“Might it be that we can all afford you?” He gestured to the other men around the table. “Would you consider a reduction in your price for a group?”
She was unfazed by this. “I don't give reductions. A fuck is a fuck, whether it's one or eight.”
“Let's talk business, then.” He played with his beard, rubbing whiskers between his thumb and forefinger. “How much per fuck?”
“Two silver crowns.” She would maybe work for less, if it were a bad night, but it was too early in the evening to be that desperate.
Jasper seemed to think about the price for a moment. The other men remained quiet, drinking their ale, happy to let the knight do their business.
“Are you good at playing games, Amber?”
An odd question. “It depends what games you're talking about.”
She sat forward, placed her elbows on the table top, and pushed her breasts together. Jasper feasted his eyes on her bare cleavage and then raised his eyes to meet hers.
“Kneebones,” Jasper said.
“Kneebones? I've heard of knucklebones, but not kneebones.”
Jasper produced a small, leather pouch from his pocket and scatted its contents on the table top.
“Knucklebones is played with sheep bones. These small things are kneebones.”
Amber looked at the small, white objects on the table. She counted ten, each as small as a child's tooth.
“What creature has such small kneebones?”
Jasper leaned forward and said: “Fairies.”
Amber looked at the bones again, but this time in disgust. “Fairies. You killed fairies?” She said it a little too loudly; heads turned at a neighbouring table.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn't,” Jasper said, nonchalantly. “What matters is that kneebones is a much better game than knucklebones.”
“And why would I want to play any sort of game with you?” She felt a sudden dislike for Jasper Courcelle.
“Because you seem a lucky kind of girl, Amber.” Jasper put his hand back in his pocket and lifted out a handful of coins, which he placed on the table top next to the bones. He counted them, slowly. “Eight silver crowns,” he declared. “There's eight of us around this table. These coins would allow four of us to fuck you, is that right, Amber?”
“That's right,” Amber confirmed.
“What say we play a game, then? A game of kneebones. The same rules as knucklebones. We each throw the bones and the person with the lowest score is eliminated. Should you get eliminated first, Amber, then we all get to fuck you for the price of eight silver crowns. Should one of us be eliminated, then we play another round, but with just seven. Same applies in the next round, if you're eliminated then the seven of us get to fuck you for the price of the eight silver crowns, and so on and so on. If you are the last to survive, Amber, then the eight silver crowns are yours and we all go home with blue balls. Whatever happens, Amber, you get paid. Are you game?”
She mulled it over. The eight coins would come in useful; I have rent to pay and food to buy. And perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll only have to fuck four of them, and not eight. I can't be as unlucky as to go out in the first round, now, can I?
“And if I say no?” she said.
“Then we walk away now, with our money, and find another whore who's willing to play.”
“All right,” she said, with a sigh. “I'll play.”
Jasper smiled. The other men slapped the table and yelled in glee.
Let me be lucky.
The knight collected up the small bones and held them in his closed fist. “Do you want to go first, Amber?”
Before she could take the bones from him, there was a tap on her right shoulder. She turned to see her fellow whore, and close friend, Melissa Raleigh. She was a curvy girl, but men seemed to like that. Melissa was a wise old head. Six years Amber's senior, Melissa had taught her all she knew about life as a whore. When Amber had arrived in The Warrens as a naïve fourteen-year-old girl, Melissa had looked after her and stopped her falling foul of all the mistakes a young whore was apt to make.
“Playing games, Amber?” Melissa said. “You know better than to gamble.”
“I need the money, Melissa. Rent's due and this month has not been so good. Plus, those tax collectors have been sniffing around again.”
“There's no tax on whores, Amber. You just tell them that. If they bother you again, I'll tell them myself.”
“I can take eight silver crowns for very little work. Trust me, Mel, I know what I'm doing.” Melissa turned her head and looked at Amber through the corner of her eyes. It was a look of despair the younger whore was used to seeing from her elder. Amber took Melissa's hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I'll be over near the bar,” Melissa said. “Shout if you need me.”
