Chapter Fifty-Six

Speranzi approached the table with long steps until she stood only a few paces away from Illyana, and once there she inhaled deeply and then bowed low at the waist. “For what has been done in the name of my gods, I am deeply sorry. For the vile thoughts I held about your race, I am deeply sorry. If we can do this, we have no place judging any other people poorly. So for my blindness to your people’s suffering, I am deeply sorry. I can never undo what was done. But I can do something still. With your permission, Illyana, I would like to purchase you from this place when we leave, and take you away from here. I have been a mercenary for some time, I can reach out to someone, arrange for you to get smuggled over the border of the Divine Kingdom, and taken back to your own people. It is the smallest atonement I can offer, but it is there. And… one more thing. I can teach you to fight, so that when you’re safe at home you’ll never be taken again.”

Illyana’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish at the sudden spiel of words and the human noblewoman bowing so deeply. Such was the shock that it took time to register what exactly was being offered to her. “Buy me? Teach me to fight?” She looked at the bowing noblewoman and saw the way her hands trembled, balled up into fists that shook with rage.

“I couldn’t do anything. I wanted to. I wanted to draw my sword or my bow. But all I could do was watch… just watch. There were too many soldiers there, even for me. All I’d have done is died for nothing… stupid, grandiose gestures make good stories, but they’re just stupid here in the real world.” Speranzi growled out through grinding teeth. “I made that mistake once and I accomplished nothing. I hoped I could confront the temple authorities here, I still plan to, it’s my duty to admonish them even if it’s futile. But I’m not so stupid as to just blindly believe it will work, not after seeing what is allowed to happen so casually in the open.” Speranzi choked on her own words and went on without raising her head.

“I know you fear me… everybody who looks at me… with a few exceptions, feels like they’re looking at a monster. It’s been useful sometimes I admit. But I’m not a monster. Just a human woman with a face so mean that I’m ugly. But Baroness Speranzi Jadara will swear on whatever you want. I am telling you the truth.” Speranzi vowed, and did not raise her head nor straighten herself back up again.

“You don’t need a slave’s permission to buy her. You can do whatever you want, My Lady.” Illyana answered in a small voice, her eyes darting from the unthinkable one bowing to the unthinkable one across from her. Her voice then dropped to whisper quietly, “But if you teach me to fight in any way but the Long Death style, you’re sure to be killed.”

“The long death?” Skana asked.

“For elven bodyguards. No strikes, just grips and holds, meant to delay assassins and buy time for their master to escape. It’s fallen out of favor in some circles, teaching an elf to fight in any way at all is usually seen as improper, but there are still users of it.” Illyana answered, grateful for the brief reprieve the question offered her to let her racing mind come to a conclusion. Her pulse was racing faster than horses fleeing a fire. Sweat was already rising on her skin and goosebumps ran up and down her arms.

“I do need your permission, in principle if not in fact. And about fighting, if you don’t want to risk it, I won’t force that on you either.” Speranzi said from her deeply bowed position. “The choice is yours, do as you will.”

Illyana looked down at the cards, the first letter of the alphabet, and the little number eights stared back at her while she tried to think of something to say. Many a customer had made promises to her before, and every one of those? ‘All lies. But then, what did they offer, and in exchange for what? To be their mistress, stowed away in a country home somewhere where their wives wouldn’t know what he did when out on his ‘hunts’?’ That was a popular one. Time and again she’d nodded, smiled, and pretended with them all long after she’d given up on truth falling from the lips of man.

But then, this was different. She was being asked, not informed, and that in and of itself was novel. Too, none of them would ever have bowed to her.

“Can I ask you to raise your head, My Lady?” Illyana asked, and Speranzi closed her eyes, then in one fluid, languid motion, she straightened up and opened them.

Speranzi stood stock still while the slave appraised her afresh, starting from the leather boots on her feet and working her way up, Illyana steadied her heart as best she could, struggling to rein its racing beats in before they ripped a hole in her chest.

‘So far, she looks perfectly ordinary, if it weren’t for those demon eyes, she would seem like any other human woman…’ She saw Skana sitting stock still, unable or unwilling to move, to her, it must have seemed that Illyana was weighing her options.

‘Skana is still wondering if I’ll give her away? And… that one, she offered to teach an elf to fight, in front of another human? She must trust that one a great deal…’ A flash of envy sparked in Illyana’s heart at anyone having someone they trusted that much.

But there it was whether she liked it or not.

She still hadn’t met the demon-like eyes.

She braced herself as best she could, grabbing the fabric of the robe and squeezing the fabric into her palms, digging her nails in so hard that her palm stung, and raised her head the rest of the way to look up.

To her surprise, Illyana did not feel the same wave of fear. The same murderous aura the woman gave off just…wasn’t.

Instead?

