Chapter Thirty-Four

  “I hate border towns.” Dominic groused, “They’re dumping grounds for trash that can’t make it in the big cities.”

  Cenna Tachoni, Captain of the Black Scripture, rolled his eyes. ‘Does he ‘ever’ stop complaining?’ He wondered about that, for the last week they’d been riding full tilt, swapping horses every twenty miles and boosting them with various spells. In the mind of the dark-haired spearman, it seemed an absurd waste of magic, and of horses, since animals often died of exhaustion as a result of the use of magic to push their bodies beyond the brink.

  Now at last they were over the border, even with his complaining all the way, and he was still complaining. At least Cenna knew well enough how to handle the Cardinal. “Maybe so, but we’ll be through soon. All we have to do is put up with one night here.”

  That was the one saving grace to travel. Black scripture members, particularly himself, were always provided an evening of rest and a budget for wine, women, and song. It was no secret to him as to why that was. ‘They want me to make lots of little godkin to strengthen humanity. Oh the things I do for my country.’ He made a melodramatic sigh and earned a glare from Dominic.

  The black robed cardinal’s glower could have killed the strongest of desires, but that was not the point. “This is a serious mission, Cenna. A demon is always a problem. A problem that has to be dealt with. Bad enough there’s a halfbreed on the throne of this country, if they’re summoning up demons or who knows what, well, there are some levels no human should ever sink to.”

  “I know, I know. Quit preaching to the choir, old man.” Cenna replied and waved a dismissive hand. “All that’s for you to worry about. All I’m here for is to make sure you don’t die.”

  Dominic clenched his jaw and fought his temper down, “Just look for an inn, I don’t care where, just… anything will do.” He spat into the dirt roads as their horses ambled along, looking at the various log buildings with utter revulsion, regarding them obviously as a step backward for mankind. As if the cities of the Theocracy should be the standard everywhere… even where death lay around the corner.

  “This place is hardly worth protecting…” Dominic mumbled.

  Cenna ignored his words and said, “If you’d listened when I asked the question after we got here, you’d know that we’re already heading to the inn. It’s just over there, across from the brothels.”

  “Brothels? More than one?” Dominic asked.

  “Border towns. The most profitable product is the thing you can keep reselling.” Cenna laughed at his own crude humor, and Dominic fell into sullenness that still hadn’t faded by the time the Black Scripture Captain acquired a room for them both.

  Dominic was something of a ‘homebody’ in Cenna’s estimation, if the man had any sense of adventure about him, ever… well it wasn’t obvious. The cardinal settled in at a table in his room and began scribbling who knew what drivel, and ordered Cenna to leave their shared quarters.

  ‘I swear, he might as well be ordering me to go make humanity stronger. Absurd.’ Sometimes he enjoyed the license to be lewd, but other times, it felt like something between an insult, an imposition, and a degradation. ‘Maybe I’m just getting old.’ He chuckled a little at that, but when it came to border towns, there just wasn’t much of anything else to do anyway, other than gambling, and Cenna never cared for that.

  He cast his eyes about, looking at the various crude buildings, there were women outside three of them, clad in the long green gloves that were standard wear for the profession of the flesh trade were present. And with the weather not yet cold, they wore very short dresses with deep necklines. Predictably, the patterns sewn on the sleeves showed what acts they sold, each one done in the color of the coin they charged.

  Their hair was worn in braids, the number of which indicated how much of the currency of choice they charged. His eyes locked on a green eyed woman with bright golden hair. The price she charged was high, but the pattern on her green sleeves offered ‘the works’, so he approached, then paused as something else caught his eye.

  Seeing him stop, she took the initiative and crossed the distance. “Why’dja stop? Change your mind? Lose your ‘nerve’?” She flashed a bright, ruby red smile up at him, but he didn’t look down at her to see it.

  “No, no I just… I thought I saw something.” He still had his eye focused on the window on the upper floor, but the face he saw was gone.

  She grabbed his arm and yanked, snatching his attention toward her, and her harsh whisper redoubled his focus, “Mr. If you’re the sort of man what likes girls like me, then you're not the sort to go for what you saw in that window. You shut your mouth, you saw nothing, you say nothing, if you want to stay liv’n, y’hear?”

  If he hadn’t seen the way her eyes looked, he might have listened, not out of fear, but out of casual indifference to whatever petty crimes took place on the border. But the way she kept trying to pull his eyes away, only made him look at the window a second time.

  “Gawdamnit.” She hissed, “Alright, we got a deal!” She said it a little louder than she needed to and slipped her arm around his and began to walk toward her building.

