WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations

by Kathryn Le Veque

  Another table was strictly beef – beef prepared twenty different ways, with different sauces and different spices. There was even a bull’s head on the table, cooked, with grapes for eyes and a crown on its head. Yet another table was chicken and other birds. Crowning that table was a giant peacock that was cooked, yet the feathers had been reattached so that it looked as it did in life.

  People were simply walking up to the tables, using their hands and removing chicken legs or knuckles of beef. She saw one man stand there and use his hands to scoop out big chunks of a beef pie and shove it in his mouth. Against the wall was a table dedicated to sweets and there were probably more sweets than Gavriella had ever seen in her entire life, and still another table that was full of drinks. A nearby servant made sure that the table never ran dry.

  It was more food than Gavriella had ever seen in her life.

  Gavriella took a skewer of candied grapes, but Aurelia didn’t let her examine the food too closely before she was pulling her along to show her the rest of this mysterious establishment. As Gavriella quickly devoured her grapes, she had no real hint that the worst was yet to come.

  In fact, it was in front of her.

  Because the grounds had once been a Roman temple, there were small cells that were meant to house priests or even soldiers. They were sleeping rooms complete with stone beds that had been built there a thousand years before when the Romans ruled Londinium. What they were used for now, however, was not what the Romans had intended.

  There was a strange smell down here, incense burning in bowls to cover up the stink of human bodies and sex. There were curtains in front of some of the cells and not in front of others. Gavriella turned away quickly when she realized that in one cell, two girls were kissing and stroking one another as a man watched. In the next cell, virtually the same thing was happening. At that point, Gavriella realized what Aurelia had meant by living out fantasies.

  Unholy, sexual fantasies.

  Gavriella was starting to feel sick.

  Most of the cells seem to be filled with people doing things they probably should not have been doing. She tried not to look into any of them because some of them were wide open with no curtains to shield their activities. She happened to catch sight of a man lying on the stone bed while a woman put her mouth on his manhood. After that, she simply shut her eyes and let Aurelia lead her on.

  She didn’t want to see anything more.

  The music they had heard when they first entered the labyrinth was growing louder and at the end of the corridor that was lined with cells, they spilled out into a vast, low-ceilinged chamber that was full of people dancing. There were minstrels lining the wall on one side and they played a lively tune as drunk men and drunk women danced together, loudly and happily.

  Camilla had apparently reached the event she wanted to participate in and she ran out into the chamber, losing herself amongst the dancers. Aurelia still had a hold of Gavriella when a man in a dog mask grabbed Aurelia and pulled her out onto the dance floor. Gavriella nearly got yanked along, but she let go of Aurelia and let the woman plunge into the writhing crowd.

  She wanted no part of it.

  Now, Gavriella was all alone in this horrendously sinful place, watching men in dog or stag masks dance with women in cat or bird masks. The masks were all elaborate, and quite beautiful, and they were divided for the sexes. The dance that the group was participating in was not an unknown one, a folk dance that Gavriella had danced to herself from time to time. But it seemed so long ago. Any of her memories and experiences from home seemed like centuries ago.

  It was as if she had been away forever, missing it now more than she ever had.

  Gavriella backed up, pressing herself against the wall as she watched the dance go on. On more than one occasion, she watched a man wrap his arm around a woman and fondle her breasts as she danced. The women didn’t seem to mind at all, but the last thing Gavriella wanted was to be fondled against her will.

  That had already happened once.

  She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

  She had to get out.

  Unfortunately, she had no idea how to get out. She had followed Aurelia into this large chamber, but her eyes had been closed some of the time because she had been trying to protect herself from what was going on around her. Unfortunately, that meant that she was completely lost.

  The music was loud. Too loud. It wasn’t even enjoyable. Gavriella turned in the direction she thought they had come from but there were so many people it was difficult to tell. She saw what she thought were a couple of doorways, so she made her way towards one of them. It seemed to be dark and still inside the doorway, so she stepped into it and removed herself from the room where men and women were dancing sensually.

  The corridor had torches on the walls, with the same sooty smoke billowing against the ceiling. At the end of the corridor was a light and she made her way towards it, but she quickly realized this wasn’t the way she’d come in because there were no cells lining either side of the corridor. But she saw a light up ahead and assumed there must be servants around who could tell her where the exit was.

  She proceeded.

  Unfortunately, the corridor only took her deeper into the maze. Gavriella felt as if the ground were sloping, as if she were walking downwards, and she ended up in a chamber where both men and women were gambling. They were rolling bones and engaging in any number of other gambling games. Gavriella wasn’t very familiar with gambling games, so she could only really guess what they were playing. When a cry went up over to her left, she saw a woman stand up and reveal her breasts to the whole table of men because she had evidently lost the game. Gavriella decided this was not the place for her.

  She moved on.

  When she turned to go out the way she’d come in, she realized that there were two other doors next to the one that she had come through. In fact, they all looked alike, and she chose what she thought was the correct door. It looked like it, and it smelled like it, so she headed back out towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

  Sadly, for her, it only took her into another room.