Amber gave Melissa a smile and then turned back to the table. She took the bones – Fairy bones! I'm holding fairy bones! – closed her fingers around them and shook her closed fist. Around the table, all eyes were on her as she opened her hand to let the bones tumble out. They scattered about the table top before coming to a rest. Everyone leant forward, totting up the total. Spots had been painted in red on the six sides of each bone. There was a six there, she noted.
“Thirty,” Jasper declared. “Good score, Amber.”
Some of the soldiers looked dejected.
Each of them played in turn, Jasper last. The knight's score was good too. “Twenty eight,” he declared.
The lowest score in this round was nineteen, to a red-haired soldier who looked too young to be drinking ale.
Seven left, Amber thought. If I lose this round, I only need to do seven for eight crowns. I could make the younger ones come fast too, saving me time.
Amber threw again. As the kneebones came to a rest she counted three sixes.
Jasper totted them up, his pointing finger counting every dot.
“Forty-one,” he declared. This time it was he who looked dejected. “It seems you have a lucky throw, my dear.”
The game went on and with each round Amber scored high. Her record was in the fourth round, when she scored forty-three.
“I've never had so much luck,” she said, giddy with joy.
As the last soldier went out, only she and Jasper remained in the game.
“What a shame,” Jasper said. “I was looking forward to a little show before I fucked you myself.”
“Are you so sure you'll beat me in this round?” Amber said. “I'm fairly confident you'll be beating yourself tonight and not me.” She looked down at his crotch, to show him what she had meant.
Jasper laughed, but it was forced, she knew.
She collected the bones and held her closed fist in the air, shaking it. She then spilled the bones onto the table top. This time, it seemed to take and age for them to come to a rest, but when they did she stared open-mouthed.
“Eight sixes,” Jasper said. “If these were not my bones I would suspect a cheat at work.”
She reached for the eight silver crowns, but Jasper grabbed her wrist.
“I still have a throw,” he said. “However unlikely it seems, if I match your score, we play the round again.”
She loosened the cords on her bodice, letting him see the full roundness of her breasts. “You better throw well, then,” she said, smiling.
“It is not flattering to be such a tease, my dear.”
He took the bones in his hand, shook and spilled them on the table.
There was a gasp from those soldiers who had stayed to watch the game conclude.
“You are a witch,” Jasper said. “I think mayhap I'm the lucky one, leaving with my life.” The knight stood. Amber stared at the eight kneebones, each of them displaying only one dot. “That's the lowest score I've ever thrown. I'll leave you now before you embarrass me further.” He took the kneebones and dropped them back into the leather pouch, leaving the eight silver crowns on the table.
Amber gathered them up and went to the bar, where Melissa was talki
ng to a drunk with a gaunt face.
“You won, then?” Melissa said.
“Eight silver crowns for less than half an hour's work,” Amber said, holding up her closed fist with the coins inside. “I'm never usually this lucky.”
“Who was the woman?”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a woman sitting at the table with you.”
Amber felt a coldness pass through her, as if ice were running through her veins.
“Stop it,” Amber said. “You're scaring me. There was no woman sitting at the table, only the seven soldiers, the knight, and myself.”
“You're mistaken, Amber. She was sitting right there, opposite you. She sat prim and proper all the while, hands in lap, just watching you.”
Amber turned and looked to where she'd been sitting. Drunken men had taken their places around the table, a buxom whore on one of their laps.
“What did she look like?” Amber said.
“Old. Very old. White haired. I couldn't see from here, but I think there was something wrong with her eyes.”
“Wrong, how?”
“Well, they appeared completely white. It's dark in here, though, so I can't be sure.”
Amber was unnerved and spent the rest of the night looking over her shoulder, constantly searching for the mysterious old woman with the white eyes. She never saw her, though, and was thankful when the first hint of dawn's light illuminated the snow-covered street outside.
