by Sharon Green
"Certainly," I answered, ignoring the ripple of outrage coming from the Bellna presence. "Do you want the peasant girl instead of Bellna?"
"I want them both," he answered flatly, locking eyes with me. "Bellna first and then the peasant, and I want it all to be you. You'll take your cue from the way I speak to you, and then act accordingly. If Remo hadn't made his and Bellna's engagement official while she was still in the capital, I wouldn't have been able to test you as far as I think necessary."
"I don't understand," I said with a frown, also not understanding the sudden gleam in his dark eyes. "What has that got to do with anything?"
"You should know more about that than I do," he said, grinning faintly as he got out of the chair. "When Remo made the engagement official he was entitled to take Bellna to bed - which he did, at almost breakneck speed. She's not a virgin any longer, which means you can be put through the role of peasant. Peasant girls are given to men as soon as they stop looking like boys."
I had to work at ignoring the flurry of embarrassment coming from Bellna, but got some help at it from the part of my mind that houses nasty suspicions. Grigon was still grinning at me, and that put a sharper edge on it.
"Is this test the solution you came up with?" I asked, still holding his eyes. "Set me into a convenient role and then indulge in a little rape? How nice that your safety can be confirmed so pleasantly."
"I thought well of the idea, " he said, and then his grin hardened. "And whatever you think about it, you'll still go along with it if you want a piece of this project. If you can keep Bellna from taking over while you're being treated like a peasant, I'll agree that you'll be able to do it at any time. If you're going to lose the argument, which is the better time: while you're being raped, or while you're being attacked?"
He stared down at me, waiting to see if I would back away from the deal or continue arguing, but I couldn't really do either. The son of a joy girl was right, no matter what his motivations were. If I couldn't handle it we were better off finding out right now.
"A pity you didn't opt for the attack instead of the rape," I commented, brushing at the skirt of my dress. "Let's get this over with. I'm going to need whatever sleep I can grab."
"One must admire your self-confidence," he retorted, moving to my left, away from the fire. "Are you always so sure that things will work out the way you want them to?"
"I can only judge from past experience." I shrugged, then turned my head to look at him. "Since things usually do work out the way I want them to, it's only reasonable to expect they'll continue on like that."
"For your sake, I hope they will," he said, and then his face suddenly took on a supercilious look. "My lady Princess," he said in broad, clipped Tildorani, sketching a stiff bow. "Pray be seated and rest yourself the while I fetch refreshments."
"Fetch them quickly, Ruthor," I answered in Bellna's pettish private tones, recognizing the character Grigon was imitating. Prince Ruthor was one of Clero's sons and he'd been ardently courting Bellna, probably at his father's urging, before Prince Remo came on the scene. "The journey here has positively exhausted me, and I must look an absolute hag."
"Such a thing would be an impossibility," Ruthor-Grigon protested distantly as I sat in the oversized chair. He had gone to one of the draped walls and parted the drape to expose a good stock of drinkables, his back to me as he messed and clinked.
I ran my palms over the very soft leather of the chair arms, making myself comfortable while I had the chance. Grigon was trying to disarm me - and the Bellna presence as well - by evoking Ruthor, who was hardly the most capable of Clero's sons. If Ruthor got very, very lucky, he might one day qualify for the honor of dropping the last letter of his name, but Bellna didn't think he'd make it and her memories forced me to agree with her. Ruthor was a stiff-necked snob who always acted in the precisely correct manner, never speaking out of turn, never seeking a corner where he might take me in his arms as Remo had…
"Your drink, my lady Princess," Grigon-Ruthor announced from right in front of me, his arm extended with a tiny, delicate glass held carefully between his fingers. I took the glass without thanking him, treating him like a servant the way Bellna always did, privately cursing myself up, down and sideways. I'd almost let it happen again - no, it had already started to happen again, and the only thing that had pulled me out of it was Grigon's interruption. I'd let my mind wander and Bellna had immediately started to come out. Damn it! If I didn't do any better than that, I deserved to be sent back!
