The Betrayed (36 page)

He met Vicky three days later. Her expression was unreadable. They sat, sharing some of his clam chowder lunch. Dead boats watched them.

“Maya told me you came to the Filly a few days ago.”

Ewan froze. “Yes,” he admitted after a few moments.

“Did you enjoy it?” she asked, her voice low.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “It was strange. I don’t know.”

Vicky spoke as she chewed. “First times often are. But you will like it more the next time.”

He nodded.

“You shouldn’t have left so early, though. Erika was angry with her. She thought you weren’t satisfied with the service.”

Ewan frowned. “Who’s Erika?”

“Our matron.”

“I wanted to see you, but you were busy with another customer,” he said, careful to keep the string of pain from his tone.

She said nothing.

“I think I love you,” he blurted.

Vicky turned to face him. Her face was young. She wasn’t much older than himself. But her eyes gleamed with sad wisdom beyond her age. “Foolish boy, how old are you?”

Ewan squirmed. “Sixteen,” he lied.

“I’m twenty-three next month, and I have seen a hundred men break their hearts pledging love to one they could never have.”

His eyes moistened without his volition. “No, this is different.”

Vicky stroked his check. “Loneliness is not love. This is not love. It’s not.”

Ewan shook his head stubbornly. “No. I know what I feel. No one can deny me that.”

The whore lifted his chin so he stared into her eyes. “I have nothing to give you, Ewan. My life belongs to the Wicked Filly. That’s where I belong; that’s who I am.” She paused. “You will find the one who will love and cherish you, a decent girl. You are an honest person, Ewan. You deserve better.”

The world had turned into a river. He blinked away the tears. “I don’t want better.”

Vicky put down the empty bowl. “I must get back. The hour is almost over. If I don’t return, Anton will come after me.” She rose.

Ewan wanted to say something. But he had nothing to offer her. He was a monster. He had no money. What would he give her? At that horrible moment, he realized he would never see her again.

When he returned to the docks, his friends stopped hauling, watching him carefully. Then, they looked at one another and nodded.

After work, they would not let him go home. They took him to one of the pubs they liked to frequent and filled him with so much wine that he could hardly remember his name. And they paid for the drinks.

“The gods made women so they can break our hearts.” They shared their pearls of wisdom.

“She might be the first to break your heart, lad, but sure as the Abyss, she ain’t the last.”

“There’s nothing wine can’t cure, boy.”

Ewan swayed like a ship’s mast. “My name is…I’m a monster.”

“Now, lad, don’t be so harsh on yourself. Here’s another gallon of ale. Drink.”

He drank and wept until the world turned black.

CHAPTER 33

M
ali knew she was being foolish, but she had no choice. She had temporarily relinquished her command to George, with strict orders to leave Adam alone. She did not want Eracians killing Eracians in her absence. Even so, his command was tenuous. Most of the army paid little or no respect to the other officers anymore. Adam was their idol.

It seemed absurd that people who had fought with her for years could become so easily besotted with a young upstart, but he had some undeniable charisma that lit up their simple hearts, some magic that neither she nor any other of her old cadre could ever hope to have.

Adam was only a division commander, with barely five thousand regulars, but he had also annexed most of the auxiliary units, all of the peasants, and commanded another five thousand mercenaries. There was a rumor that the Third Independent Battalion had gone over to his side, smitten by his gentlemanly ways and respect for women. And even those who still reported to George and Marco and others adored him.

He had close to thirty thousand souls, and somehow, Mali knew, this was hardly the end.

While he besieged Roalas and a dozen nearby villages, she had slipped out of the camp unnoticed, dressed as a civilian, with only four people to protect her. She had chosen two specialists and two of her most loyal female soldiers.

She knew she risked more than just her hide. If she were discovered, there would be an outrage. They might even charge her with treason. But she did not care. She had to do this.

Roads were dangerous these days. Rabid hordes of bandits roamed the countryside, preying on the weak and unprotected, raping and pillaging and taking respectable-looking travelers for ransom. Even though trade had died to a trickle because of the war, this did not keep them from trying. Soldiers were busy fighting an enemy; they had no time for tiny miscreants.

Now, inside Caytor, stakes were higher than ever. No one could easily tell her heritage, but her looks were well-known in the realms. Some of the brigands might recognize her. And then, there would be nothing in the world that would stop them.

Keeping off the main arteries, traveling mostly by night, her little group inched north and east into the enemy realm, heading for the little village called Gasua. Adam might be killing his prisoners, but Mali was careful to interrogate them first. In the recent days, her one and only interest was the whereabouts of a village where she might find a witch. After many hours of torture, she had finally learned a name.

It was a slim chance, she knew. By the time they reached the place, there was a high possibility that it had been burned, its people killed and scattered. But she had no choice.

They had met a party of brigands only once, a gang of ten souls who rushed against them from the dark of a forest as they halted for the night, wielding clubs and rusty swords. The rabble had been no match for professional soldiers armed with good steel and crossbows. They had killed seven before they had even reached them. The remainder had died in a quick, efficient fight. Mali had wasted no time burying or burning the bodies; they had left them in the forest, for wolves and worms to pick.

She wondered what George would say if he knew what she was doing. Escorted by two soldiers from the Third and a pair of her special troops, she seemed every bit a lunatic, a crazy woman possessed. But maybe that was who she was.

Gasua was before them, intact, peaceful for now. The villagers had erected mounds of earth around their meager hamlet and studded them with saplings. Men with scythes or pitchforks stood symbolic guard, day and night, accompanied by a ragged assortment of mongrels.

Convincing the villagers they were not bandits would be tricky, she noticed.

“I’ll go alone,” she whispered.

Neil, one of the specialists, shook his head. “No chance. We’re coming with you.”

