Rogue's Pawn

by Jeffe Kennedy

  * * *

  This time when I woke, at least I knew where I was.

  Not in the grander scheme of things, but at least the same stone ceiling greeted me. I appeared to be in the middle of the room still. Amazing what a relief it can be to have the world not change while you’re unconscious. I stretched and a great rush of well-being filled me. A sense of joy, even. I probably deserved to be happy, since I was still alive and not bleeding out like a kosher lamb. But it was more than that—I felt better than I could ever remember feeling. I touched my throat. Smooth, intact—and encircled by a metal collar.

  Nice.

  Ready to try the sitting-up thing again, I raised myself on elbows, delighted that my head didn’t swim. One happy development—though I once again wore the silver cuffs on my ankles and wrists, they were no longer attached to chains. Unfortunately, however, my hair seemed to be still glued to the back of my head in a disgusting mass. You’d think they could have cleaned me up a little.

  Spotting a mirror on the opposite wall, I hopped off the bed and padded barefoot over to it. The hand mirror lay on the wooden cabinet. No knife.

  I looked like death warmed over.

  Maybe death microwaved—because my eyes shone and my complexion looked fantastic. I could be almost pretty, if I weren’t such a freaking mess. The final tattered remnants of party makeup clung to the corners of my eyes and ran in smudged dribbles on my cheeks. The hair and dress were beyond belief. Kind of a Medusa does Ann Taylor look. Not good. The black of the dress did its best to absorb the bloodstains and various other fluids I didn’t want to contemplate, but it had been pushed to the limits of the fabric and now looked uncomfortably reminiscent of the battered exoskeleton of some unfortunate squashed beetle. I wet my fingers and wiped the cosmetic dregs off as best I could. I tried to finger-comb my hair, only to fail utterly. The stuff felt shellacked. How long had I been out?

  The door opened and Healer walked in. After unlocking the door. I was unchained, but not free-range, apparently.

  “You’ve been out for a full moonrise and moonset,” she said to me, which explained why the light seemed much the same. As soon as she left I would look out the window—said something about me, I guess, that I’d beelined for the mirror first. “And work on toning down that volume or Rogue will be in here shortly—he’s not very patient about that sort of thing.”

  Nor was she, I recalled. You are without friends.

  “Can you say something?”

  “Thank you, Healer,” I tried.

  “You are most welcome. We can discuss payment later.” Approaching me, she held up her hands. “Tilt your head back.” Her palms tickled me with little points of heat as she ran them over my throat. She nodded to herself and backed up a step, rubbing her hands briskly, like a surgeon snapping off her latex gloves after an examination.

  Payment. What kind of currency could they possibly use—and how would I get some? Escape could solve that problem—get free and ditch the bills in one fell swoop. Not very honorable, but ethics seemed especially gray under the circumstances.

  “How can your magic work, if I’m wearing these?” I held up my arms, and the wristbands gleamed dully in the misty light.

  Healer smiled serenely, a practiced look that began to grate on me. She had her share of Rogue’s and Nasty Tinker Bell’s vast superiority. Didn’t bode well for me that I was already wearing thin on it.

  “There are many things in what you are calling magic, Gwynn. In fact, what you mean right now behind that word doesn’t apply at all. It’s more like the mind-to-mind talking that you’ve been doing—”

  “Telepathy.”

  She frowned. “That’s almost right. The healing takes magic that can be blocked through certain measures.” She gestured to the collar around my throat. “Obviously we couldn’t take this precaution before, but around the throat is the second-best possible containment.”

  I knew right then I never wanted to find out what they thought the best containment was. Probably something like the man in the iron mask wore. Serious heebie-jeebies on that.

  “But in the same way that Lord Rogue and I can still hear your thoughts, I can sense how your body is doing. Which seems to be quite well. I fixed other things while I was at it—you won’t need those glass slips in your eyes to assist your vision, though that was a clever idea of yours. And I took out the poisonous mercury in your teeth—was that a punishment for something?”

  “What, my fillings?”

