The Invisible Chains - Part 3: Bonds of Blood (16 page)

“Even so. Tell us. We won't laugh,” Morneck insisted.

Again Ambrick waited some time before he spoke.

“It's just that it occurred to me that it is how he looks that makes him so... so intolerably arrogant. I mean, suppose for one moment he looked more like Fraydir.”

They all laughed at the idea of Lorcko looking like the overweight, zit-ridden page.

“Laugh all you want,” Ambrick said, “but think about it. Would he have the same airs? Would he be as haughty as he is now?”

They all fell silent for a moment. Ambrick took another sip of his warm wine, looking at his mates from under his eyelashes.

“Maybe, just maybe,” Sterff drawled, “somebody should correct nature's error in giving that upstart his looks. That certainly would teach him a lesson.”

“Oh, Sterff”, Ambrick reacted, shocked but just a tad too eager, “whatever do you mean?”

“Just suppose we were to rearrange his face a bit. Give him a permanent smirk, perhaps, by means of a sharp dagger. Split his nose. And break it. Smash up one of his knees, just enough to give him a permanent limp.

Knock out a few front teeth. Cut off an ear, maybe.”

“We should ask Loduvant,” Morneck added. “I hear he and Iramid fell out big time.”

“Guys, guys,” Ambrick said, “that is so not what I meant.”

“Changed your mind, Ambrick? Have a thing for him, after all?” Sterff said mockingly, raising his eyebrows “No, no. No, of course not. What I mean is that we maybe just should forget it. Ignore him.”

“We
have
been ignoring him,” Morneck said. “Not that he seems all that impressed by it.”

“Morneck is right. He doesn't need us ignoring him. He needs us to pay more attention to him. The right kind of attention.”

“Yep. And there is no reason why we shouldn't enjoy the whore before we, eh, correct his countenance a bit.

After all, whores enjoy being used, and we get to see for ourselves what all the commotion is about. We should make him feel that he's just a little prostitute. A pretty prostitute maybe, but just a prostitute all the same. The best way to do that would be fucking him in turn, over and over again, until he cries out for mercy.

And besides, shouldn't we get some reward for our hard work to come? Then, when we've had our fill, it's the right time to put an end to his looks and his airs.”

“Guys,” Ambrick said, almost unable to keep the triumph out of his voice, “you're talking rape.”

“Rape?” Morneck spat. “You can't rape a whore. We'll be doing him a service. Giving him what he wants.”

“I'm going to have a quiet word with Loduvant,” Sterff said, standing up.

It was still early in the morning when Lethoras went to The Cranky Goat. Not to drink, or for breakfast, which the Goat didn't serve anyway, but to pay off part of his debt. He knew Unnyvall would be cleaning his tavern. Unny said he liked to do it himself, because it was the only way it got done well, but Lethoras thought he was just being miserly.

The door was open. When he entered, so did the harsh morning light. The establishment that seemed so snug and inviting at night, looked positively run down and shabby under it. Unny was swiping the floor. He looked up, not a little bit surprised.

“Eh... general,” he said in greeting.

Lethoras laughed out loud.

“General, eh? What happened to ‘you drunken lecher,’ or ‘miserable deadbeat,’ or those other endearing names you're used to call me by?

“It seems a bit inappropriate since his highness promoted you. We haven't seen you around for a long time, so I thought—”

“What? That I had changed? Become all highty mighty? Oh, you poor man, you don't know me very well, do you? No, ‘his highness’ has kept me busy, that's all.”

“Ah,” Unny mumbled, with a disappointing lack of enthusiasm, leaning on his broom.

Lethoras ignored the lukewarm reaction.

“It's your lucky day,” ="1em" dafy"he said. “His highness pays early. In fact I received my pay yesterday, the last day of the month, and I had planned to come that same evening to spend a good deal of it here. But, as I said, he keeps us busy. Anyway, I've come to pay a part of my long overdue debts. Now, that should make that lopsided leer you call a smile appear on your ugly face.”

Unny looked down on the garbage he had broomed into a little heap.

“It's taken care of, Letho.”

Lethoras didn't understand.

“Taken care of?”

“Yes. It's paid. All of it.”

“By whom, pray, my good man?” The words notwithstanding, it sounded threatening.

“Please, Letho,” a deeply unhappy innkeeper pleaded. “I'm sorry, but I couldn't wait any longer. I've got expenses, you know. So, I went to his highness. Just to inquire, just to inquire, I swear by the Gods. He paid me.”

Lethoras grabbed the man by his shoulders.

“What?” he thundered. “You went to my friend to ask him for money?”

“No, no, Letho, it was nothing like that,” a trembling Unny said hastily. “I thought he hadn't paid you and, well, I needed the money, so I told him about my little, sick girl and he paid everything you owed. I thought it would be all right. That he would just keep it from your pay. You know? In easy installments.”

