DARK HEART

Thom Lane

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Dark Heart

Thom Lane

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or
existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.


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Copyright © September 2008 by Thom Lane
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Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader


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Editor: Ellen Tevault
Cover Artist: Anne Cain

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Chapter One

They say Death rides a pale horse.

I don’t know if it’s priests or poets who say so -- I’m not allowed to listen to either one.

Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s just truth, and so I got to hear it anyway.

What I do know, when Death came to the guildhouse at the height of a summer storm,

the rain made his horse look as dark as he was.

He wasn’t riding her, though. He was leading her, and carrying his own saddlebags

slung over one shoulder, while she pecked awkwardly on her left hind.

He wasn’t dressed for the weather, but you can’t dress for rain in Amaranth, not in

summer. It’s almost too hot for clothes at all, before the storm breaks; and then even oilskins

and furs won’t keep you dry, so you might as well go naked anyway.

I guess no one had told him that. His riding leathers were drenched; so was the light

travelling cloak he’d flung across the horse’s withers. He was a tall man in his thirties, lean

and tough, and his temper looked as foul as the weather.

The horse might only seem black in the storm, but everything else truly was: the

leathers, the cloak, his boots, and his bags. And when the lightning flashed, it caught the

flicker of something silver in his ear.

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Thom Lane

If he said anything, we couldn’t have heard it above the thunder and the deluge. That

didn’t matter. Sometimes, it’s just obvious what needs doing. Pip ran to take his horse’s head;

I was just as quick to run to him, cobbles slick beneath my feet and the rain as hard as hail,

like a beating on my back.

He let me take his bags, but wouldn’t come through to the house till he’d seen the

horse into the stables, seen her stalled and rubbed down, checked her leg and given Pip

instructions. I waited just inside the stable door, well out of kicking range. She seemed as

snappish as her master; I’d already seen Pip take a nasty nip on the shoulder.

When at last the stranger was satisfied, he came back to me. We had to go out into the

rain again, but only for a moment; this was no time to lead him round to the grand front

entrance, the way a guest should come. I dived straight for the kitchen door, and held it wide

for him.

“Master, please, be welcome…”

He gave me something that might almost have been a wry smile, if it hadn’t been

accompanied by a coal black glare. Then he pushed his hands through his dark hair, sending

a spatter of water to join the steady drips already pooling on the flagstones at his feet.

“All right, boy. Where do I go?”

Past the scullery, and through the kitchens; through narrow, shadowed passages past

storerooms and cellar doors and wide-eyed kitchen slaves, and so out at last into the public

areas of the house. Broad corridors and wooden floors, soft furnishings and lamplight,

warmth and comfort…

The guildmistress has an instinct for the unusual. I meant to take our new guest to her

apartments, but there was no need; she met us in the hallway. I stepped swiftly out of their

way, reading just one slight twitch of her eyebrow as she took in the state of him, another as

she read what his dress and his earring said of him, his rank and mastery.

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“Master Mage,” she said, “you are very welcome --”

“And damnably unexpected. I know.” His voice was deep, slightly rough, and as dark as

the rest of him; his manners were as abrupt as his temper. He was not, quite, laughing at

himself. Not yet. “I should apologise for bursting in on you, unlooked for and in this

condition…”

“Not at all. The guild welcomes all guests, at any time. Though the men and women of

your calling more normally rest at their chapterhouse, down by the harbour…”

“I know it; I have been there for a week. And was leaving today, making my way to the

west gate when this storm struck. My horse slipped on a loose cobble and lamed herself, and

I didn’t want to take her all the way back across the city.”

“So you came to us. Quite so. And your horse is in our stables, where she will be well

cared for; and you, Master…?”

“Lucan,” he supplied.

“Master Lucan, you are soaked through and still dripping, impatient to be as dry and

comfortable as your horse, and here I am keeping you talking.” A snap of her fingers had me

springing forward from the shadow of the stairs. “Take Master Lucan to the gatehouse room,

and see to his needs and wishes.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The stair turns back on itself above the hallway; as we climbed, I glanced down and

saw one of the kitchen girls already down on hands and knees with a duster, drying the floor

before all his water could take the polish off. We give good service, at the guildhouse. The

mistress demands it.

Master Lucan, it was obvious, would demand no less.

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Thom Lane

Even before I’d closed the door of the gatehouse room behind us, he was already

stripping off his jacket and dropping it to the floor, tugging his shirt over his head, sparing

me just one swift glance and one barked word: “Towel?”

“Of course…”

I fetched one from the linen press and held it out to him, but he simply turned his

back.

His hair was dark and crisp, close-cropped and sodden. I rubbed at it tentatively; he

grunted and said, “Harder, boy.”

“Yes, Master.”

Vigorously, then, his head between my hands; I felt the not-quite-roundness of his

skull through the muffle of the towel and suddenly wanted to be exploring that same

territory with my fingers, just my skin and his hair and nothing to interfere between them.

Swallowed the desire, moved the towel and my attention downwards.

That didn’t help. His shoulders were broad, his back was long and leanly muscled,

leaning into the pressure of my hands. This time, when he wanted it harder, that was all for

the pleasure of rough contact. I knew; I could tell from the way he worked his shoulder

blades.

Mages are men and women of the half-world, all cobweb and shadow, threatening and

scary. This close, though, Master Lucan smelled all man; and felt it too, dangerous and

exciting beneath my hands. I almost forgot to be scared. Not quite, because slaves never do

quite forget, and if we did the collar’s weight around our necks would remind us. By the time

he turned to face me, though, it was his hands and strength and temper I was scared of, not

his powers: the master, not the mage. As it should be.

I dried his chest and arms, feeling the firm resilience of his skin, the hard-trained

muscles beneath. I ached to drop the towel and just be skin on skin with him; more than

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5

ached, I could feel my cock growing stiff beneath my tunic. In hopes he wouldn’t notice, I

muttered, “This towel’s damp, let me fetch another…”

He stayed me with a hand on my waist. Had he noticed already? I glanced up, and

there was no anger in his eyes, only the snap of that relentless impatience.

“It’s still drier than I am. Get my boots off, will you?”

“Of course, Master…”

It was a relief to drop to my knees, to drop the towel in my lap to hide my hard-on

while I hoped for it to ebb away. Wet leather isn’t a turn-on for me, the way wet man can

be.

Wet man with his long wet fingers suddenly in my hair, balancing himself while he

lifted one foot for me to slip his boot off.

One foot and then the other, and I was quite used to that kind of casual contempt,

being used however was convenient to Master. Of course I was; I was slave.

I was used to this too, the way his fingers stayed in my hair, played with it, even once

I’d set his boots aside. That didn’t do my erection any good, at least not if I wanted it to go

away. He laughed abruptly, clipped the side of my head, and unbuckled his belt.

I can take a hint. My hands went to the sodden laces of his trousers and loosed them

carefully. I was aware of the weight of his cock within, just as I was of my own, throbbing

again beneath the towel; I just wasn’t quite ready for the way his sprang out at me, as soon as

it was free. Dark with blood, long and straight and tapered, thick at the root but sweetly

rounded at the tip…

It was instinct, only instinct that made me catch the tip of it lightly in my mouth, with

just a hint of teeth.

For a moment, I had him. He was entirely still, and I could hold him, the size and

touch and taste of him right there in my mouth, musk and salt and mastery, the flavour of a

man.

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Thom Lane

Reluctantly, then, I turned the focus of that moment into a kiss and let him go,

dropped my head and worked his wet trousers down slowly off his wet legs. What happened

next was up to him; he was Master here. Some guests I’d known would give me a whipping

for impertinence; some would toss me onto the bed and fuck me without a word.

No point even trying to hide my own erection, now that I’d seen his. Seen it, kissed it,

made an issue of it. I probably deserved that whipping. And him so ill-tempered, soaked and

delayed in his intentions; he wasn’t likely to pass up such insolent familiarity.

Nor did he. His hand closed in my hair again; he kept a switch in a sheath on his boot,

where I’d set it just a bend and a stretch away, and I thought he’d work out his temper on my

hide. If he didn’t have other, worse ways to punish a boy. I’d never seen magic done, but all

my life had been full of stories about the dark gifts of mages, how cruel and vengeful they

could be…

All he did, though, he pulled my head back to his proud cock. His thumb caressed my

temple in a lazy gesture that made me shiver all through; he said, “Lips and tongue and

mouth, lad, nothing more. No hands, I’m not a cow for you to be milking. And if I feel those

teeth again --”

He didn’t say what would happen, but his fingers flicked my ear stingingly, like a

promise.

“Yes, Master…”

I whispered that to the root of him, to that tangle of hair where his balls fell down,

where his cock thrust up; and followed my words with my lips, with my tongue, as he

commanded.

I could taste the rain on him and the sweat beneath it, the cool and the heat together;

and underlying them both was the man himself, the taste of him. I could feel his blood, the

surge of it against my tongue, through the tender inhibition of his skin. I licked him slowly

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7

from root to tip, following the course of blood, the rise of him; I made him grunt, which was

a score to me, if only a small one.

My hands reached to grip his thighs as I rose up on my knees to engulf the clean salt

sweetness of the tip, as I took it into my mouth, as my tongue rolled around it…

As the house bell struck sonorously, once, twice, and a third time.

I could have groaned aloud; perhaps I did, deep in my throat, where he shouldn’t hear

anything, though he might just have felt it. I thought his cock was almost touching my voice

already.

Perhaps he groaned himself. I don’t know: I was altogether focused on the immediacy

of what I had in my mouth there and the biting disappointment of the hour.

His long hands closed around my head and lifted me slowly away. I wanted to hang on,

to bite, to refuse -- but he’d take the hide off my back if I did, no question, so I just blinked

up at him sulkily.

“What does the bell mean?” His own voice sounded just a little strained, not quite so

cool as he had been. It wasn’t much, but I could cling to that.

I clung to his legs, too, for the little time I could. Mistress told me once that I was born

for this, to kneel before a strong man and call him master. I don’t know if that’s true, if it

comes naturally or if it’s only training -- but when the chance comes, when a master picks

me out for his service, for his pleasure, I do know what a thrill it is.

When he’s handsome, that’s a sweetener, like a honey glaze on ham. When he’s

demanding, when he’s strict, when he’s ruthless -- that’s what feeds me, what melts me,

what leaves me gasping and aching and craving more.

“A half hour before dinner, Master. Just time to wash and dress…”

“Yes. Of course. Formal dress for the guild’s formal dinner. Polite talk at high table, and

not a thing said that might be controversial. I suppose it would be dreadfully rude not to go,

hmm?”

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Thom Lane

He was teasing me, tossing temptation down into my hands, just to see what I did with

it. I swallowed and said, “You are a guest of the house; you must do as you like. Mistress

would be…disappointed, of course, not to see you at dinner, but…”

“But,” he said, working his thumbs slowly over my temples, catching the short hairs

and setting all my skin to tingle, “the rain’s got into my saddlebags, and soaked the only

decent clothes I have. Hasn’t it?”

“Yes, Master.” I didn’t even glance towards the corner where I’d set his bags, all

unopened.

“You’d better slip down and apologise to your mistress on my behalf. Tell her I regret

missing out on both her food and her company, but I would disgrace her table and my own

reputation if I appeared there in my present condition.”

He wasn’t smiling; neither was I. I just said, “Yes, Master,” and didn’t move, didn’t offer

to move against the pressure of his hands.

“Don’t forget to take my good clothes down and launder them, not to make a liar of

me.”

“No, Master.”

“Then you can trot to the kitchens and beg me a bowl of soup and a crust of bread.

That’s all I want, anyway.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good lad.” And he did smile now, though it was a chilly, distant expression, fit for a

master mage. “Now, what were we about…?”

His thumb toyed at my lips; greatly daring, I closed my lips around the joint of it and

let him feel my teeth. Quite hard.

He barked a laugh that was in no way fit for a master mage, being warm and rough and

altogether human. He cuffed me off, hard enough to set my head ringing dizzily; then he

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9

gripped my hair and guided my head, my mouth, my lips and tongue irresistibly back to their

business, to their proper use.

He hadn’t lost any stiffness while we talked. Nor had I, though I was still kind of

hiding it beneath the towel. I thought. That didn’t matter; this wasn’t about my pleasure, my

hunger, anything of mine.

Too late for kissing, for lipping, for any teasing contact; he didn’t need it, he didn’t

want it. What he wanted was this, my mouth wide to take him, as much of his length as I

could manage. There wasn’t room then for my tongue to do much but welcome him in; there

wasn’t time for it either. A few quick choking thrusts, with his hands on the back of my head

to stop me pulling away -- which I wouldn’t have, I was clinging to his legs again to be sure I

didn’t, but it’s a master’s privilege to take what he wants, regardless -- and he came in a hard,

hot spurt to the back of my throat.

I swallowed, savouring the taste of him just as I savoured the treatment, the rough

handling, the mastery of me.

Slowly, slowly I felt the tension ebb from his muscles under my hands, and from his

own hands where they gripped my head; slowly his cock relaxed, still in my mouth for as

long as I could hold it there. Without any hint of teeth.

At last I licked and sucked it clean and let it go. I lifted the towel from my lap, to dry

him gently -- only to have him tug it from me and give my own rain-damp hair a brisk,

satisfied rub. Then he tossed the towel aside, cuffed me aside in the same heedless manner

and said, “Fetch me a robe, then be about it.”

“Yes, Master…”

There was a loose robe waiting in the press: soft velvet in guild colours, dull crimson

picked out with gold. I held it open while he slipped his arms in, belted it for him, very

carefully didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to nestle against his long hard body even

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Thom Lane

for a moment. It was he -- as it should be -- who put a hand out to hold me there, who ran

his fingers down over the rough linen of my tunic, who said, “Now we match, lad,” because

of course Mistress dressed us in guild colours too, crimson tunics with gold piping.

Crimson tunics with short skirts, which his hand slipped beneath.

His fingers cupped my balls for a moment, then reached up to find how stiff my cock

was, how ready for his touch.

I swallowed, thinking yearningly of his hand and that towel, how quickly he could

make me come. I don’t know if he read my mind or my face, but he just chuckled and

slapped my butt -- which didn’t help at all -- and said, “Perhaps you should see to the

laundry before you carry any message to your mistress. Unless you want to show her what a

willing little slut you are.”

She knew that already. So did her women. It was Sharra who met me at the door to her

apartments: Sharra, dressed to serve at high table, skirts down to her ankles, bare feet

peeking out, her toenails painted dusty red to match. Sharra, whose own collar showed only

at her throat, was hidden otherwise by the thick tumble of her hair; Sharra who had helped

to transform a grubby little kitchen-boy into a clean and willing servant of the house; Sharra,

who was formidable with a switch in her hand, who had taught me obedience and trained

me to please men, yes, and women too.

Sharra, who was my friend, who took one look at me that evening and tutted, rolled

her eyes, reached out and combed my hair into some kind of order with her fingers before

she asked what I wanted.

“Message for Mistress.”

“Give it to me, then. We’re just dressing her.”

I did that, glad not to have to break the news myself. She snorted, and straightened my

tunic with deft little twitches as if she was dressing me too, while she repeated it back to me

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with a degree of disbelief that would have earned her a whipping if he’d heard it. She had

long years of service here and licence to go with, but not that much.

“Your master’s not coming down to dinner, because his

clothes

got

wet

?”

“In the storm,” I confirmed, straight-faced. “I’ve just hung them to dry in the laundry

room.”

“I’m sure you have. And I’d better send someone down to wash them through and dry

them properly, because they’ll shrink all out of shape if they’re left to your tender care. Did

you tell your master we could have

lent

him a suit of clothes?”

I shrugged, shook my head.

She sighed. “No, I’m sure you didn’t. Not what he wanted to hear, am I right? Nor what

you wanted to tell him,” she said with a teasing, sharp little twist of my ear, where it was

already sore from Master’s flicking fingers. “All right, I’ll tell Mistress. He’s our guest. Of

course he can have supper in his room. See that you feed him properly, mind.”

“Oh, I will.”

A snort again, a cynical smile, and then she surprised me with a kiss. “And don’t be

fooling yourself that it’s your pretty eyes he stays for. Boys like you are ten a penny.”

I knew it, all too well, but, “I don’t think he’d want ten of us,” I said. “I think he just

wants me.”

“Better get back to him then, hadn’t you?”

When I came back to the gatehouse room, Master Lucan was sitting by the window in

the last of the summer’s light, reading a book.

I’d seen books before, of course. Why, we had a whole library right there in the

guildhouse, perhaps two dozen volumes. Those were heavy brutes, though, the size of the

lectern they stood on when people read them. This was a shabby little thing, bound in weary

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leather, its edges rubbed with use. I’d never seen a book in private hands before, intimate

hands, never imagined that a man might actually travel with one of his very own…

He had a table at his elbow, and he’d set his switch on it. I eyed that a little warily as I

off-loaded the tray I was carrying: a bowl of soup, a plate of bread and fruit and cold meats, a

jug of wine. Then I lit a lamp and fetched that over too, setting it behind his shoulder so that

the light fell on his book.

He glanced up, smiled faintly, nodded towards the wine. I poured him a cupful, took

the empty tray away and waited by the door, quiet and alert.

Quiet and alert and unwanted, it seemed. He ate distractedly, one-handed, while he

read; when his cup was empty, he poured more wine himself, before I could be there to do it

for him.

It was quite dark outside his pool of lamplight by the time he did look up to find me.

He set the book down, summoned me with a jerk of the head and another of those thin

smiles that were like a hook in my heart.

“When do they feed you -- oh, what is your name, anyway?”

I didn’t need to answer; I was kneeling by his feet and his fingers were already at my

throat, lifting the tin tag that hung from my collar, stamped with my name on one side and

the guild’s crest on the other to show where I belonged. Anyone at home in Amaranth

would know that crest and fetch me back if they caught me straying.

“‘Tam,’” he read; then, “When do you get fed, Tam?”

“Mornings, Master.” After we’d cleaned the house, after the free had breakfasted.

It was a normal arrangement, and he nodded easily, but, “I expect you’ll be hungry by

now, then, hmm?”

“Always…”

“Mmm. Not that it’s done you any harm, you look fit enough, but still…”

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Little by little, he fed me on his leavings: crusts of bread that he scraped around the

soup bowl, shreds of fat and gristle, an apple core. Whatever he gave me, I took it from his

fingers lightly, gratefully.

“Too well trained to snatch, aren’t you, Tam?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Not too well trained to mumble with your mouth full, but never mind. That’s all

you’re getting, anyway. Here…”

Another master might have given me the bowl to lick, but he thought I’d had enough; I

got his fingers to lick and suck at till they were clean.

Mindful of that switch, so near to hand, I didn’t so much as let him feel my teeth.

He dried his hands on my tunic, then plucked at it in a vaguely irritated way, in a way

that would have seen it swiftly discarded, except that there was a sudden unexpected

scratching at the door.

Master Lucan grunted, and pushed me away. “See who that is.”

I ran to open the door, and found two women waiting: one imperious and expectant,

the other subservient, lighting her way and carrying another jug of wine.

“It’s the guildmistress, Master” -- but he’d seen for himself; he was already on his feet

and welcoming her in. Neither Mistress nor I troubled to name Sharra to him.

“Forgive my disturbing you, Master Lucan, when I’m sure you’d rather be alone” -- did

she mean alone with me? Probably not; I don’t suppose I’d figured in her thoughts at all --

“but I have a matter of some urgency I’d like to discuss, if you can spare me half an hour.”

“Of course. Please, sit…” Sharra was already bringing a chair forward to the table. I had

that jug of wine she’d brought, and was filling a cup for Mistress and topping up Master’s

own. Guildhouse discipline keeps us sharp.

The guildmistress needs no discipline; she’s sharp by nature. As soon as they were

settled, before I’d cleared the remains of Master’s meal from the table, she was talking.

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Thom Lane

“…The Wayfarers’ Guild has provided succour and shelter to travellers for three

centuries now. It was formed for the benefit and protection of pilgrims and wanderers, those

who travel the lands on foot, and we still provide food and dormitories, across all the lands

we know.

“Over time, though, our purpose has shifted to meet new needs. Pilgrims and

adventurers open new routes, but it’s the traders who keep them open, who establish the

roads and the caravanserais. Without trade, any empire will perish.

“So we became in effect the traders’ guild. Any merchant who travels, anyone who

moves goods from one city to the next, anyone who does business at a distance pays a tithe to

us. In return we give them this” -- a wave of her hand to encompass hospitality, safe rest at

journey’s end -- “and more than you see here; we are their bankers and their ambassadors,

we guarantee their credit and fair treatment from the city’s governors, in whatever city they

take their business to. Guild members are not unfairly taxed at any border, and they don’t

pay bribes.

“Their physical security, too, we guarantee. Their stores are not robbed; they are not

troubled by pirates at sea or by bandits on the road. A guild banner on the wagon is generally

enough, though we do supply armed escorts at need.

“It’s a system that works well. Nobody makes trouble for the guild, and nobody

troubles guild members; we are too wealthy, too powerful; it’s never worth the trouble that

results.”

“And yet?”

“And yet, we are in trouble now.” Her voice was grim, to match his. “Here in

Amaranth and around, five times in the last month a guild-flagged caravan has been attacked

or a guild-guaranteed house plundered. This -- does not happen. And yet it has.”

“Amaranth has its share of thieves and bandits.”

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15

She laughed shortly. “More than its share. I know my city’s reputation, master mage.

But I also know our own reputation. Those who attack guild members attack the guild itself;

that is understood. And the retribution we extract is…messy. And wide-reaching. Yes, every

now and then some upcoming gang-lord decides that the reward or the prestige is worth the

risk. By the time he has seen his entire gang and his own family executed, he is usually

persuaded to change his mind. Then we execute him too -- slowly, and in public -- and the

lesson is learned. For a while.”

“And the difference this time is…?”

“The difference this time is, we cannot discover our enemy. Neither the principal nor

the operatives, nor even the methods involved. We don’t know who is doing this to us, or

how they’re doing it, only that our people are dying and their property is being stolen or

destroyed, and we are helpless to prevent it.

“I am concerned for them, of course, for their pains and losses; but more, I am

concerned for the guild itself. If we are seen to be failing in our prime role, protecting those

who have entrusted their welfare to us, then we cannot survive.”

“Nor should you expect to,” Master Lucan said.

“Indeed.”

“So.” He considered her for a moment. “You suspect sorcery?”

“I am obliged to. The victims have died…strangely; their attackers have left no signs,

coming or going. No one has seen them; no one has heard them in their work. They have

taken wagonloads of goods away, with no apparent wagons; they have left bodies behind,

obscurely broken. The value of the goods taken would never cover the costs of the sorcery.

This is a challenge to us, not to our members.”

“And you feel obliged to meet it. Yet you have not been to the chapterhouse to discuss

the hiring of a mage. I would know if you had.”

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Thom Lane

“I have not. This house may be watched, my own movements may be watched. I don’t

know -- but your chapterhouse is most certainly watched. I do know that. We watch it

ourselves.”

“Of course.” The hint of a smile, the gesture of a hand,

we’ll take that as written; do go

on

.

“I can’t afford to be seen going cap in hand to the mages for assistance. The guild’s

independence is its strength. Whoever is seeking our destruction, if they knew I had

consulted you, they would exult; they would see it as a confession of weakness.”

“That would be…foolish in them,” he said, and a chill shiver touched my spine, just at

his tone of voice.

“Perhaps so -- though they do not underestimate the power of the mages if they have

hired their own. In any case, I dislike to give them even so much acknowledgement. Your

coming here, by chance this evening, where I can consult you privately -- I think this is a

sending of the gods.”

“Certainly the gods provoke the weather,” he agreed gravely. I don’t think anyone in

the room missed the ironic edge in his voice. “Well then, Mistress -- tell me who would like

to see the guild brought down…”

It was a long list, carefully prepared. At one point, Sharra slipped out to fetch another

jug of wine and a bowl of fruit to ease their talking. Master Lucan marked her with a glance

as she left, as she came back, but otherwise they ignored us both entirely. Those were deep

matters they discussed, but it mattered not at all what they said before us; we were house

property, of no more significance than the furniture.

I would have liked to matter -- to either of them, really -- just a little more than the

furniture, but there’s no point dreaming. Free men and women value slaves only for their

usefulness, and not a penny piece beyond.

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17

We stood as we were trained to stand, Sharra and I: off to the side, so as not to be

distracting; alert to the least movement, any sign of summoning; legs apart, hands behind our

backs, eyes down, modest and obedient and still. We can stand so all day if we need to.

At length they weren’t talking about the job anymore, they were talking about money,

discussing fees. I’d known for a long time just how wealthy the guildhouse is, and just how

careful Mistress was with its wealth; I knew the mages’ chapterhouse was wealthier, by

repute; I hadn’t realised quite how costly one mage’s service could be.

She agreed to it, though, after a deal of bartering that won him more than he conceded.

I was oddly pleased, as if it was my man, my master who had come out on top; never mind

that it was guildhouse livery I wore, the guild’s tag that hung from my collar to say where I

belonged.

Mistress left at last, worried but satisfied. I closed the door behind Sharra and stood

waiting, until Master said, “Come back into the lamplight here, boy. Tam.”

He’d remembered my name. I was smiling, trying to hide it as I stepped into the pool of

light.

“Let me look at you.” And then, just a note of impatience in his voice as I was slow to

understand him, “Strip.”

Obedience is easy when you have clear orders and a will to obey. A moment later, the

tunic was a puddle of dull red cloth around my feet. We practise that: a tug on the girdle to

undo the knot we tie it by, a wriggle of the shoulders, and the fabric just slides away.

I stood as I had before -- legs apart, hands behind my back -- but naked now for his

inspection.

“Show.” He was crisp in his commands; I was swift to follow them. Legs wider, head

up, hands behind my head. Hour after hour when I was new, day after day I was trained to

this obedience, with the snap of a whip or the sting of a switch to keep me sharp. These days

sometimes it was I who held the switch, helping to train the new slaves.

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Thom Lane

Tonight it was in his hands, as I was. We call them all switches, but I suppose Master

Lucan’s is a riding crop: a cane sleeved in leather, with a loop to make a tongue at the end.

He reached out with it now, to tease my cock which was half stiff already; the tickle as he

tried to slip that loop over the tip of it was enough to bring me all the way erect.

His chuckle was enough to bring that smile back to my face, despite all my training. I

was on display here, years of ingrained discipline holding me in position while my cock

strained and my skin shivered for his touch; maybe it was more a grimace than a smile, but it

shouldn’t have been there. If Mistress had seen it, I’d have felt her lash for sure. And

deserved it.

He said, “How old are you, Tam?”

“Uh…” I always had to work it out; I had no reason to keep count, year by year.

“Twenty-three. I think.”

“As old as that? You really are absurdly pretty for a grown boy. Turn.”