CHAPTER 10
A wizard's work is never done, or at least that's what he was always taught. Eaglen put down the quill and closed his diary. He had written many words over the past few days. Not all of them would make easy reading, should anyone find the diary, he knew. But by then, he would be long gone.
He heard Erin enter the room and turned to look at her. She was holding a bedsheet around her naked body, her shoulders bare, her mousey brown hair in a tousle.
“Will you come back to bed, Master,” she said. “It's only early, after all.”
He was sorely tempted. So much so that he paused for a moment before answering. “I have to leave soon, Erin,” he conceded. “You know that.”
“When did you say you'll be back?”
He wouldn't. But he had neglected to tell her that. “Three days, my dear.”
“Three long days,” she said, entering the room. The blanket she was holding around herself trailed on the floor. “Three long days with just my fingers to entertain me.”
The thought stirred his manhood. “Save some energy for my return, my sweet.”
She sat on his knee and kissed him on the mouth. “Hurry back, then.” She put the tip of her finger on his nose and squashed it flat. “Why do you have to go, anyway? You could leave the dangerous rescue stuff to your uncle Fabian.”
“You know I can't do that. The wizard bearer has been taken, do you understand what that could mean?”
“Yes, but . . .” she stuck out her bottom lip, “I'll be all alone. There's not a living soul for ten miles in any direction.”
And that's the way I like it, Eaglen thought. Men have the habit of wanting to stick their cocks in you.
“Drink wine. The time will pass quicker. After all, I have a cellar full.” She kissed him again and let her blanket fall to the floor. He cupped her left breast in his right hand and squeezed it gently. “Do you ever think of him?” He hadn't thought of the girl's former master for quite some time, but on this morning he was feeling reflective.
“Who?” she said, while peppering his lips with short kisses.
“Him. Chester.”
She moved back from him then, looking into his eyes as if to try and read his thoughts. “Why would I? You are my master now. And I love you so.”
“He was younger than me. More your age. I am to be fifty in just a few short months. You have not long since turned twenty.”
She pushed her hair back over her shoulders and then spoke softly. “When you came to me, you were like the knights I dreamed of as a child.”
“You were a child.”
“I was no child. He made me a woman the very day he took me from my parents.”
Erin had married a lord. Chester Boham his name had been. His lands stretched south from the High Hunsley to the wooded plains of Elloughton Dale. When Chester had set eyes on the young Erin, a miller's daughter, he had fallen in love – or lust – with her without a moment’s thought. He paid her parents handsomely for her hand and then took her away to live with him in his small castle on Bradley Peak. That is where Eaglen had found her, and in the same way as the lord had been, he was duly smitten.
“I wish I had been your first,” Eaglen said.
“But I was yours.”
He looked away from her. Shame ran deep, no matter how much he fought it.
She placed her fingers lightly on his chin and turned his head back to face her. “It meant a lot, that you broke your celibacy for me.”
“I'd lose my head if anyone ever found out.”
She placed his hand between her legs. He felt her moist lips. “I'm worth the risk, though. Right?”
You certainly are, he thought. He knew that he couldn't spare the time, but nor could he resist her, either. He pushed his middle finger inside her. She moaned and parted her legs some more.
“How could you leave me,” she said. Despite the chill in the air, he could feel the heat radiating off her body. She's too young for me, he thought. She always was. A younger man could do her justice, not an ageing fool like I. “Take me,” she said. “Bring me to a climax again. My body needs it.” He'd fulfilled her last night, twice. And still she wants more. Despite his mind's objections, he was already hard. She must have felt him pressing against her for she straddled him and pulled down the front of his trousers. Taking his manhood in her hand, she guided him into her. Her breasts, small and pert, danced in front of his face as she rode him.
“I wish you could give me your seed,” she said into his left ear.
“Let's just pretend, my dear.” Another man could give you a child. Only wizards are sterile and unfulfilling.
