by Sharon Green
When the girls began to lace up my boots on the redhead, Fallan's weight was suddenly gone from my back. My own first reaction was to get to my feet, but Bellna's feelings were stronger than mine and they dragged mine along. On the ground Bellna had some small amount of modesty protection; upright there would be nothing more than what my hands could cover, which wasn't much. A thin, golden haze began to obscure my vision, and I discovered I had lost the battle for control when I tried to move and nothing happened. A flash of frustrated anger touched me, whirling in with the other emotions storming around inside me.
"You may now arise and begin dressing, Missy." Fallan spoke from behind me, a casual pat on my horribly bare bottom coming just before the sound of his rising. "It will take no more than a moment for you to do so, I know, for I mean to remain here and direct you."
"You cannot!" I wailed, mortified at the thought of being arrayed so openly before him. "And how may I dress when that -that - peasant has been given my clothing?"
"That is the princess you speak of, girl, and you no more than the peasant," the brute replied, a chuckle to be heard in his vile tone. His hand took my arm and forced me to my feet despite my protests, despite the enormity of such a thing.
I searched within me for the new knowledge which would cause him harm for the thing he dared, yet it was covered and kept from me by some means. Instead of finding myself able to chastise him I was able to do no more than stand with my hands before me, knowing the concealment pitifully inadequate, trembling at the amusement which took him.
Deep in my heart I knew I would not find myself able to struggle if he were to step forward and take me in his arms, yet he made no attempt to do so. There were none to halt him there, and none who would dare speak of it were he to thrust himself within me, yet he made no attempt to do so.
"That tinge of red does you no justice, girl," the beast chuckled, sending his gaze to touch every part of me. "Were you not red-haired it would perhaps be attractive, but as you are… Best you dress quickly."
I had no wish to don the crude trappings of a peasant, yet how might I refuse to cover myself against the stare of the brute? The skirt brought me was a plum print, the badly made bodice a thin once-white, the heavy shawl dyed an uneven green. Additional insult was given me in that none of the servants brought to furnish service to me lifted even a single hand in assistance. Out of necessity, then, I covered my own body, and when the shawl was tied about my waist the mercenary Fallan stepped closer to look down upon me.
"The lines of your body are more easily seen through clothing such as this," he murmured, a glint in the dark of his eyes. "Best you stay close to me when you are without the coach, else I may not be able to answer for your safety. Men are no more than men, most considering peasant girls theirs for the taking. None will pause to ask if you are indeed a peasant."
He turned from me then to gesture the others from the tent, and then it was me back in control again and not Bellna. I was startled that she'd given up so abruptly, without anything like a struggle, but while I was taking a deep breath and tightening my grip on the control, I found her quaking back in a corner of my mind.
Fallan had frightened her badly when he'd told her how men would react to her, and her imagination was picturing her being raped by men without number, none of them Fallan. She wanted Fallan so badly my body burned with the need, but she didn't want any part of a gang rape by strangers. I can't say how relieved I was that she looked at it like that, but it's amusing only to think about afterward. At the time the only consideration involved was that if she had liked the idea, it would have been my body taking the punishment.
Fallan lifted the tent flap and let the "princess" and her servants leave the tent first, then pushed me out after them with a hand in the middle of my back. He came out right behind me, calling to his men to get the tent folded and put away even as he followed us to the coach. The redhead was trying not to move stiffly in her new finery, but the weight of it was already beginning to get to her. She moved her head in discomfort, trying to loosen her collar and let in some of the fresh forest air, and Fallan passed me in two strides to catch up to her.
"You must not hold yourself so timidly," he instructed her, his voice gentle and supportive as he looked down at her. "You must be as bold and arrogant as the true princess is, for now you are she. Think of the gold you will have when this chore is done, and think of the awe and respect which will be yours when you return among your people. Think also of the insult which you may give others without fear of reprisal; you should, by now, be well schooled in that subject at the very least."