His switch had abandoned its game with my cock -- just in time! -- and now it tapped

my flank for encouragement, though I was already twisting round on the word.

I wished there was a glass in the room, so that I could see his face as he looked at me.

He said I was pretty, but that was dismissive, almost contemptuous. Masters don’t care about

a slave’s face once the lamps are out. Would he be attracted to slim shoulders and narrow

hips, a tight butt? Constant work and careful feeding kept me fit, but I would never be

heavily muscled; I really wanted him to like that in a young man, to want me…

Right now, though, he was distracted. I felt the tongue of his switch trace lines across

my back, leaving a pattern of heat that made my shoulders tense and my skin twitch.

“These are fresh. Explain?”

“The kitchen-master, he doesn’t like it at the best of times, when a slave goes to him for

a private tray. When he’s just serving dinner to the hall” -- shouting and cursing in his

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19

sweltering fiefdom, tasting everything before he sends it up, watching everyone, determined

that the service should be as scrupulous as his dishes -- “then he

really

doesn’t like it…”

“No, I don’t suppose he does.” Master Lucan’s voice was quietly amused. “So he takes

his displeasure out on your skin, does he?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Well, never mind. Perhaps I like my meat tender, hmm?” The switch’s tongue traced

slowly down the line of my spine, pressing a bit harder now; when it came to the crack of

my butt, that stiff, slender rod poked scratchily between my ass cheeks, making me shudder

suddenly.

I heard him laugh; I felt him stand up; I ached to turn and face him and of course I

didn’t. I couldn’t move a muscle without orders.

The switch tapped lightly at my butt, once, twice.

“Do I need to beat you, Tam?”

“As Master pleases.”

“Of course -- but do I need to? To keep you eager?”

Some masters believe that a boy has to be sore to make him hot in bed. That it’s how

the training works, that we only know how to respond to pain. Maybe it’s true of some boys.

I don’t know. It isn’t true of me.

“No, Master.”

“No, I didn’t think so. But you have been beaten for me anyway, so…” There was a

clatter as he tossed the switch onto the table; then his hands were on my back, heedless of

the welts left by the kitchen-master’s strap. I bit my lip, determined not to yelp. Besides, this

was what I wanted, what I’d been longing for, his touch on my body. The soreness didn’t

matter; the fire in my skin was nothing against the fire in my bones, the throbbing, pounding

pulse of blood that swept through me, the aching yearning in my cock that seemed to be

rooted everywhere, from my scalp to my heels…

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Thom Lane

His fingers followed the switch, exploring my ribs, my spine, my butt. They probed

between my cheeks, pressed lightly against my sphincter and then more forcefully, working

to open it, to slip inside.

Not working hard, not needing to, he murmured, “You’re oiled already.”

Of course I was. I leaned back into his touch, onto the probe of his fingers. We keep

ourselves ready, we keep a check on each other; it’s easier for one slave to oil another. And a

lot more fun.

He eased his fingers out of me, and I swallowed a moan of disappointment. I think he

heard it anyway; he slapped me sharply and said, “Turn round, then, you little slut.”

I swivelled around, and he ran those fingers down over my chest, my belly. My balls,

tight now in their sac. He stroked my cock, and that time I couldn’t even pretend to swallow

the sound I made.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, mildly enough, but all the more threatening for that. “Not till

I say.”

“No, Master…”

He laughed, slapped me again, gave me a push that sent me stumbling to the bed.

Where I hesitated, not sure how he wanted me: some masters like a boy supine and passive;

one always wanted me on my feet but bent over the footboard with my butt at just the right

height for him to take me. Another was never interested in my butt at all, just my mouth; he

liked me kneeling beside the bed.

Master Lucan I wasn’t sure of at all, what he liked, what he’d expect of me. He’d even

played with my cock a little -- and promised me more, I thought, indirectly -- where most

masters would disregard it entirely, giving never a thought to my pleasure or satisfaction.

I looked back for a hint, how he wanted me, and saw the robe fall. Naked otherwise, he

reached up to his ear and slipped off the intricate silver ring and cuff, the delicate hanging

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21

chains that declared his profession and his rank. He dropped that onto the table next to his

switch, very deliberately, like a message.

See? No longer the master mage, I leave that here

.

Still the Master, though, even if he left his switch there too. He held my eye and said,

“That doesn’t frighten you, does it, lad?”

“No, Master.”

“Why not? It frightens tougher men than you, men twice your age and four times your

experience. I’ve seen old scarred sergeants go pale at the sight of it.”

“Free men,” I blurted. The last thing I wanted was a conversation right now -- couldn’t

he

see

that? -- but it wasn’t mine to choose.

“Yes.” He cocked an eyebrow, interested. “Does that make a difference?”

“Free men don’t spend all their lives afraid, only when you give them a reason to be.

Slaves are frightened all the time. Who a master is, or what he does, that doesn’t matter; it’s

the master we’re afraid of. Or the mistress.”

“A little, maybe -- but you’re not seriously telling me that you’re more frightened of a

whipping than you are of magic?”

It wasn’t the whip any more than the magic; it was him. But I’d said that already, and

he’d dismissed or disregarded it. And he was waiting, he wouldn’t let me say nothing; so I

told him a lesser truth, one that should be enough. “You might whip me,” I said, meeting

him eye to eye determinedly, “but you won’t use magic on me.”

“You’re so sure of that?” His mouth twitched, a little mocking, a little disappointed. “Or

perhaps you just have no imagination, hmm? Well, never mind. I don’t bring either one to

bed with me, the switch or the signet. I don’t expect to need them.”

He stepped up in front of me, already erect, and I wanted to drop down and worship

that great straight cock of his: worship it with my eyes and my lips and my tongue and my

fingers, till I saw and felt and tasted it come again.

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Thom Lane

He stopped me, with his hands on my waist; and then we were both on the bed

somehow, though even at the time I wasn’t quite clear how that had happened. Perhaps he

picked me up and tossed me. Perhaps he magicked us both, though I don’t really suppose

he’d waste his magic on a slave. Most likely my giddy mind just forgot to remember how we

went from standing up to lying down, side by side on the covers.

Nothing in my life ever got any better than this. Mistress often let us play together,

sleep together, those slaves she was content with, those nights no free man or woman

wanted us; but even the slaves I loved, Pip or Sharra, couldn’t make me happy the way a

strong master could. Mistress always said I was born to be a slave. I didn’t know about that,

but for sure I was born for this, to seek out ways to please a man.

Usually, with a master it isn’t very far to seek. Confident men, experienced men are

best; they say what they want or else they just take it, no words needed. Master Lucan lay me

down and threw one leg over mine to hold me still. With one hand taking a firm grip of my

hair and the other roaming free across my body, he kissed me, slow and probing and intense.

Some masters kiss, some don’t. Mistresses the same, but it doesn’t mean so much with a

woman. When a man wants to kiss me, I just melt.

Inside, I melt. Outside parts of me -- do other things. As he knew, as he pinched and

flicked at my nipples, as his fingers mocked how erect they were. Even his mouth was

mocking as he kissed me, as his tongue teased at mine. Then his hand strayed down over

chest and belly to find my jutting cock and play with that. His thumb closed over the tip of it

like a warning repeated,

you don’t come till I tell you

, and I groaned deep in my throat, the

only response I could ever give him,

yes, Master

…

Then -- when he was satisfied, when he was done with kissing -- he flipped me over.

One long arm reaching under my shoulder and curling around my chest, because he

did like to feel in control -- he wanted to know that he had me held, one way or another --

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23

and the other hand probing again between my buttocks as I spread my legs wide to make it

easy, to give him room.

There was a pot of perfumed oil at the bedside, always, but he didn’t need it. I was

ready, as ready as I’ve ever been. He slid one finger, two fingers inside me, pressing and

stretching, making sure; then his weight was on my back and he was guiding his cock in to

replace his fingers. Fatter, hotter, more demanding, bullying its way through my ring where

his fingers had inveigled; longer --

unh! much

longer! -- and thrusting, driving, while I

pushed up from the hips to meet him as he thrust, to draw him ever deeper into me…

He came swiftly but never hurriedly, a hard pulsing hammer that shook me as much as

it did him, that left me gasping too. And then, while he was still inside me, he reached

around me to grip my own cock and pull me off mercifully fast.

He laughed when he felt me spurt, just moments it seemed after his hand had closed

around me. Then he kissed the back of my neck, just above my collar; then he slipped out of

me, slapped my rump, and rolled onto his back.

And rolled me over too, so that I lay stretched against the length of him, still

breathless. His arm curled around my neck; his hand played idly with my nipple. He said,

“So how do you come to be a slave, then, young Tam? Who branded you?”

Most masters don’t trouble to talk to us. I nestled closer into the heat of him, dared my

head on his shoulder, and murmured, “Mistress did.”

“Really?”

“Oh -- not her hand on the iron, no. That was the kitchen-master. He brands for the

guild.” And it was the guild’s brand I wore, a simpler sketch of the crest on my tag. Master

Lucan would have recognised it, if he’d troubled to look. “But Mistress had it done.”

“Why so?”

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Thom Lane

“They caught me stealing…” Even after all these years, it was a difficult confession. I’d

been a

good

thief, except for that one stupid day. You only ever get caught once, in

Amaranth; no second chances.

“Tell me.”

“They call us harbour rats -- orphans, street kids, snatching a living any way we could.

Picking purses, raiding stores, begging. Honest work, even, if we could get it. But it was bad

weather, the worst of winter, storms so bad no ship could come near the docks. I was cold, I

was hungry; I sneaked into the stable yard to see what I could snatch. Pip -- he’s the boy

caring for your horse, Master -- he saw me. Slaves were kind to us, sometimes. He let me

hide up in an empty stall, and tried to sneak me some leavings.

“But the kitchen-master saw him, and followed, and found me. Poor Pip was whipped

for it, and me…” I didn’t need to say any more, the story was all there, inevitable: a thief

caught in the act, in their own stable. Wrapped in a house blanket, eating house food

smuggled from the kitchen. I was taken before the mistress and condemned formally,

stripped and tied and left in the scullery till the branding iron was hot, then branded and

collared and tagged. All inside an hour, my life taken from me and my freedom too.

Master Lucan chuckled again; I felt it as much as heard it, deep in his chest. “Your

mistress shouldn’t have had that other lad whipped, he should have been rewarded, bringing

a pretty thing like you into the house. And you, little slut, you should be grateful.”

“Yes, Master. Mistress says so too.” And she was right, they both were. I was fed and

sheltered and dressed, except for punishment; I was safe from anything worse than a beating.

I had work and I had friends, and some nights I got to spend like this, with a man I could

admire, idolise…

Once more, that private chuckle; then he kissed the top of my head and pushed me

away, off his shoulder.

“Quiet now, and sleep. Long day tomorrow.”

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25

“Yes, Master.” All days were long for guildhouse slaves, but some were lighter than

others. Some days, I almost danced my way through them. I was looking forward to

tomorrow.

Later, though, I lay awake in the dark and listened to him as he slept: the slow

measured breaths of a man at ease with himself and his world. I wanted to press close into

the weight of him, the warmth of him, that strong and supple and determined body that so

matched his strong and supple and determined mind. I wanted to, but I didn’t dare. If he was

a light sleeper, if I roused him, he might be angry. The first duty of a house slave, always, is

to please the guests of the house; if a guest complains about a slave -- a boy, say, who woke

him up by being restless or stupid or needy in the night, forgetting his place and his duty --

Mistress’s first reaction, always, is to reach for the whip.

So instead -- slowly, slowly! -- I rolled away from him, and curled up by myself on the

bed’s edge. Hugged my knees to my chest and stared into the dark, still entirely conscious of

his presence at my back, everything I wanted and nothing I could have.

Every house slave I’ve ever talked to -- ever whispered with through a long night,

mostly, because we don’t have time or licence to talk much in the day -- no matter how well

trained we are or how long we’ve worn the collar and the house tag, every single one of us

has felt this way from time to time: suddenly and unbearably lonely, yearning for some other

kind of life and helpless of course to change the one we have.

It was stupid of me to get so upset. There was nothing in my life worth crying over.

Oh, I never knew from one day to the next who I’d be sleeping with that night, or where --

in a bedroom with a guest, in the kitchens with other slaves packed about me, in the stables

with Pip or on my own -- but that wasn’t so terrible. Usually, it wasn’t. Guests were rarely

unkind; Mistress wouldn’t tolerate cruel treatment at anybody’s hands. If I went to bed sore,

it was usually because I deserved it. And I belonged here, to the guild, in the guildhouse; all

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Thom Lane

my grown life I’d been here, and all my friends were here, the few people I loved and

trusted, and…

And I was crying anyway, foolishly, heedlessly; and trying to be quiet about it but not

quiet enough because I’d woken him anyway, the one thing I’d so wanted not to do. I knew

it, I heard it when his breathing changed; and I tried desperately to choke my sobs to silence

but it was too late, he knew.

He didn’t seem to be angry. He drew me close and tucked his body around mine so that

I was nestled against him, almost how I’d wanted to be before, except that I was still turned

away from him; his long arm reached over my shoulder and brushed tears from my cheek,

and his voice murmured, “I didn’t hurt you, surely?”

“N-no, Master. No, of course not…”

“No, I thought not. And it can’t be the beating you had from the kitchen-master, a boy

half your age wouldn’t be crying over that.”

“No, Master.” I’d forgotten it already. It was the kind of licking we expected, day to

day, the kind of soreness we wore like a collar, like a brand, just one more reminder of what

we were.

“No. Well, hush, then.” His hands stroked me, gentled me as they might have done a

nervous colt, worked the tears out of me and the sadness from my bones. When I shifted,

wanting now what I’d wanted earlier, to snuggle into his chest, he said, “No, don’t move,”

and held me just as I was, folded up like a baby within the tight circle of his arms. Then I was

aware of the nudging head of his cock, probing between my buttocks: probing and finding,

pressing against my sphincter and then pushing through in one long straight easy stroke.

For a little while he lay almost still inside me, moving just a little to and fro, just

enough to keep himself erect. I responded by tightening and easing my ring around his shaft,

trying to match his lazy rhythm. He laughed, and kissed my ear lightly; and then he was

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27

away, thrusting deep, deep into me while his arms still held me ruthlessly still, binding me to

him, entirely to serve his slow and steady pleasure.

When he came, it was with a gasp and a spasm, a spurt that I felt and treasured. Just for

a moment longer he held himself inside me; then he grunted in a satisfied kind of way,

slipped himself free and let go, rolling over onto his back.

This time, he didn’t give a thought to me or my own relief. It didn’t matter, hard

though I was -- well, of course it didn’t matter, I was only slave, but there was something I

wanted even more than his hand between my legs. Greatly daring, I took it, quick, before he

could deny me; I twisted round to huddle against his side, to kiss the muscle of his shoulder,

to seek and find his nipple with my tongue. He laughed, put a hand on my head and pushed

me lower. I slithered down under the covers and over his sweat-greased skin, kissing and

licking as I went. The hot, musky smell of his cock drew me like lodestone draws a needle. I

tongued the sticky head of it clean, sucking and swallowing the last of his salty cum; then I

just held it, cradled it in my mouth for as long as there was any stiffness left in it.

Then he moved his hips, just a little, to ease it free. I mumbled a protest against his

skin; his hand reached down to play with my sweat-sticky hair, to quiet me again. I nested

obediently where I was, my head on the firm flatness of his belly, my body wrapping itself

all four limbs around his leg like a monkey around a stick.

After a little, his breathing told me he was asleep again.

After a little longer, so was I.

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Chapter Two

I woke in the morning to his stiff erection and my own, groaningly unsatisfied, as if I’d

been hard all night. Perhaps I had. My hand was on his thigh, my face pretty much buried in

his groin. What little air there was, it was saturated with the heavy scents of a man; I was

sticky all over with his sweat and my own, and I wished I could wake up that way every

morning. Exactly that way, in exactly his bed.

It was a hopeless, stupid wish and I did my best to swallow it down. And just waited,

curled up around my happiness and longing, until I felt him stir. I took the very tip of his

cock into my mouth and held it there as lightly as I could, as firmly as I dared, until his hand

reached down under the covers to finger my hair, to acknowledge me. To give me

permission to please him.

I kissed and nuzzled his cock, played with his balls, licked the shaft from root to tip,

used every little trick I had -- well, except my teeth, I remembered in time not to nip at him.

He didn’t like that.

What else I did, he liked. That was obvious from the way he responded, how suddenly

both his hands were there to grip me, to handle me just the way he wanted.

How quickly he came, in another hot silken gush, almost before I was ready for it.

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His usual grunt after, the little caress to say that he was satisfied; then he drowsed a

little, I think, while my tongue cleaned him up.

And then the covers were flung back and he rolled me out of bed, onto the sheepskin

rugs that covered the floor.

“Oof!”

He laughed and sat above me on the edge of the bed, working my belly with his heel

like grinding a pestle into a mortar, except that mortars don’t usually wriggle and giggle and

yelp, nor beg for mercy, Master, please…

He stilled me at last, with his foot on my ribs, and sat gazing down at me for a minute

with an expression I couldn’t read at all before he said, “Pass me that robe and tell me how to

find the bathhouse; then you’d better run down to the kitchens and get yourself clean and

fed before your day of work begins.”

“I should serve Master first.” That was a house rule: slaves never ate before the guests

they served. Not just in this house, either; I thought it was universal…?

He shook his head, and said, “I’ll eat in the baths.” And kicked me -- not gently -- in

the side, and repeated, “Robe.”

I scrambled to my feet and fetched it, helped him into it as he stood up, said, “Of

course, Master, I can fetch you anything you want, but --”

“No,” he said. “I’ll have a girl attend me. Tell the kitchen-master I want bread and

honey and kaff, no more than that, and a girl to serve it. Which way to the baths?”

“Turn left at the foot of the stairs, and it’s just across the quad there. But, but -- no, let

me bring your breakfast to the baths, let me be the one who…”

I was desolate, and stupid; and blind too, seemingly, because I hadn’t seen him pick his

switch up from the table there, not till I heard the hiss of it through the air, not till I felt the

wicked bite of it across my butt.

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Thom Lane

Once and once again, each one making me gasp, making me chew my lip hard in my

determination not to cry aloud; then he said, “Go,” and still stung me a third time -- just in

that crease between buttocks and thighs, where it really, really stings -- before I could make

myself move.

Maybe it was running naked across the yard in the chill dawn breeze that set tears in

my eyes? Or maybe it was the lines of acid fire across my ass, because Master Lucan had a

lingering technique in his hand. Maybe -- but I think it was just because he’d sent me away,

because he’d spent all night with me and apparently preferred a girl this morning.

Whatever, I was still sniffling when I reached the kitchens, and I should have known

better. The kitchen-master saw it; of course he did, he sees everything. And he sighed, and

waited till I’d given him Master Lucan’s message, till he’d sent a girl running off to attend to

it; then he said, “Show me,” and twisted my ear to make me turn around.

Once he’d seen the welts Master Lucan gave me, he counted them out and added three

more of his own, with the strap he carries wrapped around one meaty fist. Here, there was

no point being proud or stubborn; I yelped with every blow. As I had done pretty much

every day for the last half-dozen years. We might live under Mistress’s discipline, but it was

his strap that enforced it.

Like Mistress, though, he was strict but never cruel; he took care of us, in his way.

After the third stroke, he sent me out into the stable yard to wash under the pump. By the

time I was clean -- and chilled to the bone, breathless with it and feeling no pain now,

utterly numb -- he was there with an old worn towel and a plain kitchen tunic of undyed

linen, just as old and just as worn.

“Dry off, dress, then get to the fire and eat up quickly,” he growled. “You can work the

yard with Pip this morning. I’m expecting to be busy.”

“Yes, Master. Thank you…”

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Thanks earned us a clip round the ear at best, sometimes a flick of the strap, but he

expected them -- and got them -- anyway.

Hunger is a tool of discipline, but a starved slave does poor work. We were fed by the

house just once a day, and by evening we’d do anything for a titbit tossed to the floor; in the

morning, though, there was always food enough to see us through the day.

Always the same oatmeal porridge at heart, it might have grown too dull to bear, but

that the kitchen-master made sure to do something different with it, day by day. Perhaps

he’d have it made with milk or whey instead of water; perhaps he’d sweeten it with an old

dusty jar of honey from the stillroom, too stale to serve to guests. Or he’d bring a stone of

bruised fruit back from the market at day’s end, and we’d have plums in our porridge next

morning, and spit pits at each other for the laugh; or else it might be last night’s leftovers,

meat and bones and greens and all. We liked bones. Anything to chew, to get our teeth into,

we liked that a lot.

Today the porridge was sleek and savoury, glistening with a slick of mutton fat. I

scooped out a bowlful, took a stale crust of yesterday’s bread from the basket to use as a

spoon, and sat with my back to the warm chimney breast and never mind my sore butt,

eating as fast as I could swallow and trying not to think of Master Lucan in the bathhouse

with one of the girls -- Suki or Tara, Merissa maybe? -- towelling him down as he sweated,

oiling him after, serving him hot kaff and cold juice, splashing with him in the plunge-pool.

Cool water and hot mouths. The tug up the steps and out of the pool, into one of the private

booths. Cool, slippery-wet skin, his hard and questing cock like a stranger between them,

heat seeking heat until it found her crack, and so slid home…

We get plenty of food and not much time to eat it, luckily. No time to dwell. I gobbled

one bowl and then another, and didn’t think about Master Lucan too much at all; was just

thinking about a third bowl instead when I saw the kitchen-master coming for me. So I

pushed my spoon-crust into my mouth whole, chewing frantically while I ducked the

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backhander he aimed at my head, while I scrambled to my feet, while he helped me up with

a boot planted where he thought it would do me the most good, just where I was most sore

already.

House staff in the guild mostly hold themselves apart from common slaves: they serve

under the mistress, they deal with guests directly, they think they’re just superior.

Not me; I never got the chance. I’d been a kitchen boy and a stable boy before I was

ever a houseboy, and I guess the kitchen-master thought of me as his own particular

property. He’d caught me, branded me, broken me, and trained me; I guess he had good

reason.

At any rate, I was always finding myself back under his watchful gaze, under his strap,

any time a houseguest didn’t want me. Other houseboys polished silver and waited at table,

waited to run messages, did a lot of waiting. Me, I scrubbed pots half the day with the

scullery girls, when I wasn’t plucking chickens or turning spits or chopping vegetables. As

often as not it’d be sundown before he dismissed me to get washed and pull on a proper guild

tunic, to go and serve the evening in the house.

Or I’d spend the day out in the yard being a stable boy again, scrubbing cobblestones

and mucking out stables, wheeling barrows of dung to the muck heap, grooming horses and

cleaning tack. I liked that better; the work was just as hard but it was good to be out, with

Pip and away from the teasing of the girls. Smellier by the end of the day, but usually not

quite so sore; the kitchen-master didn’t bring his strap out into the yard too often, as long as

we didn’t slack the work.

Out I went, then, scooting past the scullery and into the yard beyond: bright sunshine

and the smell of horses, hard labour and the promise of Pip’s company.

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33

He grinned as soon as he saw me, pressed a bucket and a stiff brush into my hands,

jerked his head at one of the stalls.

“Just in time. You can do the dappled grey, your mage’s mount. Watch out for her near

hind, mind, it’s still sore.”

So was his; he was limping, favouring one foot, hiding it behind the other. I eyed him

suspiciously. Even rain-sodden and halting, she had been a beautiful beast; and I couldn’t

count the number of times Pip had willingly given over a good horse into my care, simply

because it had never ever happened.

I said, “What’s wrong with her?”

“Near hind, I said…”

“Not that. What else?”

“Oh, her temper’s as sore as her leg is. I don’t think it’s the pain; at a guess, she’s just

vicious by nature. She stamps, see?” And he turned his ankle into the light, to show me the

swollen purple bruising.

“Great. Thanks…” But I headed for the stall, no argument. Pip was senior, it was

instinct -- instinct beaten into me, by him and the kitchen-master both -- to do what he told

me. Besides, she was Master Lucan’s mount. If I couldn’t serve him -- oils and steam and

no,

not

going to think about it -- at least I could serve his horse. They could both face the day

clean and fresh and foul-tempered…

“Her name’s Rosinace,” Pip called after me. “And she’s dangerous both ends, and in the

middle too…”

She is, too. If she can’t crush a bare foot under a well-shod hoof or grab a passing

mouthful of boy, she’ll just shift her weight casually, swing her hip across and try to crush

him against the side of the stall. Maybe she likes the smell of blood, maybe she wishes she

were carnivorous, I don’t know; but she’s the meanest beast I’ve ever had the pleasure of

ducking, dodging, dancing around as I groomed her.

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Thom Lane

Even so, I did the best job I could, the best she’d let me, for when Master Lucan came

to see her. Even if he didn’t know I’d done it, even if I never got the chance to tell him. So

long as she was well cared for and on the mend, why would he care who’d done the work,

who was nursing the bruises? But it mattered to me.

So I worked her over till her coat shone, till her long mane was as tangle-free as her

tail, till even she’d lost her passion for violence and was standing quiet, watching me with

one thoughtful eye. I lifted my hand to give her a cheerful parting slap on the rump, changed

my mind hastily as her head turned to target me, and slipped out of there with a promise to

check in on her later, with a carrot if I could scrounge one.

Then there was a team of mules and their harness to see to, and I’d barely finished with

that when a handcart came rattling in through the gates, laden with cider kegs and pulled by

a pair of farm boys, naked and sweating. It’s a hard drag, up the hill to the guildhouse with a

heavy load behind you. I knew.

The young mistress who drove them whistled them to a halt in the yard there, stowed

her whip and jumped down, snapping her fingers for me.

“Rub them down, keep them warm and don’t give them water while they’re hot.

Unload the cart first. Then unhitch the bucks and rest them, let them drink. I’ll be a couple

of hours.”

“Yes, Mistress,” but she was already gone, striding on into the house about her

business.

Young she was, but an old friend of the guild. We bought her cider and her apples too,

and saw her at other times of the year, perhaps every time she came into the city. I’d served

her in the house as well as in the yard; in a guest room, in a bed one long and memorable

night.

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One of her bucks was just as familiar. The other was a new blond lad, younger than me:

nineteen, twenty maybe, and the brand quite fresh on his shoulder, the collar looking heavy

round his neck. It takes a while, to learn to bear that weight. Him, I thought he felt it every

moment.

I fetched an old flour sack ripped open at the seams, and rubbed them down hard. They

both had lash marks on their backs, evidence of the cart’s weight rather than their mistress’s

temper; she wouldn’t do more than sting, unless they faltered. Even the seasoned buck

flinched, though, when my sack met those welts. The younger one gasped, and whispered

“Please…”

I scowled at him, and shook my head. If I knew what his mistress demanded of her

bucks -- and oh, I did; and silence was high on the list there, along with hard work and eager

obedience -- then so should he, by now. He was broken to the whip, but not yet to the

collar. That would come. Quite soon, I thought, as he shivered under my handling. We all

came there eventually, to that day when it wasn’t fear of the whip that had us straining to

please our owners. We all do fear the whip, and with good reason, but submission is nothing

to do with fear; it comes from somewhere else, somewhere deeper and hotter and far more

heartfelt.

