Crusader

Chapter 11

“They have a full complement of spices,” Martaina said, coming from the kitchen of castle Green Hill, a large sack slung across her back. “We can take enough food from here to feed us for a few days.” Cyrus sat at the head of the table in the dining room, a plate of food in front of him, the aroma of succulent mutton chop and fresh vegetables wafting up at him as he took a bite of the lamb. He could hear his soldiers eating in the throne room, where trestle tables had been set out. Others were in the courtyard, while still others he had entrusted with the task of sorting out whether anything in the castle was worth taking.

“They have wine as well,” J’anda said, entering the dining room behind her, a goblet in hand. “It’s not quite like the vintages of the Riverlands, but it’s far from atrocious.” The dark elf made his way over to a padded chair and sat down, leaning his head back. “Is there any chance we could stay here for the night? I would love to take advantage of having a bed to sleep in for the first time in weeks.”

“You and everyone else, I daresay.” Curatio held a goblet in front of him as well, a sparkling silver one that he took a deep, delicate sip from before replacing it on the flawless white tablecloth.

“So are you going to turn loose the army on the castle?” Aisling stared at Cyrus from where she leaned against the doorjamb leading into the hallway to the kitchens. “Let them have a little plunder for their troubles here?”

Cyrus picked up the napkin that sat at his right side and dabbed his face with it in an exaggerated show of politeness that caused Terian to roll his eyes and J’anda to guffaw. “I don’t think so,” he said with a shake of the head. “Letting them run loose through this place, tearing it to pieces? Sounds like a recipe for losing discipline. Not to mention the fights it’d likely start over who gets what loot. No, we’ll take what foods we can carry, the spices, and we’ll go through the weapons to see if there’s anything that would be worth parceling out to the army, since,” he coughed, “there isn’t anyone left alive to fight here. Any other objects …” He shrugged. “I don’t want to feel like we’re looting, but I suppose this isn’t that different from any other expeditions we’ve mounted, save for the fact that here our foes are human.”

“Damned right,” Terian said with a snarl. “If this was a castle of dark elves you wouldn’t think twice about dividing up the spoils from them, so why wouldn’t we add the assets from ransacking this place to the guild bank? There’s likely some jewels or something, isn’t there?” He looked to Longwell, who seemed to be lost in his own thoughts.

“Hm?” The dragoon looked up when the others in the room turned their attention to him. “Oh, yes. A Baron of his station would likely have a number of precious stones, gold and silver, and I daresay that within the armory you could find more than a few swords and axes that would be better than some of the things I’ve seen our warriors toting about. Luukessian steel isn’t mystical since we don’t possess magic, but it’s of good enough quality. And there are certainly a few mystical weapons that have made their way to our shores,” his hand grasped the hilt of his lance, “though not many.”

“Is it considered acceptable to plunder your conquests in Luukessia?” This from J’anda, who held his goblet up to his nose and took a deep inhalation of his wine before sipping again.

“Oh, yes,” Longwell said. “Conquest is much more brutal here than in Arkaria, you might have noticed. Looting and pillaging is perfectly normal when you conquer, much like we saw from the dark elves in Termina. Also, without weapons and armor that can add strength or the ability to use magic, many women are treated like chattel and considered part of the spoils of war.” He looked around the table and saw the looks on the faces of Nyad and Martaina. “Not that I endorse such thinking myself, but you heard the Baron-and he is not alone in his way of thought.”

“Pardon me?” Martaina looked at the dragoon in askance.

“Well, women are forbidden to own property,” Longwell said. “They are considered to be subject to the rules of their husbands, subject to their whims.”

“So, what?” Aisling’s purple eyes flashed in anger. “I’m supposed to kowtow to some man because he thinks he’s stronger than me? That I’m good for cooking meals, relieving his tensions in the night, making plump babies, and nothing else?”

Terian eyed her up and down. “You’re pretty thin; I doubt you could make a very plump baby with those hips.”

Her hand moved fast, fast enough that Cyrus barely saw it. The dagger was out and thrown before Cyrus could shout a warning. Terian dodged it, barely, and it embedded in the stuffed padding in the back of Terian’s chair. He clucked softly at her and smiled. “I’m keeping the dagger.”

