by Jenna Glass
Having seen enough of the decimated district, Delnamal and his men made their way to the harbor front. There were two more stops in his inspection tour, one at each end of the harbor. First was the Abbey. Advance reports had told him the sturdy stone walls had held up against the flood, though the interior had been gutted. The abigails had ridden out the flood on the Abbey’s top floor, crammed into a pair of rooms that were the abbess’s living quarters. Except for the miserable witches who had cast the spell that killed so many, the women of the Abbey had all survived. Delnamal meant to make each and every one of them regret it.
It was a nasty, difficult slog to traverse what had once been the busy thoroughfare of Front Street. A narrow path had been cleared in the midst of the wreckage, but there was no clearing the squelching mud that coated everything. Mud splattered the horses’ coats and stained the riders’ boots and breeches, and Delnamal was in constant battle against his balky, stubborn horse. He prayed the damned beast wouldn’t panic at some imagined danger and carry him off at a blind gallop. He could only imagine the talk that would circulate through the barracks and the palace if his men had to run him down to control his horse.
Delnamal had never once set foot in the Abbey, though he suspected he was one of the few men of his entourage not to have indulged. But being the crown prince, he saw no reason to throw away good money for favors any number of women—common and noble alike—would happily grant him. He suspected even Lady Oona, whom he’d loved since they were both teenagers, would happily grant him access to her bed despite their inconvenient marriages to other people, were he willing to break his own marriage vows. But however distasteful he found Shelvon, she was his wife, and he had vowed to share his bed with no other. No matter how painful the keeping of that vow became.
He’d heard many a tale of the Women’s Market and of the grand pavilion that was its most profitable venture, but when he and his men passed through the gates, the scene that met his eyes was like nothing he’d ever heard described.
The courtyard that had once been a market was bustling, as he imagined it had been for every day of its existence, but not for the usual reasons. Women in stained and torn red robes were steadily streaming in and out of the main building, carrying armfuls of soaked, muddy debris and piling it in stacks along the outer walls. A few equally dirty and ragged men roamed about with blind white eyes, reaching out to pluck elements from the air to activate various magic items. Women passing by picked up the activated magic items and carried them to cracks in the Abbey’s walls and foundation, using the contained spells to make repairs.
Activity halted when the crown prince and his entourage entered the courtyard. Those who’d had their Mindseye open quickly closed it. Women who’d been about to enter the courtyard with armloads of rubbish quickly ducked back inside, and those who were in the courtyard froze in their tracks. Eyes that had moments before been dull with exhaustion and hard labor were suddenly wide and wary. With good reason. Only a naïve fool would believe the women of this abbey had all been ignorant of what their abbess and her accomplices were up to, and one way or another, Delnamal intended to extract the truth out of the traitorous wretches.
Several of his men dismounted, fingering their swords and making sure there was no room for anyone to duck past them and out the gate. Delnamal looked at the churned, muddy earth of the courtyard and decided to stay on his horse.
“Who is in charge here?” he demanded. The women all looked to one another, none daring to speak. The most timid among them were edging back toward the building’s main entrance as if taking themselves out of his sight might protect them from his wrath. “No one move!” he barked, glaring at a young girl with an unsightly blotched face who had one foot in the doorway. Reluctantly, she turned back to face the courtyard. Her gaze remained riveted to the ground before her feet, and she was clearly petrified. Delnamal spurred his horse forward until he was practically on top of the girl. Up close, he saw that beneath the dirt and the hideous birthmark, she was a pretty little thing.
“Tell me who is in charge, or I shall have you whipped right here in this very courtyard in front of everyone!”
The girl swayed on her feet, and Delnamal thought perhaps she was about to faint in terror. Belatedly, he realized he should not have selected the most frightened-looking woman in his sight if he wished to obtain information.
“I am in charge,” called a voice from within the Abbey proper. Hurried footsteps echoed within the stone hallway and soon an older woman emerged from the darkness, gently pushing the frightened girl to the side.