  “Yes, they packed it into your teeth, which I, naturally, fixed. What a barbaric people you must come from, to punch little holes in your teeth and fill them with poison.”

  Instead of gritting my teeth, I ran my tongue over them to find they were smooth, without any rough edges. And how had I not noticed my contacts were gone?

  “You’ll find us much more civilized,” she assured me. “Lord Rogue treats his pets very well, in general. Not like some you could be sent to.”

  She was really too much. Of course, there I was in my little doggie collar, so who was I to argue?

  My palms oozed cold sweat and my heart gave a hard thump. Now that I wasn’t dying, I had the wit to panic about being trapped. Not caring that Healer watched me, I went to look out the window.

  Nothing but fog, deep and impenetrable. Same thing out the other window. The outside wall was the same gray stone as inside, but disappeared into the mist after a few feet. I could possibly crawl out the window, jump onto the lawn and scamper away. Or irretrievably bash my skull on pointed rocks after a forty-story drop. I wondered if they’d heal me again, what the limits of her ability to reconstruct were.

  “So, what is this place—where am I?”

  “Why, you’re in Lord Rogue’s castle.” She frowned at me, considering, as if she might have missed knitting my brain together.

  “I meant in a larger sense—what do you call your…world?”

  “Ah.” She smiled. “This is the Land of the People.”

  Of course it was.

  I didn’t like this. I should be grateful for all Healer had done, but now even my own body wasn’t the same. All the information I so desperately needed to make decisions was self-referential. I needed to take some steps to regain control—who am I kidding? Gain control—of this situation.

  “Well, thanks for everything!” I turned my back to the window and propped my rear against it. I gestured to the dress, my nasty hairdo, trying to look humble. “I know I have no grounds to impose further, but any way I could bathe? Maybe borrow a clean outfit from somebody? Add it to my tab?”

  Healer smiled, comfortable now that the pet was wagging her tail. “But of course! You know, we would have bathed you while you were out but we didn’t know the customs of your people.”

  Oh yeah, I could just picture the people I might come from—where blood gook was the new mousse. I made an effort to keep that thought to myself, too, and Healer didn’t seem to hear me. Maybe I was getting better at this.

  “And, of course, the spell on your dress.”

  The door opened. Not locked this time—I was keeping track now. Two young men, heads bowed so they could only see the floor, tromped in carrying a brass-looking tub, which they deposited on the floor. They tromped out again as if the room were empty. No lock click behind them.

  “That was fast,” I remarked.

  “Oh yes,” Healer agreed. “Rogue’s people are very well trained.”

  “What was that about a spell on my dress?”

  “You spelled it so it couldn’t be removed. Several people tried. Even Lord Rogue couldn’t do it.”

  What, Rogue tried? Asshole.

  Healer’s eyes flew open in shock. I smiled weakly, imagining the image she’d received from my too-loud thought.

  “It would behoove you to learn to think like a lady.”
>
  I squashed my response to that one.

  “Think back,” Healer prompted me. “At some point you wanted to make sure you kept the dress and somehow didn’t trust yourself to make certain that would happen…” She was thinking of a silly girl in a torrid embrace being slipped out of her clothes.

  As if that kind of thing had ever happened to me, even when I was a silly girl.

  When could I have done that? Oh yes. The Dog. How could I have forgotten? He’d loomed huge and black on the riverbank and I’d felt a thread of panic. My nightmare in brutal flesh.

  “Do not think of him here,” Healer hissed. The serene lady vanished, Dr. Jekyll abruptly replaced with Ms. Hyde.

  “Why not?” I snapped back. “I thought my new jewelry kept me from manifesting my thoughts. Isn’t that the whole point of having me shackled like a prisoner?”

  Healer’s face flushed, pretty lips snarling unpleasantly. “You’re an undisciplined peasant wretch! A whore of a magical dilettante. You have no idea what you’re dabbling in. And don’t think I don’t know the filthy source of your power. No decent castle will have you.” Her mouth turned down in a final sneer as her eyes swept from my bare feet to my bosom.

