Spellbreakers (12 page)

Leal frowned, looking straight ahead. “If ever I marry
Admund, I’ll be as good as a slave. You know that. I guess it makes my heart
tender for my fellows in disgrace.”

“They ain’t your fellows in disgrace, yet. And if we
get this crazy thing done, they never need be. Keep the gold in your damn
pockets. We might need it badly, and for more than some cheese and olives. And
we don’t want the whole bloody world to know that we carry that kind of money.”

Leal didn’t answer. She spurred her mare to a canter
and tried to get closer to Dalarna as fast as she could.

****

They reached Treiström before nightfall the next day.
They had crossed two-thirds of the length of Hassia, judging from their small
map, and all was well so far. They desperately longed for a day of rest where
they could get their clothes washed, their tack mended, and sleep in a bed for
at least twelve hours in a row.

The town of Treiström was large enough and
cosmopolitan enough, for someone raised in the mountains, to be almost
overwhelming. It was built on low ground where the river Volme, along which
they had been travelling northwards for two days, met the Leune coming from the
east. Their joined streams went away to the northwest to the seaport of
Mohnmund, but Leal and Daria would turn due east along the Leune, following the
Long Water, which would soon turn north again with a canal joining the Nebel,
away towards Weltmund, Enskala, and the Narrows. In Treiström barges coming
down from the north met with those coming from the south and from Nisterhafen
in the west. The Leune carried goods from the east, from Yllmenau and beyond,
even from Kareli, so that Treiström, despite being very much in the middle of
the Hassian plains, was as lively as a seaport. Two travelers from the south
could go totally and blissfully unnoticed here.

Aside from the sheer size of it, Treiström was also
outlandish in appearance. With all these rivers meeting the town was likely to
flood in spring time, and many buildings were raised on stilts, so that most
houses on the riverfronts had wooden stairs to reach a porch at the “ground”
floor. Some of the stairs were built so that they could be lifted out of a
flood. Almost all the houses had a small boat tied outside, high and dry now,
in midsummer, but filled with water to keep the timbers tight.

“It seems a daft place where to build a town,” said
Leal.

“Bah. Not much dafter than building a castle on a
rocky perch where nothing grows and even donkeys have trouble climbing.”

“Castel Argell is a fortress, built to be easily
defensible,” said Leal, somewhat piqued at this irreverent allusion to her
ancestral home.

“And this is a mercantile town, built at the crossing
of three major trade routes. It has some disadvantages, sure, not least the
mosquitoes,” said Daria slapping her own neck and swearing under her breath,
“but it makes sense in its own way. And it’s a blessed change from towpaths and
plane trees. I’d kill for a cooked dinner and a bed. Let’s find a place for the
night.”

They found a spacious inn far enough from the
riverfront that it was not built on stilts but on good solid stone foundations,
much to Leal’s unspoken relief. The upper floors were built of wooden planks,
because stone was somewhat scarce on these plains, and the whole place had a
vaguely haphazard look about it, but there was a good stable where their horses
sank their noses into piles of fragrant green hay, and a large common room
already half filled with people. A homey smell of soup came from the kitchens.
The innkeeper was a funereal, tall, thin man, like a bloodless crane. By the
look of it, the mosquitoes had squeezed him dry over the years, but he was
courteous enough and made them welcome with all the proper graces. How such a
melancholy fellow had ever acquired the young, skipping, bright-eyed
slave-boy
who served as a waiter in the common room, was a
mystery.

They ordered dinner from this smiling little imp,
asking simply for all the best things in the kitchen.

“And what may I bring you to wash it down, young
sirs?” asked the lad with an engaging, gap-toothed grin.

Leal looked alarmed for a moment. “Maybe you would
have red wine or...”

“Two pints of your best ale, if you please.
Wet and chilled,” put in Daria quickly, dropping a
generous tip in the lad’s slim hand. He grinned again, bowed and vanished
towards the kitchen, writhing among the crowded benches with the agility of a
young eel.