“As what? A memento of the only occasion when a woman paid you attention without gold filling her purse in exchange?” She smiled sweetly at him but it was all fake, and Cyrus could see the venom beneath. “I’ve got better ones; ones I save for people I actually mean to kill.”

Far in the distance, Cyrus could hear very low whimpers from Baron Hoygraf, alone in his quarters on the floor above. “I doubt we’ll change the male-dominated hierarchy of Luukessia today, so let’s shelve this discussion.”

“I suppose you’re okay with it if we get to this land his father rules,” Aisling pointed at Longwell, “and he tells us women to sit in the back line of battle, or worse, in the prep tent.”

“I presume your father won’t tell me how to run my army?” Cyrus looked at Longwell, who nodded confirmation. “Besides, if I’m not much mistaken, the attitude in this land is not wildly different than what I’ve heard about life in Saekaj Sovar.” He stared hard at Aisling, and she looked away. “Since it’s considered the norm, I want officers and our veterans to go over the castle, top to bottom, and decide if there are things beyond food we should take with us as spoils. Half of the value will go to the guild bank for the effort expended to take the castle. We’ll burn everything else.”

“Half of the haul will be a small fortune with a holdfast as rich as this one,” Longwell said, approving. “What’s to be done with the other half?”

“I want it given to the two women whom the Baron captured and … well,” Cyrus said, lowering his voice. “We can’t undo what was done, but perhaps if they’ve joined Sanctuary for adventure and thought the better of it, they can take the recompense and it will at least give them some options where they might not have had any before.”

“That will likely be enough to allow them to live a fairly well-off life,” Longwell said. “Unless I miss my guess on the size of the Baron’s treasure hoard.”

“Good.” Cyrus took the last bite of mutton then slid his chair back from the table. “Work through the night if you have to, but I want it all set to travel tomorrow morning. Take the animals out of the stables and give every one of our people that was captured their own horses.” He stopped in thought. “I hadn’t wanted to bother with wagons while we were traveling down the beach to the bridge, but now that we’re in Luukessia, I expect we could take some wagons with us, yes?” He looked at Longwell, who nodded. “Good, that’ll spare us having to send one of our wizards or druids back to Sanctuary with the spoils, and we may yet have a need for some of those items to trade later in our journey.” He looked at the faces around him. “Anything else?”

No one said anything, but there were a few shrugs. Cyrus smiled. “Then I’m going to go steal a few hours sleep in the Baron’s bed.”

J’anda threw a wadded-up napkin at Cyrus.

“What? You’re not the only one that longs for a soft bed, my friend.”

“Hmph,” the enchanter said, teasing. “Perhaps I’ll join you later.”

“Hah,” Cyrus said. “Just don’t wake me, whatever you do.” He left and turned to go down the hallway. “If someone wants to drag the Baron down to his own dungeons, I wouldn’t complain.”

“He probably would, though,” Longwell said. “I think I can hear him complaining now.”

“Complaining, whining, dying-when it’s a raping, murdering, bastard doing it, who cares which it really is?” Martaina asked.

Cyrus felt his feet clank against the stone as he walked down a hallway that led to the Baron’s quarters. The torches burned, giving it a smoky aroma that filled his nose. There was a soft whisper of leather on stone behind him, causing him to hesitate. “If you’ve come to proposition me, even if I were amenable, I’m far too tired for that tonight.”

Aisling walked past him, her shoulder bumping gently against his armor. “You didn’t speak up against their treatment of women in this land.”

“I gutted the Baron who captured our people and raped our women,” he said, staring at her as she turned to stand opposite him, only a few feet from his face. “I gave away half the guild’s spoils so we could try and give the women a fresh start if they decided they wanted to leave behind this adventuring life. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

“It’s not only about what you do,” she said in a low whisper, “sometimes it’s about what you say-or don’t say.”

Cyrus let out a deep sigh. “I’m in love with a woman who wields a sword better than any man I’ve ever met save one, a woman who wears heavier armor than I do, who can beat the ass off almost any man she’s ever crossed swords with. Do you really think I have a problem with women being the equal of men in any capacity?”

