Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  Vincent walked straight up to the innkeeper and placed the fat coin purse upon the table.

  "How much for two night's worth?"

  The balding man behind the counter glanced them over, knowing immediately that his two new guests were quite misplaced. "Hmm, not residents. One with quite an amount of blood on his tunic, mail, and cape…the other a woman, armed as well with a look of great purpose. Shall I expect the local constabulary to barge into my business any minute?"

  Growling and taking a threatening step closer, Vincent found himself abruptly cut short as Richard leaned over the counter.

  "I believe we have a mutual friend in common who will set this straight," she batted her eyes.

  "Oh, really?" the man chuckled, wiping out a recently used mug.

  "Perhaps I should tell Schrödinger and the Herr Major that we will not be seeing them at this location tomorrow since a certain innkeeper refused our coin," she said in a low tone with a polite smile as the color drained his face.

  Lifting his arm and pointing to a lit room down the hall, he whispered, "F-for free. Take it."

  With a condescending nod putting the lack-wit in his place, Richard daintily reached over to retrieve her purse, jingling her money in front of him, and turned to address everyone's stares in the room.

  "Drinks on the house!" she exclaimed with a loud bellow.

  Cheers and joy followed those words as heads turned back to their cups and animated conversations began once more. Bar wenches giggled and began to pour from the tap as Richard pivoted back around and tipped the fuming barkeep two coins, hardly enough to cover a full house a whole hearty round on a chilling night as this.

  "For your troubles," she accompanied the gesture with a smirk, linked her arm in Vincent's, and walked to their room.

  Turning the corner and closing the door silently, she noticed a figure in the shadows already waiting for them. Fortunately, after a vicious heartbeat trampled her senses, Richard realized it was a familiar figure.

  "Walter!" she exclaimed, "You made it here."

  Walter bowed to her respectfully, surprised and happy for the enthusiastic greeting, "I am not yet so old that I would fall behind. There are no gray hairs on this full head just yet," he winked, but the merry expression did not last when Vincent entered as well, "I see you have…company."

  "He is needed in this," she reminded him, watching as the two men stared each other down. Sighing, she tapped her foot to gain their attention, "Walter."

  Walter snapped back to her, "My Lady?"

  She straightened her posture, unyielding as she stated more than asked, "Will you be alright to scout the area? We must make sure we were not followed. We also need the horses to be stabled here and supplies for tomorrow's run. Can you do this for me?"

  Walter hesitated for a moment, regarding Vincent once more, "Will you be alright?" He clearly meant 'without me and with Vincent'. She nodded reassuringly.

  "Please. Time is of the essence. I'll bar the door behind you. Knock once, and then three more times to let me know it is you."

  Walter agreed reluctantly, bidding them farewell and putting on his inconspicuous coat once more. Waving one last time, he shut the door behind him and heard Richard lock it.

  After barring the door from entry, Richard noticed Vincent's darkened but amused expression. Rolling her muddied and sodden cape off her shoulders, she hung the wet pile of clothes on the hook against the door.

  "Yes?" she inquired, "I can almost hear the cogs and wheels turning in your mind."

  Vincent sighed softly, not deigning to disclose his thoughts. Taking only a moment to inspect the room before coming to the conclusion it would be suitable, he shed his red cape, lifted the chain mail up over his head and let it fall to the ground, and began to untie his tunic tiredly more than any way that could be interpreted as sinister. Still, Richard bristled.

  "What are you doing?" she wondered if he would actually strip right in front of her.

  In truth, all evidence couldn't point to the contrary. He clearly had no shame around her, especially after their first near roll-in-the-hay when she saw him in the barracks. Feeling her cheeks warm, she turned disdainfully away.

  "I hope you don't plan on… Doing what I think you're doing," she couldn't even bring herself to say it.

  Folding her arms across her chest, she scowled and looked terribly formidable… if she had been facing him, that is. Richard felt the warm heat of his body right behind her as he approached. Cursing at the small quaint room with only one simple bed to share and a tiny fireplace, she grimaced at the fact that she had inadvertently trapped herself in a corner. She felt like easy prey and he the hunter. The soft touch of his hand trailing her forearm caused her to tense. His long arm was already wrapped around her and linking his fingers with hers. She instinctively dropped her folded arms and turned around accusingly.

