Chapter Fifty

Speranzi couldn’t speak until she felt the finger poke her in her side. “I… I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t even want to hurt you. I- I was given this room and…” Being at a loss for words was a rare event for Baroness Speranzi Jadara, between her quick temper and her training in rhetoric, the right phrase was rarely far from her mind even when the need for it came up out of nowhere.

A handful of memories flashed through her mind, “...If you’re unhappy that my face is cruel, think how unhappy I am that your character is!” The retort to her father when he complained she had ruined yet another marriage meeting had earned her a slap across the face…

“...If you’re going to accuse me of using dishonest weight on our scales for the ransom payment, then we might as well make sure you’re not a liar.” The dismay the accuser had on his face when Speranzi capped off her words by setting her sword on the scale, vastly throwing off the weight in her favor, had been worth hearing the lie. ‘If I’m going to be accused and not be believed, I might as well be guilty.’ That had been her thought, bitter as it was.

It hadn’t been her finest moment, as she was supposed to be above revenge and pettiness, but he’d gotten to her.

A dozen occurrences of times when her tongue and quick thinking had turned the tide of disdain or contempt into a weapon against the ones who attacked her one way or another all came to mind.

And none of it helped.

The elven woman was shivering in raw, unbridled terror, unable to do what most did instinctively, look away from the piercing blue irises that throbbed with the taut intensity of a newly struck drum.

‘Monster… they sent a monster in here…’ Illyana tried to contain her whimpers, she could feel the innate malice like a cloak woven of shadows and draped over the woman in front of her. The demon-like eyes seemed to search out every fear and insecurity in Illyana’s soul and threatened to drain it of the will to survive that had carried through over a century of life in the living nightmare that was The Golden Roan and the city of Wenmark.

The woman’s attempt at reassurance was nothing, but the dumbfounded tone beneath it, her seeming hesitation, that at least was unexpected. ‘Do what I have to do to survive, just survive… just stay alive whatever they do… whatever they do… they’ll die one day, you’ll outlive them all, that’s as close to revenge as you can get… just stay alive!” Illyana told herself, missing the moment when the two women traded words with each other, and unable to tear herself away from the feeling like she was about to be swallowed by a snake until the auburn-haired human stepped in between the two.

“Hi…” Skana said, crouched, and looked back up over her shoulder, “Speranzi, could you step outside, just… give me a minute.” Skana didn’t look away from her idol, her commander, she just kept her steady look back until Speranzi nodded and stepped back out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“My name is Skana.” Skana said and gave a smile down at the elf woman, “You can get up, she’s not going to hurt you, nobody is going to hurt you, I promise. Maybe that doesn’t mean much coming from a human, but I mean it.” She held out a hand with her palm upturned where the terrorized elf could see it, then when the elf’s trembling hand stretched out, Skana helped her to her wobbly feet.

“I know, you don’t have to apologize. She looks… intense.” Skana acknowledged, carefully choosing her words with one more backward glance at the door that separated the three of them. “Nothing bad will happen to you in this room. Not from me, not from her. You could even think of yourself as being under her protection if it helps.”

Illyana’s brow furrowed, the absurdity of the situation, combined with the fact that the demon-eyed woman left the room at the gentler sounding one’s request, was helping her heart to slow down from its racing.

“Protection? From a human?” Illyana whispered, and immediately covered her mouth, eyes widening as she realized she’d accused a guest of the Golden Roan of lying.

“I didn’t mean-” She began, but Skana stopped her with a shake of her head.

“It’s okay.” Skana asserted and took a better look at the elven woman. The clothing was a mockery of the term, designed to be easily pushed aside or to be removed with the simple tug of a simple bow knot at her left hip and left shoulder. The look of the clerk downstairs suddenly made a great deal more sense.

‘Probably not many women come to… this.’ Skana considered, her disgust growing by the second. “I understand why you doubt me, but… woman to woman, I swear, our being here isn’t what it seems like.” She added, and recalled observing the interactions between Corwin and his uncle, the little things about the man adding up to making him a solid bastard in Skana’s eyes.

“We’re not from here, we didn’t know, I swear. This is… somebody’s idea of a joke.” Skana explained, and the fear on the elf woman’s face began to melt.

What it became was arguably worse than fear, her face turned red, her lower lip trembled until she bit it, a bit of ruby liquid coming out to blend with the red that was already painted there to make her mouth more appealing to her ‘visitors.’

“A joke… a joke?” Illyana mumbled; the whole thing seemed to get worse by the second. “So, I’m to be the laughing line of a game…” Illyana whispered and hid her hands behind her back to clench her fists tight enough to squash the shame and anger that rampaged through her veins.