“Perhaps you’re just a glutton for pain,” she said acidly. “But if you feel that way, why didn’t you condemn it when Longwell told us how it was over here?”

“Because I was too busy listening to Longwell condemn it while he tried to backpedal away from his society’s embracing of male superiority,” Cyrus said, leaning against the wall to his left, resting his glove against it. “I just assumed that we who are here from Sanctuary, where we have a few women officers who help run our guild, would all know that I feel that way.” He paused and glared back at her. “Where is this coming from? Me? Or how things are back in Saekaj?”

“Maybe both,” she said, arms crossed. “You can’t tell me it’s the same for humans, either. How many women are taken into the Society of Arms compared to men?”

“Fewer,” Cyrus said, resting his weight on the wall.

“Half as many, I’ve heard, just in the first trial,” Aisling snapped. “Because the orphan girls who are slight of body are taken to the Wanderers’ Brotherhood and trained as rangers rather than thrown into the Society’s Blood Families.”

“Which is good for them,” Cyrus said, “because it gets brutal there.”

Aisling’s eyes narrowed at him. “Are you saying girls can’t handle a fight like that?”

Cyrus didn’t back off. “I’ve seen many that could. But most were eliminated, yes.”

Aisling’s face broke into a frozen smile, distorted, without any sense of mirth to accompany it. “Pretty little things.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said. “And they were weeded out by the first trial and sent to be scullery maids or serving girls because it was deemed that if they should continue in the Society or the Brotherhood they’d be nothing more than pretty broken things.”

“So what’s the difference between that and here?” Her voice was cool, and her eyes held a hint of disgust. “You can’t tell me some of those scullery maids, in the houses they worked in, got any better treatment than our female warriors and rangers at the hands of the Baron’s men.”

“No, but I also can’t do anything about them, either,” he said, annoyance rising. “I’m not in charge of Reikonos or the Society of Arms or anything, really, save for Sanctuary’s army here in Luukessia and my own self. So if you really think I’m tacitly endorsing their treatment of women, or anything else-pigs and chickens or crops and fields, for example, I’m not. I’m trying to do the best I can to do right by my people. That’s it. Radical societal transformations will have to wait for someone both more visionary and less likely to strike down someone who pisses him off with a sword.”

“They might need the sword and the will to use it if they’re going to radically transform a society in the way you’ve described.”

“Why are you here?” He leaned in closer to her. “Is this because you think I’ll change my mind and give in to your advances if you argue with me more? Because-”

“Don’t insult me by suggesting I’m only here because of some unquenchable desire of my loins to have you,” she said, her voice hot with her temper. “I’ve made clear my interest and you’ve made clear your lack of. That’s fine. I’m giving you my opinion, that’s all.” She didn’t smile.

“Duly noted. But you’ve never been much of one for formalities or arguing, so forgive me,” he said, “for suspecting ill intentions. I didn’t mean to insult you by suggesting-”

“Yes, you did.” She slipped back a step, but it was so subtle he almost didn’t notice, so perfect was her balance and movement. “But that’s all right.” Her smile was back, but it was hollow, unreal. “I’ve come to expect it.”

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said, and meant it. “I’m sorry if I’ve been unkind to you.”

She smiled, and her expression was more genuine but still tight. “I believe you. And I bid you good night.” She turned and drifted into the shadows of the hall, and he could barely see her as she walked along, toward the throne room.

Cyrus entered the Baron’s quarters to find him on the ground, lying on his side, moaning. Hoygraf’s eyes found Cyrus as he entered the room, and looked around at the rich surroundings, the tapestries and furniture, made as exquisitely as any of the pieces he’d seen of note in Sanctuary. “You know, Baron, you had a pretty good life here before you went and stuck your head in the dragon’s mouth.”

The Baron had a layer of white, dried spittle around his mouth and he grunted, his reply low, straining to get out. “And will … again … after you leave.”

Cyrus squatted a few feet from the man and looked at him. “I have my doubts you’re going to pull through this, honestly. But I tell you what,” he said, cheery as anything to the dying man, “if you do pull through by some miracle, I’ll have one of my women-maybe the one you hanged on the wall of your castle-put another knife in you. And I bet she’ll be less charitable and more efficient in her choice of targets than I was.”