“Ale?” whispered Leal, bending forward over the table.

“Oh, Leal, forsooth.
Young lads don’t drink red wine. Don’t you know
anything? That’s for castle folks, fat priests, and rich merchants. Try to
remember that you ain’t royalty right now, all right?”

Leal blushed under her tan. “Sorry. I didn’t think.
I’ll keep it in mind.”

Their ale came in tall pewter tankards brimming with
foam.

“Where are the glasses?” asked Leal in an undertone as
the waiter disappeared into the kitchen again.

Daria laughed, took a long sip and sighed happily.
“That
is
your glass, clown.
Drink.”

They ate their dinner mostly in silence after that,
not out of any bad blood or ill humor, but out of sheer voracious greed. There
was a thin vegetable soup that they would have thought dull at any other time,
but that tasted wonderful today. There were slices of a strange white bread
full of holes, and bowls of duck liver mashed with butter and garlic, peppery
pork jelly, fragrant truffle paste. There was a plate of boiled vegetables.
There were fresh greens and duck cooked in its own fat. There were countless
different sorts of cheese, mild and strong, soft and hard, fresh and well
matured, cow, sheep and goat, in any combination. Leal and Daria ate wolfishly,
called for more ale and finally sat back in their chairs and stretched their
legs under the table contentedly.

“Well, that was not too bad for foreign cookery,” said
Daria. “Mind, the vegetables were mush, but the cheese board would grace a
king’s table.
Or a princess’s.
What do you say about
going upstairs though? I would not want to be invited for a drink and a chummy
chat by any of these fellows. They look decent enough, but might ask too many
questions.”

Leal nodded, and they made their way to the first
floor, with a nod to the young grinning waiter and one to the solemn old
innkeeper.

Their room was small, and almost wholly occupied by an
ancient, actually rather decrepit four-poster bed certainly built for a much
larger space. It must have had rich hangings at one time, but these had been
lost along the way at some point in the bed’s long history, which was just as
well, since the curtains would have made the room even more cramped. The little
garret window was so close to one side of the bed that one could look out while
lying down under the blankets. Their saddlebags lay in a corner of the room,
and in another corner stood a basin with two ewers of hot water and a piece of
old flaky soap. It was not inviting, in principle, but after so many days on
the road any drop of hot water was welcome. They washed themselves as
thoroughly as they could in the narrow space, and climbed into the old bed. No
bed had ever felt so luxurious.

“Well, this is as close to paradise as I ever wish to
get,” said Daria dreamily. Leal snuggled close to her and smiled. She thought
that it would be nice to make love now that she was all fresh and clean for
once, but all she did was fall asleep. She didn’t wake up until nearly midday
the next day.

Chapter Seven

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was
Daria’s smiling face. She was sitting buck naked at the foot of the bed,
drinking beer.

“Morning, you,” said Leal sleepily. “Is that your
breakfast?”

“Morning my ass.
It’s
almost lunch time.”

The mere mention of lunch made Leal’s stomach rumble.
“Let’s go see what the kitchen offers, then. Where are my clothes?”

“Gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.
Every
last stitch we own. I sent them all to be washed and darned, even the winter
clothes. Who would have thought that stuff could get so dirty just sitting in a
saddlebag? But I had lunch brought up here. I wore a blanket when it came up,
before you ask. Here, eat. And drink.”

They ate like young dogs again. Leal had always had an
active life, but living on the road gave a new meaning to the word
hunger
.

It was a good thing that they had decided to take a
resting day in Treiström, because while they ate the sky darkened to an ominous
grey, and before they had cleared away their dishes from the bed it was raining
cats and dogs, a steady, enormous downpour that went on and on. The din on the
thin tiled roof and plank walls was deafening compared to the muffled sound of
the weather within the thick stones of Castell Argell, but it still felt
blissful to be here in the dry warmth of their room while outside the world was
scoured by the torrential rain.