  "Is there something you need?" she asked more soothingly than intended.

  Vincent gave her a knowing gaze, "You came for me."

  "Yes," she answered hotly, "And I, unfortunately, would have to do it again if this situation arose once more."

  "What situation?" he took in her wet curls and weather-beaten face. Her nose and cheeks were a color of pink from the cold and her lips a delightful shade of red.

  "A situation where your life is in danger. I need you alive," Richard stated matter-of-factly.

  He jokingly laughed, "Indeed, alive to carry out your orders as your indentured pet-thing."

  Her eyes narrowed, "I see your unwanted humor has returned. Perhaps it is now time to debrief, then. Tell me, what happened on the battlefield?"

  He rolled slightly on his heels, distancing himself. Talking about what had transpired was not what he had in mind at that moment. Any defeat he wished to forget promptly, but if she wished to know, he would tell her. "We were ambushed. The few numbers I had were cut down like cattle at slaughter. What's worse, I led them straight into it without knowing. The enemy laid waste to the outpost, burning everything in their path to set us aflame and the cavalry to trample us into the ground. I should be so lucky to come out of it with only bruises."

  His stance relaxed as she noticeably relaxed. Richard noted that she should probably act more cordial if she wanted to pull information out of him. It was hardly productive to make him uncomfortable after what he had just been through. She took a step closer.

  "Are you…" Richard struggled for a moment, attempting to sound softer, "Are you alright?"

  He smiled genuinely, and yet apologetically at the same time, "Yes, my Lady. I am well. Now, if you would tell me, what is your arrangement with Schrödinger and Herr Major?"

  She sat down in the only chair available, as if her body was suddenly heavy and teetered her on the edge of balance. It was not until a moment later when Vincent realized it was her conscience weighing down. Offering him to sit on the bed, as it was the only other seat, he did so and waited patiently for her to start.

  With a sigh, Richard began. "I found myself clawing at the doors of my room to get out. Lord Vincentislaus II had seen to it that I was to receive regular meals prepared daily, but that was all he offered of humanly contact. Just those brief moments where a guard would enter my room, hand me my food, and leave," her eyes darkened, "Well, that and his regular visits of… trying to woo me."

  She saw Vincent's nostrils flare and heard a deep guttural sound in the back of his throat. As calmly as he could possibly ask, he lowered his head, "Did he touch you, my Lady?"

  She shook her head, "Nay. He never deigned to do more than place his hand next to mine, but never touched. I was little more than a prisoner to him, despite the fact that I had a 'fertile womb, and had yet to be made into a woman'. Regardless, When Schrödinger came to me with a proposition, I could not refuse it. He offered me my freedom," Richard paused.

  "…In exchange for?" Vincent led, a suspicious twinge to his voice.

  "For a meeting to be arranged with him and the Herr Major. They repres
ent the—"

  "Teutonic Knights," Vincent answered, "I've heard of them."

  Richard wasn't sure if he meant the two men personally or the brotherhood they represented. After a pause, she nodded, "Schrödinger, the 'messenger', has promised it will be a meeting not filled with blood, but with information. It would seem their intent is not harmful, and I was loath to refuse his offer after a week of Lord Vincentislaus II."

  "I will kill him," Vincent stated straightly, standing back up.

  Richard stood up as well, signifying the end of that topic, "Indeed, I've no doubt that you will. But for now, I need you to rest," she inflected the last word to show its importance.

  When Vincent shook his head, a twinkle in his eyes sparkled, "Nay, my Lady. I've never felt so alive. Facing Death demands celebrating Life."

  She frowned, looking down to come up with some kind of rebuttal when she suddenly realized he was stepping towards her.

  Vincent advanced closer, undaunted by her fighting stance as he suddenly framed her face in his hands and plunged his mouth to hers. It was so abrupt that the act rigidly planted her body where she stood.