“You … are scum …” The Baron forced his words out in grunts.

“I find insults like that have more effect coming from someone who has the moral credibility to muster some righteous outrage with it,” Cyrus said with a taunting air. “Maybe a priest or something. But from you?” Cyrus leaned closer to the Baron. “Tell me something-did you let your men have their way with the captives or did you get in there and lead from the front?”

The Baron’s cold eyes found his and the man moaned in a guttural pain. Sweat beads were falling off his forehead and he was already pale, paler than he had been before. “Does it matter at this point? Will it save me if I didn’t?”

“No,” Cyrus said with a shake of his head. “They were your men, after all, and in spite of whatever lies you might make up, I have no doubt that the beatings and all else happened with your permission, if not your direction. This is just a chance for you to ease your conscience before you die.”

Hoygraf set his jaw and when he spoke, it sounded like his teeth were grinding. “I have nothing on my conscience to be rid of.”

Cyrus viewed the Baron with cool indifference, watched the blood trickle from between his fingers where his hand rested on his belly. The air in the room stank of excrement and other things. “Are you a married man, sir?”

The Baron looked up at him with hateful eyes. “Presuming you have not killed my wife in your haste to wreck my holdfast.”

“I have killed no women in my siege,” Cyrus said. “The women of the castle were escorted to the village, so I presume she is just fine, wherever she may be. I was only curious about her reaction to your efforts to violate members of my army.”

“She understood well that you foreigners and your loose women badly needed a lesson in manners and their place,” the Baron said between clenched teeth. “My wife knew her place.”

“I’m sure you showed her that place often, and with considerable urging from the back of your hand,” Cyrus said. “I’m going to have my guards move you to the dungeon so my people can have a nice evening of sleep without the benefit of your slow, miserable death to waken them. I trust we won’t be able to hear your screams from up here?”

“You are such a bastard,” Hoygraf said to him. “If ever I get a chance to repay you for this-”

“You won’t,” Cyrus said. “Here, let me help you up.” He pulled the Baron to his feet and dragged him to the door, opening it to find four guards outside. He blinked at them in surprise, three humans whom he recognized but didn’t know by name, all armored and clad as warriors, and Martaina. “Can you have this-” he gestured at Hoygraf, who he was dragging, “taken down to the dungeon?”

“Certainly,” Martaina said, and nodded at two of the guards, who each took an arm and began to drag the Baron away.

“Sweet dreams, Baron,” Cyrus said. “Have a lovely night thinking about your life and all the things you’ve done to bring yourself to this point.”

“All I’ll be thinking of,” Hoygraf said as the guards turned him to speak, “is cutting your head off and showing your body to you before you die.”

“Did I do that to you?” Cyrus asked, holding his hand to his chest, feigning a wounded expression. “No, I simply exposed your innards to the light of day so that you could have a chance to expunge some of the darkness within.” Cyrus let his expression turn cold. “And there’s so much darkness within, Baron.” Cyrus waved in his direction and the guards carried him away, the Baron grunting as they turned the corner.

Cyrus turned to Martaina, grim thoughts now covering his countenance. “Make sure that our women who were captured are provided ventra’maq.” He thought about it for a beat. “Do we have any with us?”

“I have some,” she said smoothly, without emotion. “I’ll make sure they get a dose each.”

Cyrus frowned. “Your husband is back at Sanctuary.” When Martaina did not react, Cyrus suddenly wished for the ability to pull his words back from the air and banish them somewhere dark and far away, where they would never have been spoken. “Oh. Carry on, then.” He turned and started back into the Baron’s quarters, too sheepish to look at Martaina when she stopped him.

“There’s a woman who asked to stay behind when we took the others out. She says she’s the Baroness,” Martaina said, seemingly undisturbed by Cyrus’s comment. “She’s asking to speak to the conqueror of the castle.”

Cyrus thought about it for a long moment. “Have her escorted up. I seem to have put her husband on a slow path to the grave; the least I can do is hear her out and explain why he’s fated to die.”

Martaina grimaced. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I did that?”

