by Wayne Meyers
It was a somber tavern. The candles were few and far between, the tables far apart, and the hospitality servers discrete and low-key. The air was filled with the taste of stale alcohol, wood smoke from the fireplace nestled in one corner, and pipe tobacco. A bard artisan slouching near the entranceway strummed half-heartedly at a lute, producing a mournful ballad of young love torn asunder.
I drummed my fingers on the table and looked around. A long bar top with stools sat before mirrored shelves of liquor bottles and an old, tired, hospitality bartender. Several men sat hunched over their drinks staring at themselves while the bartender rinsed steins and glasses from a tub of sudsy water.
Other patrons had pulled their chairs as far from us as they could get when we arrived and were now murmuring in low tones. While they had little interest in hearing the drunken ramblings of a cluster of peacekeepers, they probably preferred we didn’t hear them, either.
The conversation at the table turned to less weighty matters, and Journeyman Krellus, who sat at my right, finally realized I was still sober. He slammed a palm against the table. “This will never do. More beer!”
The barmaid hurried over with another tray of steins. Before she could place one in front of each of us, Journeyman Krellus stopped her and had her line them all up before me. He wagged a finger at me. “Don’t think I don’t know your secret.”
My heart skipped a beat. “My…secret?”
His fist pounded before me, jarring the steins, and his voice slurred. “You’re afraid if you drink too much, you won’t perform. Don’t worry. You’ll do fine. Have a drink.”
I exhaled and laughed, relieved. “Yes, yes indeed, Journeyman Krellus. I am very afraid of that.”
“Drink.” He nudged one of the steins closer to me.
I picked up the stein, peering at my comrades across the table. They all watched with eager expressions. Cursing under my breath, I emptied the stein in a long series of swallows, then placed it back on the table. There, I thought, now they’ll leave me alone.
Then, the beer hit me. It was a raw and potent brew, different than the one I had nursed through the evening, sending my head into a spiral as tingles shot up and down my arms and legs. I smacked my lips, approving of the flavor and desiring more. One more drink can’t hurt, I thought.
My memory blurs a bit at this point. I know I drank more, but I have no idea how many more. There was singing. There was laughing. There was swearing. And there was a lot of bragging, from fighting prowess to passionate conquests. Captain Sodalus told many amusing stories of his various lovers throughout the city, including the day three of them ran into him at the same time each believing they were his only one.
Then we began making outrageous toasts, followed by large gulps of beer.
Brentor raised his stein. “Here’s to Master Orcus’ new robe.” We drank and demanded fresh pours.
“Here’s to a huge, painful wart on Artelus’ bottom.” Captain Sodalus drank heartily to that one.
Journeyman Krellus lowered his head. “Here’s to the success of a lifelong mission.” We gulped somberly in reply.
“Here’s to the gossamer wings of a rainbow butterfly,” Marcos said. We pelted him with peanut shells.
Spaldeer staggered to his feet, his stein raised like a torch. “Here’s to the touch of a beautiful woman.”
“Indeed,” Journeyman Krellus said. He caught the arm of a passing server. “How much to settle our debt?”
We staggered from the tavern clutching each other’s shoulders for support. Brentor tripped over his feet and pulled the rest of us down with him. After a lot of cursing and limb extraction we rose and continued forward, taking several such spills in the streets ahead. It was winter cold and dark, with only one of the two moons appearing, and that but a sliver sometimes hidden completely by the fleeting clouds.
My head spun like a vortex when we reached our destination. I’m amazed to this day how we found our way there to begin with, but the six of us stood before a demimonde entrance, dazed by the bright torchlights set up against the midnight sky. Icy wind gusted through my robes and set my teeth to chattering.
I tried to achieve a coherent thought but found myself unable to do so. The others nudged me on ahead with many a good jest and jibe, but my feet were frozen the ground and I could not move. Words passed over me as though I were cloaked in oil, and even the meaning behind what was meant to happen became vague and blurry as though it were someone else, and not I, to whom it was happening.