“What humiliation would please you and your companion, mistress? I am yours for the duration…do as you will.” She drew up her rage around her like a cloak and wore it with what dignity she could. It would not be the first time a human had taken pleasure in her shame and humiliation. But it was the first time that anyone had been so open in proclaiming it, let alone that it was not one, but two of the same sex as herself.

But to her surprise, the green-eyed woman with the cascade of not quite brushed auburn hair only shook her head again. “No… not on you. The one who paid for these rooms, we just happened to be in a position that would put us in these rooms too… the joke was meant on a man who is in another room right now. Probably feeling as awkward as I am…” Skana sighed and went toward the nearest chair, she flopped down in it and looked toward the door, she had no doubt that Speranzi could hear everything.

“Illyana… I want… I want to ask something of you that I know you won’t like.” Skana said and inched the chair across the polished floor, it scraped the wood and marred the perfect polish, but she only did it a few more times for good measure.

Illyana braced herself, a litany of the cruelest orders she’d ever been given ran through her mind and stole away her tongue.

When the elven prostitute said nothing, Skana looked past her, toward the doorway. “I want you to tell me your story. How you got here. How you’re treated. How you live. And… how you see humans. The truth. I’ll know if you lie.” Skana said and one look into the rising regal bitterness in the sky-blue eyes of the radiant woman, and she knew lying was not something she had to worry about.

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For good measure, Skana mouthed a few words in silence, pointing toward the door, ‘Rub her face in it.’

Understanding began to dawn for Illyana, she looked toward the other side of the door. ‘Foreigners… they’ve probably barely seen one of our kind… fine… what can they do now that hasn’t already been done… the one out there, she at least listened to the one in here… it doesn’t ‘feel’ like a game anymore…’ A lifetime of reading humans now felt ‘off,’ compared to past experiences.

“My first encounter with humans was when my village was captured. My father and mother died with a sword of men in their backs, covering my body. I still feel their blood mingling against my skin on some nights. When they realized that my father was covering my mother, and that they’d killed her too… at least she was not alive to experience what was done with her corpse to punish her for dying before they could profit them. I survived. I begged each of the human soldiers to just kill me, but that wasn’t the stabbing they had in mind. It seldom is.” Illyana’s face twisted in hatred.

“We’re beautiful in the eyes of humans, and you all hate us for it. For our long lives, for our beauty, you hate us and can’t get enough of us, you’re like addicts, or so I found out as I was shipped like cargo from one merchant to another, and they loved to sample their wares. Some of my kind become the playthings of wealthy houses, introducing their sons, generation after generation, into manhood. That was nearly my fate. The day I was sold at auction, I was oiled by a pair of half-bloods and put in front of a thousand pairs of hungry eyes. I knew what my end would be, or so I thought. Even by elven standards, I’m considered beautiful. But a fire the day before at the Golden Roan had killed a number of slaves, and they needed to replenish their stock of flesh. The man who took me has been dead for sixty years now. But I still remember his voice when he ascended the block and took the chain that was latched to the collar around my throat.

“She’ll be at the Golden Roan, for anyone who wants a ride you can afford.” Illyana quoted him, her fingers clenched into her palms hard enough to draw blood.

“I don’t know how many of the ones to pass through over the next few weeks were in the audience, but I was popular.” Illyana spat out the words and could not keep the glare out of her eyes as she looked to the unreasonably lucky human woman in front of her. “That’s been my life for the last hundred and fifty years. An expensive toy to humiliate, or a mare to mount… Why do you think they call this place the ‘Golden Roan’?” She reached up and caressed the silken golden hair.

“Because we are here to ride. For your race’s men to abuse. You saw the half-blood clerk? He is the son of one of the women in the next room over from mine. Our sons and daughters from our clients fill the mines, work the vast fields and farms, and do any other work deemed suitable to slaves…and a handful of the ‘favored’ ones get positions working as clerks, or if they’re unfortunate, end up in cheaper brothels than this one. So, when you ask what I think of humans…mistress? I despise you. All of you. You are demons… and I wait each night for the one to pay enough to have the privilege of killing me.”

She lowered her eyes, “That is the condensed version of my life… I could detail all the things humans have made me do, from the banal and dull to things so twisted that the demon god himself would pity my existence.” She managed to find Skana’s eyes and waited for the human to call her a liar.

But the green-eyed woman shifted her eyes away and looked toward the door. “What about the priests of the temple? Don’t they say anything to stop this?” Skana asked, though she was fairly sure she already knew the answer.