"You dislike the drink?" Grigon-Ruthor's voice came, and I looked up to see him staring down at me, a cool, distant smile on his face. "Perhaps you would care for something less … potent?"
"I am perfectly capable of drinking anything you choose, Ruthor," I answered, bristling with insult. "I am scarcely the child you seem to think me!"
"I see you as no less than perfect, my lady Princess," he answered with another bow. "I recall now that it was your father the prince who commanded that you abstain. Forgive my poor memory, and allow me to dispose of that for you."
He plucked the tiny glass out of my hand and turned away with it, carrying it back to the hidden niche it came from. I let myself sputter and "oh!" just the way Bellna would have done, all the while wondering what Grigon was up to. I wouldn't have minded swallowing that drink, but I hadn't been given the chance to do more than look at it. I pinned my fellow conspirator with an accusing stare as he walked back toward me, and he came up with a well-practiced chuckle.
"Your pout is the most attractive that I have ever seen," he said, stopping in front of me. "Should you wish it, my lady Princess, you may climb into my lap and have a sip from my glass. Surely your father the prince would have no objection to a single sip."
"How dare you speak to me so - so - patronizingly!" I gasped out, fighting both to be Bellna and not be her. "As you clearly think me a child, Ruthor, you may leave me at once!"
I got to my feet and stood with chin raised high, projecting all the outraged indignation I could feel Bellna putting out. My doing what she was feeling was like living an echo, but managing it wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be at first. I seemed to be getting the hang of it, and that made me feel a good deal better.
"Ah, but I shall not leave you," Grigon-Ruthor purred, taking a step closer to me. "And now that I think on it, you seem to be someone other than the Princess. You wear her clothing, yet you are clearly not she. Who are you?"
His question, coming as suddenly as it did, was more than a little startling. Bellna recoiled in shock from a Ruthor she had never seen before, but that was only on the inside, where Grigon's careful stare couldn't see it. Outwardly I took my cue as I was supposed to, and looked down nervously at my hands.
"I am no one, Lord," I whispered, making sure my voice trembled. "A poor peasant girl, wishing no more than to know the feel of her mistress's clothing upon her skin. I would not have stolen the things… "
"A likely tale!" Grigon snorted, his voice still cold. "Let me see you."
His hand came to my chin and raised my face, letting me see the gleam in his dark eyes. I cringed back without moving out of his negligent grasp, a trick I'd learned some years earlier, and he chuckled his appreciation of the gesture.
"Now that I've caught you, I believe I shall make use of you," he said, moving his hand from under my chin to touch my face. "Have you the ability to serve me properly, girl?"
"I - I am not much used, Lord," I whispered, borrowing some of Bellna's wide-eyed, disbelieving fear. "I will serve as best I may."
"You will serve better than that," he said, his tone dry. "You may be very sure I will see to it. Come and put yourself in my lap now."
He moved past me to reclaim the chair, then looked up as he sipped from the wineglass he held. He'd given himself three or four times what he'd given me, and was even getting to drink some of it. Being careful not to jiggle his arm I climbed into his lap, feeling as ridiculous as I always did in a situation like that
. Grigon was a big man, but I'm not what might be described as a little girl. Behind my eyes Bellna was beginning to come out of the shock she'd felt, heavy coils of outrage forming, almost ready to explode. I took a good grip on the rather large reserve of single-mindedness I come equipped with, and tried to ignore her.
"I shall now allow you the sip of wine I promised earlier," Grigon said, his supercilious Ruthor-tones increasing in patronizing-load. I reached for the glass he held out toward me, but he shook his head. "Both hands, if you please, little peasant. I should dislike having the contents of this glass emptied upon me. You have my word that I would dislike it a very great deal."
The hardened glint in his eyes told me that he would undoubtedly use an excuse like that to beat me, and a beating was one thing I couldn't risk. I didn't yet have an experienced-enough hold on the Bellna presence to believe I could hold her back during the infliction of pain. I could finally see that what I'd done to Valdon must have been because of the faulty impression. If Grigon hurt me and I loosened his teeth in revenge it would be satisfying, but it would also lose me the game.