  Completely stunned at his conduct, Richard gasped against him as he swiftly wrapped both arms around her, constricting her but yet holding her shattered emotions together. Vincent encased her in warmth, hands sifting through the thick mass of her tangled hair from the rain. Grazing the skin behind her ear with his knuckles, he let his hands trail down further to her neck, over, and around to her spine, feeling it arch in recognition to his touch. Slanting his mouth over hers, Vincent felt Richard fight against his compelling need to taste her. But when he teased her with his tongue at the seam of her lips, she gasped once more, regretting it an instant later as Vincent gained passage further into her mouth.

  Vincent moaned deeply against her, suddenly feeling her body mold to his, thanking God for this respite from the earthly hell he knew they undoubtedly were about to face. Where Richard's thoughts were uncertain, her body seemed to snap, welcoming him with an instinctual understanding that he awakened once more.

  It was a craving; a primal desire; a biological need.

  Snaking her hands wildly through his black locks, she anchored his carnal kiss to her. Now she was advancing, and she was suddenly taking steps forward, cornering Vincent this time as she felt his back hit the wall. The Hunter became the hunted. Richard felt him suck in a ragged breath as she brought his lips back to hers with a hard tug and bit his lower lip, then went about soothing it with her tongue before drawing it into her mouth once more. She raked her hands across his chest, pinning him to the wall and mercilessly claiming his body in sweet agony and pleasure so strong, it couldn't be tempered for long.

  His arms no longer caging her, Vincent let them roam freely to the contours of her hour glass and up to the soft mounds of her breasts, kneading the fabric's strings as his fingers worked them free. Lowering his mouth, she in kind leaned her head back and gave him access to the long slender column of her neck. Sensually kissing a trail of smoldering heat down her, he ripped open her kirtle and helped her shrug out of it. Now, a loose white shirt on her the only thing in his way -and her trousers, but those were next- Vincent marveled at how she took no time to remove an article of his in response.

  Lifting off his tunic, Richard gingerly traced his corded muscles, the uplifted scars all around his chest and shoulders, and wandered down to his taut abs. Richard felt Vincent shudder as she worked two angles: teasingly chewing his left ear and massaging his abdomen. Attacking his neck next, she soon realized that he was immobilized, completely at her mercy as he slumped limply in her embrace.

  "Mother Mary," he whispered in rapture, as if her taste physically drugged him, "I am yours to command."

  She tantalizingly lowered her head, opening her mouth and licking him from the base of his chest up to his neck. His hands clamped down on her head as he claimed her mouth once more.

  "Then do as I command, and lay down on that bed," her eyes blazed as she murmured against the kiss.

  Vincent grinned, twining his fingers in hers as he backed up to the bed, leading her with him. With a defining push, Richard slammed him down against the cot, cramped, hot, and already aching with the anticipation of himself sinking inside of her. The roles were reversed this time. He had awoken something within her, and she was not about to take away the overt power it gave her over Vincent, the untamable.

  Falling down on top of him, she straddled his waist and lowered her hips to his, grinding against the stiff arousal she felt, celebrating in the groan that escaped him as he closed his eyes. Latching onto her waist with both hands, he followed her tempo back and forth against his body, taking pleasure from her nimbleness.

  Reaching one arm around her back, Vincent swiftly flipped her over, now on top. He reveled in her breathy laugh as his mouth found her chest and hips found her center. Feeling the heavy weight of a man on top of her, Richard almost forgot her reason in tempting him like this. Nearly losing herself to the pure enjoyment of it, she remembered to slowly move toward one of his hands.

  As she restlessly moved underneath him, he instinctively quickened his movement.

  Richard almost laughed gleefully as she wrapped both legs around Vincent and heard him exhale a noise between a moan and a whimper.

  But something suddenly locked around his wrist, and it wasn't her fingers. It was too cold. Metallic. Glancing up, still in a haze of carnal bliss, Vincent realized what it was and raised an eyebrow.

  "My Lady," he cleared the rasp in his throat, "Had I known clapping me in irons was part of the foreplay, I'd have generously put them on myself." He reached back down with his other hand but saw her dodge it.