  The door opened and the plump brunette from the healing session walked in, leading a parade of young girls with buckets. Healer’s face fell back into calm serenity as if I’d never seen the woman behind the mask. Just like Nasty Tinker Bell’s reboot.

  “We’ll have your bath ready in a jiffy, Lady Gwynn,” the brunette called out, curtseying in my direction.

  The activity provided a welcome distraction from my discussion with the Healing Bitch. The girls scurried about, filling the tub, stripping the covers off the bed, which they scooted back against the wall, setting out bottles and towels, building a fire in the stone fireplace at the end of the room. All the while the brunette stood in the middle, reminding me of Mickey Mouse directing his legion of mops.

  Darling slipped around the door, which had been left ajar with all the comings and goings. With a pleasant chirrup, he padded up to me and stroked up against my bare legs.

  “Hi, Darling.” I crouched down to stroke his arched back. It felt blessedly normal to simply pet him, feel his cat vitality. He sniffed at my face. A pink raspy tongue licked my cheek. If I didn’t look around, I could be at home.

  “Darling, come here to me,” Healer said in a tight voice.

  As cats will, he simply blinked at her in disinterest, then butted his head against my hand. I obligingly rubbed his ears.

  “You do understand, don’t you,” Healer said in her serene voice, but the Nasty Tinker Bell tone threaded underneath, “that he’s a Familiar, not a pet? I thought you knew this, since I saw your own Familiar in your head. But it seems I’ve given you far too much credit.” She glanced to see if anyone was listening to us, but the Brunette General was busily herding maids.

  I wanted to say, “Well then, you do understand that Isabel is just a plain old cat, don’t you?” But I kept it very whispery in my head.

  Darling purred and rubbed against me again, arching his back in a way that meant he wanted to be held. I gathered my arms around him and stood.

  “He doesn’t like…!” Healer started and trailed off as Darling’s purr filled the room. He rubbed his whiskers on my chin, then tilted his head at Healer, a coy look in his eyes. She stared back, her displeasure obvious under the thin veneer of calm.

  Anyone who spent any time with cats should know they love best to be contrary. I had no idea what made a cat a Familiar and not a pet—except Familiars maybe possessed more intelligence, could communicate in some ways. Isabel was certainly a pet.

  But then, apparently, so was I.

  Darling delicately sniffed the underside of my chin, his cold nose tickling me, then, with a renewed purr, dug his head into my collarbone.

  “Lady Gwynn.” The brunette appeared at my elbow, long delicate fingers clasped in front of her generous bosom. “Your bath is ready.”

  “I shall leave you.” Healer tried her serene smile, but it looked gritted out. “See that you eat—I replenished your fluids, but your body needs sustenance after the healing coma.”

  Healer walked to the door, waited expectantly. I set Darling down on the floor and felt a bit bereft.

  “Come along, Darling.”

  He didn’t.

  She clucked at him.

  He pulled cat attitude and acted as if she were empty air. Instead the freshly made bed became his chief interest. He padded over to it, examined the height and leaped up, landing soft as dandelion down in the center, where he curled up, suddenly exhausted.

  By the time I looked at the doorway, Healer had gone.

  Chapter Six

  In Which I Am Offered Something Even Better than Surcease

  “Thank Titania that one is gone.” The brunette sighed, then winked at me. “Now we’ll have some peace! Bhrta, Mina, come help Lady Gwynn out of this dress. You’ll have to let us, lady. Lord Darling, I’m going to close and lock this door for privacy—do you care to stay or go?”

  Darling tucked his head under, stretched, and to all appearances fell into an immediate and deep sleep.

  “That answers that. Now release the spell, Lady Gwynn—I’m sure you’re perishing to get clean. I know I would be.”

  “You know, my name isn’t Gwynn.”

  “Lord Rogue says it is, Lady Gwynn. I’m not one to gainsay him.”