All four of the girls giggled at the dryness in Fallan's voice, knowing exactly who the butt of his humor was. I knew it too, but right now I couldn't have cared less. I was too busy backing away from the coach, just about ready to make a break for it. No matter how good Fallan was he'd never catch me once I was into the woods, and then I could finish up that assignment the right way. I backed up another step, then another, almost ready to turn - and backed right into a hard, male body.
"You mistake your direction, wench," a voice came from the body I'd backed into, causing me to turn my head fast. The mercenary Ralnor stood there, the one who was Fallan's lieutenant, a faint grin of amusement on his handsome face. His hand came up to take my arm in a deliberately heavy grip and Bellna, remembering what the man had done to the redhead, began to quake even harder in her corner.
"Should there be a mistake, it is certainly on your part," I told him, fighting hard to keep from growling as Bellna's shivering had a tendency to make me do. "Remove your hand from my arm, and do so immediately."
"What occurs here?" Fallan demanded, coming up behind me in time to see the grin disappear from Ralnor's face. Fallan's lieutenant was no longer amused, and that suited me just fine.
"Captain, I caught the wench attempting to take herself off," Ralnor said with a growl of his own, his hand tightening even more on my arm. "Allow me to punish her for you."
His pretty eyes looked at me with a hardness that was supposed to be intimidating; instead of feeling intimidated, all I wanted to do was offer him his best shot. Unfortunately, the role I was committed to didn't even let me pull my arm free of his hand; the only weapon I could use was words.
"As you realize you must ask permission before offering me harm, you must also realize what will befall you should you attempt the deed under any circumstance," I said in my coldest tone, holding his eyes the way Bellna would have if she were a little older and more mature. "It has clearly slipped your mind to whom you give insult, Lieutenant. Were I you, I would retract that insult."
"And yet you are not I, wench," Ralnor answered through his teeth, tightening his grip again to the point where I winced against the pain. "No wench, neither peasant nor princess, may speak to me as you do. Such insolence demands a reckoning, and I shall - "
"Do naught," Fallan interrupted, wrapping his hand around Ralnor's wrist and pulling his fingers away from my arm. "Do you forget the oath we have sworn, Ralnor? Do you forget the cautions we were given? You declared yourself able to withstand even the haughtiest of princesses. Were you mistaken in the judgment of your strength?"
"Perhaps … merely in my capacity for patience, Captain," the other man grudged, backing down as gracefully as his still-present anger would allow. "I had not meant to approach the wench after the earlier words exchanged between us, and did not; it was I who was approached, and in an unexpected manner. I will now take myself elsewhere, where I will not place our company in jeopardy."
He gave me a last glare then turned and walked off, heading toward a group of men tending their vair. I rubbed at my arm where his grip had probably left fingerprints, wondering exactly why I'd gotten into an argument with the man. Fallan turned from watching Ralnor's receding back to look down at me with less than friendliness.
"Such a thing will not occur again, Missy," he growled with a look in his eyes that made Ralnor's glare a smile by comparison. "That my
men and I are pledged to your safety does not mean you may address us as you please. Had Ralnor less control of his own temper, that overbearing temper you display would surely have been properly trimmed. Let me see your arm."
I'd thought I'd been doing my rubbing surreptitiously, but eagle-eye Fallan had spotted it anyway. He pushed my other hand away and took my arm with such unexpected gentleness that for once I was more surprised than Bellna. Just below the short sleeve of my new blouse angry red finger marks could be seen, a couple of which were bound to turn into bruises. Fallan inspected the arm and marks with no expression on his face, then raised his gaze to mine again.
"I regret that skin so fair and soft must know the results of a man's anger," he said, looking much too deeply into my eyes. "The fault is mine, for I should not have let you move from my side. Where did you think to go other than to the coach?"
"I w-wished to avail my-myself of the bushes hereabout," I stuttered, sounding and feeling like a little girl whose arm was still being held by the man she was beginning to be terribly in love with. Bellna's throbbing was racing all through me, showing she didn't have to be in control to make me act like an idiot.