After lunch Daria pulled an earthenware bottle from a
corner of the messy bed and uncorked it. She sniffed at it, took a swig, and
passed it over.

“What is this?” asked Leal suspiciously.

“Apple juice, princess.
Originally.”
She giggled,
and when Leal took a sip it burnt a path of fire down her throat.

“Ew!
Poison!”
Leal coughed once or twice, felt the hot tingling
sweetness in her mouth and thoughtfully took another sip. Daria laughed and
reached for the bottle again.

After ten minutes of this, they were rolling between
the bed-sheets laughing and kissing, full of a different sort of hunger.

****

Daria, who had watched Leal sleeping for an hour,
working up all kinds of appetite, pinned the princess down under her body,
holding Leal’s hands firmly in hers, kissing her hard and rubbing her pubis on
Leal’s pubis.

“Ah, damn, I thought I’d have you every night to
myself on the road, but all we did was drop off like tired puppies as soon as
we ever touched the ground. I have to make up for all that!”

She rubbed harder, driven by a mounting urgency, and
Leal adjusted her body to accommodate her better. She gave a moan, half
pleasure, half protest at the roughness, but Daria knew her well enough not to
stop. When Leal had it rough and moaned she was likely to want it rougher.
Daria rubbed harder and harder, until the orgasm that had been lingering there
in wait for most of the morning exploded in her body like sunshine. She slumped
on Leal’s still body, panting.

“Ah ... all right, now we can start again slowly.”

Leal smiled and made to free her trapped hands, but
Daria shook her head sternly.

“You keep your hands right there.” She slid down along
Leal’s body, kissing her throat, breasts, nipples and navel on the way. Leal
sighed and stretched like a cat, inviting more kisses, opening her legs to
direct attention to her sex. The rubbing must have aroused her, thought Daria,
but she had not climaxed yet. She was at her most hungry, at her most wanton.
That was good.

“You want me to please you?”

“Yes. Yes, please,” said Leal, remembering just in
time her pillow manners. She was likely to get a vicious pinch in the
buttocks,
or some other more tender part if she forgot.
Daria liked her to be meek in bed, perhaps because Leal was so resolute in all
else. She was never aggressive, but she knew her mind, and always got her way.
In bed, Daria made her beg.
It is good for a princess to cultivate some
humility, for a change.

Daria slowly stroked the inside of her legs with a
fingertip, watching goose bumps forming on her lover’s skin.
Stroke
after stroke, lightly like a feather.
She made it clear that she would
not hurry.

Leal gasped and opened her legs wider, in a quiet
plea.

“Please,” she
said,
when it
was clear that silence would not do. “Please, fuck me, Daria.”

Daria smiled slowly.
Poor princess.
She must be very desperate to use such language. Leal disapproved of pot house
slang, and dirty talk invariably put her off.

“You want it so bad, don’t you?” said Daria, slowly
tickling the entrance of Leal’s dripping slit.

“Yes.”

“Then we will play my way.
My way or
nothing.”

Leal looked at her with a question mark. Not alarm or
anger, just curiosity. She knew that Daria’s games tended to please her, in the
end.

“All right.
Just,
please.”

Daria went to their luggage where it lay in a corner
of the room and pulled out two couples of horse hobbles. These were not rough
hard things like a peasant would use, but well-made leather hobbles, lined in
lamb’s wool,
designed
to secure the delicate pasterns
of a well-bred courser without any risk of chafing them. Each had an iron ring
to secure a stout thin line between them, and a buckle to secure it. Daria kept
her gear in good order all the time, and these were clean and fragrant with
fresh wax. She had been considering them for some time, even before leaving
Argell. She had always wanted to see Leal in those hobbles, helpless, crucified
on the bed, open to Daria’s wishes, like a love-slave in a Hassian ballad.