  Cenna knew if he hadn’t been willing to move, she hadn’t a prayer of moving him, but the mystery teased at him, and whatever it was? ‘She knows. It’s probably nothing. But if I want my curiosity satisfied… and besides, I was going to pay her anyway.’

  She marched him with professional purpose into the establishment, tables set up down below had people playing at cards while women paid for their company sat on laps and urged higher and higher stakes, while drunkards who’d already emptied their pockets drank away the sorrow of their misfortune, waiting to be joined by others who would lose eventually. A musician played a somewhat passable attempt at a ballad in the corner, but Cenna had only enough time to hear a few notes before she hauled him upstairs, flung open her door, brought him within, and slammed it shut.

  “Are ye stupid?” She snapped, “Swear ta all the damn gods… s’wrong with me.” The whore rolled her eyes and ran her hand across her forehead. “Should’a just walked away, I should… but the gods protect fools and children, so I guess that makes me yer guardian angel.” She let out a long, bitter and biting laugh and then addressed Cenna directly.

  “Answer? Are. Yew? Stupid? A local tells ye to keep yer damn head down and not see some things, and what do you do, start starin at what yer not s’posed to stare at the same as ye were starin at the merchandise right before? How’s someone that dense even survive in this world?”

  Cenna’s mouth dropped open at the verbal assault by the prostitute, nobody had spoken to him like that since he was a raw recruit, and with her hands on her hips and her body leaned forward, her steady green eyed stare bored into him and demanded an answer.

  At least the last question had an easy one. “I’m strong.” He chuckled, but felt very much like a mother was tearing him a new asshole over some ridiculous stunt, and he looked away from her the same as he’d done in childhood when his caregiver, a retired Black Scripture member, upbraided him over a horse he’d ‘borrowed’ and then ‘lost’.

  “Hmpf… listen here, Mr. Strong, someone what knows better’n you about what to do an not to do, is always better an smarter t’listen to than your damn dumbass muscles. They may be good, but they ain’t brains. Now keep yer head down around there, there’s nothin nobody can do about none of what’s over there. All you’ll get for your trouble is one big noose, and a bunch a little ones beside you.”

  Cenna glared at the woman. “What’s your name?”

  She cocked her head at him. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know it.” He answered.

  “Do you know the innkeeper’s name?” She asked.

  “No.” He replied honestly.

  “Then for the same reason you don’t know his, you don’t need mine. I don’t give that out. The last man I wanted to hear say my name, had his face peeled off and worn like a mask on a ratman just to make fun of me.”

  “You survived one of the cities… were you there when the demon came or-” Cenna asked, and she nodded.

  “Aye ah was. I wanted to tell ‘im thanks. Never got the chance though, he didn’t touch the ground, flew off like the dark angel he was… made my way here after that, so I don’t know where he went. I did do a pretty nice drawing of ‘im though.” The prostitute smiled a little and tilted her head toward the wall.

  Cenna looked over where she’d gestured, there it was. A full blown goat-headed demon, the apparel was similar to what initial reports said… not exact, but shockingly close. Also, the drawing was actually surprisingly good, with clean lines and an obvious attention to detail.

  “This is really good.” He praised the work and looked the woman over again. The invasion of the beastmen had broken a lot of people, not just peasants, but evidently poorer nobles or even merchants of some significance had lost everything. That was the way of war, and his curiosity was redoubled.

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  “Were you a noble’s daughter or something?” He asked, as usually only those had the time or tutoring in artistic works.

  “Nope. Just a peasant whore from a backwater village.” She shrugged, “I’m just a little smarter’n average, I guess. Saw a painter work once, asked him a few questions, and that’s the result.”

  “Once?” Cenna asked and looked from her to her attempt. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m a whore. I’m paid to lie. But you haven’t paid me yet, so I’m not lying. I don’t work for free, you know.” The way she smirked, he had no doubt he was being mocked, but it was the most incisive mockery he’d had in many years.

  He furrowed his brow, unsure of what to say next. “Just put the money on the table, and we can get started.” She said and reached behind her to undo the laces on her dress.

  But Cenna was not done. He looked away from her and her work and toward the window that looked out over the town’s common street. “If what I saw is so dangerous… Why drag me away from it? Isn’t there a chance you’ll get in trouble?”

  She stopped in mid tug and stared at him as if he were an imbecile. “There’s healers here. It’ll be fine. Just don’t think about it, relax. Ah won’t say anything. Leave a little extra to cover it, and we’ll call it good.”

  That just raised more questions.