This lad wasn’t there yet. He and the other buck were chained together, collar to

collar -- to help him understand, I thought, and perhaps to stop him running. The chain was

long enough and light enough not to impede their work, only that they had to work

together. Their mistress had clipped it to the crossbar of the cart, and not even the young one

was fool enough to touch it; they’d stand there, then, until I released them. I draped sacks

around their shoulders, to stop them cooling down too quickly, and went to help Pip roll

kegs down to the cellar. Wouldn’t want to leave cider standing in the sun.

When the cart was empty, I unclipped the bucks’ chain and took them round to its

shady side, knelt them there. Looped the chain around a hook to hold them, and fetched a

bucket of water with a dipper and some rags. I let each of them drink a dipperful while I

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Thom Lane

washed them down; then I set to washing mud off the wheels, greasing the axles, sweeping

out the cart-bed.

After a while, the youngster started crying. He didn’t speak, he didn’t try to move, just

knelt there as I’d left him and sobbed desperately, yearningly to himself.

His chain-brother ignored him, and so did I. He was clean, or as clean as a farm buck

ever gets; he’d been watered; he was resting, in the shade. It doesn’t come much better.

Masters and their mounts came and went, kept us busy. Slaves too, they came and

went, to help out or bring us extra work or just get in the way. Sharra came, wanting fresh

straw for a mattress in the common dormitory. I said I didn’t have time, she’d have to fetch it

herself. She grabbed my ear and twisted it in a way she had, that would hold me utterly still.

She used to do the same thing when I was young and new, when she was helping to train

me, when she always had a switch in the other hand. This time, she just kissed me. That was

almost as effective; I ran and stuffed a sackful of clean straw, won myself a smile and another

slow kiss, a thoughtful look, a sharply affectionate little slap to the cheek before she went

back inside.

Then there was one more master in the doorway to the house, and I knew him almost

before I’d turned, just from his shadow in the corner of my eye.

When I looked at him clearly, I hardly recognised him. Not for who he was -- he had

written that on my skin, written it again deep in the core of me -- but for how he was

dressed. Not in mage’s black, only some shabby, stained travelling leathers, like any liegeless

mercenary looking for work. We saw a lot of those, in Amaranth and in the guildhouse. Nor

was he wearing mage’s silver in his ear.

I noticed that as I was scudding across the yard towards him, even before he whistled

for me.

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37

A moment later, perhaps he was regretting that summons, or else my eagerness to be

close. I came to a halt beside him; his nostrils flared fastidiously, and he gestured,

take a pace

back. Another

…

When he was satisfied, still all he said was, “Get yourself cleaned up while I check

Rosinace.

Thoroughly

clean, please. I won’t take you into the city smelling of dung.”

Were we going into the city? I beamed; he snorted, and waved me towards the pump.

It’s hard to pump and scrub at the same time. Normally Pip would help me -- with

both, given half a chance: nothing he likes better than scrubbing the skin off my back when

I’m sore already -- but Master Lucan had taken him into the stable, to talk about the devil-

horse’s treatment. I made shift the best I could, and was just rubbing my hair dry when I

heard the Master’s voice behind me, felt his fingers grip my arm.

“Did Rosinace do that?”

His thumb pressed where he meant, where his triple-cursed beast had bitten me, where

the bruise must be already coming up.

No point lying; he knew. I turned to face him, said, “Yes, Master.”

“Good.” Then he laughed at my expression, and said, “Don’t sulk, it means she likes

you. I find that obscurely reassuring.”

I found it conspicuously painful, but I didn’t say so; he’d only laugh again. Or hit me.

Or both.

He ran his eyes lazily over my damp nakedness, sniffed cautiously, and nodded. “Get

yourself dressed now, quickly.”

“I’ll have to fetch guild colours from the house, Master.” If we left the house, we did it

in our proper tunics, whether we were with a guest or running errands; work tunics never

left the yard.

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Thom Lane

Except today, apparently. “No,” he said. “People see you in guild colours, they’ll know

where you belong. Which would tell them something about me, and I don’t want that. Dress

as you were, something shabby and meaningless.”

Like himself, he meant: not disguised, exactly, just not making a statement. He looked

like half the footloose men in Amaranth. In another scrubby linen shift, I’d look like any

scullery boy out from under his kitchen-master’s eye. Or maybe like a body slave at his

master’s heel, if his master was mean enough to dress him in castoffs. Some men were, sure,

and such a man might look a lot like Master Lucan in his worn and faded browns.

I ran into the scullery and out again, pulling a patched and disreputable tunic over my

wet head. He sighed, and tugged it straight for me; took the rope belt from my unresisting

fingers, wrapped it twice around my waist and tied it tight; waited, I thought, for me to steal

a kiss from him while he had me there, in the circle of his arms. So I did that, and was duly

cuffed for it.

“None of that beyond these gates,” he warned me.

“Of course not, Master.” I was better trained than that. In guild colours or not, I still

carried the reputation of my mistress’s house. I’d be the perfect attendant, however he

wanted me.

“Good. You’re a bruised and frightened boy who takes no liberties, who doesn’t dare to.

I expect you can carry that off.”

I nodded. It was a role I knew intimately, from the inside. When you wear a collar,

you’re always scared, at least a little; when you’re a houseboy for the Wayfarers’ Guild,

you’re always bruised, at least a little.

He smiled, reading that on my giveaway face; slaves aren’t allowed to have secrets. “I

wonder if I should leash you? The streets out there are busy, and I wouldn’t want to lose

you.”

I shook my head. “This is my city, Master. I won’t lose you.”

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39

His eyebrow lifted, and his hand too; I thought he was going to cuff me again. I didn’t

try to duck, and didn’t need to. He turned away, snapped his fingers, said, “Heel, then,” and I

trotted obediently in his wake, out through the open yard gate and into Amaranth.

There were particular places he wanted to go, that he couldn’t find without me. It’s

hard to take directions, though, when your guide is following two paces behind your left

shoulder. After a few minutes, a couple of corners -- “turn right here, Master,” “left by the

fountain there” -- and another irritable snap of the fingers brought me up to his side.

His strong hand settled on my neck, two fingers sliding up under the collar to lie either

side of my spine. That drew the iron uncomfortably tight across my throat, but he knew that.

I didn’t say a word.

Out of mage’s black, he didn’t look so crisply domineering, so effortlessly ruthless;

slaves are scared of everyone, but everyone’s scared of a mage. He was still tall and dark and

striking, he’d still attract attention, interest, desire. He still looked the powerful man he was,

he couldn’t shrug that off with his clothes; and I was the one under his hand, the one who

was thrilled to be there, the one who was drinking in every littlest detail of his face…

The one he was glancing at now, a frown fighting with that twitching sideways smile

of his. He shook me quite sharply and said, “Do I have to beat you, to remind you to be afraid

of me?”

I swallowed and mumbled, “No, Master,” and hastily looked down like a well-trained

slave should. He had his switch just there, in the side of his boot, where a well-trained slave

would see it at every step, all the reminder a sensible slave should need.

No well-trained slave would have let him out with his boots in that condition. They

weren’t the same stiff and glossy pair he’d been wearing yesterday; those must still be drying

out after their soaking. These were scuffed and shabby, a well-worn pair of riding boots that

matched the clothes and the persona he was wearing.

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Thom Lane

I wondered how often a mage needed not to look like a mage, if he carried a complete

set of clothes to help him do that. And why he couldn’t do it with magic. And whether I’d

ever have the chance to ask, whether he’d tell me if I did…

For now I had his hand on my nape, where it might have been his leash at my throat or

it might have been nothing at all, he might have left me in the stable yard and taken

someone else out into the city. That was enough for me. That’s how we live, from one

snatched moment to another, and never mind everything that happens in between.

He wanted to see the places Mistress had told him of, where guild members had been

attacked and their premises ransacked. He had the addresses, but I knew them all already.

House discipline frowns on gossip, and of course we gossip anyway, in whispers over our

work and murmured conversations in the dark. Besides, house loyalty is strong, even among

the slaves. Mistress fosters it deliberately; she makes us all proud to wear guild colours, sure

that it’s a privilege to carry a guild tag at our throats. She’d already told us all about the

attacks. She’d even acknowledged that network of whispers that carries news from slave to

slave, from house to house, all across the city: told us to share anything we heard that might

be relevant, to take it directly to her, free of fear or threat.

I took Master Lucan to the silkmart in the merchants’ quarter, where one whole arcade

was just a blackened shell of shattered ironwork after the catastrophic fire that had ripped

through it one night, leaving two watchmen and one desperate merchant dead in its wake.

Word said that it was a sorcerous fire, that nothing else could explain how it had burned so

hot and so fast, and proved so hard to extinguish.

Master Lucan lounged on a corner for a while, just looking at it, like a man with

nothing better to do with his day, or with his boy. I stood subserviently behind him, just

where I’d be in the corner of his eye if he only turned his head, where he could summon me

with a flicker. If he wanted to stand and look for longer, I could be his perfect excuse: he

could pull me close and kiss me, handle me, play with me, treat me as roughly as he liked for

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41

as long as he wanted. There are masters -- and mistresses -- who do that, who enjoy

humiliating their slaves in public. There are slaves trained to respond to it. Not me, but I

wouldn’t need training, not in his hands.

Unfortunately, there are also masters -- and mistresses, of course -- who ignore their

slaves altogether when they don’t actually want service. Master Lucan’s definitely one of

those. I know just how completely I’d dropped out of his head, because when he was finally

done looking, he straightened up and walked away and only then remembered that he didn’t

know where he was going. And only then remembered that he had a guide, and looked

around and snapped his fingers irritably for me.

No hard, hot grip on my neck this time; he was thinking, and I’d be a distraction. He

gestured me ahead.

It’s really hard, leading a master without constantly looking back to check just where

he is. You worry about going too fast, leaving him behind, losing him; you worry about going

too slowly, having him tread on your heels. Especially with those soft old boots of his, that I

couldn’t hear clicking on the pavement.

It’s hard anyway, when you’re a slave trying to make your way through a busy street.

Other slaves are no problem; we might jostle a bit for precedence, but mostly we don’t get in

each other’s way. Trying to negotiate your way past free men or women, though, that’s

always difficult and often painful.

It was doubly awkward, with Master Lucan at my back. He wanted swift guidance

from one site to the next, distraction-free; he was used to people making way for him in his

black, a mage about his business. When he didn’t have that, and he had to follow a slave

trying to dodge and skip past and around and between the elderly and the dawdling couples

and the little static groups, having to step into the gutter more often than I liked, way more

often than he would tolerate, and -- well, I could feel his scowl building blackly, his glare

burning at the back of my head. Any moment now I expected to feel his hand back on my

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Thom Lane

collar, which I wouldn’t mind at all except that perhaps this time it would come with his

switch across my calves, just to alleviate his temper…

What I felt instead -- suddenly, startlingly -- was a rough hand on my arm, jerking me

out of the flow of traffic, into a shady doorway; and a hissing, leering voice in my ear, “Well,

here’s a pretty thing not dressed up so pretty as he usually is… Where are you off to in such

a hurry, little Idris?”

I rooted my gaze on my feet -- dirty now, and wet from the gutter-slime that I really

hoped Master Lucan hadn’t stepped in too -- and muttered, “Please, Master, Idris was my free

name…”

Which he knew perfectly well, but he’d beat me if I didn’t tell him. We’d been through

this before. Too often.

He laughed. “Oh, that’s right, isn’t it? Just a slave boy now. Let’s see, what do they call

you again…?”

His fingers were at my throat, finding my tag and at the same time forcing my chin up,

so that in the end I had to meet him eye to eye.

He called me “little,” but he was shorter than I was, and scrawnier with it. None of that

mattered; what did matter, the only thing that mattered was that he was free and I was slave

and oh, he did love to remind me of it.

We were never friends, maybe, but we had been thieves together, before I was caught

and collared. More than one winter we’d worked together, roomed together, even slept

together for the warmth when it turned bitter cold. He’d been lucky where I wasn’t, that

was all the real difference between us. He was still free, as like as not still thieving alongside

the mean little jobs he picked up on the docks. Not that he got much benefit, thieving or

working: his clothes were cheap and his breath was bad and meanness was all he had in

plenty. I’d always been a better thief than he was; these days I was a lot cleaner too. No one

would choose to be a slave, trust me -- to be one particular man’s slave, perhaps, but one man

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can always sell you to another -- but every time I saw Brion, I thought I’d almost rather be

me than him.

Almost.

He glanced at my tag, as though he hadn’t done the same thing a dozen times before.

“Oh yes, Tam, of course. I never can remember that. It’s such a common slave-name, too; I

mean, this tag’s not exactly new, is it?”

It wasn’t. It was worn so thin, the edges were razor-sharp and I could hardly make out

the writing in a mirror, where it said my name. I couldn’t guess how many boys it had tagged

before me. The kitchen-master just picked it at random from a box, after he’d hammered the

collar round my neck; when I was sold, no doubt it’d go back into the box, to be used again.

In the guild, they use what they’ve got. Why name a slave and then have to cut a tag

specially for him, when of course they have tags left over to reuse? Let the tag name the

slave; it’s more practical.

“So tell me, pretty Tam,” he went on in a greasy murmur, “what are you doing, so far

from where you belong?”

“On an errand, Master.”

“Don’t lie to me. Your mistress doesn’t send you out on errands in a kitchen tunic. If I

take you back up there right now, d’you think there’s any chance I’ll see you whipped for

cutting work…?”

He spoke as if he was certain, as if he relished the opportunity. I’d have liked to put

him straight myself, but it’s not wise or safe for a slave to correct a free man.

Besides, I didn’t need to.

“Not a hope of it,” a strong, dark voice broke in on us quietly. “The boy’s with me.”

I guess that blinking out of the shadow of the doorway, all Brion could see at first was

what Master Lucan was wearing. His first startlement faded quickly to his usual sneer. He

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Thom Lane

would never admit any man was better than him, unless he had more money; and there was

no money in those old shabby leathers.

“Oh, so what, he’s cutting work to sneak off and idle with his friend, is he? Just because

you’re free, don’t think the guild will spare a lazy boy a flogging. I know his mistress, and…”

Brion’s voice trailed away as his eyes adjusted, as he saw the true man inside those

clothes: the height of him, the strength of him, the cold snap of his eyes.

“Do you, indeed?” Master Lucan murmured. His turn to look Brion up and down now,

with a cold disdain that made even me shiver. “Well, so do I, and she knows me,” which was

another way to say

I don’t suppose she’d recognise you if she trod in you on the doorstep

,

which was entirely true and entirely crushing. “I’m a guest in her house, as it happens.

Which is why I have borrowed one of her boys. And I’m in a hurry, which is why you

should let him go now and not detain us any longer.”

Which is what Brion did, muttering something incoherent and scooting away into the

crowds. I didn’t need to catch the glance he threw back over his shoulder, to understand that

I would be in trouble next time he caught up with me, but that meant nothing to Master

Lucan. It was his own wasted time that concerned him, not my future bruises.

He lifted an eyebrow at me, and said, “One of your old friends, I take it?”

No point arguing over what was or wasn’t friendship. I just whispered, “’S, Master,” and

dropped my gaze.

“Mm. Do you remember what I said at all, about wanting to remain inconspicuous?”

It wasn’t the sort of question that needed answering. I just shuffled my feet, and

waited.

When it came, the explosion was actually quite soft, and didn’t hurt at all. “Oh, by all

the gods, boy! What, did you think I was going to thrash you, just because that little gutter-

slime chooses to torment you?”

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45

I glanced up at him sideways, read the expression on his face and decided that honesty

was the only possible course. “Um, yes, Master…”

He did have his switch right there ready in his hand. His gaze followed mine, and he

made an odd, exasperated noise as he thrust it back into his boot. Then, reluctantly, he

nodded. “All right. If I’d been a fraction more out of temper, I might have taken it out of

your hide. And I’ve known men -- yes, and women too -- who’d have done it as a matter of

course. If that young toad ever owns a boy, that’s how he’ll treat him, I’m sure. But -- well,

never mind.” He spread his hands wide, to emphasise their emptiness,

look, no switch

, and

stepped into the doorway with me, for its pretence at privacy. It was hardly unusual, to see a

man snatching such a moment with his slave. I still hung back, though, until his hands

settled on my body and pulled me close.

“Poor little Tam,” he murmured in my ear, half laughing at me despite the haste I could

still sense in him. “No one’s kind to you, are they? It’s not your fault if you’re pretty enough

to stand out like a fire on a mountain in a desert night, but I was still half ready to beat you

for it.”

Me, I was half ready to come there and then, as his hands gentled me like a horse, as

his long fingers cupped my buttock, as I pressed myself against him.

He must have felt how hard I was; there was an eruptive impatience in his voice as he

said, “Good gods, boy, have you no self-control at all?”

At least that was a question I could answer. “No, Master,” I said happily. Sharra was

always telling me so. “That’s why I need a collar, and someone else to control me…”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he murmured, though in truth he could control me

with a word, and he knew it.

In fact, he didn’t bother even with a single word. He just put his hand on my shoulder,

slipped his thumb under my collar for added control and marched me out of the doorway

and on along the street. Looking a lot less like a trained body slave, I guess, and much more

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Thom Lane

like a cheap dockside slut he’d picked up for an hour’s amusement in any one of the handy

taverns. Well, in this neighbourhood, at least that made us fairly inconspicuous. I ducked my

head and nestled as close as he would let me to his side. Purely to avoid anyone else

recognising me, obviously.

I’d have put my arm around his very solid, muscular waist, if I’d only dared to. Purely

to make it easier to steer him where he wanted to go, obviously.

In the warehouse district behind the docks, there were guild badges above half the

doors and gateways, to show whose protection they lay under. Even expecting it, looking for

it, I was still shocked to see one of those broad gates broken off its hinges, the badge lying

broken in the dust of the road.

“You’d best retrieve that badge,” Master Lucan murmured. “Later. No one’s touched it

all this while; I don’t suppose anyone will touch it in the next hour.”

“No, Master.” I didn’t much want to touch it myself. I knew the story of what had

happened here; I’d even known the men who owned this warehouse. Father and son, they

imported earthenware from down the coast, simple pots and plates and beakers that they

sold in enormous quantities to half the taverns in the city, fancier crockery that went to

houses higher up the hill. We saw them often in the guildhouse; they supplied us and half

our members too, and conducted half their business in our steamroom.

They used to. Now they were dead, both of them, cruelly and distressingly dead, and

all their stock was in flinders. No fire here, just some dreadful destructive force, as though a

small typhoon had been unleashed within the walls of their warehouse.

There was a low wall opposite the gate, with a canal beyond. It might have been made

for idlers to sit there in the sun, chewing something narcotic. Master Lucan sat, and pushed

me to my knees at his feet; he took a dark wad out of his pocket and a knife from his belt, cut

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off a corner and popped it into his mouth. Halfway to wrapping the wad and putting it away

again, he checked himself and glanced down.

“You want some?”

“Uh, Mistress doesn’t let us chew --”

“Nor should she; nor would I. But this is pressed dates. And I withdraw the question; of

course you want some. Today, as a special treat” -- with a warning tap of the knife handle to

my nose -- “you can have a little of what you want.”

I opened my mouth to let him slide a sliver of that dark, dense sweetness between my

teeth, and tucked it quickly into my cheek, not to lose the chance of licking the residue off

his fingers.

He tutted, and dried them fastidiously in my hair. I settled happily against his leg, my

head on his thigh, and said, “Master?”

It was a risk; he wasn’t much of a one for chatting to slaves, by what I’d seen so far; but

chewing pressed dates wasn’t much of a solace for a man not used to being bored. His long

fingers found my hair again, and played with it gently; his voice was prepared to indulge me.

“Well?”

“What are we watching for?”

Warm leather under my cheek, firm flesh under the leather; cool fingers discovering

the outlines of my ear; an edge of buried laughter in his voice as he said, “Well, if you want

to, you can watch the street, see if you can spot who’s watching us. I thought you’d more

likely go to sleep. Most of the boys I’ve had to put up with, give them sunshine and no work,

they’re away dozing in minutes.”

I’d have liked to doze, right there and just like that, my head pillowed on his thigh;

but, “Is somebody watching us?”

“Sure to be. Whatever they’ve done here, the people who did it, they know the guild

will seek to strike back; but the guild can’t do anything until it’s understood just what was

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done here. So someone will be sent to investigate, and someone else will be watching for that

investigator. Hopefully, they won’t see him in me --”

“Us --”

“

Me

” -- with a sharp flick of my ear that made me yelp, didn’t make me move my

head -- “but there will certainly be someone looking. You can look for him, while I look

for…other things that interest me.”

Later:

“Well?”

“Well, you said ‘him,’ but…”

“But?”

“But I think it’s the woman selling sweetmelon slices, down on the corner there.”

“Why so?”

“Because she’s not seriously trying to sell them, she’s just sitting there; and when

someone does stop to buy one, she doesn’t cut fresh, just hands him one of those she’s got

laid out on her blanket, baking in the sun. Sweetmelon goes flabby when it’s warm, it’s

horrid, only fit for slaves,” which was a hint I hoped he might pick up on; flabby and warm,

horrid or not, a sweetmelon slice on a hot day is still better than no sweetmelon slice on a

hot day. “And she keeps looking this way.”

“Maybe she’s hoping I’m a customer. Any man fool enough to sit in the sun above a

reeking canal is probably fool enough to pay good money for warm sweetmelon. Even if it’s

only for his slave.”

“Yes, Master, but she could just shift to the other side of the alley and she’d be in the

shade…”

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49

“Oh, I didn’t say you were wrong. On the contrary, I trust your instincts in this. It’s

your city, these are your streets, you should know who’s genuine and who’s not; that’s one

reason I brought you. Now be quiet.”

That was no trouble, so long as he let me stay where I was, so long as I had his hand on

my head, his fingers to kiss when they strayed anywhere near my mouth.

At last, though, he stirred, he stood; he slapped the back of my skull to get me up; I ran

across the road to snatch up that fallen guild badge, slipped it inside my tunic and hurried to

my place at his heel. As he walked past the sweetmelon seller, he did drop a copper onto her

blanket, did sign to me to snatch up a slice of the fruit, did let me munch it as we walked.

When I’d gnawed it down to the rind -- and tossed the rind to a beggar-girl on the

wharf, because there’s always someone worse off than you are -- I wiped my sticky mouth on

my arm and said, “Master?”

He didn’t look back, but I heard the soft sigh in his voice as he said, “Well?”

“Aren’t you going to, you know, watch her? Follow her?”

“No point.” He stopped by a horse trough and said, “Wash your face, you’re a mess.”

While I splashed, while I rinsed my mouth out and took the chance to gulp a drink, he

went on talking. “She’ll be there all day; and come the evening she’ll only make a report to

some runner in a tavern. Who’ll make his own report to someone higher. We can’t follow

them all. It’s just interesting, to know there was a watch.”

He’d known already that there would be. He was just pleased to be proven right. I

didn’t say so; I was feeling bold, but not that bold. I straightened up and said, “Can’t you

magic her? Make her tell you what she knows?”

“Not as she is now. Those are not my skills.” He looked me up and down, and pulled a

long-suffering face that suggested I might do now, at a pinch. “Are you that impatient to see

magic done?”

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Thom Lane

I nodded shyly. Of course I was. I’d feared and been awed by mages all my life, like

everyone I knew, and I’d never seen the least hint of a spell cast. They traded on their

reputation, the kitchen-master said, like bullies or duellists or diplomats. He said it

scornfully, but no one could scorn Master Lucan.

“That’s because you’ve never seen it. It’s more dreadful than marvellous, Tam. Which is

why we do it as little as possible. As opposed to washing, which we do often. I expect a boy

to keep himself clean, without being told.”

“Yes, Master.” I hadn’t had a chance until now, but you learn very early not to argue,

ever, with the one who holds the switch.

“Now, I don’t suppose there’s any point asking if there’s a guild-approved tavern

somewhere near?”

“Uh, they all are…” If a dockside tavern didn’t sport a guild badge above the door, it’d

get precious little custom.

“That’s what I meant, no point asking. Can you find me a clean one? Short on sluts” --

with a look at me that said

I seem to be bringing my own

-- “and long on good food and

well-kept beer?”

“Yes, of course, Master. Hoakie’s is the best” -- at least its customers had always

supplied the best pockets for picking, back when I was a thief -- “but it’s a bit of a climb…”

He looked where I was pointing, to the headland above the harbour, where Hoakie’s

balcony had always made a lookout point for merchants waiting to see their ships come in.

“That doesn’t matter. By the time we get there, perhaps you’ll have stopped dripping.”

When a master turns away and you don’t even think of pulling a face at his back, that’s

when you know just how deep your training goes. I heeled him politely, working my fingers

through wet tangles as we went. The sun was hot enough that my hair was more or less dry

before we were halfway up the hill.

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That was about when we realised there was trouble up above. It was the sounds that

reached us first, screams and stranger, darker noises, the sounds of great things breaking.

Then there were running footsteps, and then the people who made them: men and women,

free and slave, indiscriminately fleeing. One or two were sobbing as they ran; one girl was

still screaming in a high, breathless monotone.

Master Lucan beckoned me forward, snapped, “What else lies up this road?”

“Nothing. Just Hoakie’s…”

“That’s what I feared. Come on.”

So we ran against the current, the tide of terror coming down the hill; and came up

onto the little plateau where Hoakie’s stood, and found ourselves confronted by absolute

disaster.

Something obscure and terrible had happened to the tavern. There’d be no more

telescopes on the high balcony; it was gone, fallen, leaving a great scar across the frontage

and splintered boards and rails -- and bodies -- in the yard.

More than that, though, worse than that: the white two-storied tavern itself had a

slumped and leaning appearance, like a cake falling in on itself. Even as we arrived, there was

another of those dreadful, bone-deep cracks, as some massive beam snapped inside the

building. A roof-gable twisted, a thousand tiles cascaded to the cobbles below, another

woman screamed.

Not everyone had fled; it was customers, mostly, and their own attendants we’d met on

the hill. The tavern’s own staff, the bolder clients and the curious, some of the distressed

were still here in knots and tangles, coughing in the dust of this collapse but standing more

or less out of danger.

Old Hoakie himself stood in front of them all, closest to the tavern, watching his world

come down.

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One of his daughters was at his elbow; from the way his eyes were fixed on the stable

yard, I could guess where his sons were. There were horse-screams coming from that

direction, and I didn’t want to see any more clearly than he was, his eyes filled with dust and

tears together.