"Now for the sip," Grigon directed once I had the glass in both hands. He watched carefully as I took a single, undersized swallow, but didn't see anything of Bellna's sputtering rage.
Bellna's intense feelings of humiliation poured through me, bringing a trembling to my hands, but the trembling was perfectly in character. The swallow of wine would awe and impress a real peasant, who would hardly be expected to know the vintage was just backward enough to keep it from being considered really good. My throat swallowed and my hands trembled, but Grigon didn't take the glass when I offered it back to him.
"You may hold that for me for the moment," he said, putting one hand on my skirt-covered leg and looking down at my boots. "I am unaccustomed to seeing one of your station draped about so. We will first remove those, and then perhaps have another sip of wine."
His hands went to the lacings on my boot, and Bellna was again shocked as well as scandalized. She was too young and inexperienced to understand the smirking pleasure Grigon was showing in his role of Ruthor; after all, all he was doing was taking off her - my - boots. In her opinion, it was an action fit for a servant. I sighed to myself, thinking about groaning as well; how would she react once she began to understand?
Grigon unlaced my boots slowly, drew them off one at a time, then reached out to take the wine glass from me. He had raised the bottom of my skirt to my knees to reach the lacings, and hadn't lowered the skirt again after the boots were gone.
Grigon sipped at his wine as he ran one palm over my now bare calf, and anyone who could have heard the racket in my head would have thought he was running his hand over my naked body. I refused to pull the skirt back down the way Bellna demanded in her outrage, but couldn't keep from shifting a little in the presence of Bellna's furious embarrassment.
"A wench who blushes!" Grigon-Ruthor exclaimed with a chuckle, his warm, broad hand still moving slowly over my leg. "How delightful I find you, my young innocent. Your times at use must have been few indeed. Take the glass and hold it, but do not drink. Such youth and innocence must not be wasted in a drunken stupor."
I took the glass with two hands again, finding the very real amusement in his eyes as difficult to bear as Bellna's raving. I wasn't the blushing type, but apparently Bellna was. I had enough time to be grateful that Grigon didn't know me better, and then all I could do was gasp and try not to spill the wine. Grigon-Ruthor was sliding his palm up under the skirt and along my leg to my thigh, and Bellna was just about jumping out of her - my - skin.
"You have not been given my permission to be quite as shy as that, little peasant," Grigon said, his hand having paused in its upward movement. "Unlock your muscles, and do not attempt to refuse me again. You are aware, are you not, that you are mine to do with as I please?"
"Yes, Lord," I whispered, forcing my knees apart against tremendous resistance. I had never before had to fight to control my own body in quite the same way, and the sweat breaking out all over me under the dress was adding to the mad I was beginning to feel. That was my body, damn it, and no one else had the right to try to run it! I held the wine glass carefully, forced my knees apart with mental teeth clenched, and thought I could feel some of the strength in the Bellna ravings fade a little.
"Ah, you seek to please me," Grigon-Ruthor said, the supercilious smile back in place. "I do indeed find myself pleased, for I mean to see if I may know how many men you have served before me."
I had a sudden, horrible premonition that he knew something I didn't, but I wouldn't have had the time to ask about it even if the question would have been in character. His hand slid quickly up between my thighs before I could utter a sound, and the next instant I was gasping in my own disbelief and trying to move away from him. His other hand in the middle of my back kept me from moving that way, and the glass of wine I held kept me from flying up toward the ceiling.
"Why, you are scarcely removed from the state of virginity," he laughed, watching my face as I closed my eyes and trembled. "I would be very much surprised if there has been more than a single man who has tasted you. And I must say how thoughtful I consider you, to have refrained from wearing the undergarments of a lady when you donned the outer garments. Such a lack would show your true origins to any man who touched you."
