Chapter Forty-Nine

‘I can smell it.’ Speranzi thought, it was a feeling she was intimately familiar with, it was something every veteran knew better than they knew the weight of their own sword or the feel of their own bodies.

The arrogance of victory… and the distinct, if faint odor of blood and fear. The whole city was a morass of it. It was inescapable, it was just… everywhere, all of it.

Everywhere Speranzi looked, she could see the cocky arrogance and pride on human faces. Even on what appeared to be human prisoners, there was a self assuredness etched on their hard, cruel faces that reminded her of Bodger. It reminded her of many a dead man, demon, and beastman to fall beneath her bow or her blade.

While she hadn’t felt any of this from outside the city, it was inescapable within it. The noise of the scream, when she first heard it, caught her ear, and she might have chased after it to see what it was. But when the city did not respond, when nobody did, and even Corwin simply continued on… ‘I don’t even know where it’s coming from…’ Her duty as a paladin warred with her duty to the man she loved as an uncle, and seeing the way he trembled, the way sweat ran down his face and stains grew on his clothes where the sweat seeped through?

She just could not bring herself to leave his side in the state he was in. ‘Besides, this is a holy city.’ She comforted herself with that thought, though it gnawed at her guts like a badly prepared meal, all the way through his brief meeting with his uncle. She did glance behind her to keep a watch on her soldiers.

They rode with the same relaxed air that Speranzi walked, but they kept their hands on the hilts of their swords the entire time, it was proof enough that it wasn’t just her. ‘They feel it too. The aura of the battlefield permeates this place… but why? This is a sacred place where the gods first blessed the ground and rescued mankind from darkness and oblivion. Why should this be… how it feels?!’

She did her best to ignore the way the cluster of elven laborers clung to one another in the wagon, and a wicked, evil thought came to Speranzi’s mind, something that violated every law and rule she knew.

‘Don’t report them. Don’t look into them. Don’t identify them to the authorities…’

Pity swelled up in her heart for the poor creatures, and a hint of regret came with it, ‘I already accused them falsely, even if they are elves, even if they are slaves… I am a Paladin. I am supposed to be better than that. Do I really want to accuse them twice? Even if I can defend them… they’re obviously afraid of this place. If I give Corwin his way, he’ll say nothing about where they came from and he’ll just take them back north and let them go near the Divine Kingdom’s border…’ She avoided thinking he would contact a smuggler, though in the back of her mind, it was a possibility.

Corwin’s vast wealth came from trade, and sometimes trade necessitated dealing with people that honest people otherwise avoided. ‘It wouldn’t be improbable for him to be using this trip just to make sure he can pay their way back to their home… all you have to say is nothing, and he’ll succeed.’ She told herself, recalling his confounding words ‘the best evil he knew’, which she still had not riddled out.

But this dilemma felt connected in a way that forced her brow to furrow as she struggled to understand it.

It was still troubling her when they reached what looked less like an inn or hotel, and more like a noble’s estate. A wide open lawn, a high gate of iron bars and a stone wall to frame it. Crushed pink shells paved the path within, and the building itself was comprised of three great segments. An open arch that passed through the far end to a grassy lawn where several smaller buildings sat, but on either side of the open arch were the wings which held doors through which people came and went.

The lawn was split in half by the path, and was treeless, a strange thing by itself. But it was also neatly cut with green grass. However, each tip was tinted gold, whether by paint or by the actual metal was indiscernible to the naked eye, but it gleamed at least, and caused the grass to bow toward the dirt making it more like a carpet of gold and green than an ordinary lawn.

Their wagons ground to a halt beneath the shade, and Corwin descended directly beside Speranzi. “Come in with me, you’ll need to register your unit.” He told her, and with a stiff inclining of her head, she followed him inside.

A half elf greeted them with a smile and a wave, a slender male with a clean white shirt and a yellow vest over that, his hair was black, though when she came closer, it appeared to Speranzi that it was dyed. “Welcome to the Golden Roan, how may I help you?” He asked and flashed a pearl white smile at the pair.