  “Why?” He asked.

  “Because ah don’t work fer free.” She snapped back again.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Cenna retorted, and for the first time, her eyes wavered.

  “You look a little like him… Rasi, I mean. The one who lost his face, and his life. You got his build, his face is… was shaped like yours. Your hair is different, but you got that same sort of look about you.” The woman admitted and forced a smile, “I don’t know if yer a good’n or a bad’n. But not many I ever met looked like him. I figure, if I get to touch your face, might be like touching his again. I’ll give you a discount if you let me do that…”

  “And what did I need to be… ‘saved’ from? What’s over there?” Cenna approached and grasped her hand, he pulled her long green glove free and put her palm against his cheek.

  “You got eyes a lot like his too…” She whispered, whatever demons haunted her in the past were clearly not far away.

  “I thought I saw a little girl’s face in that window. Is that what I saw?” Cenna didn’t demand it, he asked it softly, gently.

  “Rasi, you can’t keep putting yourself at risk… what’s the point of trying to save people if you aren’t even strong enough to save yourself… best you can do when you’re this weak is just try to stay alive…” She said, and whoever she spoke to, it wasn’t Cenna.

  “But-” He began.

  “No! The last person to try’n get them little ones out just got hanged for his trouble, an the little ones he had with him got hanged too. Least they’re alive. Someone musta paid fer feast of lambs… someone with that money has got power… you’ll just die… just die…” The woman clearly wasn’t all there, but now Cenna knew he hadn’t imagined it.

  He went quiet, and gradually he saw the light come back on in her eyes and she realized what she’d done and what she’d said. “Are you that eager to die?”

  “Are you? Just what is going to happen to you after I leave?” Cenna crossed his arms in front of his chest.

  She rolled her eyes, “Better’n what’d happen to you. I live here. I’ll get ‘terrogated. They’ll ask me some questions, beat me up pretty bad, but then I’ll pay for a healer and I’ll be fine. You, they’ll cut’cher throat and leave you in the woods. You don’t live here, you’re not a noble, and nobody checks too close what goes on right outside of town, stranger goes missing, well, who even knows to look? Just forget it all and don’t think about it.”

  “Beaten up? That sounds like the opposite of fine?” Cenna frowned deeply.

  “They’re not as good ‘bout hurting folk as the beastmen are. It’s nothing I can’t handle. Relax, no sense in dying over stuff you’re too weak to do anything about. Anyone who does anything, just gets a bunch of people hanged as ‘killers’.”

  “So the ones you-” He let the statement hang.

  “Aye. They said them young’ns helped with a killing, then hanged em too. Bounties may be high, but you can’t buy justice here.” She said with her golden brow furrowed.

  “And where do they get the… ‘lambs’ from?” Cenna asked.

  “How’d I know?” She asked incredulously. “Best I c’n say, couple of em are half elves, so probably the Slane Theocracy. Others, not from here, my guess, refugee kids, there’s a lotta them, dead parents, whole dead families, nobody around to give a damn about them… so in come the pervs, they grease the wheels and get what they want.”

  “You never reported it to the authorities?” Cenna pressed.

  “First time I said anything I was black and blue for a week, an that was from the ones who was supposed to take the report. Couple of us… we try’n do little things, pay a little more to get a healer out there… but?” She crossed her arms and gave him a long, steady look that fairly dared him to argue.

  “Who listens to a couple’a peasant whores what got no money, no power, no family, no home… who?” She demanded.

  “You could write a letter to someone in the capital, someone might listen?” He suggested, and her ‘you are an idiot’ look deepened.

  “First off, how many peasants you know who can read? Second off, how’sat go in yer damn fool head?” She paused, took a deep breath and in her best imitation of a royal voice said, “Dear Royal High Ass, your rich ass supporters are using homeless orphans as play things, please turn on some of your supporters’n come hang em, signed, some flat backer nobodies.” And then as if to further deepen the mockery, she imitated a Queen’s voice.

  “Oh course, we must immediately imprison the rich people who help keep me on the throne.” She spat on her own floor, “Please. Even the strongest adventurer in this Kingdom uses kids that way, everybody knows it, and nobody does anything about it.” She snorted, “So just don’t think about it. You’ll just get killed…”

  Her eyes welled up again, “The more I look, the more like’im you seem. Can I just… for a little while… it’ll make everything easier later, if I can pretend you were really ‘im, and I saved him this time.” Cenna let her hand caress his cheek, and while he could not read her thoughts, what she’d said before had not diminished her in his eyes the way she probably expected it had.