Mali grimaced. “Poor, worried peasant women do not bring a cadre of soldiers with them to see the witch. I must play the part.”

“What good would your part be if you get killed?” Vince, the other specialist, said.

She gave them a long look. Both men were combat assassins, charged with donning enemy uniforms during battle, infiltrating their ranks and murdering officers in the resulting fray. They feared nothing and no one. And yet, they dreaded a village of poor, unarmed Caytoreans.

“That’s the enemy,” Vince said, pointing, reminding her.

“I’ll take only Alexa with me. She will be my half sister.”

“Cousin, some sort of a cousin,” the woman corrected her. Alexa was blonde and ruddy, with a soft, chubby face. They could not belong to the same parent, ever.

Mali rubbed her forehead. Was the thing growing in her belly fuddling her mind? She prayed that this whole affair was just a big, sour joke, a test of her nerves and resolve. She did not want to be pregnant.

Neil sighed. “All right. But if you’re not back within an hour, we’re charging in.”

The two women left their hiding. It was early morning, a reasonable time for a pair of women to be found on the roads. Mali rehearsed her story. They had scouted the area, trying to learn the names of the villages. Maybe the witch would not be too intrusive. Mali hoped she would not need to lie too much. Women who came to see witches outside their village wanted discretion.

The guards squirmed seeing two huddling, hooded figures on the road. When the two women removed their capes, they relaxed a little.

“Where to, women?” one of them called.

“To the witch woman.” Mali let Alexa speak. The soldier was of low birth and had a better chance of posing as a poor, inflicted peasant.

Several children were outside, and a few older women, but no young men or women. The fields around the hamlet were empty of souls, the animals all safely penned close to the huts. They all stared at the two strangers with small, suspicious eyes. One of them made a warding sign.

The witch had a derelict little cabin to herself at the end of the hamlet, adjacent to a pigsty. The whole place was just a stone’s throw across, but her secluded little hut had an aura of foreboding about it. Mali thought it must be the flayed cat skins, or the skulls of many rodents, piled in front of the door.

The woman sat outside, despite the chill, peeling willow bark off some branches.

“What you want, lass?” she said without lifting her eyes. “Got trumped up by a pretty farmer boy?” She looked up at Alexa. The soldier blushed, squirmed, pointing wordlessly at her superior.

The woman snorted. “Ah, the old filly. Married?”

Mali nodded.

“But it ain’t your husband’s, eh?”

Mali nodded again. The witch grunted indignantly.

“What you got for me?” she asked, throwing a naked branch aside. Mali produced a pair of Caytorean silver marks. The witch sniffed her palm. “All right, inside.”

The hut was dark and smelled of too many herbs.

“Undress,” the witch ordered.

Mali looked around her. Well, this was no time for privacy, she thought. It bothered her that she cared now of all moments, when so many men had seen every little bit of her skin.

She stood there awkwardly, naked and tall and muscled. The witch appraised her with one eye closed. “Gangly filly, ain’t you? Those hips of yours ain’t good for breeding. Got any whelps?”

Mali realized she had better not lie on this subject. She shook her head. The witch sniffed in harsh disapproval. “Must bear offspring when you’re young. They don’t come out pretty when you age.”

Mali swallowed.

The witch approached her, staring up at her. “Got a tongue, girl? Speak.”

Mali took a deep breath. “My husband’s gone to war. I…He will know when he returns.”

The witch nodded. “Ah…I see.” She shook her head. “Let’s see what you got.”

Mali felt her blood chill as those alien hands touched her, pinched her sides, cupped her breasts. She felt like an animal on sale. The woman rolled her callused fingers over her gums, sniffed her ears.

Some of the witch’s anger dissipated. “Well, you eat good, I can tell. Got a good skin, strong body. But you ain’t one to hatch many daughters. You got a man’s hips.” She approached Alexa and slapped her large rump. “This one can birth them without blinking.”

“Am I pregnant?” Mali whispered, pretending to be abashed; she hoped she was pretending.

The witch sucked on her lips. “We’ll see. Here.” She handed Mali a small bowl. “Piss in it.”

Mali let her brows scramble up her forehead. “Here?”

“No, you go outside so them fools can see you. Come on, filly.”

Heat flaring up her cheeks, Mali made a small, stupid stand in the center of the little cabin, holding the bowl beneath her like a leprous supplicant. Embarrassment, she realized, came from very small, trivial things.

The gurgling noise made the witch smile. Surprisingly, her mouth was full of strong white teeth. Mali handed her the bowl. The witch reached for some herbs, spicing the urine. She stirred the cocktail and drank from it, without as much as a grimace. Mali felt her own bile rising. The witch spat back into the bowl, her head bobbing with thought.

“Now, this will hurt a little. Don’t squirm.”

Mali kept her eyes closed as the witch violated her. She would not cry now. She hadn’t cried when they had pried a hooked spear from her thigh.

The witch clapped. Mali opened her eyes. “Am I pregnant?” she whispered.

The woman snorted. “You bear a son, a strong child. His father is a feisty bastard.”

I know,
Mali thought. “I don’t want the child,” she said.

“Nothing can be done,” the witch said.

Mali felt her face drain of blood. Her world spun.

“That whelp is too big for herbs and charms. Lodged in that womb fast. He’s a stubborn one.”

Mali felt her eyes water. “I don’t want the child,” she repeated.

“The goddess has given you a gift. Don’t shun it. Love it,” the witch offered in a quiet voice.

“We serve Feor,” Alexa said almost automatically.

The witch spat. “Feor? That bastard is good for them men and their wars. But what does he know about birth? Ever seen men at birthing? A bunch of frightened fools! It’s a woman’s job to nurse the womb, and no Feor or any other male will tell me otherwise.”