Master Lucan strode straight up to the pair of them and said, “Can I help?”

He said it to the woman, not the old man. She barely spared him a glance. “Later,

perhaps. Not yet, unless you’re a mage. Or immune.”

“As a matter of fact…” His hand went to his ear, swiftly and neatly fitting the silver of

his mastery. She gasped, one hand lifting in nervous apology; he shrugged that away, and

snapped his fingers for me.

“Run back to the guildhouse, tell your mistress what has happened here. There was a

cart, in the yard; fetch that back.”

With that he turned away, not even waiting my ritual acknowledgement, “Yes,

Master.”

So I still didn’t get to see magic done, whatever it was that he could do in the face of

such catastrophe. This was one thing he could do immediately, he could make best use of me.

You can’t learn to be a good thief unless you’re a good runner; he might have known that.

For sure he knew that I could find the quickest way through the city’s tangle of alleys and

lanes.

I ran, and almost surprised myself how soon I was gasping out the news before my

mistress. She nodded, took the guild badge that I thrust at her almost incidentally, started

giving me swift instructions; for the first time in my life, I dared to interrupt her.

“Please, Mistress, Master Lucan said I was to bring the, the cider-cart…”

“Did he so? You’d best hurry, then; young Sharrol was on her way to market. Go.”

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I went at a sprint -- racing through the scullery, past the astonished kitchen-master --

and just caught the cart as it rattled out of the stable yard. And did another thing I’d been so

trained not to do, raised my voice to yell after it, “Mistress, wait! Please, wait…!”

She heard me, and called her bucks to whoa. The cart came to a stop in the alley; I

trotted up past the wheels, and she gazed down at me -- sweaty and gasping as I was -- with a

kind of curious contempt. Her driving whip was in her hand, and she wasn’t shy of using it; I

only had a moment.

“Please, Mistress, the guildmistress sent me to say” -- not quite true, but I didn’t think

she’d call me on it -- “our guest the master mage Lucan has urgent need of a cart, and the

guild would be most grateful…”

“Something else has happened?”

I nodded.

“Very well. Where is he?”

“At Hoakie’s tavern, Mistress, on the head above the harbour.”

“I don’t know that. You’d better jump up and direct me.”

“Yes, Mistress. Thank you…”

I hauled myself up to stand beside her, and took tight grip of the handrail. This wasn’t a

sprung carriage; it was a farm-cart and the ride would be rough.

She snapped her whip neatly between the heads of her two bucks. The young one shied

away from the sound, which won him a flick of the lash across his shoulders and a sharp

word: “Steady, there. Trot on.”

They fell at the word into a swift trot, easy going with the empty cart. That was how

she drove, by whip and will: no reins, no fancy harness. The neck-chain held them tethered

to the shaft, but that was temporary, just till the youngster was properly broken and trained.

I wasn’t sure she needed it even now. At the moment he obeyed her word because he feared

her whip, but that would change. Sooner or later he’d obey her word because she was

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mistress and he was slave. He might not even notice when the day came; certainly he would

still fear her whip, and she’d ensure that he had reason to, but he’d be broken to the collar

none the less. As the older buck was, as we all were.

It was slower work, inevitably, getting back. We couldn’t take the cart at anything like

my hectic running pace, nor use the narrow steps and byways that I’d taken. We had to go

the long way, down to the dockside and along to the tavern road; I might have been gone an

hour by the time we finally reached the tavern. I was half afraid Master Lucan would work

his switch on me for being slow, harder than Mistress Sharrol had worked her whip to bring

us here. My back crawled a little, in anticipation.

He’d been busy, though, and so had others, what time I’d been away. The tavern hadn’t

noticeably collapsed any further; if there was magic shoring it up I couldn’t tell, but Master

Lucan had certainly sent another runner to his own chapterhouse, to ask for healers’ help. I

could see one black-clad mage in the stable yard, bent over a wounded horse, while another

was working his way through a dishevelled, distressed group who must have been Hoakie’s

customers, inside the tavern when the collapse started. The house slaves made another

group, clustered around their own wounded, doing what they could for themselves until a

mage was free to attend to them.

I still didn’t get a chance to see magic at work, not even the simplest of healing-spells.

Master Lucan was gesturing impatiently for our attention, standing beside three long bundles

wrapped in incongruous bright cottons. No guesses needed: those were the bodies of the

dead, recovered from the rubble. Why he might want them was another question entirely,

and one I was entirely not going to ask.

Mistress Sharrol called her bucks to a halt close by. I jumped down and he ignored me

utterly, speaking up to her, polite but peremptory: “Thank you for coming. Will you take me

and these” -- a broad gesture, to encompass the bodies -- “back to the guildhouse, as swift as

may be?”

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“Of course,” she said, “but why not to your own chapterhouse? It’s closer, if there’s a

hurry.”

“There is -- but I need quiet if I’m to achieve anything,

spiritual

quiet, and the

chapterhouse is full of noise. Broken books and failed sendings, ill-worked spells interfering

with each other and everyone else… It’s the last place to try a serious working.”

I noticed that she also didn’t ask,

what are you going to do with three bodies

? She just

nodded, and made a gesture towards the bed of her cart,

help yourself

. Then she jumped

down and walked forward, slapped her lead buck’s rump and spoke a word to him quietly,

gave him something to suck from a pouch at her waist; spent longer with the youngster

because he was shifting nervously where he stood, scared of the mage and unsettled by the

corpses. She stroked his flank and talked to him, teased his lips with another piece of the

candy before she slipped it into his mouth and let her fingers linger for a moment, as

intimate as a kiss.

Then Master Lucan’s switch caught me across the calves, and a gesture of his head sent

me scurrying to the back of the cart, where he’d organised a couple of the tavern’s boys to

load those bodies in.

I didn’t get to ride in the cart on the way back. Master Lucan, of course, was up beside

the mistress. I ran behind, dragging on the tail-rope to make a brake as we went cautiously

downhill, not to let it run away from her; pushing as best I could when we started uphill

again. With five aboard -- and three of those corpses, which always seem heavier than living

people -- plus the weight of the cart itself, I thought the bucks up front would be glad of any

help I could give them. As it was, I heard the mistress using her whip more seriously now,

working them hard. Me, I was just glad not to have her behind me.

We came at last to the guildhouse and the stable yard. Master Lucan had Pip and me

unload the corpses and carry them into an empty stable, lay them in a neat line on the bare

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flagstones underfoot. Coming out of the gloom, I saw that the two bucks were steaming in

the sun, but they didn’t get to rest again; as soon as we had the last body out of the cart, their

mistress called a goodbye to Master Lucan and a sharp “Trot on” to them, further sharpened

with a snap of her whip. The cart clattered out of the yard, off to load up with supplies from

market before the long pull home.

Master Lucan came to see how we had disposed the wrapped bodies. Once he’d nodded

his approval, I asked what more we could do to help him.

He said, “Nothing. Go find other work to do. Go on, out.”

As briskly as that, he dismissed us, and bolted the door against us. Against me. Pip

didn’t care; he hadn’t liked touching the bodies, and Master Lucan scared him, all the more

now with the mage’s silver in his ear again.

I felt bereft, after the long day at his side: bereft and almost angry. I was a part of this,

and I wanted to know, I wanted to

see

…

When I set foot on the loft ladder, Pip seized my arm and hissed, “Stupid! What are

you

doing

? He said --”

“I know what he said. I don’t care. Let me go.”

“I could tell the kitchen-master. I should do.”

We both knew he should. If he did, I’d be whipped for this; if he didn’t and I was

caught anyway, we’d both be whipped.

I just shrugged, pulled free of his grip and started climbing. He wouldn’t tell. There’s a

code of honour, even among slaves; you cover for your brothers, whatever the cost.

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Chapter Three

The hayloft runs the whole length of the stable block, but it’s only half the width.

Once you’re up there, you can look down into every separate stall. Walking on a bed of hay,

you can do it really quietly, unnoticed. We all know; we’ve all done it.

I’d never done it quite so nervously, with my heart so jumpy and my hands all of a

sweat.

Sometimes whole caravans come at once, that’s why the stables have to be so extensive.

Just then, though, there were barely half a dozen animals in the stalls. Master Lucan had had

us lay the bodies out right down the other end, not to spook the horses with the smell of

death. Or anything that followed, anything he did.

I had an idea, of course, by now. I thought I knew what he’d do. So did Pip; that’s the

real reason he was trying to stop me, it wasn’t about a whipping. He was terrified.

So was I, but I was determined too. Even if it was what I thought, what I feared. I still

wanted to see.

As sneaky as I could, then, I made my way down the hayloft. The last dozen paces I

didn’t pace at all; I did them on my belly, squirming.

And peeped over the edge, and there he was, standing grimly above the corpses.

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Thom Lane

With their faces unwrapped and eyes wide open, lying on their backs, they seemed to

be gazing straight up at me. I reminded myself urgently that they were dead, seeing nothing,

nothing to say…

Master Lucan didn’t seem to think so. For a long time he just stood over them,

intensely focused, watching, first one and then another, down the line and back again. It

reminded me -- just a little -- of how he’d been this morning, watching the places where the

attacks had come. Like he was watching for something I had no hope of seeing.

Except that those had just been buildings, and this was -- something else.

I kept waiting for him to do something, to work magic; he kept on -- well, not

disappointing me, no. Never that. Frustrating me, perhaps.

Not something I wanted him to know. Ever.

He hadn’t even changed into his blacks. I don’t know why I thought the dead might be

more impressed by a man dressed up darkly, but I did. Maybe I’m just stupid; I get told so, all

the time.

At any rate, Master Lucan leaned against the wall in those shabby leathers, and

watched; and eventually -- at last, at long last! -- he spoke.

He said, “You might as well come out, you know,” and I nearly, I so nearly stood up

and clambered down to face his anger. He still wasn’t looking up, but he said it simply and

conversationally, and who else would he be talking to but me…?

Luckily, I was scared enough that my body felt weirdly heavy, it needed an effort just

to make that first move; and while I was still trying to find the courage, something happened

down below.

There was a stirring in the air above one of the bodies, the one that Master Lucan was

staring at. I caught my breath, heard myself do it, discovered that actually I could move after

all, I could duck back out of sight faster than anything. I hoped. Faster than his eyes could

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59

have spotted me, anyway, if he’d happened to catch that sound and glance upward. I

hoped…

I don’t think he moved at all, though. I think he kept his eyes fixed rigidly on that

body, and what was happening above it. After a moment, I slid forward again to peep

downward, to see. I couldn’t help myself.

There was still that agitation in the air, like a glimpse of something not quite actually

there; and as I watched, the body it hung over sat up.

Not in any human way, not like it was living. More like it was a puppet, with strings at

every joint: like it was being pulled from above, into a sitting position first and then onto its

feet. It stood up into that twisted air -- or, no, that twisted air drew it up, I thought, and then

dressed itself in the body, like it was pulling on a suit of clothes.

You couldn’t say the body took on life, it still looked utterly dead; but it was definitely

inhabited.

Which was when I knew for sure, what had been fairly obvious for a while now.

Master Lucan was a necromancer, that was his skill and his practice. All mages are dark at

heart, that’s why even the free fear them, it’s a grim trade; but necromancers are the darkest.

Those hands that had held and used me, that voice that had laughed at me and commanded

me, that mind that had seemed to strip me bare even before his hands did: they had done the

same and done worse to the bodies and the spirits of the dead…

Were doing it, even now. Master Lucan gazed neutrally at the body before him --

though I thought he was seeing the spirit that animated it -- and said, “Tell me what you

were.”

The voice was distant, difficult, hideously cracked; it sounded nothing human. It was

nothing human any more. It said, “I am…I was a merchant, in ivory and jade.”

“Do you know what has happened to you?”

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Thom Lane

“Yes,” flatly. I thought that must be terrible, to have died and be spirit and to know it;

but then I thought that this must be worse, to be forced back into that broken body and

made to speak about it.

“Tell me where you were when you died, and what doing.”

“At the tavern on the bluff. Talking, on the balcony.”

“Talking with whom?”

“Names are…difficult. Memory is not the same.”

“Names are unimportant. What was he or she, that you talked to? How would I know

them now?”

“Another trader. She dealt in furs; we spoke of a compact. She wore green velvet, with

a gold brocade.”

Master Lucan glanced at his other bodies --

his other victims

, I nearly thought, until I

remembered that he was only inquisitor here, and the results of his examination might lead

to justice, or at least to vengeance -- and grunted in satisfaction. Yes, he had her too. The

third body had an iron collar at her neck: the serving-girl who had attended them, most

likely. Which meant most likely that everyone who’d been on the balcony was dead. Which

could be no surprise to anyone who’d seen it, or the ripped raw wound where it had been.

What had caused that, though, what had brought it down…

Well, that was what the dead should have seen, and should be able to report. That was

why this interrogation.

That was Master Lucan’s next question, indeed. He kept it simple, direct, as he had all

along, as though subtleties would be too complex for the dead.

“What killed you?”

“A stone on my head, after I had fallen.”

Too simple. He tried again. “Why did you fall?”

“The balcony collapsed.”

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61

One more time, working his way backward, upward, through the logic of the dead,

with a patience he never showed to the living: “Why did it collapse?”

“A demon came and tore it down.”

At last, this was what he wanted; his voice sharpened with interest.

“What kind of demon?”

Silence. What did a ghost, the ghost of an ivory merchant, know of demons?

Only what he had seen, obviously. Master Lucan made a gesture of impatience -- aimed

at himself, I thought -- and tried again.

“Describe the demon.”

“It was…like a fire in the air, like lightning folded in on itself again and again, and

bound with wires of flame.”

That was poetic, I thought, for a dead man.

Master Lucan obviously thought it was enlightening. He said, “What did it do?”

“It came over the sea; we saw it, watched it come, couldn’t understand what it was.

Someone screamed, but it was too late, we had no time, it was so fast… It struck the balcony

and the floor disintegrated, and we fell. And then the stones came down on top of us, and we

died.”

And after that, of course, there was nothing he had to say. His spirit only knew what

his body had seen and done.

Master Lucan let him go, then. He made a gesture of dismissal, and the corpse

collapsed, as empty as it had been before. I thought there was a faint dissipation in the air,

but nothing I could dream of touching, nothing solid enough to see.

One by one, Master Lucan called the other two spirits back into their bodies. He was

just as clear, as cold, as dispassionate with each of them; he made no distinction between free

and slave, among the dead. Perhaps there is no distinction, though the priests say otherwise.

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Thom Lane

There was really nothing they could tell him, to add to what he knew: only different

descriptions of the demon, different degrees of terror distantly remembered. The slave girl

had seen it first; it had been the free woman who had screamed, when she realised it really

was coming right at them and not going to stop.

One by one, he questioned them; one by one, he let them go. Time seemed to pass

swiftly, but I guess not. It was growing dark outside by the time he was done; I could barely

see his face in the gloom.

He could barely see mine either, but just enough. Not that he needed to; he knew just

where I was.

With the dead man he’d been patient, laconic, prepared to wait. With me, he just said,

“Come down, boy.”

I went. Years of obedience training do that to you; your body reacts even before your

mind can catch it up. Maybe masters have master-training, to learn the whipcrack voice they

need, to make it work?

There wasn’t a ladder at this end of the loft, but I didn’t hesitate; I swung myself over

the edge, climbed down the beams, dropped onto some bales of straw and so to ground.

I’d have kept going that little bit further, to my knees at his feet, but he didn’t give me

the chance. As soon as I was there in front of him, he said, “Strip, and bend over those bales.”

Again, I was doing it -- untying the rope belt, slipping the tunic off my shoulders,

letting it fall -- before he’d even finished the sentence. Before I’d had a chance to shiver at

his anger, or in anticipation of the consequences.

He already had his switch in his hand. I did have time, just, as I bent across the prickly

hard surface of the straw, to feel grateful that it wasn’t worse, that he wasn’t looking for a

whip.

Then his hand was on the back of my neck, gripping my collar and holding me down. I

felt the cool flexibility of his switch, stroking lightly down my back -- as if he couldn’t resist

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63

playing, just for a moment, angry as he was -- and then it was gone, and for half a second

there was only his breathing and my own. I clenched my hands deep into that straw, and

waited.

The switch cut the air so hard, I could almost hear its bleeding.

Then it bit deep across my shoulder blades, and lingered a moment until he drew it

away, leaving a searing line of fire in my flesh.

Then again that pause in the world, again the hiss of the switch through the air, again

the bite, a neat thumb’s width below the first.

The first hadn’t even started to fade yet. Master Lucan has this brute of a technique,

where after he’s struck he drags the switch through the line of the welt it’s going to leave:

not hard enough to tear the skin, he doesn’t like to leave a slave bloody, but enough to make

you want to scream, it feels like your whole skin’s aflame.

I didn’t scream, but I did chew the inside of my mouth raw, trying to stop myself. And

I did gasp, and then grunt, and then sob. I was utterly in tears before he was done.

Twelve strokes he gave me. Twelve measured, equal, unhurried strokes. Then he

sighed, and put his switch away; and ran his hand over my buttocks and then between my

legs, and fondled my balls and found my cock already stiff and snorted his contempt, and

said, “What were you doing up there?”

Punishment first, questions after. Of course.

It was another minute before I could talk. He waited, playing with me, parting the

cheeks of my ass and probing gently with his finger against my sphincter, testing to see how

receptive I was and then slipping it inside, giving me another reason to gasp.

I swallowed, rubbed my wet face on my forearm and said, “I…I wanted to see…”

“To see magic?”

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“Yes, Master.” No point begging his forgiveness, for spying on him; no one forgives a

slave. They punish, and that’s that. Even this degree of curiosity was unusual. I’d been

beaten, I knew why; what was there to talk about? I did wonder if maybe he wanted to fuck

me now, if that’s what his hands were working up to, but that didn’t need discussing…

“Did you enjoy it?”

“N-no, Master, it was terrible.”

“Quite.”

“But…”

He thought he’d made his point, dealt with it. Dealt with me. I really should have had

the sense to stop. Too late.

He stopped distractedly tormenting me, and repeated, “But?”

“But…but I’m still glad I saw it. Master.”

He took a step away and I thought I was maybe going to get another beating, straight

off.

“Why?”

“Because I know more now. I didn’t know, before.” It was an aspect of him that was

hidden from me, one part of his mystery. Now I had it, or a little of it, one swift glimpse

through the curtain. And yes, it was terrible, but it still added to his dark glamour, that he

could do such things. That the spirits of the dead would listen to him, and answer his call and

his questions.

I didn’t tell him all of that, and hoped I wouldn’t need to.

For a moment, I guess he really was thinking of taking his switch out again and moving

on from my back, down my buttocks and thighs.

The moment passed; he gave a weary grunt and said, “Will the baths still be attended at

this time of the evening?”

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“Yes, Master, of course.” If by some chance not, I could scare up a bath-girl in a

moment. Or I could serve him myself, if he would let me.

“Come on, then.” His hand gripped my arm and he went to tug me up. I could feel the

effort of it, but there seemed to be suddenly no strength in him; I had to push myself up from

the bales with no help at all. Slowly, carefully, not to set my back alight. He kept that grip on

me, but he was the one who stumbled as we headed for the stable door.

Quick as a moment, I had both arms round his waist to steady him. I held him till he

had his balance safe; then I glanced up into his face.

He looked dreadful: ashen-grey, with his eyes sunken and a thin sweat on his brow.

“Master, what is it?”

He smiled, and even that was more of a grimace, a bare-toothed mockery of his usual

sardonic amusement. “Treating with the dead is…exhausting. All magic is draining, but

necromancy saps the spirit. Almost as much as treating with an inquisitive and impertinent

boy who takes liberties wherever he can see them…”

His fist moved from my arm to my collar, and he gave me a sharp little shake. Where

he found the strength, I don’t know, but it jarred every tooth in my jaw and rattled my brain

around inside my skull. I snatched my hands away from him -- slaves don’t get to hug free

men, not without a very specific invitation -- and put them demurely behind my back where

they belonged.

“Better.”

His own hand nudged me forward again -- and stayed right there on my neck, and if he

was leaning on me a lot more than he was guiding or controlling or disciplining me, at least

it didn’t show.

As we crossed the stable yard, the dinner bell sounded in the house. I sneaked a

sideways glance at Master Lucan, who of course caught me at it.

“Not time enough to bathe and still be at table, I suppose?”

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“No, Master.”

“Then I’m afraid your mistress must want my company again tonight. I’d have been

poor company in any case, and a worse guest. I no more want food than I do conversation.”

This time, at least I didn’t have to take the message; he asked the kitchen-master

himself, to send a slave to the mistress’s rooms. All the while never letting go his grip on my

neck, making it quite clear that I was not the slave he meant. Just as well, the kitchen-

master’s expression suggested, given the state of me, naked and beaten as I was. He’d have

doubled up that beating for sure if Master Lucan didn’t have me, didn’t so obviously mean to

keep me.

“One thing more,” Master Lucan said, “I am finished with the bodies now. Have them

washed, would you, and made respectable? Their relatives will want to come for them in the

morning.”

For the two free merchants, no doubt. The slave girl would just be tossed into a lime pit

beyond the city gates, her tag returned to her owner. In a month, even her chain-sisters

would barely remember her. Slaves come, slaves go: dead or sold or occasionally run away,

very occasionally freed. It’s a mistake to grow too fond; they still get ripped away.

The baths are always busy for the hour or two before dinner, but they clear when the

bell sounds. By the time we came there, everyone was gone and the bath-girls were just

cleaning up, drying the floor with the used towels and no doubt planning to relax after.

Disappointed, they were swift enough to leap to Master Lucan’s service. Tara ran to

feed more logs into the furnace and fetch back hot rocks for the steam room, while Suki and

Merissa vied to unbuckle and unlace his leathers, slip the boots from his feet, fetch him

towels and a cool drink.

They left me nothing to do, once he’d let go my neck. I stood and watched, and

wondered if he would have me wait for him here in the foyer or just send me away

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altogether. And which of these girls it was that he’d enjoyed before, and whether he’d want

her again, or another.

And then he had a towel round his waist and another over his shoulders, and he

snapped his fingers for me and set them back where they had been before, on the nape of my

neck; and I thought he seemed steadier, a little stronger already, but he still wanted me

under his hand there.

We went through to the steam room, where he sat on a bench and pushed me to the

tiles at his feet. I could have settled beside him with my head against his knee, but I took a

chance -- at least he hadn’t brought his switch in here, though I knew how hard his hands

were -- and ducked between his legs, to come up on my knees and facing him.

He didn’t object, even when I reached to unknot that towel from his waist and fold it

back, so that nothing lay between my mouth and his cock. Even slack, it was a beautiful

thing; if he was too tired or too drawn to want sex, I still wanted the taste and touch of it.

And I wanted to make him happy, and he’d like that even if he didn’t get stiff, and --

And he wouldn’t let it happen, or not yet. His thumb through my collar held me back,

just a hand’s span short of where I wanted to be, too frustratingly far for my tongue to reach;

and his other hand strayed across the contours of my face, so I did at least get to kiss and nip

at his fingers.

He said, “Insatiable, aren’t you? Little slut,” but he said it affectionately, in so far as any

master ever is affectionate towards a slave he doesn’t own.

As it happened, I could see his cock beginning to thicken and stir -- he who claimed to

be so exhausted! -- and I hadn’t even touched it yet. I didn’t think he should call me

insatiable.

Didn’t say so, though. Even in all that steam and release, I still kept some grip on my

slippery common sense. I just looked up at him and waited for permission.

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His fingers traced the ridged lines of the brand high on my arm, and he said, “Tell me,

I’m curious: this evening hasn’t made any difference?”

I shrugged, and flinched as even that little movement tugged the skin across my

shoulders, waking the fire again; and said, “Master beat me for disobedience. Why would

that make a difference? I’m slave, we get beaten all the time…”

“And never apparently learn from it. But that wasn’t what I meant; if the beating had

made a difference, I’d beat you again. You’d deserve it.” His weariness showed in his voice as

much as his face. As much as he tried to shrug it off, as much as this little distance had

helped him, he was still grey with fatigue. Inside and out. Even if his cock was trying to deny

it. “What I meant was, you know what I am, you’ve seen what I do. Doesn’t that frighten

you?”

“Of course it does, Master.” I was baffled now.

“But you’re still hot to please me, even so? Everyone wants their slaves a little scared,

that’s natural, but that performance I put on just now, there’s nothing natural about that.

You ought to be cringing away from me, not trying to suck my cock off.”

“Ohhh…” It’s funny, I never thought I’d find myself trying to explain things to a

master. Explain things away, yes, sometimes. That never worked. I dropped my head against

his thigh, where it was more comfortable to look up at him, and said, “That buck pulling the

cart, earlier -- the young one?”

Master Lucan frowned, shook his head; he hadn’t noticed.

No reason why he should have done. I went on, “He was new to his collar, freshly

branded. Not properly broken yet, only obedient because he’s terrified of his mistress and

her whip. She’s a good mistress, she knows how to handle a boy” -- and I knew what I was

talking about. “Tonight she’ll have her women wash him down and dig all the muck out

from under his nails, and she’ll take him to bed. On a chain, so he doesn’t forget what he is.

If she ties his hands” -- to a ring at the bed-head, say -- “that’ll only be because it pleases her

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to have him helpless, not because she’s afraid of his strength. She’ll take her switch too,

because that pleases her too.” And she’d use it too, teasingly or stingingly, any way she

fancied. “And she’ll keep him awake all night, she’s very demanding; and she’ll keep him stiff

all night too, she’s very…inventive. And he’ll enjoy it, even if he hates himself for doing

that.”

Master Lucan had his eyes closed, still waiting to hear the point of this very ordinary

story. I might have smiled, as he couldn’t see me; he’d hear it in my voice, though, so I

swallowed it down and went on, “Come morning, he’ll understand in a whole new way, just

how he belongs to her. And he’ll want more of it, however rough she was with him. But he’ll

still be just as terrified of her, and he’ll be right. She’ll use her whip just as freely.”

“Of course.” His voice sounded distant; his mouth twisted lightly, as if even this much

thinking was too much. “So what are you saying, that if desire doesn’t overcome the fear,

then nor does fear overcome the desire?”

“Yes, Master. I think so. They’re just two separate things. Unless they’re the same

thing, and they just have to go together…” What did I know? I was only a slave. All I wanted

was his cock in my mouth.

I kissed the inside of his thigh instead, all I could reach, and he smiled thinly. “Poor

boy. You just want to do what you’re kept for, what you’re trained for -- and that’s not really

arguing philosophy, is it?”

His hand drew me forward; I dropped my head into his groin, nuzzling his balls in

their sac, his cock as it stiffened.

This time there wasn’t any urgency in him; he didn’t have the energy to rush. If I

hadn’t pressed, he’d have been quite content just to sit in the steam and let the day drain out

of him. Even now, once he was erect, he seemed happy just to stay that way: to have me

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lipping and licking at him, keeping him stiff but nothing more than that, not taking him any

further.