When she came into the light, Delnamal saw the woman who claimed to be in charge was at least seventy-five years old. Her back was crooked with age, her hands gnarled with what he guessed was arthritis, but the mud and water that spotted her robes and her wimple declared she did not consider herself past the age of physical labor. He winced as she dipped a shallow curtsy that looked like it might turn into an inelegant sprawl, but she kept her faulty balance.
“Forgive me, Your Highness,” said the crone. “I do not move as fast as once I did, and I was in the back when you arrived.”
“You are the new abbess?”
She kept her head respectfully bowed as her shoulders rose in a shrug. “That has yet to be officially determined. I am the most senior, therefore—”
“Fetch me the next two candidates for the position.”
The women in the courtyard began to murmur to one another, but a sharp glance from Delnamal shut them all up.
The would-be abbess sent the girl with the marked face into the Abbey. She quickly returned with two more old women. One walked with the aid of a cane, and yet still the girl had to steady her with a hand on her arm. Delnamal shook his head at the thought of any of these crones being in charge of anything.
Delnamal gestured his men forward. “Arrest them. All of them.”
The murmurs in the courtyard were louder this time, and they did not immediately die down at Delnamal’s glare. His men obeyed promptly, seizing each of the would-be abbesses and slapping manacles on their wrists. The old woman with the cane lost her balance when the cane was torn from her grip. The guardsman who had shackled her flicked a brief glance toward Delnamal as if worried he disapproved. When Delnamal showed no sign of displeasure, the man grabbed the old woman’s arm and dragged her through the mud. She cried out in pain and distress.
The three women were all yammering at once, but Delnamal had no interest in their pleas and excuses. Many of the remaining abigails dissolved into tears, clutching one another’s hands and huddling together for comfort. Delnamal spurred his horse into a high-stepping walk, circling the courtyard and examining the tattered women and thinking about how best to reassert the authority of the Crown. The trade minister had clearly allowed them too much autonomy and put too much power into the hands of the abbess. It was time to remind them what it meant to be Unwanted.
“You!” he said, pointing at one of the women who hadn’t the good sense to weep. “And you, and you.” He pointed out each woman, young or old, who seemed not to be fully cowed by the arrest of the three crones. He picked five in all, noting that several of them raised their chins proudly rather than cowering as they ought. He’d taken care to choose the most unlovely of them, women who had most likely been homely enough to escape working the pavilion. “You will service my men in any way they desire until they are fully sated. Free of charge, naturally.”
The chorus of gasps and protests from the assembled abigails—even the three arrested women—was music to his ears. Perhaps they were finally understanding that defying the Crown had consequences. Delnamal looked over his shoulder at his entourage, twenty men strong. Some looked at the selected women with obvious distaste, but the more junior guardsmen—whose wages did not allow them to visit the pavilion—were not so picky. At his signal, they advanced on the chosen women. One of the women tried to run away,
but a guardsman easily ran her down, shoving her face-first into the mud.
The courtyard echoed with screams and sobs, but any woman who tried to protest or interfere was beaten back with fists or feet, and most were too terrified to take action at all. A few of his men decided not to restrict themselves to the women Delnamal had chosen. Melcor was eying a buxom beauty with deliciously pouty lips. He raised an inquiring eyebrow at Delnamal, who saw no reason any abigail should deny her services to any of his men. He lowered his head in a small nod, and Melcor leapt on the girl, who let out a cry of pain when he grabbed a handful of wimple and hair.
Delnamal stayed on his horse, monitoring the activity in the courtyard. He had no inclination to partake himself—even were he willing to abandon his vows, he had no interest in screwing a woman who was not exclusively his—but he likewise had no inclination to stop his men from indulging. He only intervened when one of the men grabbed a girl in the gray robes of a novice. She looked to be on the cusp of womanhood, and would probably don the red robes within the next year or two, but she was not there yet.
