “The whole city will be in shock for days.” Cashel heard definite satisfaction in the mage’s voice; he was a man who never ceased to admire himself. He sucked at a thumb now, plucking out a thorn. “Off you go. Ask one of the smiths the way to Oaktree Street; I would imagine I’ll be busy here for some time. Return when you can.”
“Aye.” And then, brushing awkwardly at his clothing, Cashel was off down the hill, hoping vainly he’d escape the notice of the many heads he saw poking out the windows by the way.
* * *
“Remain here,” the pig-eyed man had said, and so Cashel sat lightly on a settee in the reception room. He sat the way his dancing-master had taught him so many years ago: Sit, the man had wheezed, his movements still so graceful despite his advanced years, as though you’re in the midst of a bow. So he did, his calfskin boots cocked precisely on the soft rug beneath, the harp tinkling beneath his fingers. He’d never been much of a singer, but playing the harp had come naturally to a young Cashel, winning him real silver while his brothers had bitterly taken just brass for the work they did in the fields. They’d never understood, and nor had their father, which is why Cashel had wasted no time fleeing that watery little barley village on the Tangle Brook.
Not terribly far away from Crownport, actually. If he still remembered the way.
The room was tall but narrow, in keeping with Oaktree Street’s high slender houses. But they all seemed to run back quite a long way from the street, opening into spacious gardens in back, along the river. It was a pretty neighborhood, ideal for a successful trader’s wife.
At some length, the harp long since tuned, the short man with the deep eyes returned to stand before the bard like a stubby tower. “Her ladyship will be in shortly,” he explained with no preamble, “to hear your playing. You’ll address her with respect; she’ll tolerate no familiarity, despite how she might seem.”
“Of course, m’lord.”
The man tossed his head. “I’m no lord,” he scoffed. “I’m just an old sailor.”
“You undervalue yourself, Captain Spavige.” The voice came from a doorway behind Cashel, and though he’d heard just a brief snatch of that voice down by the docks on the day of the golden merganser, he’d have known it anywhere. There are voices that will make a man’s hairs rise; this one did the same for Cashel’s penis. He willed the treacherous organ savagely to behave itself. “What joy to have a bard in the house again at last! I’m sure we haven’t had one since his lordship died.”
Cashel forced himself to the slow nod and the bland smile, but inside his blood hammered through his veins as Lady Wennowes came around to greet him. He rose, his head low and carefully subservient, and he saw at once that he’d been far from wrong about the worth of this woman’s body. She wore a light, simple indoor gown, green as a finely scythed lawn in the morning, falling in the sleek and unwrinkled curves of really expensive Imperial fabric; nothing like it was available this side of the Mountains. A prosperous and efficient kingdom, the Realm, but nobody here had ever figured out cloth.
Indeed, he’d been right about Lady Wennowes. The curves he saw beneath the clinging dress were lush, their motions graceful but still with that muscular readiness that predicted outstanding proficiency in bed. The dress left her neck bare to the tops of her richly rounded breasts, the valley between them a dusky even line, the firm flesh straining like a terrier on a leash, begging for the dress to fly off and release their supple glory to the world. Below, her body was so, so sweetly rounded, the green fabric skimming across, fine enough to show the gentle crater of her belly button before it rolled clinging down her mound toward the hidden glory of her vagina.
Flanking which were two long, even legs, their sleek muscles shifting as she settled to a stop before him. He saw now that the gown was slit up the right side, and rather high above the knee; truly, a widow should never be showing such skin to an unfamiliar man. In the Southlands or the Borderlands, she’d be gossiped about for weeks in that dress; perhaps here, too. But things were different in the North, clearly. She was grinning, her lips full and glistening beneath the monstrous nose; her entire person seemed almost to be twinkling. “Your name, Master Bard?”
“They call me Harlin of Gethell, m’lady.” He swallowed, looking down; gods, even her feet were sublime, a golden ring over her smallest toe on the right foot.
He heard surprise in her merry voice. “You’re a ways from home, Master Bard. The Gethell flows far, far away from here.”
He gathered himself, pretending this was just a normal audition. There was wit to be employed; he needed to be quick, to be sharp, even under another name. He had his pride, after all. “In these times, m’lady, many folk wander.” He shrugged. “The War.”
“Indeed. But war is as good for your business as it is for mine, I expect. Many of the common folk need cheering, no?”
“They do, m’lady.”
“And what do the common folk pay for their cheer, Master Bard?” There was mockery there, definitely; he could hear the smile. The toe ring mesmerized him.
“It depends, does it not, on how well they like my playing.” Captain Spavige cleared his throat from the corner, and Cashel hastily added, “M’lady.” In increasing desperation, he prayed to any god who would listen for his cock to quit rising, but the effect of the Lady Wennowes’ presence was quite overwhelming. “Shall I sit and play, m’lady?”
“You carry yourself with some dignity, Harlin of Gethell,” she continued, ignoring him. “Your father, was he a bard as well? A harper, plying his trade up and down the river, cheering the common folk like his son?”