“Well, and what do we have here? Six drunken peacekeepers—for shame.” The voice was sweet and oddly familiar, bringing my chin up from my chest where it had drooped.
Brentor elbowed his way in front of me. “Please dear Glimma, take us into your lair and hide us from the world.” He then tipped over backward and landed on the sidewalk, immobile and unconscious.
“Well, it seems there are only five of you now.” She gave a laugh like the ringing of chimes, kneeling beside Brentor to make sure he was only asleep. Her furrowed brow smoothed as she rose, and her eyes fell upon me. “Hey, I remember you.” She put a small hand under my chin. “It’s been what, three or four years now? I was right. You are a heartbreaker.”
Oddly enough, we were at the same demimonde guild where Marcos and Brentor had left me outside after they rescued me from my school bullies. I stared into her forest-green eyes as she tossed her blonde curls, the mocking smile both daring and inviting. She wore a long, flowing gown that did little to hide her curves. Even in my drunken stupor my body responded, and my feet shuffled forward into the doorway while my companions cheered.
She took my hand and gently guided me down the stairs as other demimonde journeywomen hurried past us to receive the others. We walked down a long, dim hallway on plush carpeting, the air heavy with exotic perfumes. Music played somewhere, a loud, boisterous melody rife with drums and bass that intensified the throbbing in my temples. We passed several closed doors from which came boisterous laughter or loud moaning, until Glimma turned through an open doorway into a small, dim chamber. She closed the door behind me as my eyes adjusted.
The room was cozy. The carpeting in here felt even lusher than that out in the hallway, as though I were walking upon a cloud. There was a large bed at the far end smothered with thick blankets and pillows of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The walls were covered in fur hangings, mostly grey or silver-trimmed ebony. An intricately carved vanity with tri-fold mirror filled the wall to my left, covered in vials and jars of what I assumed contained her makeup accoutrements. There was a small table next to the bed upon which rested an oil lantern, and she twisted the knob to increase the flame a tiny bit.
“I hope you don’t mind a little light. I’d like to look at you while we make love.” She slipped my robe from my shoulders and hung it up on a wrought-iron hook behind the door as I wobbled in the center of the room, my eyes blurring and my head disoriented. I felt as though my knees were about to buckle.
“May I sit somewhere?” I held up an arm to steady myself and she expertly grasped it with soft hands and guided me to the bed. I collapsed more than sat, laying back upon the ocean of pillows wondering why she had a mirror across the ceiling.
“Or I can leave it dark if you prefer.” Her voice purred as warm hands slipped beneath my shirt and traced my abdomen with teasing fingertips. “But with you I’d prefer to see everything.”
In my current state it was like moving underwater. Every motion I made took great effort with torpid movement, and sounds came across vast distances to reach my ears. I was outside my body looking down with an observer’s eye, watching what was happening with a growing sense of horror.
My shirt was off and she continued to caress my belly, then moved up to my chest and around my back, pressing her bare breasts against me. Her teeth and lips nipped and nuzzled at my neck and ears, first one side, then the other, until I thought I’d go mad. The pressure in my groin swelled to painful proportions as I approached a point where I no longer cared how
my release came, but only that it did, and soon. She hovered over me upon the bed, her gown sliding off her shoulders and down her back, her eyes raging with a lustful gleam. Her breath came as quick as mine and her caresses had turned savage, with nails and teeth pressing hard enough to hurt, yet gentle enough for me not to mind. This contradiction of sensations only heightened my desire.
I stared up at this beautiful, lustful woman, entranced by her soft, firm body, her full breasts and flat stomach. Her eyes were half closed, her lips moist and parted, her face flushed red. She grabbed my hands and placed them upon her breasts, grinding herself against me.
