The Duke Portage wheeled on me after looking at his sister increduosly. His eyes burned with fury as he looked at me, “You’re the bastard my family is in an uproar over! Blowing money on buying you and even stooping so low as to lay with you! I ought to have your head!”

“Brother, brother calm now. What I choose to do with myself is none of your business and I didn’t even have to inform you.” Heather placed a gentle hand on his arm before he flinched away and tore his arm back.

“What if you have a bastard?! How will I marry you off to someone that would benefit the family if you were walking around with some tainted peasant child?! What would we do then if we really needed contracts with another. Plus I had hoped to marry you to one of the King’s nephews at least. What if word gets out that your some sort of seductive harlot that lays with just any peasant that wanders through out doors.” His veins in his neck bulged as he grew red faced and angry. He was muscular and I could see the callouses on his hands even from here that would have come with hours and hours of practice with the sword.

“I’ll just seduce whoever you want me to marry. It isn’t so hard to sway the hearts of a man into desire. Really it is quite easy, I bet even you could do it.” Her tone was playful but it wasn’t appreciated.

“If you weren’t my sister I would have you flogged in the streets for such insolence in the face of your betters. Begone from my sight so I can talk to this Bard that you are all so obsessed over.”

“Brother, we can work this out,” She started.

“I said begone!” Duke Portage roared into the air and lifted a hand as if to strike Heather. She flinched and made her way out of the room not even glancing at me. “Come here peasant.”

The urge to strike this man down soared in my soul as some part of me saw him as a threat with his anger. It would be so easy, maybe if I handled this correctly the Duke would toss me out like yesterday’s trash. “Hello Duke.”

The man went to grab my chin and look at me but I stepped out as his hand clutched at air, “Let me see your face you sonuvabitch. I need to know that if you have a bastard with my sister that it will look half as good as someone of her pedigree deserves.” He stepped forward and went to snatch me one more time.

I raised my hand and blocked his arm before staring him in the face. His eyes were piercing and weighed me for my value as he looked at every shape and flaw my face might have. He scanned me like I was a prize horse at auction before he stepped back letting his arm fall down to his side. “Are you pleased Duke Portage,” I asked with a hidden sneer in my voice.

“At least you are handsome. I will give you that. It is a shame that my sister threw herself upon you though. I’m sure that some maid of ours would have been happy to be your little pet to bed if you just asked for it.” He wiped his hands from where he had touched me on his pants still as he looked disgusted with having to have touched me.

“You could just toss me out, I’m sure we can both agree that I have overstayed my welcome.”

“Until I know you haven’t put a bastard in my sister I will gladly toss you out with the fish heads and offal. However, if one does come you better know that you and it will be sent to the farthest reaches of our lands and hidden away like the disgusting secret you would be. God, I would even choke her with mercury to kill any chance of it happening if it wouldn’t barren her womb at the same time.” Portage’s eyes burned with contained fury as he looked around the room. “Fuck I need a drink.”

I watched as he went to a cabinet and pulled out one of the many crystal bottles, pulled the stopper and took a deep swig. His adam’s apple bobbing up and down with each gulp as he walked and fell into a plush chair. “So you’re the savior of the Galean pig. Minstrel of the Ursal home, and entertainer of Patricia Truose. You’ve gotten quite the name for yourself in the small time you’ve been in the capital. Where were you trained again? There is some air of mystery about you that I don’t like.”

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“I was trained in the kingdom to the south to be honest. By a master minstrel who had known a hundred instruments better than he knew the label on his favorite bottle. He served the court there before being thrown out for cavorting with those he shouldn’t have been. He was Sir Terrance Talespinner.” I answered the half made up story that I had come up with so long ago to cover where this life had started.

“At least I know where you get your problem sleeping with women comes from. Like a master like a student it would seem.” He drank more of the potent smelling liquid as he looked at me with murder in his eyes. “I should toss you out but father and sister seem to think you're more important than the next invention that comes around.”

I took a seat without asking instead of remaining standing to show some insolence to push this thought of getting me to leave. However, the words that if I sired a bastard I would be shunned to some remote part of the world grated at me. I couldn’t bring myself to smite these people for something deep down I desired. “What would you have me do in the mean time while you wait to find out if your sister is with child.”

