David Dalglish - A Dance of Cloaks

At their approach a couple of mercenaries drew their swords and beckoned them closer.

“Your name?” one of them asked.

“Yoren Kull,” he answered. “Take me to my father.”

The mercenary spat.

“Follow me.”

He led them through the camp. Alyssa took in what she could. From the way the men lazed about, it didn’t appear that they’d be marching anywhere soon. Most of the armed men were busy eating, telling stories, or gambling with wooden dice. A couple sneered at her, and given the status of her clothing and hair, she didn’t blame them. She hated them for it, but she didn’t blame them.

Theo sat in an ornate chair in the center of the pavilion. He didn’t stand when they entered through the flap. Alyssa had met him only once, in what felt like a lifetime ago. He was a big man, with big hands and an even bigger beard. He had a hungry smile. He seemed a man who coveted everything he saw with his beady brown eyes. He gestured to two chairs at the table before him. A snap of his fingers, and two servants hurried over cups, plates, and dinnerware. A third servant filled the cups with wine while a fourth plopped servings of meat and bread atop the plates.

“Welcome back, my son,” Theo said. “And I see you’ve brought your lover back from the abyss. She looks it, too!”

He guffawed. Yoren laughed along. Alyssa only stared.

“Come now, I only jest in good nature,” Theo said. “I would never be amused at seeing a woman in such a state. Would you like some of my girls to bathe and dress you before joining us? Nothing would trouble me more than an uncomfortable look crossing your face.”

“She’s only uncomfortable with me in the bedchambers,” Yoren said as he took his seat at the right hand of his father. “Though I fear I inherited that wonderful fault from you.”

Theo burst once more into laughter. Alyssa felt her heart cool. He might have a silver tongue, but Theo was a piggish brute. He wouldn’t have batted an eyelid seeing what his son had done to her the night before. In fact, he might have joined in.

Alyssa shuddered, and it did not go unnoticed.

“Forgive my son,” Theo said. “He offends when he means only humor. Let’s see, Mary? Mary! There you are girl. Clean her up, will you? I remember her a lovely one, so let’s make her match my memory.”

Mary was an older woman with gray hair tied behind her head in a bun. She had been the one directing the other servants that had laid out the food and dinnerware.

“Come with me,” Mary said, grabbing Alyssa’s hand. Her voice was firm but comforting. The look in her eye was guarded sympathy.

Next to the pavilion was a smaller tent for the servants. They slept on blankets on the ground, fifty of them crammed together in a tent meant for twenty. Beside the servants’ tent was a giant wooden tub. After a word from Mary, several younger girls rushed off carrying buckets to fetch hot water from the fires.

“It’ll be cold for a bit,” Mary said as she began stripping off Alyssa’s clothes. “Once we get some heat, maybe a few hot coals, you’ll be better.”

Alyssa glanced inside the tub. The water was hazy, but she’d bathed in worse when staying with her foster families. She let Mary strip her naked, glad that the two tents offered protection from the mercenaries that wandered about the rest of the camp.

“We’ll get these washed while you bathe,” Mary said. “Though heaven knows you deserve better. I’ll see what we have stashed in the…”

She stopped as Yoren’s dagger tumbled out of the clothes bundled in her hands. Her eyes met Alyssa’s.

“A dangerous toy for the bedchambers,” Mary said, knowing exactly what it was for.

“Not when you want the bedchambers quiet,” Alyssa replied.

Mary guided the naked Alyssa into the bath. True to her word, it was cold. When the first of the servants arrived with a bucket of boiling water, Mary took the bucket from her and poured it in herself. As the steam bubbled upward, the older woman leaned closer so that none might hear her.

“You kill him, the monsters here will ravage you,” Mary said. “Keep it hidden. Keep it safe. Wait until you’re truly alone.”

Then she was gone in search of nicer clothing. More buckets of hot water poured into the tub, banishing the rest of its chill. Allowing herself a moment of luxury, Alyssa washed her hair and let the servant girls scrub her skin red.

Mary returned five minutes later holding a blue dress of fine material.

“It belonged to Theo’s younger sister,” Mary explained. “I’ve already asked him, so don’t worry.”

They pulled her out of the bath, toweled her off, and then flung the dress over her head. The laces across the back seemed old-fashioned and over-elaborate, but Mary navigated them with ease.

“Suck your breath in more,” Mary ordered. Alyssa obeyed. The laces slid tighter. Alyssa’s chest heaved upward, looking twice its original size. When she looked down at her own body, the cleavage seemed obscene.

“Bear through,” Mary said, recognizing the look. “A man thinks with his nether regions. The sight of you will stir him, and as long as man’s stirred, he’s stupid.”

The girls dabbed her with perfume, combed her hair, and draped a multitude of necklaces across her neck and chest. When finished, she glanced into an offered looking glass, hardly recognizing the woman in the reflection. She knew that the Gemcroft name allowed her the luxuries she wore, but never once had she felt compulsion to decorate herself so outlandishly.

Mary dismissed the rest of the servant girls.

“For your sake, behave,” she told Alyssa. “You’ll gain yourself nothing but bruises if you resist ineffectually. A hundred rapes are nothing compared to a single stab of a knife.”

Alyssa nodded, realizing the comment cut both ways. Not only must she endure the rapes for her to kill him, she’d have to endure them well enough not to get herself killed. She shook her head, wondering how her future had turned so grim.

It had begun when she started listening to the lies Yoren had whispered in her ear as they cuddled in her bed. Her heart hardened. She had earned this, then. She had believed his silver tongue and turned against her father. For that, she was thrown out and chained to Yoren’s true nature.

The skirt she wore had several layers along the legs. Mary separated them, making sure that Alyssa watched. The innermost was thin, white, and silky. Along the inner thigh was a single pocket. Mary slid the dagger inside.

“Never let him find it,” Mary said.

Alyssa nodded.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Come,” said Mary, extending her hand. “You have a meal to attend.”

This time Theo did rise to a stand at her entrance. A stupid grin spread across Yoren’s face. Alyssa knew that at one time she had thought it charming, and that only enhanced her convictions that she had been an idiotic girl.

“You look stunning,” Theo said. “Isn’t that right, son?”

“Breathtaking,” said Yoren.

Without being asked, Alyssa took a seat beside Yoren. She could tell he was pleased by the obedient wife act. That was good, it’d keep him from raging at her at night, but more important was that this way she couldn’t be dismissed from their planning. She knew they still eyed the wealth of her namesake. The more she knew, the better her chance of minimizing the damage.

“We were actually just discussing returning your rightful namesake,” Theo said, sipping wine from a gaudy gold cup. “It seems we were foolish to trust those Karak bitches to do anything right.”

“My father was ready,” Alyssa said, hoping it might incite a bit of anger, and therefore information.

“He usually is,” Theo said, his words dripping with bitterness. “I remember sending my men to grab what was rightfully mine, but even all those miles away from Riverrun he was still prepared. It wasn’t just the gold, Alyssa, it was deeds, titles, and information. Everything east of the Queln River should be mine. Those lands deserve a true lord! Lord Gandrem has no rightful claim. Let him have the plains. He belongs with the grazing chattel.”