He tossed a towel across his lap, across my head, for discretion’s sake, I suppose, though

there were only slaves there -- one girl fetching hot rocks in, another tipping water over

them to raise more billowing clouds of steam -- and they’d seen worse, done worse daily. All

the guests were at dinner. Not that they would have seen much anyway, through the dense

steam and their own sweat.

I was sweating hard now, under the heavy damp tent of that towel. So was Master

Lucan, which only made me hotter. He groaned a couple of times, but I didn’t think that was

anything to do with what I was up to. He was just feeling all that grey fatigue baking out of

his bones. I knew how that felt: sometimes, after a hard day, the kitchen-master would let us

sit for an hour in the baths before they cooled, and there really isn’t anything better when

you’re so tired you ache with it, so tired you could just cry for no reason.

Master Lucan wasn’t going to cry, but he was that tired, that at least. For a while I

teased his cock and nothing more, knowing that he’d be satisfied with that -- but, well, even

a slave boy does have his pride. And I was guild-trained, and that means something. At times

like this, it mostly means that a slave knows better than his master just what that master

might need…

So I took the head of his cock into my mouth, and sucked it gently. And felt the

response in him, the deeper stir, the startlement; and grinned privately under the towel

there, and sucked a little harder, and let my tongue do some work around the head.

I had my arms loosely around his hips already, just for purchase. Now I stroked a finger

down into the cleft between his buttocks, following the track of the sweat that was running

freely down his back. Found the creased dimple of his sphincter deep in that hidden valley,

pressed the pad of my finger against it, and that was all it took. Suddenly he was urgent after

all, and I was ready for him, taking as much of his hot length into my mouth as I could

manage, swallowing the spurt when it came.

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I think he was more than surprised to come so quickly, after such a slow buildup; I

think he was surprised to come at all. I held him in my mouth as he subsided, and for a

minute his fingertips worked my scalp like a masseur, through that towel and my wet hair.

Then he patted me on the head like a puppy, and I relaxed. He might equally well have been

angry. That’s the risk you run. Masters dictate and slaves obey: just, sometimes you have to

obey orders they don’t know to give.

He left me under that towel for a long time. I was as happy as he was just to sit still, we

don’t often get to do that; happier to be there in the hot smell and sticky heat of him, idly

tasting salt and musk and man with lips and tongue.

Finally, he tossed the towel aside and had me wash him thoroughly, with lather and

warm rinses. Then he took my wrist and tugged me through to the plunge-pool, jumped in

and pulled me with him.

The shock of that deep cold water after so long in the heat, it knocks all the breath out

of you -- no, it

crushes

all the breath out of you, it’s an ice-bitter hand squeezing lungs and

heart and blood and all, squeezing them to utter stillness, reaching into your bones and brain

and all.

And then it spits you up, you erupt out of the water and for a moment you still can’t

breathe although you desperately need to. And then it lets you go, just a little, reluctantly,

and you can gasp and wheeze a little air into a body that aches with cold…

And if it so happens that a master has you by the wrist, the two of you come up at

about the same time, and wheeze together, and that feels so good that you can’t help smiling,

just a little, when you catch his eye; and for a moment he smiles back, and then his big hand

closes over your chilly head and pushes you down again, deep down into the vicious clawing

cold of it…

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When he hauled me out, I could barely totter up the steps from the pool. My teeth

chattered and even my bones were shuddering. I wanted just to drop to my knees and hug

myself and howl from the pain of the cold of it -- and of course I couldn’t do that, any of it. I

was in service to Master Lucan here. He was fine; he had two girls waiting with hot towels

and rubbing him hard, working over every inch of his skin while he squeezed water from his

hair and closed his eyes and groaned softly to himself. Even so, it was still my duty to stand

and wait until he noticed me, until he wanted me or else dismissed me.

I think you even think more slowly, when the icy grip of the plunge-pool is in your

head. It took him time even to remember that I existed; longer, way too long to look across

and see me, see the state of me. At least then he slapped Merissa across the head where she

was down on her knees rubbing his legs dry, and sent her over to me with a gesture.

She came with her eyebrows climbing almost into her hair -- since when did trained

bath-slaves tend to other slaves, when there was a master in the room? -- but she did come.

She came with that same towel she’d been using on him, so it was cold and wet and heavy,

but at least it was a towel; and she used it on me at least as roughly as she’d been using it on

him, and it felt wonderful.

Until she reached round me to rub my back, it felt wonderful. Then I flinched and

gasped; I might’ve yelled except that I still didn’t have my voice back, it was as much as I

could do to breathe and stay upright. She rolled her eyes, and turned me round to see. Even

through the water in my ears, I heard her tut. But then she dabbed me dry more gently,

where I was still so sore; and then she cuffed me -- just on general principle, because I’d

made her seem kinder than she wanted me to think -- and gave me a shove.

“What?”

“Get after your master, fool…”

I blinked around, and true enough, he wasn’t there. I said, you think more slowly in

the cold; I hadn’t been keeping even half an eye on him.

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Luckily, Merissa had. He’d gone through to the warm room, and was already laid out

on his belly on a table, with Tara oiling his back. By rights, Merissa should have been

working on him too, from the other side. But he opened his eyes without lifting his head

from where it was pillowed on a folded towel, and said, “Well, at least he’s not blue any

more. Blue’s bad. Don’t be blue, boy.”

“No, Master.” He sounded drunk, but I knew he wasn’t. It must just be fatigue and

relief, heat and cold all buzzing together in his head, making him dizzy.

“Good boy. Don’t want to see you blue again. You work on him down there, girl” --

with a flick of his eyes to the floor beside his table -- “let me see you make him slippery…”

Then his eyes closed again, and he obviously wasn’t going to be seeing anything for a

bit.

Merissa’s brows climbed even higher, but she nodded at me, and I lay down where he’d

said. No towels for me, but I could pillow my head on my folded arms; and the tiles were

warm from the underfloor heating -- I knew that intimately, but mostly from underneath,

chasing rats along the flues -- and I was just where he wanted me, under his eye. If he ever

cared to look.

Merissa patted my head, said, “Wait,” and went away.

Not far, not for long; after a minute I heard the pad of her bare feet coming back to

stand astride me, I felt the weight of her dropping onto her knees, sitting on me, buttocks to

bare buttocks.

I felt a dribble of oil poured down my spine and then the pressure of her hands

working it into my skin. My poor sore skin, all the weals that Master Lucan had given me,

that must be bright raised ridges by now, even though the cold water should have helped to

draw them down. Her fingers woke the fires again, and I bit down hard on my forearm, not

to cry out aloud, not to cry at all.

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After a minute, though, the fierce heat of pain died to a glimmer, then to a distant

glow, a tightness that I could barely feel, a numbness like a blessing wrapped around me. I

don’t know what Master Lucan would have said, to know his beating numbed away so soon;

best not to tell him, really. He didn’t need to know.

Merissa put her little jar of numb-oil out of sight beneath his table, changed to the

spicy-scented oil the house uses for all its slaves, and went back to work on me.

We don’t get this often, but it’s heaven when we do. I thought maybe I’d cry anyway,

just because: because I was slave, and this was as good as it came, but this was good enough

for me. Her fingers dug deep, undoing soreness and aches and tensions, soothing and

stretching till I wanted to howl with the mingled pain and pleasure.

She pulled my ass cheeks apart and oiled between them, eased two fingers through my

sphincter and went as deep inside as she could. When my butt rose to meet her pressure --

all by itself, I swear! -- she snorted with swallowed laughter, and pushed me down again.

And spent extra time working on my ring, flexing and stretching it with plenty of oil,

just to be sure I was ready.

And oh, I was, more than ready. I lifted my head and saw that Master Lucan’s eyes

were open again. He had that faint mocking smile on his face as he watched me, as his eyes

lingered all over my body like a promise.

I wasn’t fooled; nobody makes promises to slaves. We get what we deserve, if we’re

lucky. If not, we get it worse. But that night I was feeling lucky, heady, reckless with it.

When he sat up on the table, Tara fetched him a robe and wrapped him up in it, settled him

on a bench against the wall and scurried to fetch him kaff and cold water. Me, I scurried

across the floor to his feet, nestled against his knees, leaned into his hand as he toyed with

my hair. And closed my eyes, snuggled in a little closer, breathed the clean sweet scents of

him, felt how his hand fell away and heard how his breathing changed, and…

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And woke to a teasing little slap and his soft drowsy voice, “Tell me something, boy.”

“Master?”

“If I take you to bed now, will you be able to stay awake long enough for me to fuck

you?”

The only proper answer to that, of course, is “Yes, Master,” unless you’re really the slut

that he keeps suggesting, in which case maybe it’s “Yes

please

, Master!”

But I was half asleep still, which means half stupid still; and besides I could see his kaff

right there beside him, all undrunk. I knew that he’d been dozing too. And I rubbed my

cheek against his thigh and said, “If Master can stay awake long enough to fuck me.”

And then I said, “Owww!”

I told you, we get what we deserve.

Coming back to his room -- me still surreptitiously rubbing my sore head, as I trotted

obediently at his heel -- we found Sharra there, all unexpected, laying out another of the

kitchen-master’s cold suppers.

She looked at Master Lucan, exhausted from the day and still sleepy from the bath; she

glanced at me, naked and oiled and all too obviously ready for bed; she smiled demurely, and

said, “I was sent to ask if my mistress might attend on you again, to learn what you have

learned from the day. May I tell her instead that you will call at her apartments in the

morning?”

“Yes. Good. Do that.”

She bobbed a curtsy and left us, smiling more wickedly once she was out of his eyeline,

giving my ass a pat as she passed. I closed the door behind her, and looked from Master

Lucan to the food. Hopefully, I suppose; however tired you are, you never lose a chance to

eat when you’re slave. Your belly’s always empty, and you never know when the next

chance will come along.

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Not tonight. Master Lucan shook his head and said what no slave ever has said, though

we’ve all heard it in our time. “I’m too tired to eat tonight. Come to bed.”

“Yes, Master…”

If I’d had even half a thought of midnight snacking, us feeding each other in the dark,

that was wasted thinking. I went to bed, to him; and he did fuck me as he’d promised, not

too tired for that. And then he wrapped those long strong arms around me and kissed the

back of my neck and told me to go to sleep. And then he did that, as quiet and controlled as

he did everything; and I’m a good boy, me, I do what I’m told. Sometimes, I do. I trotted

contentedly into sleepland at his heel.

And woke around dawn, hungry as a hunter and blissfully warm, still held in that hard

embrace; I didn’t think he’d moved all night. Which meant of course that I hadn’t been

allowed to. And still wasn’t. The house was full of chores and duties, but it was my

immediate duty to stay just exactly where I was, where our guest very obviously wanted

me…

So I did the nearest, the easiest, the most obvious thing: I snuggled a little more deeply

into his arms and went back to sleep. If slaves never miss a chance to eat, we never miss a

chance to sleep either. When you’re asleep, you can’t tell how hungry you are.

When I woke the second time, it was because he moved, enough to tell me that he was

awake. We’re trained that way. If any slave ever slept later than the master or mistress they

were sleeping with, it didn’t happen in the guildhouse.

So I opened my eyes and smiled at him, feeling his erection nudging mine, thinking we

could do something about that, about those, and then attend to breakfast. All that good food

on the table there, and only the bread gone stale overnight and I could easily fetch fresh for

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him, he could feed me the stale. I didn’t know what time it was, only that I was already sure

it was too late to look for porridge at the kitchen hearth; but that wouldn’t matter, Master

Lucan wouldn’t let either of us go hungry, any more than he’d rise from this bed with his

cock unsatisfied…

Except that he did exactly that, both of those. He looked at me, and his lips quirked;

then he looked at the window, at the angle of the sun, and they quirked into a completely

different shape. He unwound himself from me and tossed the covers back, and said, “Bring

me wash-water, and then my blacks. Quickly.”

“Uh, yes, Master…”

I couldn’t keep my eyes from straying towards last night’s disregarded supper. He saw,

of course; I was convinced by now that he saw everything, every move I made and every

unspoken thought besides.

He said, “No. Put that outside, so you’re not tempted to snatch a mouthful.”

I was indignant -- we’re better trained than that: every slave steals food once, when

they’re new to the collar, but no one with any sense ever tried it more than once -- but I

didn’t say anything, of course, I just loaded the tray as ordered and set it outside the door.

And fetched him his wash-water, and then the dark leathers of his art that he hadn’t

worn since the night of his arrival; and he flung the boots at my head because they’d lost

their shine in the soaking and I hadn’t had a moment to polish them for him, and so he went

to the guildmistress in his old disreputable brown boots, with me by orders at his heel.

Luckily there was a clean house tunic in the clothespress; otherwise I think he’d have had

me go naked.

I didn’t know why he wanted me there, and neither did my mistress; her eyebrows

lifted when she saw me. I stopped close by the door, and waited to find out.

Mistress offered him kaff and sweet breads, and worked her eyebrows again when he

refused.

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“Nothing? You are sure? If kaff is not your taste in the mornings, my women can

fetch --”

“Nothing. Truly. We are fasting this morning.”

Oh. Were we? I thought we were just going hungry, because he was in too much of a

hurry to eat. Or to let me eat.

“May I ask why?”

That was the same question that was troubling me, and I blessed her for asking it.

“Yes, of course. I have to go down into Hell.”

She frowned. “This is…connected with what happened yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“And with guild business, that matter I asked you to look into?”

“Intimately. Yesterday’s affair was another card dealt from the same deck.”

“I was afraid of that.” She pursed her lips fretfully. “Can you tell me what you learned

from the dead?”

“In brief? I learned the weapon being used against you.”

“Which is…?”

“Which is in Hell, which is where I must go to interrogate it.”

“Ah. I see. And the boy?”

She hadn’t missed that “

we

are fasting” any more than I had.

“I need -- something to pay my way. To buy me answers. An offering. I’ll hope to bring

him back to you. Be aware, though, I can’t guarantee it.”

“Must you use him?”

“No. Any living thing would do. Any

valued

living thing. It needn’t be expensive, but it

must be tradable. I couldn’t pay my way with a wasp. I’d take a mule from the stables, but

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they will have been fed by now; the boy was all I could be sure of. I could go to the market

and buy a hungry one, no doubt, but in the interests of swiftness…”

“Yes, yes. Of course. Use him by all means. What else do you need?”

“Very little. Wood-ash from last night’s fire, and a space to work in, out of the public

eye. That same stable should be fine, if the bodies are gone…”

I wasn’t really listening any more, though I suppose I should have been; these

arrangements concerned me deeply, after all. My body stayed obediently in the room,

waiting to be disposed of as a fee to Hell; my mind had sort of skittered dizzily away. It took

me a while even to notice that Sharra was beside me, holding my hand.

That was kind, but it didn’t really help. It didn’t last, either. Something mistress

wanted, that she sent Sharra for, and I was alone again; and then they were done talking, and

Master Lucan was leaving, and had to stand and wait for a moment before I remembered to

open the door for him. That earned me a frowning glance that was actually worse than his

usual cuff or sting; if he was bothering to hit me it meant

do better next time

, which did at

least mean there would be another time. A scowl was -- well, just a scowl. Maybe that meant

no point training you now

, in his mind I was already spent and gone…

He really was in a hurry, unless he was just hungry for his breakfast and wanted this

business out of the way. From Mistress’s chambers, we went straight down to the stable yard.

He stood in the empty stall, looked around, nodded; glanced over his shoulder at me and

said, “When you rake out the kitchen range at night, where do the ashes go?”

I blinked. “Uh, on the dung heap, Master, to wait for the soil cart.” Then out to the

country, to the farms, where they made some use of it. I didn’t know what; I’d never been

outside the walls of my city. The world out there was a mystery to me.

Almost as much as the world inside his head. He frowned; I said, “The fire stays in all

night, and we rake again first thing. There’ll be a bucketful by the stove now,” because no

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one had time to think about emptying it through the morning rush of breakfast and hot

water for the guests, food for the slaves, scrubbing floors and opening shutters and waking

the house to the day.

His face cleared. “Good. Fetch it. And leave that tunic inside, you don’t need it now.”

Naked, then, bewildered and very afraid, I came back to him with a bucket of ashes

and clinker, still warm from the night’s slow smoulder. He sifted it through his fingers and

nodded, satisfied; then he produced a long leather thong and bound my hands swiftly behind

my back. The ends trailed down over my buttocks, tickling, but I was a long way from

wanting to laugh.

Master Lucan spat into the ash, dipped his finger in and swiftly drew a figure high on

my upper arm, right across my brand.

I peered at it, and tried to smile. “What is that?”

“My sigil. That sign means me. It is…not unknown, in Hell.”

He was marking me out as his own, then. For a moment, something warm and hopeful

unfolded in my heart. But people often mark property to establish their right to sell it. I said,

“Master? Are you, are you really going to trade me to a demon?”

“Offer you, yes, certainly. You are the price I pay, for what I want. Luckily I’m not

ambitious today, I’m not asking anything expensive.” He spat again, dipped his finger again,

and wrote another sign across my chest. “Mind, if they have any sense they’ll reject you.

Impertinent boys who ask too many questions, who needs them…?”

He lost that teasing mood as he worked, as he wrote his strange symbols across my

body. Chest and belly, shoulders and back, he marked me; and he said, “Can you be

obedient?”

“Of course, Master.” I was standing here, wasn’t I, while he decorated me for sale to

demons?

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“Good. Touch nothing, say nothing, do exactly what I say. Don’t stare around, don’t

meet any gaze that offers; stay at my heel, keep your eyes down and your lips sealed, like a

good boy. Try not to listen to anything but my voice. Understood?”

I nodded, and he drew his ashy finger over each of my eyes in turn, touched it to my

ears and my nostrils. Then he drew a long line down my cock and smeared ash across the tip;

even now, it stirred a little under his touch, but he ignored that. He turned me round and I

felt his finger pushing at my sphincter; when I relaxed for him, he poked the long dangling

ends of the wrist-thong deep inside me. I murmured wordlessly, and he hushed me. Then I

gasped, as he followed the thong with something rough and abrasive, something warm.

It took me a moment to understand, but that was a piece of clinker from the ash-

bucket. He had another in his fingers now, as he turned me round.

“Open.”

I opened my mouth, and he dropped the clinker in. It tasted foul: acrid and burned and

filthy, sucking all the moisture from my mouth just as it made me yearn to spit.

“Keep that on your tongue,” he said, touching my mouth closed and smearing ash

across my lips. “It’ll be a reminder not to talk.”

I thought it was more than that. I thought he was working magic, with me as his spell.

He had sealed all the openings of my body, with ash or clinker or both; he’d written symbols

on my skin. Now he clipped a leash to the ring of my collar, ruffled my hair -- unless he was

just wiping his fingers clean -- said, “Heel. Closely,” and started walking forward.

He was walking towards the back of the stall, to a blank wall. It made no sense, but I

was bound and silenced, chained and helpless; he tugged the leash and I followed, just a pace

behind.

Somehow, the wall wasn’t there. We were walking in the half-dark, but I didn’t know

where we were any more: not in the stable, nowhere in the guildhouse, nowhere I thought

in Amaranth. Things loomed on either side that were not buildings nor trees nor rocks. I

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couldn’t see them clearly, but even in the brightest daylight I still thought I wouldn’t

understand them. Some of them might have been moving, but were not alive; some of them

were eternally still, and I thought eternally living. I swallowed drily and dragged my eyes

down, to stare at Master Lucan’s heel. He was still wearing those shabby old boots. I thought

he wouldn’t be pleased about that, going to Hell all sruffy-looking…

When he stopped, so did I: right at his back, breathing down his neck, too near for

good discipline but he’d said to heel closely. If my hands had been free I’d have held on to

his belt, and never mind the beating that would earn me. I was too scared to breathe, almost.

He meant to sell or trade me, to leave me here in demon’s keeping, and I still wanted to cling

to his strength, his protection.

There was more light now, a kind of grim flat glare that had never seen the sun. There

was no shadow at Master Lucan’s feet; when I sneaked a peek upward, all the sky was a

bright fierce grey, shot through with flickers like a thin and constant lightning.

I meant to drop my gaze again, obedient to Master Lucan’s word, but the voice spoke

just then and I hadn’t realised there was anyone else there; I’d only seen his boots and my

own bare feet on the dusty, stony trail. I couldn’t help peeking sideways, just a glance, just to

see…

Just a glance rooted my eyes, snared me entirely, like a mouse in a cat’s glare. Was I

scared before? I’d thought so. That was nothing now, compared to the juddering terror that

seized me.

I hadn’t seen feet because there were none. There was a post, a rough-hewn wooden

stake driven deep into the ground. It ran wet with slime and dripping juices, because its

brute point pierced the raw and ragged neck of a disembodied head: a head that was far from

human, and very much alive.

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It was maybe twice the size of a human head, and all its features were thick and heavy,

like a crude mockery of what we were. Its eyes were sharp, fixed on Master Lucan, taking no

account whatever of me. Which was right, of course, and something to be thankful for.

It had spoken already, a harsh cracked voice that had startled that glance out of me, a

formal challenge: “Who are you, stranger, and what do you seek at the gates of Hell?”

There were no gates, just this trail and that head beside it. Otherwise I could see only a

bare, bitter landscape, dull and featureless.

Master Lucan said, “I’m no stranger to you, Rackshaw. I am Lucan, master mage and

necromancer, and I have long since made myself free of these lands.”

“Free or not, there is still a duty to be paid.”

“There are duties on both sides, but I pay my toll first. I bring you this,” and a jerk on

the leash sent me stumbling forward, almost close enough to touch that monstrous head if

my hands had been free. Plenty close enough to smell the rotting sweet stink of it. I gagged

and swallowed sour juices, held that clinker on my tongue and didn’t open my mouth.

The demon-head opened its own mouth instead, too wide, impossibly wide, like a

snake dislocating its jaw to swallow something bigger than itself. I thought it meant to

swallow me; I was sure of it when the creature’s tongue reached out, reached and reached,

appallingly long and glistening.

It licked at my shoulder, where Master Lucan had written his sigil across my brand --

and then the tongue snatched itself away, and the mouth puckered and spat.

It said, “Your gifts are tainted, Lucan-mage.”

“Nevertheless, this one is offered according to law.”

“Keep it, and enter. According to law.”

“I will do that. I am seeking the demon I know as Khastos; how will I find him?”

“I am gate warden here, human, not your guide.”

“Gate warden and guide both; I have paid my way.”

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It hissed, and spat again. “You pay with broken coin. Take your reeking boy and go in.

Khastos will find you.”

Master Lucan bowed, satisfied, and tugged again on the leash as he walked ahead.

I tried to walk to heel properly, but it was hard. My knees were trembling, and I wasn’t

sure my legs would hold me. I could feel the demon’s eyes on me -- regretfully, I thought --

and I wanted to run; I felt betrayed and relieved both at once, just overwhelmed, and I

wanted to sit on that foul ground and weep.

I guess I did sob, once. There was another urgent tug on the leash, dragging me forward

to Master Lucan’s shoulder; his eyes snapped at me, and his voice was like a whip.

“Don’t cry, Tam. Not yet. This isn’t over; that was the easy touch. Khastos is tricky, and

greedy. And if you wash the ash off your eyelids -- well, don’t. Do

not

cry.”

I nodded, sniffed hard, swallowed again. The clinker in my mouth was a bitter, acid

taste, but I clung to it like a talisman, like a gift.

He looked at me sternly, nodded and walked on. I dropped into place at his heel,

obscurely comforted, though I wished, I ached for his touch more than his words, the shelter

of his arm around me.

That was just folly, a slave boy’s fancy; masters offer us no shelter. I was here because

he had a use for me. More than one use. He had bought his way past the gate warden with

me, though obviously he’d known I’d be refused; there was something else, something worse

to come.

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Chapter Four

He walked on and I watched his heels, trod in his footsteps, tried to imagine some

warmth there for me. My training held me straight and neat, despite everything; having a

piece of clinker inside me was nothing to a guild boy who had spent days on end working

with a butt plug deep in his ass. It was a discipline that Sharra was fond of, when I was

freshly caught: not quite a punishment, more a constant reminder of what I was for and how

my new owners could use me. I learned to stand tall and move smartly despite it, which was

a lesson never lost.

I didn’t understand anything in Hell; it wasn’t made for human understanding. We

walked that same bad trail, and the landscape changed around us; we were walking suddenly

in a deep cleft between hills, although the horizon had seemed flat and empty before, and

then we were on a sea cliff, and wicked water threshed far below.

That was where the demon Khastos came to us.

It came in the same form reported by the spirits of the dead, like a storm of lightnings;

but Master Lucan spoke to it, and then it stood on the cliff’s edge before us in more or less

mortal form, if mortals were ever half so tall or half so brutal.

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It leered as it looked at me, and its tongue flicked across its lips, and I thought again

about being eaten. I remembered what Master Lucan had said about not meeting its eyes, but

that was impossible; they were deep and mad and clever, and I was helpless as soon as I’d

looked. I thought

Master will beat me

and was miserable about it briefly, stupidly, until I

remembered that I’d be lucky -- no, more, I’d be delighted -- ever to be beaten by Master

Lucan again. Or by anyone…

“Did you bring this for me?” Its voice was a hissing horror; the words writhed in my

head like a nest of snakes.

“I did, if you want it. Help yourself.”

I knew how this worked now. I was ready for the tongue, the taste, hopefully the

spitting recoil -- but Khastos shifted his shape again, became again that formless cloud of

storm and came down to engulf me.

It felt as though a hot, hard wind was crawling all over my bare shivering skin, looking

for a way in. It tingled and burned; I closed my eyes, held my breath, pinched my lips tight

shut; I’d have prayed except that there are no gods for slaves to pray to. When it whipped

around my throat and tightened like another collar, like a living scorching rope, I gasped, I

couldn’t help it; and then it swarmed into my mouth and I’m sure would have run down into

my belly and my lungs and all through me, except that it met the clinker on my tongue and

flinched back, far enough that I could clamp my jaws again and then the ash on my lips was

enough to hold it at bay.

It pried between my buttocks too, and found the other clinker, and was foiled again.

And then it ripped itself away from me and took its other shape, and glowered at

Master Lucan and said, “I cannot use this. You have locked it against me.”

Master Lucan shrugged, uninterested.

“May what I give you be of as little value,” the demon growled. “All you humans come

dressed in deceit, even when you come naked.”

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“What other humans have you been dealing with, Khastos?”

A hiss, a snarl, and one great clawed hand moved to scratch at its neck. With a shock, I

saw that the demon too wore an iron collar, massive and intricately etched with strange

writings.

Master Lucan laughed shortly, like a bark of wonder. “Who could slave the great

demon Khastos?”