  Richard laughed out a syllable, "I don't doubt it. But I need you to rest, as I had told you to do. I have humored you. Now you must do as I say," she lifted up his free arm from her and slithered adeptly out of his range and off of the bed.

  Glancing back at him with indifference and remarking on how well her trouser pockets hid the cuffs, Richard saw his angered expression as he tugged at his constraints.

  "Is making love merely a game to you?" he tried to sit up and face her.

  "Love? Is that the new word you call your lust for me?" she asked rhetorically, then considered his statement for a moment, bobbing her head side to side before landing on an answer. "Sensual desire and indulgence for its own sake is a misuse of something sacred." She picked up her kirtle and settled it back over her white shirt as he pulled against the bedpost once again.

  "What I feel for you is sacred," he breathed, as he caught her attention, "God forgive me, but I cannot expel you from me. This is no mere lust. You course through my very blood, and I do not have the strength to refuse you, yet you refuse me?"

  Hotly glaring at him, Richard spat, "I have to refuse you! I will not be your woman, nor any man's woman. No man will ever claim me. 'Tis not my fault that your advances are always cut short by the reality of my Reason."

  Adamant fire now in his eyes to reflect the fervor of his words, "Your Reason? Tell me straightly that you do not feel an ounce of care for me and I will believe there was no portion of you that enjoyed what just happened between us."

  This caused her to falter, for she did care for him. Greatly. Just not in the way, she thought, that he did for her.

  "I care for you, sirrah," she agreed, "But I do not love you."

  He let out a low and grating exhale, yanking one last time at his constraints before going quite still. He nodded to them, then gestured to the whole of himself.

  "You play with fire, my Lady. Expect to be burned."

  The damp air of the morning filled Walter's lungs as he accosted Richard with a polite good morning. Whatever had happened last night clearly occurred between Richard and Vincent, and it was scratching its way through Walter's conscience. When daybreak had approached and he returned from his post outside, Richard was sleeping, crouched over an inn table. Not daring to wake her, Walter had checked the room
they had rented for a night only to discover that Vincent had been chained to the bedpost. What in God's holy named happened? He could only wonder.

  Richard grunted in reply to Walter's greeting, so he continued to stand stoically, observing her ragged appearance.

  "Rough night?" he offered.

  Richard turned to face him and found an intrusive grin tugging away at his mouth. Her honesty for him turned sour that instant.

  "Oh, bite me."

  Walter drew back, "I'm actually impressed. Few could possibly resist the advances of such a capturing man as Sir Vincent."

  Richard fished into her trouser pocket and pulled out a long pipe. Walter choked when he noticed her lighting it.

  "My Lady, what habit is THIS?" he exclaimed.

  She drew in a deep breath, coughing only once, "It is a new habit I like to call 'Not Killing Vincent for Today'. Calms my nerves that desire to maul him."

  Before a witty remark could pass the servant's lips, a figure appeared from the doorway, freshly awakened and clearly pleased. Vincent sauntered his way outside into the morning dew and handed back the irons to Richard who tried to snatch them viciously from his hands.

  Vincent pulled her closer for a second, then released his grasp to let her pocket the irons, "I humored you by remaining in these cuffs. So, did you miss me?"

  "With every arrow thus far," she retorted acerbically.

  Her irascible mood only put Vincent in a better one. After the previous night, he made sure to have a plan that would unseat her rational thought. All they had to do was return to Târgoviște and everything would be set in motion.

  Casually resting against the railing, he decided to point her in his deceptive direction, "I suggest that after our meeting with these unseemly friends of yours, Richard, we return back to Curtea Domnească, in Târgoviște."

  Richard intensified her gaze to the soft rolling grass of the hillside. She dared not look interested. "Do you have business there? By your leave, safe travels," she gave farewell.

  "I grant you wit, but had it ever occurred to you that I rather value my life and would like to return where our forces are strongest?" Vincent turned to her, "My Lady, if you wish to continue this loud feud between us, I suggest we do so without words."