Cyrus cocked an eyebrow at her. “Do you really want to?”

The elf’s grimace smoothed out, returning her ageless features to an expressionless mien. There were no wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Cyrus could not tell how old Martaina was and had never asked. “A woman married to a man like that likely knows the danger of the day that the wrath he has wielded is loosed upon him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she expects to be told he’s dead already. She’s most likely here to collect his body for burial and to plead for some of her possessions that were left behind.”

“I expect I owe her the courtesy of an audience and an explanation,” Cyrus mused, still thinking it over. “I appreciate the offer, though. Have them bring her up.”

“Very well,” Martaina said. “I’ll see to it.” She turned and crisply walked down the hall. Cyrus watched her receding back, her green cloak gone, revealing instead her green cloth shirt and pants, something designed to blend into the forests and thickets she seemed born to hide within.

Cyrus walked back into the Baron’s quarters and waited. His eyes were drawn to the place where the Baron had lain, where a red puddle had already begun to dry into the rug. He almost flinched at it, thought about covering it up with something, anything, but decided against it. Perhaps she won’t notice.

There was a soft knock at the door. “Enter,” Cyrus said, and it swung wide to admit a woman in a green dress with a flowing skirt and a hem that dragged on the ground. Both her hands clutched at the top of the skirt around her waist, lifting it off the floor only slightly, reducing the drag against the carpeting. “Come in,” he said, taking note of her flowing brown hair and emerald eyes. She was young, younger than he, and her bosom was neatly displayed by her neckline. Had it not been for a few slight tears in the fabric, he would have assumed she put it on to impress him rather than believe she had been in it all day without anything to change into.

Cyrus rose from the chair and heard his armor squeak in protest. The chair protested more loudly at his weight, but he kept his gaze on the Baroness, met her green eyes without flinching away, tried to infuse his own expression with as much warmth as he could manage. He felt a pang of sorrow for what he was about to have to tell her, but there was nothing for it. “My name is Cyrus Davidon of the guild Sanctuary.”

“I am Cattrine, the Baroness Hoygraf.” She performed a curtsy, dipping her head and shoulders. Her hair was piled upon her head in an elaborate hairstyle. He watched as her gaze was drawn to the bloodstain on the rug behind him and coughed to turn her attention back to him. She gave no reaction beyond a subtle flicker of her eyes.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Baroness,” Cyrus said, inclining his head in greeting. “I assume that it is quite the opposite in your case, which is understandable.” He swept his hand around, offering her the chair he had been sitting in.

“No, thank you,” she said, her eyes filled with a quiet intensity. Try as he might, Cyrus could not see any deceit or anger burning within them. She is either indifferent to her husband’s plight and is carrying out mere formalities or she is superior at keeping her thoughts far below the surface. The Baroness’s lips upturned very slightly, in a formal smile that held no genuine warmth of its own. “I trust you know why I am here?”

“I had assumed you wanted your husband’s body returned.” Cyrus took two steps to his lef to a cabinet that held a silver tray on the top of it. Bottles of exotic glass, shaped in ways that Cyrus had not seen from glass blowers in Arkaria rested across the top of the bar. “Would you care for some refreshment?”

“Certainly, you may offer me some of my husband’s own liquors,” she said without a trace of acrimony. “I recommend the spiced rum from the Isle of Remlorant.”

Cyrus looked across the bottles again at the unfamiliar writing upon them. “I apologize … although we speak the same language, your land’s methods of writing differ considerably from my own.”

He heard her cross the room to him, felt her brush against him, and a pale forearm reached in front of him, plucking an ornate glass bottle from the bar. It was tall, and the glass was multifaceted, reminding him of an exceptionally large gemstone. “That was quite the novelty,” the Baroness said, reaching for two glasses from the cabinet next to her, “I almost thought I was about to be served a drink by a man.” She poured a small quantity of the liquor into one of the glasses, and Cyrus caught a strong hint of alcohol in the air as she did so. “By the man who killed my husband, no less.” There was no bitterness in her tone, Cyrus realized, just an aura of tiredness, of weariness, and the smallest hint of emotion. “Do you trust me to pour your cup, sir?”

