George & the Virgin

by Lisa Cach

  “I had been so cooperative, and they thought the drug was already taking effect. Milo took me to the jakes, and as quietly as I could I forced the brew to come up.”

  She felt the chuckle in George’s chest. “How does anyone manage to do that quietly?”

  “Aye, well … the sound of retching is not one to be mistaken. You hear someone in the jakes cough, and then a splash, and you know what is going on.”

  “Did Milo know?”

  “He looked at me when I came out. Stared. He knew what had happened, but not whether it had been on purpose. He said nothing, though, not then and not when we returned to the kitchen.

  “I could feel the drug working on me a little, and exaggerated the effect, acting more tired than I was. After ten minutes or so, the crone had Milo open the door to the passageway. She lit a torch and beckoned me to follow.

  “I hadn’t gotten rid of all the drug in my gut and was dizzy. It took all my concentration to keep to my feet as we went down the stairs. I thought of shoving the crone but was afraid that I would break my own neck tumbling after her.

  “It wasn’t until we reached the second door, which she had to open herself, that I realized Milo had not followed us. I could have attacked her there, as she strained to pull it open, only I couldn’t think how to do it. I might have only one chance, and knocking her to the ground was not going to be enough.”

  “You intended to kill her?” George asked, his fingers tightening in her hair.

  She leaned back against his enfolding arms, meeting his gaze, expecting to see condemnation there and beginning to raise her angry shields against it. There was nothing of horror in his eyes, though—it was with a sort of fascination that he gazed back.

  “I intended to save myself. I was thinking of nothing more,” she said, relaxing somewhat. She kept the small distance between their bodies, missing the warmth of his chest against hers but unable to lean forward and reclaim it. Her pride would not let her show she wanted the comfort.

  A misgiving snaked through her, that she should not be sharing so much of herself with him. The desire to continue her tale dried up inside her, the words dying in her throat. She suddenly wanted away from him.

  He seemed to sense her withdrawal, and before she could move had drawn her back against his chest, his big hands again stroking her spine and massaging the resistance out of her muscles. He did not talk, and soon she found the words returning to her, spilling out into the waiting quiet.

  “You know what it smells like when that second door is opened. I knew I would do anything to save myself from being thrown to whatever made that stench. And yet, at the same time, I felt I had to see it. To know what this dragon was that had been ruling our lives for so long.

  “She prodded me ahead of her, and a minute later we came out onto the platform. As when you first went down to the cavern, there was nothing to see but fog. The crone rapped her cane against the floor, three or four times, then pointed to the stall and told me to lie down in there and go to sleep.

  “Part of me wanted to. I had taken enough of the drug that I did want to lie down and rest. It wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, after all, in my sleep, and then I could be done with the worry of it all.”

  “You were too stubborn to give up,” he said.

  “Too angry,” she corrected. “I refused to do as the crone bid.

  “She ordered me again to lie down. Again, I refused. She tried to poke me with her cane, tried to prod me into place. I grabbed the end of it and tried to jerk it away from her.

  “She had more life in her than I expected. We had both been fooling each other on that, I think. She did not let go, and we tussled over it, both of us stumbling to the rail.”

  Alizon felt his arms tighten around her. “Somehow the cane got between us, across her chest. I pushed at it. At her. I was heavier than she was— I had at least that advantage—and I bent her back over the rail, her shoulders and head hanging out over empty space.

  “There was a splash, far below, and I saw her eyes widen. I was slower to think than she was, and was still holding the cane against her chest, forcing her to lean out over the rail, when Belch’s jaws snapped shut on her, snagging her by the head and shoulders. A moment later she was gone, torn out of my grip. I could feel wetness on my knuckles, from where his snout had grazed my hands.”

  George leaned back, loosening his hold on her so he could see her face. “Good God. No wonder you were so frantic that first day you brought me down there.”

  The stubble over his jaw was taking on the rough looks of a new beard. She wanted to run her short nails through it, and feel it scrubbing against her fingertips. “I had no wish to see it happen again. Once was enough.”

  “I can’t think you were too sorry to see the crone go, though.”

  “It was neither sorrow nor relief I felt. Stunned terror might fit my feelings better. I had caught only a glimpse of Belch’s head, but that was enough. I forced my legs to hold me and stumbled back up the tunnel.”

  “Milo must have gotten quite a shock when you came out that door.”

  She smiled crookedly, feeling more at ease with George in that moment than she had ever expected. Desire for him was slowly heating her blood as she sat between his thighs and within the circle of his arms, but she felt no need to rush it. The growing lust was a pleasure in itself.

  “I was halfway up the stairs before I remembered Milo. The thought of him waiting for his mistress stopped me where I was, and I sat on a step in the dark and tried to figure out what I was going to do.

  “In the end, there seemed to be only one thing I could do. I got up, walked bold as you please into the kitchen, and told Milo, ‘I am your mistress now.’”

  George laughed. “What did he do?”

  “Stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. Once. And that was it.”