“My father was a warrior; as a matter of fact, he was a knight.”
“A knight!”
“Indeed, and a fine knight. A great and a wonderful knight.” He drew a chord from the harp; it tinkled in a minor key. The Lady caught the note and cocked her head.
“Was, Master Bard?” Her eyes narrowed mischievously. “What happened?”
Cashel replied smoothly, the joke well-worn. “The morning came.” He ignored her then, plucking a rapid and complicated string pattern while his mind kept count. He always counted how long potential employers took to get the joke, and priced himself accordingly; quicker employers got a lower rate, as he figured they’d drive a harsher bargain. After ten seconds of silence, his rate doubled. But, as he’d assumed she would, the Lady Wennowes took less than two seconds before a soft gasp and a th
roaty, quiet chuckle announced her comprehension. He smiled complacently down at his strings.
“Why, Master Bard,” she purred, “I do believe you are teasing me.” Off to the side, Spavige growled a tad; it had taken him six seconds.
Oh gods. Teasing? His penis gave a threatening lurch. “Never, m’lady,” Cashel protested, not quite able to tear his eyes away from her bodice as quickly as he should have. “I am a tower of noble and honorable behavior, I declare.”
“Are you.” And, wonder of whorish wonders, he saw her nipples grow taut beneath the lawn-colored fabric. “That is well, for I insist that all my men be noble.” His eyes still falling lower with insolent slowness, Cashel could not tell what she was looking at. It would have taken a woman of quite impressive blindness, though, for her to miss the tenting lump now forming beneath his tunic. He cursed himself for not having taken the precaution of a codpiece.
“Shall I sit,” Cashel asked again, a bit desperately, “and play for you?”
But Lady Wennowes said nothing at all for several seconds. Cashel heard her deep, even breaths, and knew that if he looked up he’d see nothing but a gloating smile and a merry pair of blue eyes. She was enjoying this; her whole body said so. For at the very top of his gaze, her nipples continued to sprout. The silence grew thick, the impatient captain not sure what to do from the side, but Wennowes and Cashel just stood there, breathing the same air and thinking the same thoughts, until in a murmur almost too silent to hear she at last said, “You may sit.”
His penis jerking painfully upward as he collided with the soft chair, Cashel found his head level with the subtle dip in the rich fabric behind which lay her pussy beneath the smooth, even swell of her mound. The smell of her! Was the woman constantly in heat? “What shall I play?” His tone matched hers; the corner of his eye reported Spavige leaning forward to hear, but the Lady Wennowes was well aware of what her response should be.
“You may play with anything you wish,” she whispered, her feet taking an imperceptible shuffling step forward; he gulped as he caught the extra word, and he wondered in quickly mounting desperation what in all the hells was happening here.
And then it was over, the slam of a door heralding the soft slap of sandaled footsteps from behind him, and Cashel was shaking his head to clear it as the Guildmage, with barely a glance at the supplicant bard, came close to hover just beside Lady Wennowes’ ear. She cocked her head and frowned, her face quickly forming into a look of concern around her nose, the mage’s whispers far too quiet to catch. He and Wennowes both looked suddenly up toward where another set of footsteps, nearly noiseless, passed suddenly into Cashel’s awareness.
“Lady Wennowes.” The voice was high, piping, the voice of a young boy or a maiden. A faint scratchy quality infected it, though, just at the edge of hearing, a rasp of menace; Cashel at once stopped playing and went very still. “A message, m’lady, from Priest Lorrick. Him whom you met the other day…”
“Indeed.” The Lady tossed her head, dismissing Cashel from her thoughts as the insignificant plaything he was in this rich house with its important people. “What is his message?”
“His message,” came the high rasping voice, “is for you alone. M’lady.” The footsteps had stopped, and Cashel’s cautiously bowed eyes saw a pair of black slippers and the bottoms of two leotarded legs falling from the hem of a robe. The boy was less than a foot from Cashel’s chair, slightly behind and to his left. The bard, his heart thumping, thought of Alorin’s suspicions and realized that if she were right, his neck was at the deadly visitor’s mercy. The silence grew vaguely venomous.
“Captain Spavige? I’d be obliged if you’ll conduct Master Harlin to the kitchens. Have Brasher find Porlock to get him fed, and tell Gitsey to make up the southern bedchamber.”
Bedchamber?
“He can lodge there until I am done with his services,” Wennowes chuckled, and Cashel raised his eyes to see her broad grin. Her eyebrows, carefully plucked, rose. “Unless, of course, you’ve got someplace else to stay?”
“Oh, m’lady, I’m at your service.” The deadly presence behind his chair was shifting uncomfortably, the priest’s message clearly not intended for delay. It had not been in Franx’ plan, for him to stay at Lady Wennowes’ house, but of course there was no way out of it now. If he left the house now, nobody would ever let him back in.