“A mage, of course. Like yourself, dark and treacherous. She brought me a gift as

dishonest as yours, but hers was a snare too, a girl whose soul she had stripped away and

sealed elsewhere. I took the girl and ate her for her soul, but she was hollow --”

“And so you’re trapped,” Master Lucan interrupted, “like a fish on a hook, pledged to

serve until the mage releases that soul and you can seize it. You are a fool, Khastos.”

“Perhaps. Humans are tricky, and I am trapped. Until she makes a mistake, and I can

have her.”

“She may have done that already. What is her name?”

“I do not know it. She came to me as nameless as the slave I ate.”

“Pity. You know where I can find her, though.”

“She comes to me here, when she demands my services.”

“Even so, you know where in the mortal world she comes from. As you know where I

have come from today.”

“I do.”

“Always the same place?”

“It is.”

“As I told you, a mistake; it may be the one that destroys her.”

“No, I will be the one that destroys her.”

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“Let me help you, Khastos. An exchange, a trade. I brought you this boy, and let you

snuffle all over him; do you give me this privilege in return, to assist a prince of Hell to

regain his freedom.”

“Hah. Your gift is as hollow as hers.”

“Not so; only defended, as well as I know how. If I had been careless or ignorant, you

would have had him. Come, you owe me this. Where can I find this deceptive mage?”

The demon snarled, and told him.

Then it left us, scouring away across the water. Master Lucan breathed out once,

eruptively, as though he’d been holding his breath all this while; he pushed a hand through

hair that was suddenly slick with sweat; then he clicked his tongue at me like he might have

clicked it at his horse, tugged the leash to be sure that I was following, took one step, two --

-- and we were walking into the stable, as if we’d just come through a door in the wall.

He reached backwards blindly, and I came forward into his grip; he took my neck and

shook me gently, which I thought, I hoped, was a gesture of approval. Then he unclipped the

leash, tossed it over a harness-hook on the wall and brought me out into the sunshine of the

yard.

“Spit,” he said, and I did that willingly, sending the clinker flying high, to chink against

the handle of the pump. At the same time he tugged the thong-ends out of my ass, which

brought that other piece of clinker popping neatly out with them.

It was good to be free of that. Good too to have a shadow again, to feel warm sun on

my skin and the cobbles of home beneath my feet. Not so good to look at Master Lucan and

see the grey pale look of him, feel the cold greasy sweat on his fingers where they held me.

“Master needs a bath,” I murmured, meaning

Master needs to sit in the heat and bake

the horrors out of his bones

.

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“Master does,” he agreed. “So does Tam.”

And he glanced over to the corner of the yard, where Sharra was showing a new girl

how to wash out tunics in the laundry tubs. Or was meant to be, perhaps. In fact she was

standing entirely still and watching us.

Master Lucan whistled, which brought her over at a run.

“I want this boy scrubbed down,” he said. “Thoroughly, please. Then feed him, and

find him some work to do.”

“Of course, Master.”

“His boot-polishing skills could use some practice,” he suggested; and then he left me,

and I stood there helplessly watching him go.

Sharra’s cool hand stroked my arm. “Where’s your master off to?”

“The baths. And he’s not my master.”

“He might as well be,” she said, laughing. “I think we made you specially for him.”

“Not well enough, then. He prefers a girl in the bathhouse.”

“Does he? Well, they are trained for it.”

Despite myself, I couldn’t help grinning at the snort in her voice. We’re all slaves

together, but Sharra has no time for the bath-girls.

She doesn’t have much time for idling, either. She took my elbow and pushed me

firmly over to the pump.

“Get under the spout, then.”

“I can wash myself…”

“Master said to scrub you; I’m going to scrub. Do you

know

how filthy you are?”

I shook my head. Actually I did, and she didn’t; she could have no idea what we’d been

doing since we went through the stable door, and I really had no way to tell her. Instead, I

said, “Untie me?”

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“I don’t think so, no. I like you obedient, and I can’t be bothered to beat you; you’re

always better behaved when you’re bound.”

Of course I am, we all are: chains and bonds and leashes work as well as whips, or

better.

I gave her no excuse to fetch a switch, anyway. She pumped and scrubbed, pumped and

scrubbed again; and it wasn’t the icy bite of the pump-water that made me shiver so hard,

and it wasn’t her rough use of scrubbing-brush on sore hide that made me cry. She knew

that, and mocked me anyway for acting like a baby, like a new-branded slave; then she

rubbed me roughly dry and kissed me, before she took me into the kitchens and had me

kneel by the hearth.

Feed him

, Master Lucan had said, and she took that literally. There wasn’t any porridge

left, of course, but she warmed a pan of milk and broke yesterday’s bread into it, and begged

some sugar and spices from the kitchen-master, stirred those into it and fed me with her

fingers. I might have cried again, if she hadn’t made me laugh so much.

She did untie my wrists at last, so that I could hold the bowl and drink down the last of

the milk. Then I leaned into her arms and said, “What were you really doing out in the yard

there, when we came out?”

“Waiting for you, of course,” she said, scowling. “We were worried. Master took you

in, but some of us weren’t sure you were coming out, so…”

So she’d risked Mistress’s anger, by lingering in the yard until we did. I kissed her, and

she cuffed me, and told me to get dressed and see to Master Lucan’s boots, and as many

others as I could find. And to show the new girl, Kiki, how to do it.

I collected a basket of boots, and took them and Kiki into the tack room. We divided

one pair between us, and I showed her the one and only guild-approved way to raise a high

shine. Then she tried, and we set the two boots side by side to compare, and of course hers

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was no good; so I beat her a little with a harness-strap to help her learn, and told her to do it

again, and meantime I got to work on Master Lucan’s.

I sweated over the polish on his tall black dress-boots; I wanted those perfect, because I

knew that he would accept nothing less. There was no hope for the scuffed old brown pair,

but I cleaned the grit of Hell off their soles and worked neat’s-foot oil into their parched

leather to keep the rain out.

Kiki’s second try wasn’t much better. I knew it wouldn’t be; like any skill, even the

most lowly, it takes time to learn. There’s an art to scrubbing floors. She’d probably learned

that one by now; the kitchen-master’s strap is a great encourager, and any one of us would be

willing to help the same way, with a welt or two, the way we were helped ourselves when

we were new.

Kiki snivelled a bit when I reached for the harness-strap a second time, but I just

flicked her shoulder and showed her again.

“See? Like that. But you have to rub hard. Work up a sweat, and then work the sweat

in. You do that boot one more time, while I run these back to Master.”

“I hate that boot,” she grumbled. I laughed, and kissed her; she’d be fine.

Master Lucan’s door was closed, which meant he was back from the baths. It’s how we

keep track; we never close a door behind ourselves -- slaves aren’t allowed privacy, ever -- so

an open room is an empty room, in every way that matters.

A well-trained slave never knocks. I opened the door and slipped inside, and he was

asleep: sprawled naked on the bed there, with one of the bath-girls curled up against his side.

I set his boots neatly by the door, then tiptoed over to spread a cover lightly over the pair of

them. Merissa lifted her tawny head and smiled drowsily at me, before letting it drop back

onto his shoulder. Master Lucan never stirred at all, sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted

while Merissa snatched her chance to doze beside him like any of us would.

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Never mind Sharra, bath-girls don’t have it easy. They seldom leave the bathhouse,

almost never leave the house; in all the years I’d known her, I didn’t think I’d once seen

Merissa dressed. Let her sleep; I was envious, but not jealous. I wouldn’t take it away from

her. Given half a chance, I’d slip my tunic off and join them, sleep at his feet till he woke,

give him the choice when he did…

But I had boots to clean, a girl to train. I couldn’t leave the house’s reputation in Kiki’s

hands. I slipped out of the room as quietly as I’d entered and closed the door behind me.

By the time we reached the bottom of the basket, Kiki was sore and sulky, tearful,

hating me and all boots equally. But the last pair she cleaned had a respectable polish on

them, so I was pleased with her and pleased with myself. There was no chance of making the

kitchen-master pleased with either of us, this was just what he expected, what he demanded;

but I kissed her again and told her she was a good girl, told her to wash her face in the horse

trough and trot into the kitchen to scrub vegetables for dinner. I predicted a lot of scrubbing

in her future; what with floors and pots and vegetables and the laundry too, new girls’ hands

hardly have a chance to dry.

Me, I filled the basket and took all the boots back to their owners’ rooms.

Remembering what belongs where is something else that you learn early in the guildhouse,

with ouches to help you get it right.

Then, for lack of any orders else, I remembered that I was a guild slave with regular

duties here, and set about attending to them.

This was maybe my favourite time of day, since I was promoted to houseboy. Coming

up to evening, only the kitchens were hectic. In the great hall I could light the lamps and

sconces, lay the tables, enjoy the quiet serenity of all that emptiness.

I was setting out plates and napkins on high table, wondering if I had time to fold the

napkins into foolishly exotic shapes -- and whether Mistress would be amused or otherwise if

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I did -- when there was an already-familiar whistle from the doorway. I was moving before I

knew it, dropping what I held and racing down to where Master Lucan was lounging against

the wall.

He was wearing his scruffy leathers again, which made me frown at him: “Mistress

would be better pleased if you wore your blacks, Master. I did polish the boots, and the rest

can be brushed off quickly if it’s dusty from, from…”

“From Hell? No doubt it is, and no doubt it can. But I’m going out, and I prefer not to

be conspicuous.”

That was just silly, he’d always be conspicuous, whatever he wore or didn’t wear. But

that wasn’t why I could feel my frown darkening. “Master needs to eat.”

“All right, lad, Master will eat -- but he’s eating out.”

“Mistress will be disappointed,” I said one more time, and so would I. I wanted to stand

behind his chair and serve him with my own hands, feed him with my fingers if I had to, to

make sure that he ate.

“I know, and I’m sorry for it. Again. But she’s paying me -- handsomely -- to do a job of

work for her, and I need to get on with it. And quite why I’m explaining myself to her

houseboy” -- with a sharp stinging flick to my ear -- “I’m not exactly certain.”

He’d bathed, he’d slept, but not enough of either. His hair was damp, as if he’d plunged

it into a bowl of cold water to wake himself up, which I was fairly sure he had. It was wild,

too. I could see exactly how that had happened, Merissa combing it neat before he left the

room, him running his fingers through it on the stairs, messing up her careful work. My own

fingers itched to set it straight again, but…

“Your mistress will just have to do without me one more time,” he went on. “Without

you, too. I’m taking you with me.”

We’re trained not to be demonstrative, but I just couldn’t help the grin that broke out

of me in response. Any more than I could after all help my fingers reaching up to fuss with

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his hair. It was a matter of guild pride and my own reputation, not to let him out of the

house looking messy.

He stood still for it, longer than I thought he would. Then he slapped my hands away,

and kissed me unexpectedly before he turned away. One snap of his fingers and I found my

regular place at his heel.

Stupidly, I was starting to think that I belonged there.

When he was walking, that is, I thought I belonged at his heel.

When he was sitting down, I thought I belonged at his feet, on my knees, with my

arms wrapped around his leg and my cheek warmly snuggled against his thigh, his fingers

drumming playfully hard on the top of my skull.

That’s where I found myself an hour later, on the balcony of a tavern down in the

docks, overlooking a warehouse on a wharf. He had eaten almost a whole roast chicken,

slipping me bits of skin and fat, shreds of flesh and the bones to suck; now he was slowly

drinking his way through a jug of wine while we watched the warehouse. This was where

Khastos had sent us, where the demon said we’d find the mage who trapped him, who was

making him work against the Wayfarers’ Guild.

If someone wanted to set themselves up in opposition to the guild, it made sense that it

should be happening here. The whole wharf belonged to a single trading company, a league

of ship-owners who would certainly have the reach and the money to rival the guild. Master

Lucan was angry, I think, that they’d bought or suborned a mage to work with them; I didn’t

think he was surprised.

Properly speaking, the duty to watch the warehouse was his alone. I was only there for

his amusement, maybe his convenience if he ever found a use for me. Besides, he could see

things that were invisible or mysterious to me. Even so, I was determinedly glowering

between the risers of the balcony rail. I was indignant on Master Lucan’s behalf, that his

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profession was being debased this way; I was angry on the guild’s behalf, that we were being

attacked this way. Those attitudes might both be impertinent in a slave boy, but we have our

loyalties. Sometimes we’re fierce in our owners’ defence. Slaves have died for their masters,

often and often.

As before, I didn’t really know what he was looking for. Me, I watched the people

come and go through the guarded gateway to the wharf. There were two big men on duty

there, and more inside the warehouse; free or slave, everyone passing in and out had a disk of

some kind that glinted blue in the lamplight. Slaves wore them on their collars, with their

tags of ownership; the free carried them in belt-pouches and showed them on demand.

Wearing them on thongs around their necks might have been more practical, but that’s the

free for you: they won’t do anything that looks the least like they’re in bondage. I’ve known

a man half starve himself for the price of a pair of boots, sooner than eat and go barefoot like

a slave.

Men and women, all ages and all conditions passed through that gate, as they might on

any busy wharf at any time, day or night. Ships dock and sail with the tide, not the sun. I

watched, and guessed at their professions and their tempers: a clerk just coming on duty,

bitter at spending another long night with bills of lading, trying to catch a dishonest purser; a

merchant coming to inspect her newly arrived merchandise, excited at having it here and

safe at last; a gang of longshoremen at the end of their shift, wanting food and beer, and sex if

they could afford it…

But one of them was instantly familiar, his face and his figure and his sidling gait. I

startled, swallowed an exclamation, rose up on my knees to see over the balcony rail, to be

sure.

Master Lucan’s hand spread over my head, pushing me back down. “What is it?”

“Oh -- nothing, Master. Probably nothing. Only, I know that man…”

“Where?”

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“Just crossing the roadway with his mates there, coming here…”

So did Master Lucan know him, if he could be bothered to remember. It was Brion, my

fellow thief, the lucky one who enjoyed tormenting me with my slavery. I pointed him out,

explained who he was, couldn’t tell from Master Lucan’s grunt whether he remembered,

whether he was interested, whether it meant anything at all. So I subsided, my head against

his leg and glad to be there, just hoping that Brion wouldn’t come out onto the balcony and

see us. He might not recognise Master Lucan, but he never missed a chance to remember me.

At last Master Lucan stirred and stood, brushing me off impatiently, like he might an

importunate puppy. I scrambled up beside him, waiting for orders.

“There’s nothing more to be learned from up here,” he said softly. “I’m sure Khastos

was telling the truth, it’s absolutely to his advantage to have me work to free him; but even I

can’t see through solid wall. I need to be inside that warehouse.”

“How do we do that, Master?” There was no getting through that gate without a pass,

and every boat approaching the wharf was watched as carefully. I’d seen that.

“

We

don’t.

I

do.”

“I’m the thief, Master, I can --”

“What you are is a presumptuous little slave boy, who is about to be sent home,”

though his hands and voice both said he wasn’t angry; amused, rather. “

I

am the master

mage, with all the skills that that implies. I can walk past those guards as if I were invisible.

To all intents and purposes, I will be. You, on the other hand, would just be an impediment.

Do you know what an impediment is?”

“Yes, Master,” I said sulkily. “I’m not

stupid

. Ouch!”

“At this point,” he went on silkily, the hand that had clouted me settling again on my

hip, intimate and possessive, “a wise boy -- a boy who wasn’t stupid, say -- would stop

talking and run swiftly back where he belongs. He certainly wouldn’t linger around here, to

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watch what a master mage might get up to on his own, abandoned by his presumptuous boy.

You wouldn’t even think of doing that, would you?”

“No, Master.” It was, of course, exactly what I had been thinking; perhaps I still was.

“Good. Because I will make a point of asking the kitchen-master what time you

reported to him, when I sent you back. I don’t think it should take you more than a quarter

of an hour to run up to the guildhouse from here, do you?”

It was a good mile and a half across town, and uphill all the way. The city bells were

just striking the hour, too, to make the timing easy. I sighed. “No, Master.”

“Good. Off you go, then. Shoo; begone. Go out the back way, through the kitchens, to

be sure your unsavoury friend doesn’t spot you.”

I was hot and sweaty and out of breath by the time I reached the guildhouse. The

kitchen-master’s hard hand explained to me that this was no way to present myself; I washed

hurriedly, found a clean tunic, found myself assigned to night duty.

The city gates are closed at sunset, but the guildhouse never closes. Ships come in at all

hours and so therefore do guild members, be they traders or travellers. We’d be quiet in the

early hours, but there were always new arrivals and new departures, so always slaves on

hand to attend to them.

I welcomed guests at the door, fetched them food and drinks, told the girls to keep the

steamroom hot because there was a group of young men with hangovers who wanted to

sweat them out; and all the time I was watching for Master Lucan, waiting for him.

Worrying about him, more and more as the hours passed.

At dawn we came off duty and were sent to bed down for a few hours in the stable

straw, but I could hardly sleep, I was so anxious. When we were kicked back to work at

midday and he still hadn’t come back, I was sure something had gone wrong. He’d been too

tired last night, I never should have let him go alone…

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Of course I couldn’t have stopped him, but that wasn’t the point.

The real point was, what did I do now?

And the answer was easy, obvious to me. I trotted out of the yard gate as if I was

officially on an errand somewhere, then ducked into a side alley to swap my identifiable

guild tunic for the anonymous linen of a scullery boy, which I was already wearing

underneath. The guild tunic I just had to leave, tucked behind a broken cartwheel and hope

to find it again later.

Down to the docks, to that wharf, to that tavern again. Brion was a creature of habit,

and most of his habits were vices. If he came here for his supper at the end of his shift, likely

he came here for his midday meal-break too. I didn’t think of going inside to see if he was

there yet; that would be a quick way to collect bruises from the tavern keeper. Instead I just

crouched out of the way with my back against the wall, like any slave boy snatching a stolen

hour’s rest.

Sure enough, just as the city’s clocks were chiming the half hour, men came spilling out

through the wharf gates, Brion among them but clearly on his own, not with friends. At a

guess, he had no friends. That was perfect. I sprang to my feet and ran to him; almost

dropped to my knees at his feet, but that would have been a step too far, even he wouldn’t

swallow that.

“Well, well. It’s the pretty slave,” he said, almost losing his sneer in his startlement that

I should seek him out. “What’s your name again, Tom, is it?”

“Tam, Master. But --”

“Where’s that big unpleasant friend of yours -- hanging around, is he, waiting to give

me another chance to enjoy his charming conversation?” Brion looked around cautiously,

anxious not to be caught tormenting me a second time.

“No, Master -- that’s why I, I came to you, in case you’d seen him anywhere…”

“Me? Why should I…?”

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This was Brion’s one chance to be honest; he didn’t need to be kind, but he could still

choose to help me. For old time’s sake, or for decency’s sake, or for any reason he liked.

“Please, Master?”

“Why are you looking for him, anyway? Have you lost him?”

I nodded. “He wanted to see the dockside yesterday, but there was a real crush at the

fish market” -- just two wharfs down from here -- “and when I looked round I couldn’t see

him any more; and he didn’t come back to the guild all night, and…”

“Should have kept you on a leash, shouldn’t he? Careless, letting a young slave give him

the slip…” His hands said he wouldn’t do that; the one had clamped hard on my wrist to

hold me there while the other slid inside my tunic. I tried to suppress a shudder, and failed,

and he misunderstood it the way he always did.

“Oh, you are so hot, aren’t you, little Tam? Such a slut? I wish I’d known that before,

I’d have collared you myself. And kept you, maybe. You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you, one

man to serve, to belong to…?”

“Yes, Master.” Just not Brion, never him. “Please, did you see…?”

“Oh, be quiet about your precious master, will you? Don’t you know it’s rude, to talk

about one free man in the presence of another? I might get the idea you were daring to

compare us…”

That was it, then. Brion would give me no help, whether or not he knew anything.

Instead, he was just taking what he wanted, one hand up under the skirt of my tunic now,

tugging mockingly at my cock.

Which was stiffening against his palm, and for once I really wished it wouldn’t do that.

If I stayed limp, he’d just cuff me and let me go; responding egged him on. If we’d been any

more private, I think that time he’d have bent me over a cart-bed and actually, finally fucked

me, the way he’d been threatening to for years. Out here on the public street, in full view of

where he worked and all his workmates in the tavern, he just toyed with me. I did think of

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coming all over him, just to make him stop -- but he was free and I was slave, and I wasn’t

quite that stupid. I squirmed under his hand, though, and groaned just the way he liked it,

bit my lip and looked the picture of a hot boy struggling not to come; and he stopped just a

minute before I really did, thinking that was a torment for me, not to have his rough hands

finish me off.

“No playing with yourself, now,” he warned.

“No, Master.”

“Now run away back to your mistress, and tell her you’ve mislaid one of her guests. I

don’t suppose she’ll be very pleased with you, so mind you come back and tell me all about

it…”

“Yes, Master.”

And then, blessedly, he was gone; and had no idea -- and wouldn’t find out for an hour,

I hoped -- that his identity disk was gone, abstracted from his pouch and slipped into my

mouth while he was groping. It was safe there, Brion never kissed; he was too busy

whispering his little barbs. And I could say

yes, Master

and

no, Master

and never give a hint

that it was there: long, long practice at hiding loot.

I always was a better thief than he was.

I ran around the corner to take a better look at the disk. It was quite simple, blue

enamel with a number set into it: not hard to copy, probably, with the right stove and the

right skills and a reason to do the work. I wasn’t convinced by it at all, as a security measure.

If Master Lucan had only had the patience to get a copy made, he might have gone in and out

as much as he desired. Or if he’d only had the bright idea of sending me to steal one last

night…

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I was sure he was still beyond that guarded gate somewhere, in the warehouse or on

one of the berthed ships. Unless they’d taken him away in a boat last night. Or killed him

already…

No, not him. He was a necromancer; he wouldn’t die that easily. They’d be afraid,

maybe, to send him into death, knowing that he knew the paths home again. He had taken

me to Hell and back already, to talk and trade with demons; if they sent him against his will,

who knew, who dared imagine what he might not bring back with him…?

No: they’d keep him a prisoner, I was confident of that. At least for a while. Until they

could find another necromancer to advise them, perhaps. Or just until they daren’t hold him

any longer.

He was such a fool. All that cocky arrogance, thinking he could just walk in and out.

As

if I were invisible

, he’d said, but they’d seen him all right. I was sure of that. Seen him and

seized him, kept him… Something in Brion’s face, when I asked; that had been the giveaway.

He’d denied it, of course, but he knew.

Me, I really could just walk in and out as if I were invisible. I had their precious disk,

and who ever sees a slave…?

I hung it from the tag-ring on my collar, and waited for the next wagon that came

clattering along the roadway to turn towards the wharf and the guarded gate. Then I just

slipped out from the alley and trotted behind the wagon’s rear wheel, like a good boy.

There were two men driving the wagon. They had their disks checked, then the gate

was opened and the wagon rolled slowly through.

I was nervous, following, and it probably showed, but that didn’t matter. Slaves are

mostly nervous around the free; there are obvious reasons for it. Here the reasons were more

obvious even than the usual whips and blows that are common currency for us.

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One of the guards beckoned me over. His hand reached to check the disk, and as he

touched it I felt a sudden heat run all through my collar. It must be magical, then, somehow:

blessed or cursed to respond to the right touch from the right man. Sometimes it’s best to be

a thief; even Master Lucan might not have realised that, or been able to copy it. The disks

were a better guarantee than I’d imagined.

Just not good enough. The guard nodded me by, and I was in.

And once inside, I picked up a disregarded oilcloth bundle beyond the gates and trotted

off with it, and I could go anywhere. An idle slave can be seen a mile away, but a slave with a

burden, a working slave, really is invisible.

The wharf thrust out a long way into the bay on heavy pilings. Even so, ships moored

only on one side, loading and unloading directly into and out of the chain of warehouses that

occupied the wharf. The other side was the wagonway, goods coming in from the city, going

out.

The wagonway was my way too. On the ships’ side I’d have been tripping over ropes

and barrels and all the paraphernalia of seagoing, besides running the gauntlet of all those

curious or horny sailors. The wagonway was quieter, and I could dogtrot directly to the one

warehouse Master Lucan had identified.

It was smaller than the others, older: even from a distance it had stood out, even before

I’d seen the guards at the door. An easy guess said that it held the league’s offices, and

perhaps its more precious stock-in-trade.

I didn’t think a blue disk would be pass enough to see me past those guards. I didn’t

really have any plan in mind, only a determination to get inside.

For once in my life, I was utterly lucky. Before I came to the doorway, I found a girl

lurking round the corner, just out of sight. She had a collar round her neck, a tray of tea

things in her hands, tears on her cheeks and no hand free to wipe them.

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“What’s the matter?” I asked, taking the tray to let her deal with the tears.

I thought she was just scared of the guards, but she said, “It’s, it’s for

her. She’s

here,

and she ordered tea, and I, I can’t bear to be near her, she frightens me so much…”

“You mean the mage?” I said, guessing wildly.

The girl sniffed and nodded emphatically.

“I’ll take it for you. Just tell me where.”

A jerk of her head. “In past the guards there, and just follow the carpet. You’ll see.

But…”

Her voice trailed away as she looked me up and down, as she registered the coarse and

grubby tunic I was wearing. She was dressed in pretty silks, and I could see just what she was

thinking. I looked like a wharfside labourer, way too clumsy and untrained to be let serve tea

to anyone, let alone a powerful mage who was her master’s ally.

“Don’t worry,” I said gently. “I may not look the part, but I have very pretty manners

when I need them. I’ve been a houseboy half my life.”

She still wasn’t certain, but I didn’t give her the chance to argue; I simply walked away.

That brought me full into the guards’ view, and she wouldn’t come after me there.

They watched me every step of the way, but the tea tray got me through the door. Tea

had been sent for; tea had come. As easy as that.

You don’t expect to find carpet in a warehouse, but this was offices: and luxuriously

fitted out, to impress clients. To tempt them, perhaps, away from the guild and into the

pocket of the league?

As the girl had told me, a strip of carpet ran right from the door. On either side were

shelves of storage, some within locked cages; the thief in me -- long-suppressed, I’d thought

it dead, but it was rampant today -- wanted to take a closer look, but I crushed that down

and hurried along the carpet. I didn’t know how long the girl had been lurking out there. If

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the tea was cold, I’d get the beating she deserved. Besides, if I lingered, I might lose my nerve

for this…

Even so, as my feet hurried along the carpet, my eyes were busy unweaving the

shadows of the warehouse. Bolts and bales and chests stacked high: if I’d learned anything in

my time at the guild and my time burgling houses before that, there was a small fortune on

either side of me. Maybe not so small. Again, I thought this was to impress clients, to parade

them past obvious proof of the league’s wealth and power before they were offered the

chance to join.

All the length of this treasure-house that carpet led me, to a closed door at the end.

Trained slaves never knock; I balanced the tray, opened the door, and slid through.