Her scorching hand slipped beneath my pants and grasped me, a sensation the like of which I could not have imagined would feel so fantastically, incredibly delightful. She gripped me tight and I gasped, and then she paused to unravel the silken belt about her waist, freeing her dress completely. It slipped behind her onto the floor. Looking down between our bellies, I saw the difference between women and men in tantalizing detail, thus perceiving the act that was required to bring relief from this bittersweet agony of lust, yet not fully certain how to begin. She climbed higher up my body with her hand still fast to me making little keening, moaning sounds that further enflamed my tingling nerves. My entire body felt taut as a wire that had to snap, and in the snapping, I knew relief and pleasure of the most phenomenal intensity would be mine.
And then, before she could complete her downward thrust, Babette’s face shattered my drunken haze like a mallet through a sheet of glass.
I tossed Glimma from me and sat up, ashamed and disoriented at what had almost happened. My hands covered my face and I sobbed, weeping uncontrollably, as tremors shook me to my core. Some time passed before I regained control of myself and my eyes focused again upon the room. Glimma sat cross-legged upon the carpeting before the bed, dressed, and watching me intently. From a distant part of my awareness came surprise as she appeared unruffled at my rejection.
“What could possibly make someone so sad, Peacekeeper?” Her voice was soft and filled with compassion. Her eyes never left mine as she waited for my reply.
I shook my head. My throat was sore, and eyes bloodshot. I wiped the tears from my chin with the back of my hand. “Something I must tell no one.”
She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a pouty look. “But I am the keeper of secrets. What is your name?”
“I am Hofen. And my apologies, but there is one whom I cannot bear to see hurt by anything in this world, least of all my own hasty actions. You are very beautiful and desirable, but….”
Glimma finished for me with a decisive toss of her head. “I am not she.”
“No.”
“But why the tears? Why the anguish? Tell me more, Hofen. Tell me all.”
Something within me snapped and my lips moved without conscious thought. Haltingly at first, but with building momentum, I spoke of Babette, of how we had first met, our first kiss, of the bracelet I had bought her and the knife she bought me. Of how my body trembled when she but placed one small hand upon my arm.
Glimma listened attentively and patiently throughout, and when I finished, it was like a heavy weight had lifted from my shoulders. I looked down at her in gratitude for her gift of caring and was surprised to see tears overflowing from her tightly shut eyelids. I knelt beside her on the carpeting and wiped them from her cheeks. “Is my story so sad, then?”
Her eyes opened and she smiled, shaking her head, but fresh tears replaced those I had removed.
“In my profession, as in yours, romance is a difficult thing. How many men want to be with one of us except for the obvious reasons? When that is finished, there is nothing left in their eyes but haste to leave. I have known several loves, and they have all moved on to more marriageable women.” She heaved a great sigh. “Yet, what else do I know? I enjoy pleasing men, and I enjoy what I do. So, there is the balance. There are no real solutions for either of us, only disappointment.”
“You can leave here,” I said.
“And do what?” Her forest-green eyes flashed. “Work as an apprentice in a guild in one of the northern cities, where no one would know what I used to be? Wash clothes in a town someplace for a pittance, pretending to be retired from some more credible guild?”
“I—”
Her voice rose. “Join the legions of the guildless?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She nodded, took a deep breath, and then patted my hand. “No, I am sorry for being unkind. Look, I’m used to being pampered with creams and lotions to keep my skin soft. I am used to wearing expensive perfumes to drive men wild with lust. I am used to having beautiful clothes and jewelry, bought with coin I could not make as much of anyplace else. Would you abandon your guild, then, my young and handsome heartbreaker?”
I hesitated. As much as I cared for Babette, I had never seriously considered leaving the guild. What would I do? Where would we go? How would I take care of her? It would be sheer folly. And the guild itself held a powerful attraction for me that defied even the deepest desires of my soul. It was the home I had never known before I came to live there, my haven of safety. How could I disappoint Journeyman Krellus, High-Master Chendor, or any of those who had done so much for me?
She pressed her hand on top of mine. “You see? It is not so easy to give up all that you are, though the breath to say so passes easily from your lips. But you are young still and have yet to know true pain. Once it passes, you learn you can go on and that changing everything is not the answer. It only creates new problems.”