“He didn't. He kept paying me in full. Actually, with the promotion came a raise in pay as well. He didn't say a thing. And what is all that nonsense about a sick, little daughter? I ought to smack you around a few dozen times. How dare you extort my friend with such a teary, transparent, bullshit story? Sick daughter. Ha. Who would ever copulate with you long enough to produce offspring? I—”

At that moment a door in the back opened and a little girl, in nightgown, looked with big eyes at the young man yelling at her father. Lethoras immediately let go of Unny's shoulders.

“Sweetheart, don't come in, not on your bare feet, the floor is still dirty. There's shards everywhere. And it's too cold. Go back to bed.” Unny cooed.

“You promised to play with me and tell me a story when you were finished here,” the little girl whined. “I'm alone. All day.”

“I know pumpkin, only, daddy hasn't done cleaning the floor yet. And there's the tankards that need to be rinsed—”

“But it'll be noon before you're finished and then the guests will be arriving,” the girl complained.

“I know, Richild dear, but daddy needs to make money, sweetheart,” he tried to reason with her. “You like to eat, don't you?” he said in an attempt at a weak joke.

The girl let out a discouraged sigh. For a moment it looked as if she would cry, but she didn't. This obviously wasn't the first time they had had this conversation.

“Go,” Lethoras said, “and give me that thing. I'll sweep this rat hole. You go tell stories to your little girl.

She's probably the last person on earth who believes you.”

“Letho... you're a general now. You can't—”

“I'm a Cheridonian. We raise horses, if you didn't know. I've cleaned stables almost as dirty as this dung heap with a roof over. I think dirty I We I can manage. Though the Gods may know whoever sat in that corner. It looks like a chicken graveyard has puked there.”

Lorcko woke up, next to Timishi. He smiled wryly at the peacefully sleeping prince. The sun had already risen, he supposed, behind the thick cover of dark gray clouds. He was free to go.

He dressed hastily, minus his torn underwear, and after a last look at Timishi, left, closing the door softly behind him.

There was much to think about, as he made his way across the courtyard of Lorseth Castle and took the road to the barracks of the pages. Almost automatically he took the direction that would bring him to The Hole.

He felt hungry and breakfast would do him good, would center him. Almost there, he felt that his purse was missing from his belt. Believing that, in his nervousness, he must have left it in his room last evening, he passed the page's tavern to get it.

As luck would have it Sterff was looking out of the window.

“There he is, guys,” he said to Loduvant, Ambrick and Morneck. “No time like the present, I say.”

Lorcko had taken a shortcut, away from the main road, which had brought him behind some barracks. When he was about to turn a corner, Sterff, Morneck and Loduvant appeared. Sterff was smiling, the other two looked tense.

“Iramid, Iramid, what a welcome surprise,” Sterff said with mock jocularity.

“Leave me alone, Rivrant. I'm not in the mood,” Lorcko replied.

“What makes you think we care about what a whore like you is in the mood for, Iramid? Aren't you supposed to be always in the mood to be fucked?”

Lorcko knew immediately he was in trouble, in deep trouble.

“Yeah, Iramid,” Morneck said. “See, we've decided we've had enough of your arrogant ways and we think we need to teach you a well deserved lesson.”

“Also,” Sterff added, smiling, “we finally want to know what made you think you were so far above the rest of us. Some of us have this theory that it has to do with your looks and your cock. We'd like to see for ourselves, Iramid, so be a good little whore and show us.”

Lorcko couldn't believe his ears.

“
What?”
was all he managed to say.

“Drop your pants, Iramid, or, better still, get out of your clothes altogether. Show us your dick, your ass, your hole, show us everything. The works.”

“Isn't that your trade, you little fucker?” Morneck added. “You should be honored. You're going to be fucked by real nobles. We want you stark naked within the minute, Iramid, or we will cut your clothes from your body.”

Lorcko didn't move.

“You heard him, Iramid. Be quick about it, or worse things than being fucked are going to happen. You don't want to make us mad.” Sterff said threateningly.

Lorcko quickly looked behind him. Nobody. Could he make a run for it? Probably not. They would get him before he could reach a more public place. His right hand descended to his belt. Not only had he forgotten his purse, his dagger must be still in his room as well.

From behind a corner, hidden in the shadows, some>From ows inone was following what was happening.

“
Interesting, very interesting. I wonder what you're going to do now,”
he thought, amused.

Unbeknown to him, the observer was observed himself from behind another barrack, farther down and to the other side.

“
What is that one doing here? No matter. Finally, Iramid, finally I will be rid of you, your image, your
nightly visiting ghost. I won't dream about a common prostitute that I've seen being raped and defiled by
three of the guys, screaming and panting, forced to writhe in unwanted sexual abandonment, pulled by his
dick until he comes, unwillingly... and then being robbed of that infernal, unnatural beauty. It will be as if it
never was there. It will have become a real dream. Not tangible reality. You will be finally destroyed. And I
am here to see it all happen before my eyes. To see your downfall, to see it all taken away from you. Your
last shred of dignity, your looks. Better still, you will live and limp around. Daily I will feast my eyes on the
ruins that once were known as Lorcko of Iramid. And I will hear them laugh at you, mock you. Finally it will
be over. I will be rid of you.”