It was like one more chest of treasures beyond, except that the chest was vast or all of

us were tiny. They’d built a room inside the grand space of the warehouse, ceiling and all;

and then they’d furnished it with samples of their wares, goods they’d traded from Skander

and Ax Mallion and Sirrieuse and anywhere at all.

Carpets lay three or four deep beneath my bare feet. The wood of the walls was hidden

under tapestries and falls of silk; the ceiling too was cloaked in fabric and festooned with

ropes of gold. There were lamps on stands and lamps that hung overhead, all throwing a rich

light onto the three people who sat in ultimate comfort on cushioned sofas.

Two men and a woman: one man’s eyes flicked in my direction, flicked away, came

back to me with the hint of a frown between them. I took him for the factor, the one who

had summoned a slave and sent for tea. He might know his people, in which case he knew

that I was not one of them, and I would be in trouble now. Or maybe it was only that he had

sent a girl, and a boy had come back. A dirty boy, at that…

A boy who knew what he was doing, though. I didn’t catch that man’s eye, and the

other two never glanced up or round. The other man, he was presumably master here; the

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woman -- well, the woman wore black, with silver in her ear. She was a mage, and the slave

girl was terrified of her, and the tea was hers.

Hers to drink; mine to serve. There was only one cup on the tray, which made it easy. I

dropped to my knees in the corner behind her, poured, tested the temperature against my

cheek -- steaming hot, just perfect; bless my luck today, the girl could only have been caught

for a moment in her indecision -- and shuffled forward to present the cup, on the flat of my

hand and just in her eyeline.

She reached to take it, sipped, nodded her pleasure. To her host, of course, not to me. I

slithered backwards and knelt ready with the pot, to serve her a refill whenever she held the

cup out for it.

Meanwhile I could gaze around, and I could listen. They were talking trade deals,

clients and commissions; they were out to steal the guild’s custom, to harm its reputation

where they could, and they made no secret of it. They didn’t think to be discreet with a slave

in the room: why would they? No court in this city would give the least attention to a slave’s

testimony. Our evidence was unreliable by definition; we were too easily coerced or

commanded, our loyalty traded as a marketplace commodity.

I watched the mage always out of the corner of my eye, ready to respond to her

slightest gesture. Otherwise I showed no sign of following their conversation; a good slave

has no interest in the discussions of the free.

In fact my ears were straining to pick up every murmur, even before either one of

them mentioned the demon, or Master Lucan.

When at last they did, it was the master who raised them, both in the same breath:

“This damn mage we’ve caught, can’t you just feed him to the demon?”

“That would be an act of rank stupidity,” she said calmly, laying down the insult as she

might have laid a gambling card between them. He blinked, and raised no protest; she went

on, “Torval, he’s a

necromancer

. He will have…arrangements, in Hell. I don’t say he’s

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untouchable, but I wouldn’t trust any particular demon to touch him. I daresay he knows

them all, or all that we dare to deal with. And I thought you said your own arrangements

were…satisfactory?”

“Oh, they are. They will be. Leave him where he is, he’ll drown when the spring tides

come. Just, that’s still a week away. I don’t like to have him down there under our feet for

another week, if there’s a quicker way…”

“So kill him. He’s only mortal flesh.”

“No. Not that. You said it yourself, he’s a necromancer. Mortal flesh with something

else besides. My people say there’s a curse bound to his soul, waiting for the man who takes

it. None of them will touch him.”

“And you? What do you say, Torval?”

“I say” -- and he shuddered, this wealthy and powerful master -- “I say let the tides

take him, if your demon won’t. Let his blood be on no man’s head, and his curse be lost in all

that water.”

She snorted. “Coward.”

“You, then? Will you do the deed? I can give you a blade fit for it.”

“I don’t believe in your curses -- but no. I won’t send a necromancer into death.

Besides, I’d rather he didn’t see me.”

“We do have him safely penned, you know.”

“Not beyond reach of another mage, if any thought to seek him out. They have no

reason to, but -- well, a swifter death would be a better plan, Torval.”

“I’m sure. But with no one willing…” A shrug spelled an end to his sentence, but not to

his anxieties; he was sweating, that big man.

The mage was small and cold and just as anxious, but about more deadly matters than

one man’s waiting death. She said, “You’re quite sure the soulstone is safe in here?”

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His eyes moved involuntarily, to where something lay under silk on a shelf above her

head. “You say it is.” From his tone, I guessed that she’d said so frequently, and her sudden

need for reassurance disturbed him. They were both of them edgy; the reason for it,

presumably, lay in a drowning-cell somewhere beneath the wharf.

“The wards I set will keep the demon out,” she said positively. “But if he sends an

agent…”

“Your wards caught the mage, too.”

“Yes, because he was using magic to come this far. They wouldn’t react to a normal

human.”

“Which is why I have guards all over. Magic is the only way anyone could get in here,

and we’ve seen what happens when they do. That reassured me,” he said, sounding anything

but reassured.

Nor did she look persuaded; but she rose to her feet and said, “Well. Show me those

ivories you were dubious about. I’ll test their authenticity, and then I really must be on my

way.”

Both men stood, and so did I; but I was clumsy, I spilled the tray as I scrambled up. The

pot tipped open, spilling tea and leaves across the carpets; the cup rolled away beneath a

shelf.

I stood still, horrified. The factor snarled, and swung; the back of his hand caught the

side of my face and knocked me sprawling against the wall.

“Pick that mess up,” he said, “then fetch cloths and water. If there’s a stain there

tomorrow, I’ll take the skin off your back.”

“Yes, Master…”

He turned then to apologise to the other two, promising to stay and watch me, and be

sure to lock the door once I was done. I didn’t hear their responses; by the time he turned

back I was on hands and knees, picking up every stray wet warm leaf my fingers could find.

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A minute later I was running out of there, his threats and curses lashing at my back

while he stood foursquare in the doorway, guarding his master’s secrets.

Guarding them too late, too slow. I had the tray in my hands, with the spilled pot and a

strew of leaves right there to be seen, but no sign of the cup.

The cup was still in the office, on a shelf now, under a cover of silk.

Whatever it was that had been hidden under that silk before, what she’d called a

soulstone, was inside my tunic, lying tucked against my belly, swapped in that one hectic

moment when he’d turned his back to make his apologies for my clumsiness.

I said it before, I’m a

good

thief…

He would wait and wait for me to go back with cloths and clean water. I had another

mission in mind. I knew more or less where Master Lucan was now; it was only a matter of

finding the way down.

That wasn’t hard. Just beyond that warehouse was a hole in the wharf’s deck, a rail

around it, steps going down.

A man, leaning against the rail, keys on his belt.

He looked more like jailer than guard, heavy with the weight of his years and more

ready to use the whip in his belt than the knife that balanced it. I hoped so, at least; he stood

between me and where I had to be.

No hope of sidling past him with a word of excuse. I needed a distraction, and had no

one to provide one; or else I needed…

I saw just exactly what I needed, laid out right where I needed it. And blessed the busy

wharf that made it so, and hurried forward with my tray, and --

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-- and tripped spectacularly over a loose rope that reached across the deck there and

went sprawling while my tray flew in a high arc, scattering its contents liberally before it fell

with a clatter down that stairwell.

The jailer startled, ducked the falling pot, couldn’t duck the shower of sodden leaves

that spattered him.

I scrambled up and ran to him, gabbling apologies, brushing madly at his shoulders; he

snarled and backhanded me, hard enough to knock me down again.

“Pick your trash up and get out of here. And beg yourself a beating at the kitchens.”

“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master…”

I wouldn’t have needed to beg, in any kitchen I’d known; the pot was broken this time,

lying in shards at the foot of the stairs, and that was worth a beating every time.

I scuttled down the stairs before his hard hand could find me again. And overleapt the

shards and the tray together, ran on into the dark, already sorting by touch through the ring

of keys that I’d lifted from his belt as I was brushing tea leaves from his tunic, as he was

lifting his hand to knock me away.

Master Lucan must be in a drowning-cell, an oubliette on this dark corridor. The

boards were dank beneath my feet but not actually wet, although high tide was only an hour

ago; this time of the month, tides didn’t rise high enough to swill the floor. Which meant,

which should mean…

Here: an iron grille that my feet found before my eyes had quite adjusted to the gloom.

I dropped to my knees, urgently feeling for the lock.

Found it! I could just work my little finger into the keyhole, which meant one of these

fatter keys…

While I fumbled, I hissed down through the grille.

“Master? Master Lucan…?”

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“Who’s that?” His voice snapped up at me, making my heart leap with relief, with

hope.

“Me, Master, it’s Tam. From the guildhouse…”

But I didn’t really need to say, because he’d conjured a little light from somewhere. I

saw his face, blinking up at me; I saw his eyes narrow in a frown.

“

Tam

? How…? No. Never mind. What are you doing?”

“Getting you out, Master” -- and quickly too, now that I’d finally found the right key. I

turned it and heaved the grille up, flinching at the rusty groan from the hinges. “Only, the

man at the top of the stairs is going to realise any moment that I’m not just picking up

broken china, so if you can think of some way to get us past him…” And then past the guards

at the wharf-gate, I had no ideas about that either…

“That was you, was it, that noise just now?” He didn’t expect an answer; he just thrust

his arm up through the trap, expecting a hand out. I gripped him wrist to wrist, set my legs

and heaved as best I could. He was lithe and strong, even after a night in that hole; he didn’t

really need my help, but that’s masters for you. That’s what they keep us for.

And then he stood beside me in the passage, dripping wet, and I felt infinitely better

but still anxious, shooting worried glances towards the stairs. With justice too, because here

came two stout legs with a belly above them, the jailer coming down, calling to me, cursing.

Master Lucan wasn’t worried, though. I’d been reminded already that he was a mage, just by

that little light he’d conjured; now he showed me something more, a glimpse of his power

and his ruthlessness together.

The jailer had barely set foot in the passage, was just squinting at us, trying to

understand; he couldn’t have been seeing more than shadows, two figures in the darkness

where he’d only been looking for one boy astray.

Master Lucan gave him no time even to see us straight, let alone do anything about us.

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A hand lifted, that same hand that had stroked me, played with me, struck me on

occasion. A word was spoken, and yes, it was Master Lucan’s voice, no question -- and yet it

was something more besides, as though his throat was a channel into somewhere dark and

fearful and strong and all of that darkness, all of that fearful strength was speaking through

him.

His hand closed into a fist, and the jailer made one movement, hardly more than a

gesture, his own hand lifting towards his chest. It didn’t get there.

Then he toppled and fell, crunchingly face downward, and I guessed that he would not

be getting up again.

Master Lucan said, “Now, Tam,” but I was still staring at the body.

“How did,” I began, and stopped; and licked my dry lips and tried again, “how did they

ever manage to capture you? If you can, can do

that

…?”

His hand was on my neck now, above my collar, shaking me. Not gently.

“They had a spell-snare ready, and I walked straight into it,” he said. “But never

mind

that, boy. How did you get in here?”

“Oh, that was easy. Master,” added swiftly, as his hand tightened just a little; even here,

murmuring in the shadows while his enemies passed overhead, he wanted discipline. And

got it. “No one ever stops a slave, really. No one cares enough. It’ll be harder getting out,

with you…” He couldn’t casually wave a hand and kill every man at the gate. At least, I

assumed he couldn’t. If he could, I didn’t want to see.

He half smiled as he said, “Oh, you can trot off alone. You’ve done your rescuing,” and

his fingers suggested that he was grateful, even if he wasn’t actually going to say so; there

was warmth, even affection in their grip. I thought there was. “I’m not ready to leave yet. I

know what I’m facing now, but I do still need to find what I came here for.”

“Um, that wouldn’t be this, would it? Master?”

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I fished inside my tunic, and pulled out the soulstone. This was my first real chance to

look at it; it glowed slightly, like a giant pearl with a candle at its heart; shadows drifted

across the face of it and deeper too, and I could feel a slow beat against my palm as it lay

there in my hand…

Until he snatched it away, startled, staring. “How did you come by this?”

“I was a thief, Master, before I was a slave. I did say…”

“Did you? Well. Good. You have saved me a difficult task.” He was still having trouble

believing it. And still having trouble saying thank you, but he did rough my hair a little,

distractedly, while he turned the soulstone in his other hand.

“So now can we go?” I asked. “Quickly, before someone comes?”

“No,” he said. “Oh, no. Not now. At least, not me. You can; you must.”

“But you’ve got what you wanted, so…”

“So now I see it put to use. While you run home, as fast as those sweet legs of yours

will take you. I’ll be safe enough, but very soon now this wharf will be no place for you.

You’ve done well, little Tam” -- and then he kissed me: deeply, hungrily, leaving me

gasping -- “but I want you gone now. And no lingering, no looking back to watch what

happens. I don’t suppose you had licence to rove over half the city to come rescue me, did

you?”

“Uh, no, Master…”

“No. If you run back sharpish, maybe you won’t have been missed. Sure you can get

past the watch on the gate?”

I nodded reluctantly.

“Go on, then. Now.”

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He gave me a push towards the stairs. I hesitated, looking back, reluctant to leave him;

he might think he could manage without me but he couldn’t really, we’d proven that

already.

He lifted his hand, half in command and half in threat. Something else flashed in his

eyes, I thought -- half amusement, perhaps, and half desire? But his hand was closer, and

more emphatic. I turned and ran.

Up the steps and along the wharf, head down and heading for the gate. I didn’t think to

grab a bundle, but it didn’t matter; maybe it made things easier, even. Empty-handed, I

obviously wasn’t stealing anything. Presumably I was running an errand, taking a message,

fetching something. At any rate, they let me through unquestioning, and my legs carried me

halfway up the hill before relief and obedience and the worry to get back were all overcome

by curiosity and the worry over Master Lucan.

My legs slowed to a halt, just where the road gave me a fine view back to the harbour

and the wharf. I leaned my elbows on the wall like any boy out of breath or idling out of his

owner’s sight; I watched the warehouse roofs and the moored ships and the tiny figures busy

at their work, and I waited.

Not for long. After his night in a drowning-cell, Master Lucan was probably even more

impatient than I was, just barely holding himself in check long enough for me to get clear. I

was sure that he could have kept me safe, whatever was about to happen, if he’d let me stay

with him -- hadn’t he taken me into Hell, and brought me safely back? -- but of course I

wasn’t his boy, and he had neither my mistress’s consent nor any need of me. So of course

he’d sent me home, and given me the margin of time he thought I needed. But barely.

Then, now, his patience broke. I don’t know what he did to break the soulstone; but I’d

worked out what it was, and why it mattered. I’m not very smart, but really this was easy. I’d

been there with him in Hell, when the demon Khastos told us how it had been trapped: how

the mage had stripped a girl’s soul away, and how that worked like a hook to enslave the

demon when it ate the girl. How it couldn’t be free, until it had the soul too.

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I’d been trying not to think about it, because I hated what had been done to the girl.

And the insidious thought that it could have been me, that Master Lucan could have done

exactly the same to me if he’d wanted a demon in his service, I hated that too. I didn’t think

he would have done it -- or I didn’t want to think so -- but he could have done, yes. He had

the power, and the money of course to buy me from the guildmistress, and…

No. He wouldn’t have been so cruel. Whether being separated like that, having your

soul ripped out of your body, was better or worse than being fed whole to a demon, I

couldn’t guess; but he’d gone out of his way to protect me from Khastos, when he didn’t need

to…

Even so, I had deliberately not been thinking about it. Now, though, it was right in the

forefront of my mind, just as its consequences were right there in full sight, in full daylight,

here in the world.

Master Lucan freed that soul from the stone it was trapped in, and either he summoned

Khastos from Hell or the demon just came.

If it came up under the wharf first, to swallow that freed soul, I didn’t see that. I saw it

rise from the sea like a waterspout, a sudden twist of storm rising up, riding its own

lightning. It tore across the deck of one ship, snapping rigging and splintering masts like trees

in a typhoon; crew screamed and ran, or screamed and leaped over the side, or stood still and

screamed and died.

The next ship, it poised on the deck and then sort of drilled downwards, sending

planking high and wide; and it broke that ship’s back, broke her in two and dragged both

halves of her down under the water.

When it rose again, it chose to rise up through the wharf. As casually as it had risen

from the sea, scattering vast timbers as casually as it had scattered the ship’s planking, it

erupted at the far end and danced towards the land, spinning and crackling as it came, and

breaking everything it touched.

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Which meant all the warehouses, of course, one by one; and the rest of the shipping

too, it reached out with its lightnings and set them coldly ablaze as it passed. Any people

who hadn’t fled the wharf yet, they were hurled aside or ripped apart; there are penalties for

being slow.

Me, I’d almost stopped watching the demon. What it did was vicious and

extraordinary, beyond stories, beyond imagination -- but I was looking for Master Lucan.

Looking for him to walk safely out of there, as he’d promised. I couldn’t go back and save

him, not this time. Not from here.

I shouldn’t have worried, of course. A man who walks in Hell and deals with demons, a

necromancer who can conjure the dead from their bodies, such a man wasn’t likely to be

troubled. Probably it was part of his deal with Khastos, that he not be harmed, not touched

himself.

I shouldn’t have worried, but I did, of course: I had my heart in my mouth until I saw

him.

In all that chaos of running figures and collapsing buildings, I saw one man who

walked, one dark little dot that went serenely towards the gate, and all the chaos and

catastrophe happened behind him, as though it followed at his heel like a good boy, like a

demon on a leash.

I couldn’t conceivably recognise him from here -- for all I knew, it could equally well

be the other mage, walking herself calmly to safety -- but there wasn’t the shadow of a doubt

in my mind. That was Master Lucan, and his enemy was somewhere in the ruin at his back.

Being eaten.

I watched until he had passed through the unguarded gates and set foot on solid

ground. Then I realised he’d be coming up this way, in a few short minutes.

Then I ran.

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Chapter Five

The guild tunic was gone from where I’d left it tucked up in the shadows of the alley.

That was a worry but not a surprise, and not a panic either; any beggar, any thief who’d

chanced upon it would have kept that. As for me, nobody was going to remember from one

hour to the next what one random houseboy had been wearing, the last time they’d seen

me…

Still, we did wear guild tunics when we were sent on errands, and no slave would be

let out of the house alone in anything else. I’d best not be spotted trotting in at the gate in

scullery rags, or there’d be questions asked.

Luckily, I had another way in. We didn’t use it, because sneaking out of the house is a

slave’s worst sin and the punishments are terrible -- but we all knew that the wall below the

hayloft was an easy climb down into the alley. We used to whisper about it sometimes, once

we’d been bedded down for the night: wishful thinking and bravado, how we’d run clear out

of the city to some land where nobody kept slaves, or else how we’d sneak down to the docks

and liberate a case of brandy, sit out on the beach all night and sneak back in the dawn light,

drunk and happy…

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If we could climb down in our imaginations, I could climb up in real life. It’s always

easier, going up. And as it happened, a wagon came down the way just then, a high-bedded

ox cart with just a slave to drive it. I hailed him, waving wildly; when he called his beasts to

a halt, the back wheel -- the rim of it head-high to me, better than any leg-up -- was just

directly under the loft hatch. I’d barely need to climb at all.

So I shimmered swiftly up the spokes of the wheel, balanced on the iron-bound rim,

stretched up above my head and could just catch hold of the loft-hatch sill. I called my

thanks to the wagoner, heard his grunt of annoyance and snatched my feet away from the

wheel just before it started turning, as he snapped a whip to get his oxen moving.

A bit of scrabbling before I found a foothold, one precarious moment where I thought

my hands were going to slip, but it really wasn’t hard. I hauled myself up over the sill and

into the loft, and lay panting for a minute on the dusty floor, glad to have something solid

beneath my shoulders and a familiar roof over my head.

Then I made my way through the dimness, over to the ladder and down --

-- and there waiting for me was the kitchen-master, grim and heavy.

“Decided to come back, did you?” he grunted. “Strip, and run to the whipping post.”

That simple, and that swift. He had already turned away before I’d gulped a breath.

There was no point pleading with him, never any point trying to argue -- which didn’t

usually stop us trying, of course. This time, though, my only defence was Master Lucan, and

we never ever tried to use a guest’s name to escape a punishment. Guests spoke for

themselves. If they chose to speak for us, that was a kindness and always listened to, but we

didn’t dare invoke it.

I slipped the tunic off my shoulders, dropped it there on the barn floor and ran naked

out into the yard. The whipping post was a single baulk of timber standing proud beside the

well pump, that we couldn’t help but see every time we fetched water or came to wash in

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the trough. As thick around as my waist, with a single iron ring at arm’s reach above my

head, it had been smoothed and polished to a high shine by generations of bodies rubbing

and sweating against it. I’d added my own sweat, my own small contribution to that polish,

often and often. No slave escaped a whipping every now and then, however good they tried

to be; me, I’d caught more than my fair share over the years.

Me and Pip, as often as not together, partners in crime. He rolled his eyes at me now,

from where he was mucking out a stall:

it’s your own stupid fault

, he was saying, and maybe

be glad it’s just a whipping

. By our lights, that was sympathy. I gave him a thin, tight smile in

return and waited. After a while the kitchen-master came out to me with the heavy whip in

his hand. He always gave us time to think, time to dread what was coming; he always came

too soon. Waiting is bad, anticipation is the devil, but the whipping is always worse.

Six strokes make a whipping, to the kitchen-master’s regular way of thinking. Enough

to warn, enough to punish, enough to carry in bruises and soreness for a few days after.

Ordinarily he’d just have me reach up above my head and hold the ring, with the promise of

starting the count again if I let go. He did mean that; I’d only ever let go once, after four

strokes, when I was new. Holding on tight is an easy lesson to learn.

This time he tucked the whip into his belt, grabbed my wrists and bound them with a

thong, jerked them up high and tied them to the ring. That meant he was really angry with

me, intending serious work. More than six, then. I shivered and hid my face against my arm,

my cheek pressing against the cool, unrelenting wood of the post as I heard him step away, as

I heard him shake the long blade loose with a leathery rustle in the dust, like a dry snake

seeking across the cobbles.

He snapped it once, as he always did, the tip of it just nipping at my butt. That didn’t

count.

One

. The first stroke knocks the breath out of you, always. However much you expect

it, however much you know it’s coming, your body still gasps, startled to the bone by the

brute shock of it.

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Two

. Maybe you start out determined to stand, but the second stroke will still slam you

against the post, knocking you off your feet. You hang by your hands for a moment, palms

already slippery with a cold sweat, slipping on that cold iron, struggling to hold on.

Three

. By now all the skin of your back is on fire, and that third stroke bites like a

wicked thing, like a branding iron burning deep.

Four

. Your hair’s already sodden, your face is wet with tears and sweat together, you’re

sobbing for a breath you can’t seem to catch and you’re almost grateful for that, because even

breathing makes the pain worse, but you do still have to breathe.

Five

.

Six

.

I waited. So did he. I thought time itself had paused, all the world hung still on the

poise of that moment, elegant and cruel.

Seven

.

I suppose I’d expected that, I had to. Just, you can never quite believe it, when it’s

happening to you; stroke by stroke, it’s impossible that anyone could actually be so harsh as

to strike you again. And again, and again, and…

After ten strokes, a figure walked into the yard. My head was dizzy and my eyes were

blurred but I knew him anyway, I thought I’d have known him in the dead dark if I was

blindfolded and hooded and asleep.

Eleven strokes, twelve. And then a pause, and even through the surging hammer of my

heart’s blood in my ears and the desperate sounds of my breathing, I heard Master Lucan’s

voice, calm and enquiring.

“How many’s that?”

“A round dozen.” And Master Lucan could have stopped it at ten, as soon as he saw

what was happening, if he’d chosen to…

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Instead he grunted and said, “Add another three, would you? On my own account?”

“Of course,” the kitchen-master said. “May I ask for what?”

“Disobedience.”

Disobedience to a guest was almost as great a sin as running off without permission. I

got Master Lucan’s three and then three more for the house.

By then I was slumped, drained, hanging from my wrists; I couldn’t have hung on if I

hadn’t been tied. There was no strength in me anywhere. All my body was on fire, even

where the lash hadn’t touched me; where the whip had done its work, I felt molten, as if all

my flesh had been pounded to a bloody jelly. That wouldn’t be true. The kitchen-master was

an artist with the leather, never so much as breaking the skin; none of us carried scars away

from a guildhouse whipping. But I felt torn and broken, skin and bone.

And Master Lucan had stayed to watch it all; and now I heard him say, “Put him back

to work as soon as he’s able for it, would you?”

“Of course.” I’d stiffen up, else. The kitchen-master knew that; he took good care of us,

in his way. For the benefit of the house, of course, like any stockman herding and training

his animals; a slave too stiff and sore to move is no use to anyone.

He left me hanging there, though, until I could stand on my own, and half an hour

longer. He always does that as a reminder to the household, what discipline we live beneath.

Pip brought me a dipper of water, and held it while I drank. That was allowed. I might

go hungry tomorrow, just as an extra punishment, but he never kept us thirsty.

Or dirty, either. Pip might have brought a whole bucket of water and washed the sweat

off me while I hung there, chill water was good after a beating, but he didn’t need to. It was

just starting to rain.

All my flesh flinched from the impact of it, drop by drop, but it wasn’t that which

made me cry again. Nor was it the burning pain that lingered bone-deep.

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121

Eventually, the kitchen-master came out himself to untie me.

“Fit to work?” he asked.

“Y-yes, Master.” My arms ached and trembled, my legs shook, and my back flared again

at every movement, but none of that was an excuse for idleness.

“Good. Fetch a broom, then, and scrub this yard down.”

He slapped me on the back of the head, with that long-suffering, affectionate contempt

that marked the way he treated us all, and I stumbled off in my best imitation of an obedient

run.

Hard simple labour might have drowned my misery, but it didn’t. At least the rain

masked it for an hour. Until I heard a whistle from the kitchen doorway, intimate and

already familiar.

I looked round, and there stood Master Lucan, beckoning.

I went to him and he said, “Go on up to my room. I’ll be a few minutes.”

“Yes, Master…”

Just for a moment, I almost wished he’d summoned Pip instead; I almost thought I’d

rather scrub and shovel and sleep the night in the stable with the other boys for warmth. I

almost wished it had been Pip who’d greeted him that first day, that he’d never spoken a

word or reached a hand to me.

Almost.

But I went obediently up to his room and stood in a corner, waiting.

It was maybe twenty minutes before he came, time enough to start me shivering where

I stood. He took one glance at me and barked, “Oh, for pity’s sake! Don’t you even have sense

enough to dry yourself when you’re wet through?”

“I’m slave here,” I mumbled, “I’m not allowed to use Master’s towels…”

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His only response to that was a sharp clip round my ear. Then he snatched up a soft

white guest towel, flung it over my head, and rubbed vigorously.

He was more gentle on my back, but he could never have been gentle enough; I let out

a whimper before I could bite it back, and he stopped immediately.