I reflected on what she had said and found her logic sound. “You are as wise as you are beautiful.”
She playfully slapped my forearm. “And you are a flirt. Still, if you won’t sleep with me—and I must say you are the first man who has ever resisted doing so—then we must at least be friends. You may visit me when you can and tell me of your woes, and I will tell you mine. It would be nice to have someone to talk with who understands. Besides, many men do utilize our services for company alone. A fun companion for a night out. For me, a welcome respite from the riff-raff.”
“I would be honored,” I said.
Her smile deepened.
She rose to her feet with an exaggerated groan, using my shoulder for leverage. “You know what? I should have taken you when you were a boy. Somehow, I knew you would be back here, but I never dreamed it would be just for talk.”
I chuckled. “It is interesting how things turn out. Of all the places they could have brought me, they chose the same one where I had first seen you.”
Glimma laughed, her eyes glistening. “Oh, that is not so strange. Brentor sees me regularly here, ever since that first time. He’s in love with me, I think. I would be with him now had he not passed out and enabled me to take my pick instead.”
My eyes widened as understanding struck me. “You love him in return?”
She turned her back to me and tightened the silken belt about her dress. “You must tell none of them that nothing happened here tonight, otherwise they may suspect you of being in love.”
“I understand.”
She whirled about to face me, her teasing grin back. “Or worse, they might think I am not completely irresistible.” She kissed me lightly on the forehead, and then pulled back the covers from the bed, shoving the decorative pillows to the floor. “Now, get some sleep. I will wake you when they come in the morning and assure them you are a wild animal, though I had but a brief, teasing taste.”
Yawning, I realized how difficult it had become to remain awake. “You are a special woman.” The bed was warm and comfortable, putting me instantly to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Six—An Unfortunate Misunderstanding
Glimma’s hand on my shoulder woke me as the morning light spread across the rooftops of the city. My eyes flickered open, then closed, as a throbbing pain circulated from my head to my feet. It felt worse than the time Artelus had beat me. Spike
s of agony pulsated throughout my body, making my knees weak and my stomach ache. I wanted to vomit but couldn’t summon the energy. When I tried to stand, I fell instead to the floor, which thankfully remained carpeted as my face pressed heavily against it.
Brentor entered the room, took one look at me, and burst out laughing. “What did you do to him, girl? Get up, Hofen. Time to go home.”
I tried to pick myself off the floor but discovered my legs were numb. “I—I cannot walk.”
Journeyman Krellus appeared behind Brentor, shaking his head. He strode over to me and scooped me up and onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “I’ve got him. Don’t be too long now.”
“No, sir.” He ogled Glimma like a puppy with large, hopeful eyes.
Glimma patted my head as I passed her. “Goodbye, Hofen, dear. Be sure to return soon. But not too soon—give me time to recuperate.”
Remembering what she had said last night about pretending we had been intimate, I filled my voice with bravado. “You may be certain of it.”
Journeyman Krellus carried me down the hallway and up the stairs into the morning sunlight where the rest of our party waited. He whistled merrily as he walked, appearing to be in much better spirits. “I hope you had as much fun as I did. From the looks of things, perhaps you surpassed me, eh?”
Captain Sodalus clucked his tongue with mock disapproval. “Well, then, we did let you drink too much last night.” He turned to Marcos. “High-Master Chendor will be vexed if he sees Hofen in that state.”
Marcos shook his head with a mournful expression. “This is true. We must return him to life before we return to the guild.”
Spaldeer cleared his throat. “If I may be so bold, dear brothers, there is a fountain nearby.”
“Why, so there is,” Journeyman Krellus said. He nodded to Spaldeer. “Lead us there at once, good apprentice.”
My brow creased. “Fountain? Why would we need a fountain?”
Captain Sodalus grinned at me. “Hush up now and let us tend to your ailments.”