  “So what happens to the virgins now, when they come every year? I know you don’t let Belch have them.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked, flattered and alarmed both.

  “I know at least that much about you. Your sense of justice would not permit it.”

  “You do not think my wish to save myself might be stronger?”

  “Not with the innocent.”

  “You do not know me as well as you believe,” she corrected quietly, thinking of the night she had drugged him, of her sabotaging of his battle with Belch, and of her intention to continue undermining his efforts to kill the dragon.

  “You are fierce, my sweet, but fierce only to protect a tender heart.”

  She snorted with laughter. “A remark that shows you know me not at all!”

  He only smiled and traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertip. “Do you toss the girls to the dragon?” he asked.

  She tried to keep the smirk on her face, not wanting him to see how important it was to her that he had gotten this, at least, correct. “It was only as I got to know Milo later that I learned how much he hated his own role in the sacrifices. He was more than happy to help me buy passage up the coast for the yearly virgin,” she lied, and felt her ease with him die as the false words left her lips. She forced herself to go on. “It is my hope that they make new lives for themselves, but I have no way of knowing if they succeed.”

  It was something she had thought of doing, only to discard the idea as she had when having her own thoughts of running away from Markesew before the lottery. The virgins were safe here, and well provided for. The world was too cruel and dangerous a place for a girl alone, without family or friends on whom to rely.

  She could not tell him that, though. If he knew that the virgins were in the castle he would want to see them, and then his sense of honor would have him taking them all away from the mount. She knew it, to the center of her bones.

  She should have been remembering that, instead of sitting here basking in his attentions. Marry! It was a miracle she had not told the truth, such was the power of his hands upon her back, and the feel of his hear
t beating beneath her cheek.

  He frowned, cocking his head to the side. “But why do you stay here at all? And why send the girls away? You have proven that Belch does not need to eat a virgin every year to be controlled. Why continue pretending as if he does?”

  “Because they will not believe anything else,” she said bitterly, nodding her head in the direction of Markesew. “Several weeks after she was supposed to have been sacrificed, one of the virgins tried to return to the town. They stoned her nearly to death. Milo carried her back to the mount, bloody and broken, scarred for life.”

  “I would think they could be made to see reason—”

  “You are welcome to try it! Do you think they want to admit that all those sacrifices already made were unnecessary? Do you think they want to take the risk that Belch might emerge from his lair? They are satisfied with how they have arranged things. It is convenient.”

  “They won’t be able to argue with a dead dragon,” he said. He suddenly reached up and held her face between his hands, gazing intently into her eyes. “I will kill Belch, and free you from this island.”

  She could only stare back, frightened. She did not want to be free. There was nothing else for her in this world but Devil’s Mount.

  “Better that you keep your wits on staying alive,” she said. “When your three tries are finished, I want you to take Emoni and her daughter away from Markesew.”

  He chuckled, and leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead before releasing her. “You have so little faith in me. Belch will be dead after my third try, if not my second.”

  She placed her hands on his thighs, which straddled the bench. They were hard with muscle, long and sleek under her palms. “George, listen to me. Fighters better trained than you have died in that cavern. This is no game. Do not risk your life to kill a dragon that is no longer a threat to anyone.”

  It was her own sabotaging efforts of which she was perversely trying to warn him. George could surely not beat Belch as long as she was secretly aiding the dragon. All his risks and efforts were for naught.

  “But he is a threat. All those girls, torn from their families, their lives uprooted. And you, Alizon, trapped here alone to watch over a dragon.” His expression held deep respect. “For twelve years you have borne the responsibility, putting the lives of others above your own. You have given enough. It’s time you had your own life.”

  His praise made her feel sick. She had saved the virgins, aye, but as for the rest, it was revenge against the heartless scum of Markesew that motivated her. She was no self-sacrificing martyr, forgiving those who had harmed her or laying down her life in order that they might live free of the threat of the dragon.

  “Do not do this for me,” she said harshly, feeling the chasm between whom he thought she was and whom she knew herself to be. “I can take care of myself.”

  “That is more than obvious,” he said, laughing again and reaching for her.

  She scooted back and swung her legs over the bench, standing. “Are you going to finish making this ‘sandwich’ you told me about?” she asked, gesturing to the abandoned food. She did not want to talk any longer about who she was or what her future should be. He was being too kind and gentle with her, and it made her feel monstrous and evil in contrast. She wanted to kick and scratch and push him away.

  Only, she knew it would get her nowhere. He would just hold her until she calmed herself, and then she would start weeping out more of her secrets to him, becoming weak and soft and helpless. She could not stand it.

  She was mistress of the mount, and he was making her forget that. Worse, yet, he was stirring those nighttime doubts that mistress was what she wanted to be.

  He gave her a long assessing look, as if trying to figure out what was going on in her head. He stood, and for a moment she thought—hoped—he would take her in his arms despite her protests, but then he shrugged and went back around the table, directing his attentions again to the food.