The half-growl in his voice was more accusation than approval, but at that point I really didn't care. I hadn't worn the heavy, uncomfortable underwear simply because I hadn't expected anyone to be checking for their presence; the fact that he was checking was the least of my worries. I'd been told I'd be matched to Bellna, but I hadn't expected to be matched to the extent of being turned into the next thing to a virgin! My own reflexive urge to push his hand away stumbled into Bellna's desperate need, the two flowed together, and it was all I could do to keep from really defending myself. I kept my eyes closed tight and trembled from the effort to do no more than that, and Ruthor's chuckle sounded again.
"How strong an appeal I find in the innocent," he said, the faint slur in his voice pointing up the interest of an apprentice sadist. "You may release the wine now, and when I am done with it we will continue."
I opened my eyes to an awareness of the fact that he had been trying to take the wine glass back from me, but hadn't been able to get my hands to release their hold. I surrendered the glass to his smirk without argument, despite the fact that I would have been willing to fight him for it. Backward or not I could have used that wine, which was probably his reason for refusing it to me. If I won the game it would be without help, especially the sort that would steady my jangled nerve-endings and numb my perceptions to a certain degree.
Under normal conditions I prefer to keep a clear head during a job, but on that job a clear head was the one thing I wouldn't have no matter how little I drank. I took a deep breath against the clamor still raging in my skull, pretending I didn't see the way Grigon-Ruthor was staring at me over his glass rim, reflecting that it was a good thing I'd opted for being an "innocent" peasant girl. Being inexperienced can excuse a lot of blunders, but it was also helping me cover my fight against Bellna.
Bellna's time with Remo had been the sort of frustratingly distasteful experience very sheltered women often have during their first taste of sex. Remo had been too eager to arouse her properly before going for his good time, and by the time she was past the fear and pain of his attack and just beginning to feel something else, he was already through with her. There hadn't been more than that one bout between them, and Bellna, childlike, expected all subsequent experiences to be like the first.
No one had told Bellna any differently, and I had already discovered that although I could hear her thoughts none of mine reached her. The fear that underlay her shock and outrage was worse than those other two emotions and I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the taste of it.
"Do you anticipate my continued attention, child?" Grigon-Ruthor asked, finishing off the last of his
wine and tossing the glass away. "You seem unsettled and unsure, yet this cannot be so. You are eager to serve and please me, are you not?"
"Yes, Lord," I whispered, wishing he would get on with it rather than dragging it out the way he was doing. "I am eager to serve and please you."
"As you should be," he said, the smugness in his voice setting my teeth on edge. "It is the place of peasant girls to be eager to serve their betters, and yet there are times when reluctance and inexperience are a good deal more - warming - than eager anticipation. If I were to release you from the need to give me service, would you find yourself filled with gratitude toward me?"
I blinked at the faintly smiling indulgence on his face, wondering what he was up to, wondering if he meant what he said. Was he really going to let me off?
"Lord, I would be grateful for whatever attention was given me by you," I whispered, deciding to play it as safe as possible. "If I were to be left untouched, however, I would be-"
"Deeply disappointed," he interrupted, nodding with world-weary acceptance, knowing damned well that that wasn't what I'd been about to say. "I have no other recourse then than to complete what was begun. Ah me, how difficult it is at times to see to one's duty as a lord. Come and lay your head upon my chest, child, and we will see to your lusts as well as we may."
His hand forced me down against him, my cheek to his shoulder, the disappointment welling up from inside me bringing actual tears to my eyes. Even as I fought against being overwhelmed I cursed silently, finally understanding that his little act of supposed generosity had been designed to reach Bellna rather than me. He was trying to force her reactions out into the open, beyond my control, to a place where he could see them and recognize them for what they were.
If I had been silly enough to believe Grigon myself he might have gotten what he wanted, but I'm not what could be described as a trusting soul. I'd hoped he'd meant what he'd said, but I hadn't believed it; the little girl inside my head had believed, and I couldn't escape paying the price for her gullibility. Bellna didn't know what was going on, but she certainly knew she wanted no more of it.