“I will. I will pretend. Maybe if I wish really hard it will come true.” She began to moan. The thought of impregnation never fails to turn her on. Damn me for being so useless.
She clenched his cock tightly in her lips down below as she came, while arching her back, pushing her erect nipples towards his face. He held her breasts as he spilled his seedless fluid into her for the very last time.
Afterwards, they embraced until the moment embed away.
“Will you come back to bed?” Erin pleaded. “And hold me for a while.”
“It will soon be light, my sweet. I have to leave.”
She buried her face into his shoulder. “Very well,” she said, quietly.
His dying erection dropped out of her as she stood. She bent and gathered the blanket in her arms and then left the room.
Tying the string around his trousers, he stood and walked to the hat stand. It was cold outside and he would have to wrap up warm. He put on a sheepskin coat and then wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, fastening it around his neck. The sheepskin gloves would have to wait, he had business to attend to first.
He walked back to his desk and poured himself a goblet of wine. It has to be this way, he tried to convince himself. When she realises I'm not coming back, she'll leave. The first man she comes across will take her for his own. He took a swig of the wine, then another, then another. Soon the goblet was empty.
He found Erin in bed, sheets across her navel, her naked breasts exposed.
“Have you changed your mind?” she said. “We can cuddle and then you can take me again.”
I couldn't, even if I tried, he thought. A younger man . . . but I've been through that.
“I love you, Erin Brocklehurst. I love you very much.”
“I know,” she said. “And I love you too.”
With that, he flexed his hand and felt magic surge into his fingers.
There was a deep rumble, as if an earthquake had struck. Erin, propping herself up on one elbow, looked concerned.
“What was that?” she said. “It could be a landslide. There's been so much snow. The house could be crushed.”
Eaglen remained silent and concentrated his efforts on his magic. She looks so sweet, though, he thought. Especially when she's scared like she is now. He pushed the thoughts from his mind before he could talk himself out of the task ahead. The rumble continued, deep and guttural, as the air charged with static. Erin looked bemused as small wispy strands of her hair rose of their own accord. Then, Eaglen released the full force of the energy that had been building in his fingers. He imagined her neck in his right hand and squeezed. Erin immediately put her hands to her throat, her eyes wide with shock. The rumble had now quietened. The only sound in the room was Erin choking. With her airways constricted she quickly turned a sickly blue. With one hand still on her throat – as if that will do any good – she reached out to him with her free hand. He knew she was asking him to stop. She knows I'm killing her. Is she wondering why? He experienced a strange satisfaction as he watched her die. Is there anything ultimately more powerful than this? I'm killing the only thing in the world I love. He watched her blue eyes dim. Then, as she continued to reach out to him, she collapsed face down onto the crumpled bedsheets. Only then did he halt his magic. It felt like he had reached the surface after swimming in deep, deep waters. He inhaled, filling his lungs with air. Then he looked at Erin for a moment. Dead Erin. He couldn't see her face, but her familiar mousey brown hair was spread upon the bed, her slender legs raised like a child in the womb. He thought about going to her, holding her one last time, but decided against it. If I hold her lifeless body I will regret my actions, he thought. And there's no going back. She's dead and that's the end of it.
Instead, he turned and left the room. He returned to his study and collected his gloves, then paused for a moment to take in his surroundings: the bookshelf full of old spell books; his sturdy desk built from an old oak tree that once grew at the bottom of the garden; his diary closed on the desk with a quill in a jar beside it; the map of Elt pinned to the wall; the empty bottles of wine with candle sticks corked in their necks and crusted wax dripping down their sides; the fireplace, warm and inviting on many a winter night, still glowing with the remains of last night's fire. He thought about the many times he'd made love to Erin on the rug by that fireplace, her naked skin shimmering in the fire light. This room has been good to me, but I have to leave it behind, just like I have Erin.
Battle for Elt: The Taking of the Wizard Bearer Page 9