  In this small chamber, filled with smoke and fumes from the copper brazier, scantily clad women were dancing for an audience of men. They were wearing the thin, flimsy clothing that the women who had given them their masks had been wearing, clothing that was transparent. As Gavriella watched, a man in the corner played his citole and the women gyrated.

  Nipples flashed.

  Gavriella was starting to become panicky.

  Whirling around, she left the way she’d come. She was trying desperately not to lose her composure, but this place was a vast collection of tunnels and small chambers, all of them looking and smelling alike, and not one of them leading the way out. If she could at least make it back to the room with the food, she might be able to find her way to freedom. Perhaps Aurelia and Camilla thought this place was a good deal of sophisticated fun, but Gavriella did not.

  She thought it was horrible.

  The place was maze of corridors and more corridors, of smaller chambers and larger chambers, and every one of them full of people. The more Gavriella wandered, the more disoriented she became. She tried to find her way back the way she had come, but she just ended up going deeper into the labyrinth of Gomorrah. She had just entered another small chamber when a man grabbed her from behind.

  “Come ’ere, girl,” a man slurred. “Come ’ere and give us a kiss, you tasty morsel.”

  He was big and smelly. He also had a lot of hair, because when Gavriella put her hands up to stop him, all she could feel was hair.

  He was too close, too sweaty, and too nasty.

  His mouth clamped down over hers.

  Gavriella let out a scream. Suddenly, she was back in the north, in that little village where she had been cornered by men in mail and weapons. They had sighted her like a hunter sights prey, and they had followed her until they trapped her.

  And then, she had been grabb
ed.

  As the big, hairy man tried to kiss her, Gavriella was taken back to the worst moment in her life. At the time, she had been shocked and confused. She had lived on the borders her entire life, a peaceful existence, and she had never been fearful when out of her father’s home of Falstone Castle. She had taken weekly trips to town to go to the marketplace or to visit the various merchants. She had lived her entire life with relative freedom and had never feared for her safety.

  Until the only incident she’d ever experienced became the biggest event in her life.

  Now, the amorous man smothering her brought it all back.

  Helpless…

  Terror…

  Her composure vanished.

  Gavriella began to scream and fight for all she was worth. She hit the man in the face, dislodging the bear mask he wore. As he grunted in pain and his hand flew to his nose, which now had a trickle of blood, Gavriella took off running. It didn’t even matter which direction she was running, only that she was.

  Only that she had to.

  She had to flee.

  Dark and angled corridors confused and terrorized her, but she continued to run. She was running wildly, banging into people, smashing into things, but still she ran. She didn’t even know where she was going. Somehow, she ended up in another room where men were drinking heavily; she could smell the alcohol in the air. There was a minstrel playing a harp and a woman singing softly which, given the chaos of the rest of the establishment, seemed oddly out of place.

  The chamber had a small alcove off it, only Gavriella thought it was another corridor. She ran into it only to smash into the wall and hit her forehead, which knocked her back. The alcove was apparently another one of those cells where people could go off and do things that were all part of the fantasy world because there were cushions and furs on the floor.

  It smelled like innocence lost.

  Head spinning and ears ringing, Gavriella ended up on her behind, having fallen on one of the cushions. She could hear gasping, realizing that it was her own. There were tears on her face and she ripped off the mask, tossing it aside.

  She was, literally, in hell.

  There was no escape.

  She could feel something in her left hand, realizing that it was a blanket of some kind. Frightened to death and unable to run any further, Gavriella pulled the blanket up over her head, huddled against the wall, and wept.

  She just wanted to go home, but she couldn’t find her way out.

  She was going to die here.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Andreas hadn’t led a particularly sheltered life. At least, he hadn’t thought so. He’d fostered at some of the most prestigious castles in all of England and he had served, in his youth, with some of the most experienced warlords around. He’d been to York, Carlisle, Manchester and Liverpool, Nottingham, Oxford, Cardiff, and London. Several times. He didn’t think of himself as a country simpleton. Hell, he had even been to Paris and Madrid. Nay, he wasn’t some fool who had never been out of his village.

  He’d lived a little.

  But given what he had already experienced at this place called Gomorrah, he was starting to feel like an infant who was still in swaddling.

  Upon entering the mysterious establishment, they had masks put on their faces and were told that at Gomorrah, every man lived a fantasy. That meant you weren’t to give your real name, nor were you to ever remove your mask. This was a place with no names, no past, and no future. A man, or a woman, could do as he, or she, pleased. Nothing was off limits.

  Andreas was about to see just what that meant.

  It wasn’t just the lavish food that impressed him. He’d been to plenty of feasts that had been far more lavish and better attended, although he had to admit that there were dishes presented that even he had never seen before. He’d managed to taste quite a bit of it before Theodis had dragged him off. Then, they had passed by the cells where prostitutes were doing what prostitutes did and men were enjoying every minute of it.

  After that, they’d moved into a rather large chamber that was filled with people who were dancing to very good music. But it wasn’t so much dancing as it was publicly fondling one another. Sure, they were dancing in the literal sense, but he saw more than one man grab a woman’s breast uninvited or another pull a woman into his embrace so he could suckle on her neck.