Illyana couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that came out. “The previous head of the temple was one of my most frequent visitors. His favorite game was for me to scream that he was in the wrong place. Human priests are the worst. Even the nobles aren’t sadistic for the sake of it. But for the devout ones? It isn’t even about pleasure… they want to punish me for existing. The more devout they are, the crueler they are allowed to be… and why shouldn’t they act that way, if we’re not ‘people’ what is wrong with it? We’re the enemies of humankind, this is what the gods decree for us. I know your holy books very well… most of us do. The priests sometimes make us recite it while they play.”

Illyana closed her eyes and sighed, in her long years of life in the Golden Roan, the question the visitor had asked was never put to her before, and even to a hated enemy, or perhaps because of it, letting it out was good. Particularly, she thought, as Skana was visibly uncomfortable, shifting back and forth in her seat, frequently looking at the door.

‘She must think the woman waiting can hear me… could ‘this’ be the game? Did I fall for some new game that I’ve never seen before…?’ She knew humans loved to play mind games with their prey, so it wasn’t impossible. But that line of thought was interrupted.

“Did you have any brothers or sisters… what happened to the rest of your village?” Skana asked.

“Dead if they’re lucky, worse off than me if they’re not.” Illyana answered. “I… I did have a sister, but she wasn’t with us that day. She was sold to a merchant from the Divine Kingdom.”

“Your family sold her?” Skana asked as gently as she could.

“No. Yes… I was old enough to not understand it at the time. Humans dominated our village, they had our little area surrounded, we had to pay tribute, and if we couldn’t pay tribute, then they would force us to ‘sell’ some of our people to make up the difference. Nua was a little older than me. I can’t remember her face anymore. I don’t imagine she’s even alive. I don’t like to think of what it’s like for her if she is.” Illyana blinked back tears, “Be of gentle hand with the mare who carries you with her strength…” She said and pointed toward the wall. “That is why there is a riding crop here, and in every room. By the interpretation of the laws of the gods of men, we are accorded the status of horses. And ‘gentle hand’ can mean whatever any human wants. If your gods care at all, they’ve never given any sign that I know of.”

Skana had heard enough. She stood and went to the door, opening it, she found Speranzi’s head bowed. “Come in. And please, don’t frighten her.”

Speranzi stepped within at Skana’s behest. She wanted to believe the elf was lying.

Her eyes closed, as Skana asked her in, and she allowed the woman to guide her closer to where the elf still stood. “You knew.” Speranzi guessed.

Skana cleared her throat, “Not exactly. But it wasn’t hard. The noble who ruled over my village had several others, and I grew up watching him look at peasant women like they were playthings, picking the one he wanted. And your own company, do you think the lords who made those half-blood sons and daughters all loved the mothers of those children? Maybe sometimes. But if you really-” Skana froze.

“Speranzi?” She prompted.

“This is not… this cannot be what the gods wanted. It can’t be… I’ll go to the temples, I’ll confront them, I’m a Paladin, they’ll listen to me. This is a holy city… it-”

“Has always been this way.” Illyana interrupted, her stomach roiled at the fierce looking woman’s clearly genuine dismay, “Always. I’ve been here for almost a hundred and fifty years. I’ve known others who were here before me, and there was never a time when it wasn’t like this.” Illyana smashed the protest to pieces and began to recite the scriptures of the Book of Man by heart. Line by line she spoke it, and pointed out how it had been used to justify the cruelty done to elves and nonhumans.

“I have seen it all… the worst of it though…” Illyana hugged her arms against herself, “the worst of it… the pits. When there’s an elf condemned to suffer a horrible death for some offense, they are tortured to death for public entertainment beneath the city, with whatever bits of them remaining just thrown into the sewer water to be swept into the lake where their remnants will be sucked down into the underdepths and off to the ocean. The bits of flesh that make it out there draw in many fishes. I’ve heard that the town out there sells many fish to the surrounding areas…”

Speranzi paled. “I’ve devoted my life to the gods… to their justice… this can’t be… not here…” She tried to protest, but looking at the scantily clad slave as the living proof, her denial was desperate even in her own eyes. “But it is… it has to be stopped. I’m… I vowed to defend some escaped slaves at trial. The trials here, are they conducted near the temples?”

“Yes…mistress.” Illyana answered, the statement that she was going to be defending some escaped slaves was a shock to say the least, and it left her feeling unsteady on her feet, but one look at the woman and it was easy to guess what that defense meant. “But you’re going to lose.”

Speranzi and Skana gasped.

Illyana hastened to add why. “Damadeqi Somat is here.”

Speranzi froze. “The one who sealed Damaxa…is here?”

“She’s the head of the Paladin Order for South Qadish, now. And before you ask… many men love to talk after they’re finished grunting.” Illyana spat the words out in disgust, “There’s not much that this building doesn’t know about what goes on in this city.”

“Well?” Skana asked of her commander.

But Speranzi had no words.

As if in a dream, she turned around, went to the door, and walked out again.