I could feel Fallan's warmth through my arm where his big hand touched me, could see how he looked at my body through the thin cloth covering it, could taste how badly my arousal wanted satisfaction from him. With all that against me I found it impossible not to tremble, and a faint grin lightened the near-ugliness of his face.
"You should have spoken to me of the need," he said, taking my hand instead of my arm. "It would have been my pleasure to escort you to the privacy which is yours by right. As I shall do now. Follow me, wench."
Bellna fluttered again, thrilled with the way he called me "wench," and I discovered that the story I'd come up with on the spur of the moment wasn't just a story any longer. I really did need some bushes, and maybe then I'd be able to reclaim the rest of my bodily functions.
I let Fallan guide me to a ring of greenery to one side of the clearing, discovered there was no way of sneaking out again without someone noticing, did what I had to, then let him take me back to the coach again. The bushes offer was made to the four girls and accepted by them, giving me the faint hope that I'd be left alone by the coach, but no such luck. Fallan stayed with me while the girls guided themselves, and when they came back he helped the "princess" in first.
"And now the rest of you may enter," he said, giving the others a hand before he turned to me. "When the next inn is reached, Missy, you and the other wenches will take yourselves to the kitchens, as was previously done. The princess will be served by the inn girls, allowing her servants a time of rest. I trust there will be no confusion as to which place is yours."
"I am well aware of which place is mine," I answered with a pout, trying hard to shove Bellna's reactions away from me. "Equally am I aware that that place has been taken from me. Which of the others will serve me in the kitchens?"
"None will serve you in the kitchens," Fallan answered with something of a sigh as he leaned one hand against the coach above my head. "You will be required to serve yourself, and my men and I as well. You are to be a peasant wench, and convincingly, else shall I be forced to punish you soundly. Far better a strapping at my hands, than a sword in the throat from those who seek your life. Your safety will be assured - at whatever cost."
His eyes said he'd just given me his word, but that was all he was giving me; rather than letting me have the time to argue, he hustled me up the steps into the coach, and slammed the door on me. I was able to climb over all the legs and get to my seat on the far side before the coach moved off again, but the lurching start shifted me over toward the redhead.
She looked at me distantly and gathered her skirts closer to her, making sure the peasant didn't dirty them by being too near them, and the other three girls giggled in appreciation. The redhead had picked up the necessary attitudes of Tildorani nobility, and was practicing them on me in the same way I'd done with her. Bellna was huffing inside my head, ready to be insulted, but I had other things to think about. I moved all the way over to my side of the seat, ignored the giggling, whispering girls, and brooded at the forest flowing past.
Right at this moment, I couldn't decide whether Bellna or Fallan was my biggest problem. Fallan was alternating between threats and sweet-talking, a tactic designed to put a young girl off balance and keep her that way. Bellna was reacting just the way Fallan wanted her to, and her unbridled reactions were throwing me off balance.
As I sat and stared at the forest the road wound through, my unwelcome guest was sighing and thinking about the way Fallan had treated her. Treated me. Hell, treated both of us. He hadn't liked the way I'd argued with Ralnor, but the marks on my arm had seemed to really bother him. Bellna's reactions to his small kindnesses were making me begin to like Fallan the mercenary, and I couldn't afford to like him. I was on an assignment that would undoubtedly produce a whole lot of dead bodies all around me, and I couldn't afford to find myself in the position of having liked one of them. The sort of emotions evoked at a time like that are not conducive to survival.
I sighed and shifted my bare feet on the floorboards of the coach, feeling the repugnance Bellna felt at the sensation. She had never been made to go barefoot before in her entire life, and her over-awareness of the state was enough to divert part of her attention from thoughts of Fallan. It annoyed her that that indignity had been forced on her by Fallan himself, but she was ready to forgive him - grudgingly - if he continued to act as though she might be important to him in some way.