“I trust that if you poison me, my healer will revive me from death,” he said as she poured a second cup full of clear liquid. “A feat I daresay he wouldn’t repeat for my poisoner.”

“I have no interest in poisoning you,” she said, her hands clenching the glass. “It profits me naught to have you dead, as I have no interest in pointless vengeance.”

“Your husband is not yet dead, Baroness,” Cyrus said, and watched her entire body stiffen. He was at her shoulder, but she turned her face so that he could not see. “Do not take too much hope from that, though, as he is mortally wounded and will pass before much longer.”

She was shorter than him by a head and a half at least, Cyrus realized, though she was still tall for a woman. She had angled herself so that he could not see her expression, but he saw the lines of her body, saw her left hand clutching the glass she had poured and saw it shake subtly, the liquid within rippling from the motion. “I see.” Her tone was dull, duller even than when she had spoken a moment before. She turned to Cyrus and he saw no trace of tears on her pretty face, nor any other emotion either, but the dark circles under her eyes hinted at more than she freely gave away. “Where is he now?”

Cyrus hesitated. “He remains in the dungeon, where he will stay until he expires.”

“I see,” she said again. “This is his punishment for defying you?”

“This is his punishment for kidnapping my people and causing grievous bodily harm to them.” Cyrus studied her cool eyes, and he saw no hint of reaction at his accusation. “But you knew what he did, didn’t you?”

Her eyes didn’t even widen. “I didn’t know that he did that, but I know my husband.” She took a long, slow sip of the spiced rum in her cup, her eyes downcast, but when the glass left her lips, her eyes rose and met Cyrus’s. “If it is as you say, and he is not long for this world, then even with the crimes he has committed, I would plead to you for leniency and ask you to allow him to die in comfort, in a bed, down in the village.”

Cyrus took a sip of the rum and felt it burn all the way down. “Not here, in his own bed?”

The Baroness stiffened. “I would not presume to tell you what to do with this castle now that you have taken it.”

“Your husband did terrible things,” Cyrus said. “I am not inclined to let him free in his last hours.”

The Baroness set her glass down and took a step closer to Cyrus, still separated from her by the cloth of her skirts. “I ask you not for clemency, sir, but leniency. If he is to die, then I suspect he is in pain. Am I wrong to want to lessen it?”

“Not wrong,” Cyrus said, taking another sip, a longer one this time. “But what he did-”

“Was cruel and capricious, I’ll grant you,” the Baroness said. “But I appeal to you for mercy-you, who are now master of his house by conquest.”

“I’m not master of his anything,” Cyrus said. “We’ll be leaving in the morning on our way to Galbadien, where we were headed before your husband provoked me into this wasteful action. The things we take from your keep are only recompense for what we lost here.” He hesitated. “The rest will be burned.”

“Sir Cyrus, perhaps you do not understand the full weight of what becomes yours,” the Baroness said, leaning closer to him.

“It’s actually ‘Lord Cyrus of Perdamun,’ if you want to be formal,” he said, feeling a slight blush in his cheeks from the rum. It was good, and he seldom drank spirits or wine. “‘Cyrus’ is also fine.” He turned his head to the side and downed the rest of his glass as she leaned her body against him. “I’m afraid you do me no service, madam. I am leaving on the morrow. I have no desire to enter into a protracted battle with your King. I have business in Galbadien, business with Syloreas and its army, and all that I have here is concluded.”

“When my husband dies,” she whispered, “I am no longer a Baroness, no longer of the House Hoygraf. I will be a fallen woman, from a fallen dynasty, and subject to beg on the streets for whatever scraps of food I might get, or be taken up as wife by some charitable stranger, but as the wife of the dead Baron Hoygraf I am sullied, impure, undesirable.”

Cyrus stared down at her, felt the blood run hot in his veins. It has been far, far too long. “Of the many things you may be, I assure you that undesirable is not one of them.”

“Do you have a wife back in your homeland? Or someone you are promised to?” Her other hand came up and stroked the stubble at his cheek.

“No,” Cyrus said, sensing danger before him, “but neither does that mean I feel that just because I defeat a man in battle, I can take his wife as though she were chattel.”