Speranzi looked around, it was in a way, like the inn at Laylan, well appointed with expensive furniture, overstuffed chairs and small tables where people either without rooms or waiting on one to open up simply sat and drank or read. The few who were there were exceptionally well dressed even by the standards of nobles that Speranzi saw outside, with even more jewelry embedded into their clothing, they could have passed for kings or princes in some other place. Notably though, there were only men.

Not a woman to be found.

“Speranzi.” Corwin said, and that brought her back to the moment.

She looked toward the elf, as most did, he took a reflexive step back from her, and she, without missing a beat, introduced herself. “Baroness Speranzi Jadara of the Black Quiver Company in North Qadish. Acting as escort to Corwin Amber of the Amber Trading Company. I have one hundred and one soldiers and-” She paused, and recalling the way Skana carried her to safety and saw to it that she was healed, she answered differently than intended, “one requiring accommodation here. The others will need to be quartered in the common house, and there are horses to match their numbers.”

“We can certainly accommodate that but…” The clerk pursed his lips together, “Are you sure you wish to stay here?”

“Of course.” Speranzi answered. “I will always be close to my soldiers.” She answered and narrowed her eyes at the clerk, fairly daring him to argue she did not belong.

He did not disagree.

“As my lady wills.” He answered at once and picking up a silver bell, he gave it a quick ring and a small boy rushed out of another room, the clerk handed the young boy, another half elf, a slip of fabric. “There are wagons outside, show the people there to their quarters and call in… who did you say, Baroness?”

“I didn’t. But send Skana in.” Speranzi answered.

“Send for Skana.” The clerk added, but Speranzi saw one thing about the boy that caused her immediate tension when he turned around.

While half elves, she knew, could be considerably older than they appeared, he was still small and fairly defenseless… but somebody had blackened one eye, nearly swelling it completely shut.

“And here are your rooms, we are a little short right now, we’ll have one freed up in a few hours, if your companion, my lady, would like to wait with you, or down here, either would be fine.” The clerk said, and the way his eyes went up and down Speranzi’s body as if he was unsure of himself set her teeth on edge.

“That will be fine.” Speranzi said, the boy was gone out of sight already, though she made a mental note to question that more later, everything about the place felt off to her in some way, as if she were missing some important detail.

Corwin was shifting back and forth on his feet as if he had to find a chamber pot and fast, his discomfort was as thick as pea soup and twice as indiscernible to her eyes.

When Skana appeared at Speranzi’s back, the clerk pointed toward a set of stairs just before a long corridor and said, “Second floor, room two zero one and two zero five. The most expensive of rooms for our most important guests.” He promised.

Speranzi started walking, Skana followed, but notably, Corwin did not. ‘What’s with him?’ She wondered as the door closed behind her and he was left behind.

“Skana, does something feel… off to you about all this?” Speranzi asked.

“Yes. The whole place makes my skin crawl. I don’t like it.” She answered as they reached the room, unlocked the door, and stepped within.

Perhaps they would have said more, but any notion of doing so died in their throats or on their tongues when they caught sight of a scantily dressed elven woman, her knees tucked under her and palms on the floor, her forehead down between them, she said, “Welcome, master, I am Illyana, I am your body servant for as long as you will have me.”

When neither Skana nor Speranzi said a thing and the door clicked shut, the elf raised her head and looked no less shocked than they, her ruby lips parted and her eyes blinked in disbelief.

There was pin drop silence for a moment until Illyana broke the silence by saying, “I have never served the bodies of human women, mistresses, but… I will do my best.”

It should have prompted some kind of answer, but all the battles in their respective lives had not prepared them to give an answer to that.

Nor to the tears that began to well up in Illyana’s eyes when she beheld ice blue eyes of terror in Speranzi’s face.

“Please… don’t hurt me.” Illyana whimpered and began to shake whileSperanzi struggled to find something to say in response.