“You will do as my father asks of you and remain at his beck and call. I will insure that his promises are kept but you are not to spend time alone with my sister in this house. I can’t believe she would sully herself just to trap some no name bard that came waltzing into the noble quarter. Preposterous if you ask me. I’ll have to ask father why he didn’t stop it.”

If I thought about that moment the older man had seemed more keen on the situation that he let on. Maybe he was the mastermind behind it all but I couldn’t fathom why he would do so with his daughter. Maybe if I ever got the chance to plunder his mind I would find out why. Hell maybe it was worth my time to plunder everyone’s mind here. “Is that all, do what your father asks and stay away from Heather…”

“Get her name out of your mouth minstrel,” He whispered dangerously. “You’ve no right to call her by her given name. You will address her as Lady Portage from here forward or I will cut out your tongue and feed it to you cooked on a plate.”

That urge to strike him down was flaring in my guts as I looked at him. It would be so easy to wipe out this house. How long would it take for me to tear open the royal library and read through the books before a proper military came back here to stop me. I would be bathed in the blood of the innocent though and I couldn’t stand by that decision. “I will stay away from Lady Portage. I will do your father’s bidding. What can I do for you to let me join the court though. I have a feeling that your father would rather keep me to himself but I have always dreamt of serving the court.”

“I care not for your dreams. I care only to dispose of you. Serve the court if you must but I will insure my sister has no more dealings with you if that is the case. Are you bewitched by her beauty like many men of the court?” He leaned forward his eyes growing a little glassy from all the drink he had consumed in such a short time. I watched as Duke Portage licked his lips and disgusting thoughts crossed his mind. “Is she as beautiful as she seems Bard?”

I kept my skin from crawling at the insistence of the question. I knew that nobles were prone to perverse desires and thoughts. Especially the more powerful ones that were barely raised together with family. “She is,” I conceded, “Whomever marries her will be a lucky man that is to be sure.”

“Yes, yes they will. I only hope that it will be indeed with one of the nephews of the king. Only two of them are still single and not yet of age to marry. She isn’t getting younger and if she gets too old she won’t be desired to bear offspring. Even though you’ve spoiled her body I’m sure I can keep it a secret.” He drank some more, “I’ve kept the others secret already haven’t I?”

I relaxed in the chair and looked at him as the spirits sank into his mind and body. His muscles loosened as he brooded in silence. Almost like he forgot I was in the room with him as long as I stayed still. His eyes glossed over me before they focused. “You’ll speak of none of this. You’ll be taken care of as long as my father fancies you being here. Now get out of my sight.”

“As you wish,” I stepped over to the bookshelf and snagged the book labeled with the Eastern Emperor on its spine and walked out of the room. I could feel his eyes boring holes into my spine as if he was thinking of ramming a dagger into it himself. “Noble pig,” I whispered to myself as I shrugged off the feeling of his murderous intent.

I made my way deep into the servants quarters as the hallways grew thinner and the tight spaces made it more and more uncomfortable. I looked through each door and soon found a hallway filled with doorways to sleeping quarters. Each had an oil lamp posted on the ceiling to provide light to the room but that was all that it had to offer. The beds were a step above cots though.

Most of the rooms had the feeling of being lived in so I kept looking until I found one that had a certain level of dust in it and showed no signs of people having lived there in a while. I lit the lamp in the room easily and leaned on one of the beds trying not to groan at the mess I had gotten myself into. It had been such a busy day and it should have been one of pampering and pleasure but I had to dig myself into a pit and toss myself down it with no way out.

If he truly meant to wait until his sister would show any signs of having either her moonflow or the signs of a child I could be here for weeks. Unpleasant and torturous weeks as I did the bidding of Reginald. As I grew bored of the biased retelling of a tale from the east I pushed it aside and grabbed the scroll I had made out of the assassin and looked at it once more. The thoughts of a trail I had been leaving flooded my mind. I had even stopped inscribing the different places I had been to absorb more stories in order to shake off those that were following me.

I wish the world was well read enough that I could try and inscribe a few of my stories and spread them that way. But most people couldn’t read and making such books would need a king’s coffers worth of money. I put a pin in that thought as I looked at the details on the scroll. It spoke of several of them having close relationships with one another and all being led by one of the few elves that survived in the Blood Hunt order. Blasted elves and their desire to hunt down dragons. Unforgiving knife ears.

“Fuck,” I whispered to myself as I read the next passage. “I’m so fucked…”