I wondered about that, about why he was concerning himself so directly with the young girl in his charge, but could only guess when it came to drawing conclusions. It wasn't likely that he was seriously interested in her, not when she was a princess already promised in marriage to the crown prince of Narella. Attachments like that were formed only in fiction; real-life, practical men knew better, and if nothing else, Fallan seemed practical.
He was probably only trying to make life easier on himself by having Bellna too starry-eyed to give him a hard time. Or too wide-eyed by his threats, the latest of which had done exactly that to her. He had said he would beat me if I didn't act like the peasant I was supposed to be, but somehow I still didn't believe him. It wasn't the sort of thing a mercenary could get away with, even in the name of protection.
Fallan was probably hoping that if he said it calmly and seriously enough, Bellna the child would believe it. Unfortunately for him he wasn't dealing with Bellna, and I didn't like the arrangements he'd made with the redhead. I leaned back on the coach seat and closed my eyes on the decision that I'd have to push the good captain a little more, as well as sabotage his plans if at all possible. I was the one getting paid to take the risks; the idea of over-protecting a decoy was absurd.
The distance to the next inn wasn't far enough to let me do more than grab a catnap. When the captain of Bellna's mercenaries came to hand her out of the coach, all of us, including the new princess, were given a surprise. The man wearing the captain's neck scarf was Ralnor, and he was the picture of courtesy to the redhead.
Fallan, now a lieutenant, gathered the rest of us "girls" together, and herded us along after his captain and our princess. The rest of the mercenaries took up their places around and behind us, and we repeated our parade to the inn. After Ralnor and Fallan checked out the interior we went inside, were immediately noticed by the tall, slightly pot-bellied man who was the innkeeper, then went through the same revelation scene we had at the previous inn.
I'd decided to wait for the grand announcement before making my move, so when the innkeeper was gasping in shocked delight I began to step forward - and discovered that Fallan hadn't counted on my being intimidated by his threats. Three of his men were inches away from me at left, right and back, and the disguised captain himself was right in front of me. I took no more than that one short step before finding myself in a box of hefty male bodies, and seconds later our part
y had separated, the redhead and Ralnor being led to a table, Fallan and six of his men, the three girls and I all moving toward a door in the far wall.
With all eyes in the place on the "princess," no one noticed that one of the peasant girls wasn't moving entirely on her own. I noticed it, of course, but there wasn't much I could do and still stay in character. Shouting over wide shoulders or past thick arms wouldn't be very effective, but that was the only option Fallan had left open to me.
The door in the far wall let us into a big, stuffy room filled with the odor of cooking food. Four women in peasant dress hurried from pot to pan to preparation table to fire, sweat on their faces and boredom in their eyes. Five girls hurried around filling wine jugs and collecting goblets, three male slaves in chains lugged heavy sacks or carried armloads of wood, and two men wearing yellow and white neck scarves and very obvious swords stood and watched the hurry all around them without sharing in it. The two armed men were house guards, and when they saw Fallan and his huskies they straightened and came away from the wall they'd been leaning on.
"Calmly," Fallan called, holding one hand up, palm outward, toward the two men. "Our Company rides in the service of the Princess Bellna, who now pauses for refreshment in your house. We, ourselves, are here to assist you in guarding the pots - as well as help ourselves to a bit of the best of them. Are there any about it would be wise to look upon with suspicion?"
"None save yourselves," answered one of the men, a dark-haired, dark-eyed, almost-match to Fallan. He was grinning faintly to show he might be joking, but he and the other man kept their backs to the wall and their hands not far from their hilts.
"Well spoken." Fallan nodded, clearly in approval. "To accept my word would be foolishness on your part. It would undoubtedly be best if you were to - "
"Why do you all stand about gawping?" a sudden voice demanded, and we turned to see the innkeeper in the doorway. "The Princess Bellna honors my house with her presence, and those in my service take their ease while my wine sours and my food burns! To your work, all of you, and that as quickly as you value your freedom - or skins!"