  ‘Very brave… very… very brave…’ He thought to himself, and barely noticed when they’d begun to undress one another.

  He exercised the greatest possible care and caution, so that he wouldn’t hurt her when they occupied her bed. She was stronger than he expected she would be, given that her profession was not renowned for making hardened soldiers. But even so, his caution never wavered.

  After they were finished and she slipped out of his embrace and reached for a water basin and a rag to clean herself up, he spoke. What drove him to say what he did, he lacked the words to express. But even so, he went on as best he could.

  “If you could leave here, would you?” He asked.

  She didn’t look back at him when she began to retie her hair back into the braid that showed her prices. “There’s nowhere for me to go. Whore here, whore there, what’s it matter what the name of the town or city is where paying rods are? I got no other skills but farming, bit of drawing, some weaving, those are all the same everywhere too, or you got some place where that isn’t so?”

  “Just answer, if you could do something else, maybe study art from a master… would you do it?” Cenna asked.

  “Yes. Why?” She asked.

  He sat up and moved so that he was beside her. He looked down at the floor where her feet hovered inches above the wood, “People say I’m brave because I go into a lot of fights. But I’m probably the strongest man in the world outside of certain monsters. I go into fights knowing I probably won’t even get hurt, it’s easy to go in, knowing nothing can hurt, who would be a coward if everybody knew that?” He smiled a little, “That’s pretty close to what one of my comrades says, she’s stronger than me. But even so, we both have reason to doubt we’re as brave as people say we are, because we really can’t be beaten, at least not as far as we know. You were willing to take a beating to cover for a complete stranger… at least twice, if what you said about reporting what you saw once, was true.”

  “I told you. I get paid to lie, and you still haven’t paid me.” The woman remarked testily.

  “Right, I haven’t.” He admitted and reached for his pants, he undid the coinpurse secured to it, and taking her palm, he counted out ten gold coins to her increasingly wide eyes. “Take this money, today. Go to the Slane Theocracy, make your way to Kami Miyako and find the estate of Cardinal Raymond Zarg Larrenson, and give him this message.” He paused, cleared his throat, and said, “The kid who took his horse will pay him back soon.”

  “And that will mean something to him?” The woman asked with a scratch of her head.

  “I… kinda took his horse and… lost it when I was younger. Never did find it, I’ve owed him for it ever since but he’s never bothered to collect.” Cenna looked a little sheepish, “Anyway, he’ll know you’re coming from me. Tell him I’d appreciate it if he’d house you until I get back.”

  “Why would you do all this?” She looked at him with suspicion, “If you’re just looking for your own private whore… you can get cheaper…”

  He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. There’s just going to be some trouble tonight, and I’d rather not get you caught up in it after you went out of your way to try to protect me… however unnecessary that is. Call it one good turn for another.” Cenna’s reply set her a little at ease.

  “You’re serious… you’d do that…?” She asked, even with the coins in her hand, it was hard for her to accept.

  He wondered how many lies she’d heard from how many different men in the course of her work.

  “Yes. And if he asks my name, Cenna. Cenna Tachoni.” He replied matter of factly and reached for his clothes.

  “I don’t know…” She murmured while she looked down at the stack.

  “That’s enough money to buy a farm somewhere, probably a big one. So if you don’t want to do that, go wherever you like. But? I’m presenting you with an option, all you have to do is promise me two things.” He asked, and watched as she tensed, bracing herself for the catch.

  “First, go as fast as you can, right now if you’re able.” He said, and she went over to her wall, took her drawing off of it, and said simply…

  “Done.”

  The look she gave him made him wonder, ‘If I see her more often, how often will she look at me like I am an idiot.’

  “And second… can I actually have your name now?”

  She sighed and fell quiet while she put on her clothing again, after pocketing the coins in a little pouch of her own she said… “Vanysa. If you really must know, that’s my name.”

  “It’s a nice one.” Cenna replied as she slipped on her shoes.

  “I’ll… go do what you said. I may change my mind halfway there and buy a farm or something,” she hastily added, “but right now, I’m going to take a chance. What are you going to do?”

  Cenna reached into the pocket of his pants, drew out a palm sized black stick and said, “Divine Retribution.” As he spoke those words, the little black rod became a long and vicious looking spear. “See you in a month or two.” He promised, and watched her bright green eyes grow wide with disbelief at the enchanted weapon.

  “This really is my lucky day.” Cenna said to himself, though he wasn’t the sort who enjoyed life and death struggles… sometimes ‘disposing’ of the right sorts was an absolute pleasure.