  She felt bereft and betrayed, and angry at herself for feeling so. The simplest actions of one man should not have such a powerful effect upon her. It was like a sickness within her. She should cure herself of it as soon as possible.

  If she only knew how.

  “I was wondering if, after we eat,” he asked, as he started to lay slices of cheese atop a piece of buttered bread, “you could show me around the rest of the castle?”

  “Why?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Curiosity.”

  “That is hardly reason enough for me to give up my privacy.”

  “I do not need to see your private chamber, not unless you wish me to.” He gave her a hopeful look that almost made her smile. “But surely the rest of the castle is free of the underclothes, diaries, what-have-you, that would keep me from your bedroom.”

  “I thought you wanted to bathe and wash your clothes.”

  “I can do so after.”

  “Better to do it sooner. You smell.” He did, a bit, but nothing strong. The dunking in the mineral pool had rinsed him well.

  He plucked his shirt away from his underarm and sniffed at it. “I’ve smelled worse, and I’m still sweeter than Milo. At least show me the great hall.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” he asked, abandoning his cooking and putting his hands on his hips.

  “You have no need to see it.”

  “I want to enough that it is nearly a need. Just as I want other things.”

  His hungry gaze sent a flush through her, and she suddenly felt exposed, standing there across the table from him. Again she felt the desire that he should ignore her resistance and take her. She felt ignorant and stupid in the face of the forces at work in her own body, and having him take charge would end the chaos.

  Jesu mercy, but he tempted her.

  He was the devil on the mount, more than Belch ever was.

  “No,” she said. “You have seen all of the castle that you need to. Be content.”

  “I shall never be content, as long as there is a door left locked against me.” His voice was soft, but his gaze was intense.

  She felt a flutter of frightened uncertainty, no longer knowing if it was only the fortress of which he spoke. He sounded as if he meant to find his way inside her, body and soul, leaving no corridor unexplored however carefully she barred his entrance.

  “Then you shall live a discontented, miserable life!” she snapped.

  With that, she ran from the room in ignoble retreat. It wasn’t just George she wished to escape, but her own confused and fragile heart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sweat streamed down his forehead, through his eyebrows, and into his eyes, stinging them with salt. He blinked away the pain, and maneuvered the last thin log into place, jamming it in amid the others in the mouth of the hot spring.

  He was squatting inside the low, narrow opening where the mineral water poured into Belch’s lair. There was just enough room for him to crouch, safe from attacks from Belch, and he had paid the price of security with his cramped muscles.

  The hot water that had once run freely was now down to a trickle. Two dozen logs and poles were crammed lengthwise into the small tunnel, damming it. He hoped that as the dry wood soaked up water, it would expand and set itself even more tightly into the passage.

  He had thought of using mortar and stones to do the job, but he couldn’t figure out how to manage it with the water constantly running and keeping the mortar from setting. As it was, he hoped the pressure of the water behind the logs never grew so great as to spit them out like so many toothpicks. There were other outlets for the water, though— the kitchen was one—so he kept his fingers crossed that such a pressure buildup wouldn’t happen.

  He also kept his fingers crossed that there weren’t spring openings hidden in the bottom of the pool. With the main source of heat gone, the steaming pool of water should cool to the temperature of the sea that sloshed in from outside the cavern. Belch, as a cold-blooded reptile,
would have no way to warm himself. He would either leave the region, in search of more temperate climes, or he would die of hypothermia.

  He gave the logs a last testing shove with the flat of his hand, then swung out the entrance onto the rope ladder system he had rigged, leading up to the trapdoor of the platform. Alizon was peering down at him through it, her braid hanging and the neckline of her lavender gown offering a view she probably hadn’t intended.

  “Are you done, then?” she asked.

  “Done as I’ll ever be. There’s nothing to do now but wait.”

  “I have never heard of such a way of killing a dragon,” she said doubtfully.

  George hung on the ladder for a moment, looking across the pool at Belch. The monster had been fed a sheep this morning, and lay quiescent on his beach, seemingly uninterested in the goings-on at the spring. Alizon had stood watch for any movement while George worked.

  “You were the one who said that strength and wits would kill him. This is a far more intelligent approach than fighting him man-to-dragon.”

  “More likely it is foolishness, and either way it counts as your second attempt.”

  “Ye of little faith.” He tugged playfully on her braid and released it, and she drew back to give him space to climb up through the trapdoor.

  He sat on the floor of the platform, legs dangling through the opening, glad even of this small distance from the heat of the spring. He wore only his soggy, mangled boots, a pair of braies that Milo had found for him (he had washed them, not knowing on whom they had been), and his knee and elbow pads. The braies were like baggy shorts, at first held to his hips by a cord, but now plastered to his body by sweat and steam. He felt like one of those loin-clothed laborers building the pyramids in an old Hollywood movie.

  “Are you going to bathe yet again?” she asked.

  “Of course. And then I have a surprise for you.”

  The look she gave him was more wary than thrilled. “What would that be?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see. It is my gift to you, for helping me this past week.”