  She stood before me, bright black robin’s eyes expectant. The maids, little brown sparrows of girls, waited quietly behind her, eyes cast down, ready to flee. I pulled on the spaghetti straps, but couldn’t quite seem to get a grip on them, no more than I could tug on a raised mole. I reached behind me to the zipper. It felt sewn on.

  “Lady,” Brunette said gently, “release the spell first, then we’ll get the zipper for you.”

  Okay, I’m a dunce.

  “I don’t know how,” I confessed. “Besides, don’t these—” I held up my wrists, “—keep me from doing any magic?”

  “Undoing is not doing,” she assured me gravely. “So my granny always said. Though I’ve no experience with such things myself. Shall I call Lord Rogue? Surely he’ll know.”

  “No! I mean, I’d rather not involve him in any…well, undressing on my part.”

  She winked at me again. “No worries, love—I wouldn’t let that rascal near my bedchamber either, even were I so lucky as to have him express interest.”

  The little sparrow girls exchanged a glance, fluttering giggles at each other.

  “Let’s see.” She pursed her lips, clearly marshaling her problem-solving skills. This was a woman—or, whatever, since, though shorter than many, she still sported the odd bone structure they all shared—who knew how to remove obstacles from her path. “The magical types all have different ways of doing what they do. Some use wands, some words, some funny costumes. You just don’t know your way yet. Like a youngling first come into power.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting politely.

  “This is helpful—keep going, please.”

  “Well, maybe you just need to think about what you did when you cast the spell and work backward. Just as if I spilled soup on the floor—I might think about how I’d get it unspilled, as it were.”

  “So I kind of need to wipe it up?”

  Interesting.

  I pictured the Dog standing over me by the brook. Uneasy, I slid my eyes to the group, but no hysterics ensued. They only waited. None of them, thankfully, seemed to hear my thoughts, or at least didn’t respond to them.

  At a whispered word, Bhrta went to add more hot water to the tub. Thinking about the Dog made my heart clench. Like digging into a wound to find the sliver of glass, I prodded my memory, ignoring the pain. In the fraught swirl of birds and terror and the Dog leapin
g for my throat, I found an image in my head of wishing the dress to stay on. It glowed there, like a bubble preserved in amber. I could feel the shimmer of—magic?—around it.

  I mentally felt around the bubble. It flexed, resilient, part of me and yet not. Experimentally, I popped it. It vanished as if it had never been. I slid one strap of the dress down. Easy peasy. “I think I did it!”

  “Of course you did, dear.” She bustled behind me to slide the zipper down. “Such a simple thing for a powerful Lady Sorceress as yourself.” She slipped the dress down my legs and I stepped out, clad only in the woefully overworn black silk panties. “No wonder Lord Rogue has gone to such lengths. Slip that off, pet, and we’ll get you into the tub.”

  At the brunette’s direction, one of the sparrows bundled up the clothes I’d stepped out of and moved to the fireplace. My last anchor to who I had been was about to go up in flames.

  “No!” I lunged for them and the little girl quailed, puppy eyes enormous in her panicked face.

  “Tsk, Lady Gwynn,” Brunette clucked, “no one is taking your things. We’ll get them clean. We’ve a bit of laundry magic, too.”

  I felt abruptly foolish. Ridiculous. Everything seemed to be spinning away from me. Had my life seemed lifeless and empty? I no longer recognized that person I’d been. Or who I was now.

  The sparrow girl edged away from me and set the bundle by the door. I dropped myself into the hot water, exhaling in relief. This, at least, felt normal. Comforting. Brunette was hustling the girls into warming the towels by the fire, which snapped and crackled in a merry counterpoint to the cool fog out the windows.

  “Thank you for your help, Lady…”

  “I’m Blackbird, Lady Gwynn. You can leave off the title with me—always seems silly, to keep reminding everyone, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never been nobility of any sort.”

  “Lord Rogue says you are, dear, so that makes it so. His title I am always careful to use—” she winked at me, “—or my granny would tan my behind. Now dunk your head, pet, and give your hair a good soaking, so we can get you clean.”