  It was sexual debauchery without restraint.

  As they watched the dancing, they had been brought drinks by a servant dressed in transparent clothing who had served them a heavily mulled wine that, Andreas thought, had something else in it that made his head swim. When he realized that the wine was spiked with something unpleasant, he went for ale that seemed to be free of any kind of stimulant. Tor and William followed his lead, as they weren’t too thrilled with the wine, either.

  Theodis wasn’t even drinking. They’d lost him when he ran out onto the dance floor and grabbed a woman to dance with, who quite happily appreciated his company. But he didn’t try to kiss her or caress body parts. He simply wanted to dance and she was more than happy to comply. He was a perfect gentleman, in truth, and the girl apparently grew bored with his good behavior and moved on with another partner who stuck his hand down her bodice.

  But Theodis took it in stride. He left the throng of dancers and took his friends into yet another corridor that led to a chamber that was probably the most outrageous thing Andreas had ever seen. It was full of men, and even some women, all focused on a woman who sat on a table at one end of the chamber.

  The woman was quite lovely and she was dressed like a queen. All of the men in the room seemed to be very excited about her presence and Andreas had no idea why until the woman laid back on the table and spread her legs, knees bent, as a man stood next to her with a big bunch of red grapes. As Andreas and the others watched in fascination and curiosity, the woman promptly shoved a grape into her woman’s center and, as the men cheered wildly, shot the grape out and into the crowd of men.

  The roar of their approval was deafening.

  Andreas couldn’t help it; he started laughing. Tor and William, too. They were all laughing heartily as the woman shot grape after grape from her private parts, and the men who were so enthusiastically waiting for every single grape were trying to catch them in their mouths. The woman was very good with her aim and she was able to shoot it into a mouth more often than not.

  It was the wildest thing Andreas had ever seen.

  A woman who could shoot grapes across the room from a body part meant to pleasure a man and birth children.

  They watched the grape lady for quite some time and Andreas began to wonder how he was going to explain such a thing to his stepmother and grandmother. He wasn’t looking at it from a sexual standpoint, but rather from a standpoint of skill. The grape lady had a good amount of skill to be able to shoot those grapes out from between her legs with such accuracy. He thought it was quite fascinating but realized quickly that his beloved stepmother and adoring grandmother would not be so fascinated.

  They would probably box his ears for being so lewd.

  When the novelty of the grape lady faded, Theodis move them away from the performance. He also moved them because the audience was becoming quite rowdy and a fight erupted. When the fists started to fly, the four of them moved into another corridor that took them back to the chamber where everyone was still dancing. There were a few doorways off of that chamber and they picked one, ending up in an incredibly tame chamber given the riotous nature of the establishment. Men were simply sitting around, drinking ale and listening to a woman sing as a man accompanied her on his harp.

  Andreas with more comfortable in this room than he had been in any of the others, so he found a place to sit along with Tor and William and Theodis, and the four of them listened to the music and sampled a few good ales that the servants provided for them. The alcohol in this chamber didn’t seem to be spiked.

  “So,” Andreas said, smacking his lips as he tasted an ale that had hints
of apples in it. “I think you really did bring us to Sodom and Gomorrah, Tay.”

  Theodis grinned. “Only the best for my dearest friends.”

  Andreas cocked an eyebrow. “If you do this for your dearest friends, I would hate to see what you would do for an enemy.”

  Theodis laughed, pouring more ale for them from a pitcher brought by a servant. “Truly, this is a festive place,” he said. “Where else can you see things you would not normally see outside of Paris?”

  William, seated on Andreas’ other side, smacked his lips at the surprisingly good ale. “So this is the Roman temple, is it?” he asked. “I had no idea it would be so elaborate.”

  Theodis nodded his head. “Indeed, it is,” he said. “It was a temple dedicated to Eros.”

  “The god of love,” William muttered. When the others looked at him with some surprise, he tapped his head. “I remember my education. Ancient gods and goddesses always fascinated me. But I doubt Eros could have imagined what the Hessians would do to his temple.”

  They all started chuckling, remembering the grape lady when Theodis mockingly spread his legs. “That was… charming,” William said, lifting his eyebrows. “I’m sure her father must be proud.”

  “Mayhap he is. Mayhap he’s the one who put her up to it.”

  “Mayhap it’s her mother’s profession.”

  Deeply, they laughed. “Can you imagine what childbirth will be like for her?” Andreas asked. “The midwife will have to stand back from the bed and catch the infant as it shoots out into the room.”

  “Mayhap she’ll catch it in her mouth,” Theodis said.

  That brought more laughter and more drinking. The woman singing the lovely songs had a haunting voice, made more haunting by the harp that accompanied her. A servant brought around some food on a tray, food from the main feasting room. There were small tarts with beef and raisins, along with sweets. They were only supposed to take a few from each tray, as there were more people in the chamber listening to the woman’s lovely singing, but Andreas took the entire tray from the servant and he and William and Tor and Theodis made short work of it.