“Leave her!” he barked at the man, who threw the child into a mud puddle in disgust. The screams and cries of the abigails did not trouble Delnamal’s conscience, but the novice’s terrified sobs made him squirm in his saddle. If it would not have made him look weak in front of his men, he might have dismounted and tried to comfort the poor child. He was not a monster, after all.
He allowed his men to enjoy their sport for about half an hour, but they had another important stop to make before the day was over, so he had to call a halt. The courtyard was littered with torn red robes that had been trampled into the mud and shat on by the horses. Naked women coated in mud curled their bodies into protective balls, awaiting their next assault, and those who had not been touched were too frightened to come to their aid.
“Let this be a warning to you all!” Delnamal bellowed, wondering if all the crying women had enough wits to hear him through their distress. “The Crown will not be defied. You will undo the spell that you unleashed upon the world, or you will all be declared traitors to the Crown.”
Hearing in his words an indication that the Abbey’s violation was over—at least for now—several of the abigails ran to their fallen comrades, covering their bodies with whatever filthy scraps of fabric they could salvage. Delnamal looked from one bruised and battered woman to another, then chose one whose bloody nose was crooked and broken and whose breasts were covered with bite marks. She was old enough to carry an aura of authority and battered enough to have learned her place.
“You,” Delnamal said, pointing at her. “What is your name?”
The woman’s lips moved, but no sound came out. The abigail with the birthmark put her arm around the older woman’s shoulders and answered for her without meeting Delnamal’s gaze.
“She is Chanlix Rai-Chanwynne, Your Highness.”
Delnamal could not have cared less what the woman’s name was save for the need to enter it in a record book somewhere. “You are the new abbess. And if your Abbey fails to reverse the spell, you will be the first of many to pay. Is that understood?”
The new abbess cringed in the mud, but she managed a nod.
Satisfied that the Abbey had been suitably punished for whatever role it had played in the casting of the abominable curse, Delnamal gathered his men, ordering several of them to take the arrested women to the dungeon. The other men would accompany him to his next stop. One he did not anticipate would be anywhere near as satisfying.
* * *
—
Chanlix Rai-Chanwynne spat out a mouthful of blood as she watched the prince and his men exit the Abbey. Blood continued to drip down the back of her throat, and her right eye was well on its way to swelling shut. The fiery burn between her legs made the thought of getting to her feet and moving daunting, but better to hurt more than to remain lying here in the cold mud. Besides, if she was to take the prince at his word, she was now the abbess and responsible for all the groaning, crying women in the courtyard.
“I’m all right, Maidel,” she told the frightened young abigail with the stained face. The girl was crying and shaking, and Chanlix thanked the Mother that the soldiers had let her be. Maidel thought of that mark on her face as a source of shame and misery, but in this instance it had saved her the horror that had befallen the prettiest of the abigails. And the older women the prince had ordered his men to defile.
Maidel’s teeth chattered as she tried to pull herself together, and the worry in her eyes clearly stated she did not believe her abbess’s claim.
Chanlix spat again. There was less blood this time. “Help me up,” she said, taking the younger woman’s hand and bracing herself for pain. “We will need to heal as many injuries as we can before we go back to work.” The flood had devastated the Abbey’s supply of healing potions and magic items, but a small store of them had survived. It would not be enough—the healing potions produced at the Abbey were meant to ease pain and heal only minor injuries, and Chanlix could easily see that many women were hurt beyond the potions’ abilities to fix. Broken bones and internal injuries would require men’s healing spells, and though the Abbey had some of those in its possession, they would have to compensate the Crown for any they used, which they hadn’t the funds to do.
Maidel draped the abbess’s arm around her shoulders and helped her slowly rise to her feet. Chanlix couldn’t suppress a gasp of pain, and she swayed dizzily, afraid she was going to take both of them back down into the mud. All around the courtyard, the uninjured abigails were helping their sisters as best they could, covering them with rags and blankets and gathering them into hugs.