“We shall see,” she said softly. She glanced again at Spavige. “And have Gitsey give him a bath. He stinks of the harbor.” She gave a half-smile, all mouth and no eyes, and a chill smothered Cashel’s gut. “Just arrived from Port Forwin? Norther Town? Someplace coastal, no doubt.”
“Indeed, m’lady. On, er, the morning tide.”
“Gitsey will sort you out.” She smile grew wider. “All the servants will love you. After all,” she winked, “who doesn’t enjoy a bard?”
* * *
Gitsey proved to be a wench of perhaps eighteen, as voluptuous as her mistress but with far fewer years and far less subtlety. She moved like a weasel, always with some part of herself curving sinuously; given the way her body was constructed, those parts seemed to be either ass or tits most of the time. And she, too, smelled like an unwashed undergarment; was every woman in this town ready to be bred? “Your name’s Harlin, they say,” she grinned. “Had a long trip, Harlin?”
The bath at the Wennowes house was massive, a great marble tank at the bottom of the stairs leading to the back garden, filled now with steaming water that must have taken hours to heat. Cashel shifted uncomfortably, the lunch far too rich in his gut. “The water is already hot,” he pointed out unnecessarily. He made himself grin. “Was I expected?”
“It’s always hot.” She was staring brazenly at him, her hip in firm contact with his. She moved a fine-fingered little hand to his back. “Her ladyship’s orders. Come, Harlin; I’ll undress you.”
Shit. Another twitch from down below; everything about Lady Wennowes’ house seemed calculated to keep Cashel in a continual state of erection. “I’m no lord, er, Gitsey,” he stammered. “No need to wait on me.”
“No, there is,” the girl said with absolute confidence. “She told me to take care of you, so that’s that.” Cashel swallowed; he had his knives sewn inside his sleeves, and he had no wish for this little minx to get anywhere near them.
“It’s not necessary.” He hoped he sounded firm, but Gitsey just puckered her lips and ran her hand down to his ass. She laughed when he jumped.
“You’re a bit thick in the head, I can tell,” she giggled, her breasts mashing against his arm. Her face was small, compact, the features all tiny but for a pair of huge violet eyes. “I’ll go ahead and make it plainer: you stink. I’m to bathe you. So I shall.” She arched an eyebrow. “Or are you shy? Come now. I’m an excellent bather. I’ll take good care of you…” She was working at the ties atop her gown. “The water’s getting cold, Harlin. You may undress or I’ll do it for you, but either way we’re going in.” The gown came down off her body with the ease of long practice; this was a girl used to getting her clothes off quickly. “Wouldn’t do to get my dress wet,” she announced wickedly.
No way could Cashel hold in his gasp as he saw her flesh, all pink and curvy and jiggling with the perfection of youth and health. She stood totally unconcerned, her dark nipples dancing over a flat stomach, her arms stretching high to put up her long chestnut hair. She smiled at his face, triumphant as any woman who knows her own beauty. “What’s wrong, Harlin?” she taunted. “Never seen a naked woman before?” She cocked her ass outward once the hair was done, a languid hand proudly on her hip. Her bush was a tangled thatch. A moment more she stood, on display, and then her grin turned craftier as she reached for the top of his pants, brushing away his unresisting fingers as she worked his knot. “Let’s just get you into the water now…”
She cooed with delight as his dick sprang forth from his dropped pants, though she couldn’t have been surprised; a girl of such evident experience had to have detected his erecti
on long since.
“I can see,” she said slowly, her voice suddenly much older than her body, “that you need a long, soothing bath.” He let out a ragged breath as he felt her cold hand caress him briefly, measuring, before she moved on to his tunic, the knives forgotten now, though she had to notice that the garment was a bit heavier than it ought to have been.
Or perhaps she didn’t; the purple eyes were wide and bright, her pink skin reddening steadily as she stepped out of her sandals. “Just follow me,” she told him, her voice all tight and husky as she turned and pranced toward the marble stairs. It did not surprise him when the twin globes of her ass proved just as firm and voluptuous as the rest of her, and he trailed behind her like a forgotten puppy as they sank into the warm water.
And, to Cashels’ surprise, the girl had been telling the truth: she was, indeed, an excellent bather. He was astonished when she made no real effort to fuck him; aside from some suggestive touching and a great many delightfully ribald comments, it turned out Gitsey really was just there to make sure he was clean. Thoroughly. “She employs me as a lady’s maid,” the girl explained, scraping with a towel at the area behind his scrotum. “It’s good money, though the work is hard.” She giggled. “Not as hard as you, though. Shit, Harlin, do you ever clean back here?”
“Leave me alone,” he protested. “I’ve just had a long sea voyage. Marble baths and delightful-looking naked wenches were not available in quantity, frankly.” He jumped a bit as she stuck a finger into his asshole.
“Aww,” she sang in mock delight. “You think I’m delightful-looking? I never would have known if you hadn’t told me.” Wickedly, she reached quickly around to flick a finger against his cock. He yelped. “I’m kidding. We get a great many visitors here, but I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of bathing a bard before. Will you sing me a song, sir?” She dug again into his anus, playfully.