‘Is that… sadness?’ The narrow vicious eyes still had the ominous sort of pulse to her pupils as if it was in sync with her heartbeat, but they were wider than before, taking in Illyana as a whole, and utterly without any deceit. Not averted or seeking escape, her whole posture, really, was open, inviting…

“I hate being weak.” Illyana finally admitted, “I hate that all I can do is endure. I hate being afraid all the time. If you’ll teach me… I’ll work hard to learn. And if you would…b-buy me, take me out of here… even if you’re lying, you can’t do worse to me than what’s already been done. But if you take me away and let me go? I will praise you until my dying day.” Illyana extended a relaxed, delicate hand.

And to her shock, froze, as Speranzi drew out her sword and then extended it hilt first towards Illyana. “First lesson, how to hold it.”

Illyana stared down at the sword, the metal blade rested on Speranzi’s left forearm and the right hand cupped just above the offered hilt. “You don’t waste time… do you?” Illyana asked with breathless dismay as she looked down at the deadly weapon.

“I don’t have time to waste, never have. Please, take it, I promise I won’t hurt you.” Speranzi answered.

The incongruity of being ‘offered’ a deadly weapon by a person who then promised, while having disarmed themselves, not to do any harm, did not even occur to Illyana, as from the start, she doubted a weapon was even needed.

She gave a nervous swallow, then reached down to close her hand around the hilt of a sword, then held it up between them with a sudden, genuine smile on her face, and a light in her eyes that had not been there before.

Corwin sat at the table in his room, the prostitute assigned to service him was merely stirring the tea. He wouldn’t have had her doing even that much, but when she saw he had no interest in her, the buxom elf began to display various nervous ticks.

She picked at her hands, pinching and pulling at the skin around her knuckles, shifted back and forth on her feet, played with her hair. And worse was when she just knelt beside the table and waited, looking down at his feet or up at his face while waiting for orders he wasn’t giving. The very lack of instruction or command of any kind started to make her sweat long before he finally gave in and ceased trying to ignore her. Corwin set the paper back on the table and looked down at her. “What you did with Speranzi,” he stopped when she tilted her head up at him, “the human, the one who had her hand around my neck before, that was brave.” He said and swallowed. “I appreciate it, she wouldn’t have killed me though, she was just emotional. She’s not used to- to this kind of thing. Anyway,” he hastened to add, “you don’t have to worry about her, or about me. I’m not going to do anything. I’m not a sadist, I don’t hate elves, and I’ve never wanted a woman who didn’t want me.” A rueful smile formed on his face, “And I’m very sure I’m not what you want.”

The elven woman said only, “Do you remember my name, master Corwin?” Her question caught him by surprise.

“No, have we met?” He asked.

She bit her lower lip, glanced away a moment as she weighed whether or not to say anything, then the decision was made as she settled on her answer, “Yes, we have. You were in my room once before, there was… a lot less of you back then, if you’ll pardon my saying so. I think you were around twenty.”

“I’m surprised you remember me at all.” Corwin replied, then immediately looked down at the floor in abject shame at what his words implied.

She ignored the implication and said, “I didn’t, until you said the same words just now that you did back then. I haven’t been here as long as some, my name is Eloyin. And as sad as it is to think of the height of goodness being just not wanting to hurt someone… such is the state of my life in this city. So I remembered that young man. Now here you are again.” A wan smile crossed her face. “I see you haven’t changed, at least not that way.”

“Never.” Corwin answered with the iron resolution of a warrior beneath the jiggling flesh of his jowls.

“Even so, I… I hate doing nothing. It makes me nervous, anxious… even if I know I’m not waiting for the monster to rise, doing nothing is its own torment when all my training has made me into a servant of this room.” Eloyin answered, “So… please, give me something to do.”

Corwin pursed his lips and nodded, “You can make tea. And if you can read, write, and count, you can help me with my accounts. You can have some food brought up,” he patted his round belly with affection, “I hate skipping meals, you know.”

Relief swept over her at having some tasks to assist with, and thus Eloyin began working as his ‘assistant’ for the next few days, going over all the records of sales and buys accounted for during the journey. And it was while doing this that she found a sizable expense.

“Master Corwin.” She said, he furrowed his brow, he hated that, but years of ingrained habit made it impossible for her to stop using the honorific.

“Yes, Eloyin?” He asked.

She slid the paper across the desk toward him and hovered her finger over the line she was referencing. “There is a massive expense here for one night in Laylan, is this correct?”

Corwin leaned forward over the table to look and set aside what he had been reading to look at what she found. She was not wrong. ‘I paid my consort in coin, I didn’t charge the room, and even she didn’t cost this much so what…?’ The question trailed off in his head and he clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together.

“Brotus. What in all the hells of the gods were you thinking… you didn’t…” He snarled and rose to his feet to go confront his apprentice. ‘Did all my talks of being a good merchant, an ally to commerce and its place in ensuring the common good fall on deaf ears?!’ He wasn’t sure, but when she saw his expression, Eloyin paled.

“Master Corwin?” She asked, “What’s wrong, did I-”

He shook his head. “Not you. I just need to go find out if I’ve clutched a viper to my breast or not.” Corwin elaborated no more as he ventured out of the room.