“Let’s get everyone together in the dining hall,” Chanlix said. She’d have liked to pass the word personally to each and every woman in the courtyard, but with her spinning head and blurred vision, she was not up to the task.
One of the men who’d been helping with repairs came and scooped her up into his arms without being asked. She didn’t know his name. She would have requested that he put her down—despite her doubts that her feet would stay firmly under her—except that when she tried to speak, she practically choked on a mouthful of blood. Her anonymous benefactor murmured soothing words to her as she coughed blood onto his mud-stained shirt. He carried her to the dining hall and set her down gently on the edge of a water-stained bench. The room swayed and wavered before her eyes, then went dark.
When Chanlix regained consciousness, she had no idea how much time had passed. The dining hall was now full of chattering women, all clothed once more. She herself was still naked, but someone had laid her down on her back on the bench and covered her with a warm, dry blanket. Her vision was clear once more, and the world did not seem to waver and buck. Nor did her head throb in time to the beat of her heart.
With a sigh of relief, Chanlix pushed herself into a sitting position, clutching the blanket around her. The gathered abigails did not notice at first, for they were all busily talking to one another. Along with the residual notes of pain and terror and anger, Chanlix detected a degree of excitement in the talk and wondered what she had missed.
Finally, Maidel, who was sitting quietly on the floor by Chanlix’s side, noticed the abbess was awake.
“How are you feeling?” the girl asked, offering a warm and comforting touch on the hand.
Chanlix reached up and felt her head, not surprised to find it wrapped in a turban. There was no explanation for her clearheadedness save for magic. Her questing fingers found the telltale bumps of beads and gems, each of which would be infused with a healing spell of the sort the women of the Abbey could not produce. The only reason such powerful magic items were in the Abbey’s possession was so that the abigails could sew them into garments for sale at the market.
Freeing her hand from Maidel’s, Chanlix removed the turban. The fabric had been badly damaged by the flood waters,
but water could not harm the beads, and they could have been salvaged and sewn anew. Certainly that was the Abbey’s obligation under the law. Most magic items could be used repeatedly simply by reactivating their spells, but men’s healing magics were one of the few kinds of magic that consumed the elements that went into their spells. The gems on the turban would have to be returned to the Academy and new spells added before they could be used again.
Maidel raised her chin. “It seems that all of our market wares were lost in the flood,” she said, her eyes gone steely and cold.
Chanlix stroked the fine silk fabric. Now she understood why the women in the dining hall seemed in such good health even after the abuses they had suffered. Obviously the prince and his men hadn’t bothered to take inventory of the Abbey, and considering the level of damage throughout the Harbor District, it would not surprise anyone to learn the Abbey’s precious magic items were missing or destroyed. However, it was a dangerous game. Chanlix didn’t imagine any of the abigails would report the truth, but she was also sure the prince was not finished with them. Hiding the emptied spell vessels would be one of the highest priorities as soon as they got back to work.
Perhaps it was the act of communal defiance that had added the undertone of excitement to the room. Chanlix couldn’t think of any other reason why the women weren’t still reeling in the aftermath of the prince’s visit.
“Has something happened while I was…recovering?” she asked.
Maidel’s eyes lit with ferocity of a sort Chanlix would never have expected on the girl’s face. Maidel was usually painfully shy and deferential, unsure of her own value. “Open your Mindseye. You’ll see.”
Chanlix frowned briefly, having no idea what Maidel could possibly mean. But she did as the girl suggested, opening her Mindseye and letting her worldly vision fade.
Chanlix was almost getting used to seeing all those red-spotted motes of Rho in the air, though she suspected it would be at least a few more days before the strangeness of it stopped feeling like such a shock to the system. The room was filled with Rho and Aal, with a smattering of Tah and Von and a few other single motes. But as Chanlix swept her Mindseye over the length and breadth of the room, her mouth dropped slowly open and her breath caught in her throat.