Her hand slid around the back of his neck and drew him closer to her. “Even if she were to be content-nay, happy-with such a pairing?”

Cyrus slid his hands up and gently took hers from around his neck. “Not even then. Madam, I am sorry for your loss-though your husband is not yet dead-but I cannot accept. Where I come from, women are not property to be exchanged along with gemstones and animals when a man’s keep is conquered.”

She seemed to crumple in his sight. “Here they are nothing but-and without your aid, I am not only property but worthless property.”

“I am truly sorry for that,” Cyrus said, inching away from her. “If you wish, you may come with our army under my protection-but not as my woman or any such thing of that sort.”

She bristled. “As a harlot? A traveling woman, there for the pleasure of your men?”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow. “No, we don’t have any of those. You’d accompany us as a free woman, whose rights and person are inviolate. Any such offense against said person would result in grievous penalties. When we return to Arkaria, you are welcome to make your own way in our society, which I suspect you’ll find to be slightly more … favorable. If not, then I wish you the best of success here in Luukessia. Regardless,” he said, feeling the regret seep through him, “I will allow you to take your husband back to the village if you’d like, to die in a bed.”

“Thank you,” she said, ashen. “But in all honesty, my husband is a monster, an inhuman beast with appetites as copious as they are revolting. His death in a dungeon is a fitting end for the atrocities he has perpetrated on others …” her lip quivered, “… and myself. I came to you because I am a woman who had much to lose, on the cusp of nothingness, and I wished to see the man who might spare me from it, if he were amenable.”

“I’m afraid I can’t grant you that which you would have of me,” Cyrus said. “I am simply not so cavalier in my choice of marriage partners, and to propose that we wed after ten minutes of conversation is not in my character. The consequences could well be dire for both of us should we be forced to live with each other for the rest of our lives.”

“I assure you that I am a good wife, sir-dutiful, faithful, and true. And in the matter of conjugal relations, I am willing and frequent in-”

“That’s about all I need to hear,” Cyrus said. “I trust in all you say, but believe me-none of it will sway me.” He shook his head. “I apologize, but I must cut our audience short as my day will begin rather early tomorrow. Will you be returning to the village?”

“I suppose,” she said, a strand of hair falling out of place on her head and into her eyes. “I was offered a bed for the night by one of the families down there, and as I have no bed here-” She looked at Cyrus once more, and he saw hope and regret in her.

“If you want to come with us and travel to Arkaria, we’ll be on the road for quite some time, but I can promise you it’s a place where women are not property.” He drew himself up. “You’ll be safe with our army, but it is going to be a long journey.”

“I will consider your offer,” she said. “If you will consider mine.”

“I can’t take advantage of you in that way,” Cyrus said, “and make no mistake, it would be taking advantage. You would be with me because I hold the power to restore you to a modicum of your former station. But I have only the basest desires for a willing slave, which it sounds like you are offering to be.” She started to open her mouth to protest but stopped, falling silent and bowing her head. “My offer remains open, if you want to leave behind the idea that you’ll ever be beholden to a man again. I can see in you a woman who chafes under the bonds of your society.”

She stared off into the distance, and Cyrus realized she was looking around the room one last time. “I thank you for your offer, sir, but Luukessia is my home.” Her green eyes met his, and he saw only coolness in them now. “I bid you well, and since you would not have me stay here, good night.” She curtsied for him, and a few more strands of her hair broke loose from the elaborate bun that she wore atop her head. She picked up her skirts and turned, walking toward the door. He hurried over and opened it for her and she let a stretched, worn smile cross her lips, one that never quite reached her eyes. With a subtle incline of her head toward him in thanks, she left, and he closed the door after her.

Cyrus went through to the bedchamber, alone, and began to take off his armor. Some pieces, like the mailed gloves, had come off frequently. Others, like his breastplate and backplate, felt as though they were stuck on, they had come off so rarely of late. A tub of lukewarm water waited for him in the corner; it had been hot before he had spoken with the Baroness. His underclothes peeled off with some difficulty and he slipped beneath the water, felt the grime wash off his skin. Something else remained, though, some taint or dirt he couldn’t remove no matter how hard he scrubbed.