“No, perhaps we’ll leave that wet, hmm?”

“As Master pleases…”

“Oh, for…!” His fingers forced my chin up, made me meet him eye to eye. “Are you

sulking

, lad?”

I tried to outstubborn him with silence, but I could never win that way.

I was slave; I could never win at all.

In the end, because I had no choice, I said, “You could have stopped him, and you

didn’t. I saved your

life

, and you let him go on whipping me for it. You, you made him whip

me more…”

“I won’t come between a man and his slave, Tam. Besides, if you were mine, I’d have

whipped you myself. I told you to come straight home and you lingered, didn’t you? Didn’t

you?”

I nodded reluctantly. “How, how did you know?”

He might have cuffed me again for the interrogation, but instead his long fingers

played in my damp hair, teasing out the tangles. “If you’d come back when I told you to,

your whipping would have been long over by the time I got here. If you’d been whipped at

all, if you’d been caught.” He went back to work with the towel, briskly on my chest and

arms, lingeringly down my belly; he used both hands to dry my balls, and laughed at me as

my cock stiffened visibly. Then he pressed the towel into my hands and said, “Here, you can

dry your legs yourself. I’m not kneeling to an idiot boy.”

I didn’t kneel either; I bent over to rub at my legs one by one. I felt his hands on my

butt, pulling the cheeks apart. He was as gentle as he could be -- or as he could be bothered

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to be, perhaps, as he still thought I’d deserved my whipping -- but even that light a touch

drew a gasp of pain from me.

“Shh, easy now,” he murmured, pressing a finger against my sphincter, drawing

another kind of gasp altogether. “You’re going to be way too sore to fuck tonight, aren’t

you?”

It was true, but I would have denied it anyway if he’d given me the chance. He wasn’t

looking for an answer, though; he said, “Stay,” and walked away, leaving me bent double and

wondering what he was thinking of, what was coming now.

I found out soon enough. He came back to me and I felt that finger again and its

neighbour too, pushing in through my ring and probing deep inside me. They were slippery

with grease now, he’d taken the trouble to lubricate; but he wasn’t just doing this to oil me

up. He’d said himself I was too sore to fuck, so why…?

His fingers withdrew, and I felt something else pressing, pushing into me. That was

oily too, something to be grateful for; and stiff, solid, chilly despite his hands at work with it.

I relaxed and did what I could to help, because I knew what it was now. Sometimes I thought

I was old, intimate friends with every single one of the guildhouse butt plugs.

This one was long --

oof

! Longer than Master Lucan, or any master I’d ever known --

but not too fat, startling rather than painful, reaching so far into me I could barely breathe. It

wasn’t the same, it wasn’t ever the same as taking a man, but -- well, sometimes masters used

it as a punishment, and no. It wasn't that either. Not ever.

At last, at long long last I felt the plug’s broad rim between my cheeks, and knew I had

it all. Master Lucan’s fingers slipped between my legs where I was still doubled over, and he

was clearly not at all surprised to find how tight my balls were, how my cock jutted hard

beyond.

“Little slut,” he murmured affectionately, as if I had any choice in what he was doing to

me, or how my body was reacting.

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Then the house bell sounded. This time, to my shuddering disappointment, he stopped

fondling me, hooked a hand through my collar and drew me gently upright. I gasped and

staggered a little, impaled on that rigid plug; I was too well trained -- just! -- to clutch at him,

but his strength held me easily while he looked me up and down, his usual mocking smile

overlaid by something deeper, that I yearned for him to express. Instead his fingers tilted my

chin up and he kissed me slowly, lingeringly. That was a whole conversation, and didn’t

need words at all. When at last he broke away, perhaps I groaned a little in protest. He

laughed and shook my head gently in his strong hand, and said, “Come on, sweet Tam, help

me dress. This night of all nights, I cannot miss your mistress’s dinner.”

Another slave must have cleaned his best clothes and laid them out for him, polished

his good boots to a high shine. I didn’t care. It thrilled me every time he remembered my

name, every time he bothered to say it.

Between the blazing soreness of my back and the invasive pillar of the butt plug, every

movement was a shock. I was slow and cautious -- and Master Lucan was way more patient

than I’d expected, than I had any reason to expect -- and even so I kept swallowing down

little cries or grunts, wanting to bite hard on something. Preferably him, but he didn’t like

that. There were tears in my eyes that I couldn’t blink back as I fumbled with his buttons, as

I knelt at his feet and rubbed a cloth over his boots to wipe away the little smears my fingers

had left.

Then he headed for the door and once again I was a tad too slow, a beat behind the

measure; he actually had to pause a moment before I was there to open it for him.

That earned me a swift, stinging cuff on the ear that neither of us thought about for a

moment, him or me. Then his fingers stroked my jaw and he said, “You’re in no state to serve

at dinner. You wait here for me. Stay warm and quiet; light the fire, the room may not need

it but you’re better sweating than seizing up. And don’t touch this” -- he reached behind me

to tap the handle of the butt plug, making me gasp as I felt that light touch like a tremor deep

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inside me. “Or this,” he added, stroking my cock malevolently. “They’re for me to play with.

Understand?”

“Y-yes, Master…”

“Good boy, then.” One more fleeting kiss, and he was away. I watched him out of sight

down the stairs, just in case he glanced back at all; then I closed the door slowly and spent as

long as I could building a fire and then tidying the room, folding his abandoned clothes,

cleaning and oiling his old boots. When there was nothing left to do, I knelt -- carefully! --

by the hearth, fed the flames little by little, and waited.

Nothing hurries free men and women at their wine, at their manners. The guild’s

formal dinner takes hours to serve and eat. We are all of us trained to wait on a master’s

whim, and this wasn’t the first time, it felt like the hundred-and-first time I’d waited after a

whipping or with a butt plug inside me. Never both at once, though, and never for a man

like this: a man I ached for in ways that had nothing to do with pain or pressure, not really

anything to do with my body at all.

Being a slave is all about the body, of course, ours at the service of our owner’s needs

and wants and pleasures. Priests tell us that we don’t have souls, and no master ever kept us

for our minds. Or our yearning hearts either, which was a lesson I seemed to have forgotten

utterly as I yearned for Master Lucan to come back.

Time dragged, like a sack full of stones -- and even that made me think about a man’s

balls in their sac, and I wanted to be playing with Master Lucan’s but I wasn’t even allowed

to touch my own. I was still painfully erect, the butt plug guaranteed that; it did everything

to me except what I wanted, which was all of that but with a master’s warmth, a master’s

needs, a master’s satisfaction.

One master now, one very particular master. Which was stupid, but what I wanted

none the less.

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I cried again, a little -- and I could pretend that was the whipping, or I could pretend it

was the cruel frustration in my body, or just the meanness of leaving me alone like this, but I

couldn’t fool myself whichever way I tried it. I cried because I didn’t want to lose him and

he was already lost: just passing through, not mine. I wasn’t his, and never would be. Just a

houseboy utterly and helplessly in love with a man who could have me on a whim and leave

me in a moment.

That’s a slave’s life and I’d known it for years, and never let myself fall like this before.

Too late now. I rubbed away the tears, swallowed down the sobs. Waited.

When he came at last, at long long last, he brought a surprise with him: a bowlful of

scraps from the meal, meat and vegetables all warm and sticky with gravy…

“The kitchen-master will be angry with me, I expect,” he said, dropping a potato whole

into my mouth. “You’re probably supposed to go hungry for a day or two, hmm? Well” -- as I

nodded mutely, reluctant but honest -- “

he

can starve you as and when he chooses.

I

shall

feed you tonight, because otherwise you’ll be restless and whimpery in the dark, and spoil

my sleep.”

His foot, newly liberated from its boot, slipped between my legs to toy with my cock,

the big toe stroking up and down the length of it. I was still achingly stiff, still gaspingly

pierced by the butt plug, he was giving me no quarter and no relief; maybe he wanted me to

beg, and I wouldn’t do that. Not till he ordered me to, at any rate.

In the meantime, I was sore and skewered and desperate for his touch, teased and

tormented and wildly, tearfully happy, and being fed too from his fingers, and it couldn’t get

any better than that --

-- and then there was a scratching at the door, brisk and imperative.

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He sighed, passed me down the bowl of scraps and gestured with his head. “Put that to

the side, and open the door.”

I may have whimpered, just a little; but if I did I was moving at the same time,

hurrying to obey.

It was the guildmistress -- inevitably! -- who sailed in, magnificently ignoring me and

the state of me, naked and erect. Just as inevitable, it was Sharra who was lighting her way

and carrying a small wooden chest besides: Sharra whose eyes danced up and down my

figure, whose smile said that she was not going to miss this chance to work mischief.

She set down the lamp and the chest, and came to stand with me dutifully in the

corner. And reached one hand wickedly behind my back, and set the fingers to rest lightly

on the handle of the butt plug.

She’d used plugs often when she had the training of me, and she knew all the tricks:

the little twists and tugs, the tiny movements that could raise a sweat in moments and send a

shiver right through my bones. She knew them and she used them all that night, doing

everything she could to win a gasp from me or a sudden jerk, anything to attract Master

Lucan’s attention. Or our mistress’s. Either would be appalling; I couldn’t decide which

would be worse.

So I did exactly what Sharra wanted, of course: swallowed down every sound that rose,

suppressed every twitch and fidget, bit the insides of my cheeks hard. And glowered at her,

pleaded silently, anything if she would only stop; and she smiled demurely, and her eyes

sparkled, and her hand went on turning the plug slowly in place, or drawing it a little in and

out or working it up and down, while my skin sweated and trembled and so did my clenched

fists because I didn’t dare touch her, of course, slap her hand away, that way lay disaster…

Disaster wasn’t so far off in any case, I’d been hard so long. My cock was as stiff and

straining as the rest of me, with no relief in sight. That chest held the promised payment,

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apparently, but in return Mistress wanted the whole story, everything he’d learned and

everything he’d done, how he could be so certain that his commission was complete.

Master Lucan is a good storyteller -- which means that he doesn’t hurry, which means

that he knew they would both want drinks. And said so, with a glance and a gesture. I don’t

know if he’d seen what she was about, or if he decided I’d be better left quiet in the corner,

or if he didn’t think about it at all; but his summons was to Sharra, not to me. She went to

serve wine, and I got a break.

Indeed, I was let off altogether, because she stayed beside the table there to offer refills

as they drank. And to hear the story, of course, to pass it on later. The whole household

would want to hear this. From where I stood, it was hard to pick up Master Lucan’s

murmuring voice; the state I was in, it was really hard to concentrate on what he said.

Besides, I knew it all already. I gave up even trying to listen, about the same time that Sharra

gave up pretending not to listen.

Mostly I was focused on my own yearning, trembling body, half wishing my erection

would just go away, half hoping to keep it till everyone was gone and I was alone again with

Master Lucan. I had nothing to hide any more, if I ever did have; slaves aren’t allowed

secrets. It was hardly a secret anyway, how he would play with me, and how I’d respond.

Just, we didn’t usually do it right under Mistress’s eyes…

The butt plug was like a glowing bed of charcoal beneath a pot, keeping me constantly

on a simmer. I couldn’t will my cock to relax, any more than I could do anything about it. I

just had to sweat it out, not fidget, grit my teeth and not even think about coming, no, please

no…

I wasn’t listening, but even so I knew when he mentioned me. Even Mistress glanced

quickly in my direction; Sharra lifted her head and gazed at me directly, with a wide-eyed

startlement that faded quickly into a smile that had nothing mean about it, nothing teasing. I

blushed and stared down at my feet. Which I couldn’t see, of course, without seeing my cock

thrusting out above them, which only made me blush the harder.

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At last, at long last, Master Lucan was done with his tale, Mistress was done with her

questions. She was rising to her feet, bidding him good night. I went swiftly to the door and

held it for her as she swept by me, Sharra at her heel with the lamp retrieved. I got another

of those uncomplicated smiles, and they were gone. I closed the door, and turned to Master

Lucan.

Who snapped his fingers to bring me running, and then ran them down over my

sweaty skin while I shivered and hissed softly. When they reached my cock, when they

closed around it, I groaned and said, “Master, I can’t…!”

“Of course you can,” he said, frowning mightily. “You’re ready when I say you’re

ready; you come at my command. Only at my command. Do you understand?”

I swallowed, and nodded, and tried to believe it. To my surprise, he laughed; then he

reached behind him and conjured that damp towel from somewhere. It was cool and

welcome as he rubbed me down. Then, unexpectedly, his other hand was on my butt and

reaching for the plug.

“It had better be now, then,” he murmured, just in time, as I felt the suck and surge of

that plug deep inside me as he toyed with it, as my cock responded helplessly, as I spurted…

Into the towel, blessedly, rather than all over Master Lucan. He’d been ready for it, to

the second. He worked my cock lightly till there was no more to come, wiped me clean and

tossed the towel aside; tweaked the butt plug one last time then eased it out of me and tossed

that after.

Then he lifted me into his lap, settled me on my knees astride him and kissed me in a

slow discovery. I was gasping, shaking in his grip; his hands steadied me until I settled,

nestled into his shoulder.

His voice was a soft murmur by my ear: “Bed for you, I think, little sweet one. It’s been

a hard day.”

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Now that I had him, I clung to him. “You too.”

“Yes, yes. It’s the only way I could be sure you’d stay where I put you.”

Which was not true, and he knew it; I wasn’t going anywhere tonight, unless he took

me there.

Which he did, he lifted me up and carried me to the bed; and laid me down and told

me sternly to lie still, not to think about helping him, he was a grown man and he could

manage his own clothes perfectly well.

It was strange, topsy-turvy, for me to lie there and watch a master undress himself. He

didn’t take long, though, and he did leave his clothes scattered all over the floor, because

why would he think of picking them up? There was always a slave to do that. Just, not this

slave, not till tomorrow…

Then he came to the bed and arranged himself, arranged me how he wanted us. I lay

on my belly, with nothing touching my back where I hurt most. He slipped his arm under

my head and stretched himself out beside me, kissed me lightly, and said, “Sleep, then. I have

you now.”

“’S, Master…”

In truth, it’s always easy to sleep after a whipping. If he hadn’t put that butt plug in, I’d

have dozed off by the fire before he came up after dinner. Now I was glad he had, glad I

hadn’t; now, exhausted and hollow and drained, I could cling to his dark strength as I

plunged, down and down into the well of dreaming.

It was full dark still when I woke. I don’t think I moved; perhaps I grunted,

remembering the soreness in my back. Perhaps it was only that my breathing changed.

Perhaps I had been snoring?

Anyway, he knew. His hand shifted a little, on my flank; his cheek stirred my hair. I

nuzzled his chest, and moved my fingers down over his hard flat belly, to the wiry hair

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below and his sturdy erection. I hadn’t given it a thought before, so tormented by my own; I

felt like I’d failed him. And failed the house, failed Mistress too. I tried to imagine what she

would say, if she knew; and swallowed, and said, “Master…”

“Shh.” He read my mind, or my body at least; and soothed me with lips and hands until

I wasn’t worried any more. Then his fingertips stroked featherlight down my spine, slipped

between the cheeks of my butt; he whispered, “Are you still too sore to fuck, young Tam?”

I swallowed again. I’d be sore for days yet, but, “Of course not, Master…”

“Good lad. Easy now, get your knees under you and lift your butt up, that’s right…”

He arranged me so that I didn’t need to take his weight at all; he knelt behind me, his

hands on my hips, and I had barely felt the nudge of his cock before he’d slipped inside me,

swift and forceful and nothing,

nothing

like the butt plug. This was what I wanted, what I

yearned for; he was what I dreamed of, the kind of master I could never hope to have.

Except for a night or two, like this, serving my house by serving him. You take what

you can get; I’d take the memory of this, of him, and treasure it for a long time. For all my

life, I hoped. Nothing this good would likely come my way again. Even if I was sold on from

the guildhouse, I couldn’t expect to be this lucky.

He came quickly, deep inside me, as if he’d been hot and ready for a long time. To my

shame, of course, he had. How many hours was it, since he’d played with me before dinner?

All that time, he must have been eager for his own pleasure, his own satisfaction; and hadn’t

sought it because of me, the state I was in, unfit to serve him…

Even now, when he’d worked off that dammed-up urgency and might have lingered,

might have had me kiss and lick and finger him into an unhurried second time, he didn’t do

that. Instead he was still all care for me, reaching between my legs to test whether I was stiff;

finding that I was -- again! -- his firm hand made me come. Again. And then he sprawled at

his ease across the bed and arranged me once more to his comfort and my own, kissed the

top of my head and told me to go to sleep.

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I mumbled, “Yes, Master,” and did just that.

And woke in a hot dark cave, curled up beneath the covers with my head against his

belly. I could feel him stirring, waking in his turn; a little investigation, just a stretch further

down, discovered his long, hard morning erection.

Which I greeted the best way I knew how, with lips and tongue and as much as I could

take into my mouth. I felt his grunt more than heard it, felt his hand in my hair -- half

affectionate, half controlling, because this man would never give me leeway -- and gave

myself over to giving him pleasure, slow and languorous and sweaty.

When he came this time, so did I.

And then he tossed the covers back and smiled down at me, hooked his fingers through

my collar to drag me up his body for a kiss.

And said, “All right, lad, up you get. Get yourself washed and fed and dressed now.

Smartly, mind. I’ve an errand for you.”

“Should I bring Master’s breakfast?” I murmured, nuzzling at his neck.

“No, I want a bath first,” and he stretched himself luxuriantly, as if he could already

feel steam and water and oil on his sticky skin. “Are you still here? Go.”

I went; but I lingered long enough to steal myself another kiss, and so earn myself a

slapping.

Pip worked the pump for me and washed my back as gently as he could, describing the

impressive depth and colour of my bruises.

I dried off in front of the kitchen fire, spooning porridge. The kitchen-master came

over while I was eating, and I think perhaps the guildmistress had had a word with him, to

tell him why I’d gone missing yesterday. I don’t suppose he felt guilty for having whipped

me -- he was never cruel but he was always strict, and he did think that boys should be

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whipped regularly, just on general principles -- but he poured a dipper of sweet milk into my

bowl, and didn’t chase me away till I was stuffed.

Running an errand meant leaving the house; I went to the linen closet for a clean guild

tunic. And met Sharra on the way back, who rolled her eyes at me and pulled the tunic

straight, retied the belt, combed my hair through with her fingers and asked if Master Lucan

had everything he wanted.

Which was all code, to ask after me; so I said yes, I thought so, which meant

I’m fine,

truly

.

“Good. You’d better get back to him, then, before he finds himself in lack of a boy…”

She stood on tiptoe to kiss me unexpectedly, slapped me on the thigh, and sent me on

my way with a jerk of her dark head.

Master Lucan had moved from the bed to the window seat while I was gone, and

wrapped himself in a robe. He looked me over carefully and nodded his content; then he

indicated the chest that Mistress had given him last evening.

“You know the mages’ chapterhouse, down at the harbour?”

“Of course, Master.”

“Good. Run that down, and give it to the master of the house. To no one else, and from

me. Understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Off you go, then. Use the front entrance when you get there, don’t go skulking in

through the kitchens. Straight there, please, and straight back again. No idling in the city like

a footloose idiot boy.”

I was never footloose, but an idiot boy I was; I said, “If Master could wait an hour, I

could be back to tend him at his bath.”

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Just for a moment, the corners of his mouth twitched upwards. Then he frowned

monumentally. “Master doesn’t have an hour to waste. You don’t have a minute. Must I beat

you, to get you started?”

I said nothing, but fetched him the switch from his boot.

He barked with laughter, and didn’t use it. Rather, his strong hand closed on my neck,

and drew me close for a long, hard kiss. Then, “One hour,” he said, a little breathily, giving

my head a shake. “Not a moment longer.”

“Yes, Master…”

I scooped up the chest and ran.

I went via the stables, to wrap the chest in old horse-stained sacking. It was darkly

polished and bound in silver, a valuable thing in itself, never mind the weight of wealth

inside it. Master Lucan had sealed it himself, and no doubt he thought that was protection

enough. Only a fool would meddle with a mage’s seal, it was true -- but the streets of

Amaranth are full of stupid thieves. I knew; I used to be one.

So I disguised it as best I could, before I trotted out into the lane. Now I was just one

more boy with a burden, nothing to pick me out from the dozens of others running to and

fro on the city’s business.

I was still nervous, carrying something so very valuable, unwatched and unguarded.

Guards only attract attention, though; armed men are an invitation to attack. I understood, I

even applauded the decision to send his money so discreetly through the streets, and

something warm filled my heart at his implicit trust in me. Even so, I did half wish he’d

chosen someone else for this.

More than half, when I reached the mages’ chapterhouse after a brisk jog downhill. No

one had interfered with me on the way, no one had so much as noticed me; I should be

relieved, confident, curious…

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But this was the mages’ house, and free or slave, everyone in Amaranth fears mages. If

they have any sense, they do. Master Lucan had taught me that not every mage is the cold,

cruel terror of the storytellers -- I was scared of him in a healthy way, slave to Master, but

nothing more or worse than that -- but nothing that I’d seen or heard from him had said that

every mage was like him. I didn’t imagine that for a moment. And these high dark walls

sheltered a whole nest of them, and the door was heavy and narrow, and I really did not

want to walk through it.

Given the choice, I would have followed my instincts and ducked around to the back of

the house, found the stables and the kitchen door, found someone I could talk to. But -- wise,

perhaps, in the ways of boys -- Master Lucan had forbidden that. That was his pride, I

thought. It made no difference that I carried money rather than news; any message from him

would be expected to arrive the same way, boldly through the front door, demanding

attention. And never mind what repercussions that might bring down on the boy who had to

carry it…

Boldly, then. I could do that. For him, I could.

I swallowed my nerves and walked boldly across the street. Wiped my feet awkwardly

on my calves, not to walk the city’s dust onto their floors, and walked a little less boldly up

the steps. Came to the doorway and hesitated, almost fatally; but at last I shivered, and

swallowed again, and stepped across the threshold.

Stepped into shadow, a high cool entrance-hall, stone flags beneath my feet and dark

oak walls: and realised as I did so that I’d forgotten to unwrap the chest. I cast about for

somewhere to discard a filthy length of sacking that smelled strongly of horse. Not anywhere

here, on this polished parquet floor. Even the gloomy corners were scrupulously clean; I

wouldn’t dare. I’d have to take it out, and find the nerve somewhere to come back in again…

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I’d already turned around when a voice caught me like a whip, holding me just exactly

there, framed in the doorway:

“You, boy. What are you doing here?”

My mouth was too dry to swallow; for a moment my legs felt too heavy to move. But

training wins out over terror, every time. That’s why they train us so well, one reason why.

I turned, then, my eyes low, and said, “Please, Mistress, I was sent to bring this…”

“Well, take it to the back door, fool, whatever it is. Slaves don’t use the masters’ hall to

come and go. What is it, anyway, something for the kitchens? Or for the stable” -- added as

she came closer, as she saw the sacking, as perhaps she smelled it -- “is that it? What were

you

thinking

…?”

By now she was close enough that I could see her feet -- as bare as mine, though a lot

cleaner -- and her legs, rising up above the knee before they met the hem of her silken tunic.

Not a mage, then; she was as slave as me.

A senior slave, though, a slave with a switch in her belt. I took the wisest course, and

behaved as if she were free. That’s always best anyway, in a strange household. It never hurts

to be humble. “Please, Mistress, I was told to use the front door.”

“Whatever for?”

I pulled the sacking off the chest, and showed her. “This is for the master of the house,

for his hands only, from the master mage Lucan.”

“Master

Luke

?” Her eyes widened in confusion, but there was a rising warmth in her

voice suddenly. “What’s Master Luke doing, sending to us through the guild? And where is

he, anyway? He was here, but he left days ago.”

“He’s been with us. His horse went lame, and then my mistress had a commission for

him. This is the pay, but he sends it to you…”

“Well, of course.” She eyed the chest with an increasing respect, judging the weight by

the way I held it. “What’s he been doing, for… Oh.

Oh

! That was him, wasn’t it? That

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madness out in the harbour yesterday? That’s so like him: grand theatrics, and then he

doesn’t even come by and tell us what he’s up to. Come on, you tell…”

“I can’t. He sent me to your master,

straight

to your master,” no hanging round the

hallways gossiping with slave girls.

She pulled a face, and nodded. “This way, then. Smartly, now. And get rid of that sack,

will you?”

“Um, where…?”

She rolled her eyes and snatched it from me, bundling it up as she led me down a

corridor, wedging it behind a lamp-bracket on the wall as we came to another dark and

imposing door. There was writing on it, gold letters that I couldn’t read but I could make a

fair guess at.

Master of the Chapterhouse

, it would say, or something like it.

Be afraid

, was all

it needed to say to me. Not even that, because I already was. I’d forgotten, for a moment,

crossing words with a girl who spoke so freely of “Master Luke” -- indeed, I was trying it out

already in my head, wondering just how he’d react if I risked it to his face, if I dared -- but

the fear was back now, settled in my head as though it had never been away. And in my

belly too, leaving me queasy and a little unsteady.

She saw, perhaps, or she was used to seeing it, looking for it; her hand touched my back

for a moment, though she snatched it away as soon as she saw me flinch. She squared her

own shoulders in dumb show,

stand tall and answer clearly

, advice that never loses its keen

edge. Then she opened the door and nodded me through.

You open the door, you walk in; unless your errand is urgent, you wait to be noticed.

Sometimes you wait a while. Patience is beaten into us, briskly. Patience and discretion both.

No need for discretion here; there was nothing to interrupt, nothing to overhear. Only

one elderly man at a desk, bent over his paperwork. He didn’t so much as glance up for one

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minute, two, maybe three. Then at last he laid his pen aside, wiped ink from his fingers, and

gestured me closer.

I wished that the girl had come with, to explain me and my errand; my feet were

unaccountably heavy again as I walked into the depths of that mild gaze. Master Lucan wore

all his dangers right up front, in his reliable frown and his quick, hard hands; this man

seemed light as silk, easy as a drink of milk, and I didn’t believe that for a moment.

At least I didn’t need to announce myself, when he was willing to do it for me. Just as

well, given how dry my mouth was.

He said, “Well. A boy from the Wayfarers’ Guild. With something for me, is it?”

I nodded gratefully.

“Set it down, lad. Here,” and his hand swept his papers aside to let me do that. I

thought perhaps he was used to dealing with tongue-tied slaves, perhaps with tongue-tied

free folk also, because he still wasn’t making me speak; he peered at the seals on the chest

and said, “Ah. From Master Mage Lucan, is it? That…answers a number of questions that

have been disturbing the authorities and puzzling me a little. Very good. Was there a

message, other than this?”

I shook my head. Then swallowed rattlingly, took a painful breath, made a determined

effort. “No, Master. No message. Only the chest, from his hands to yours.”

If he’d asked, of course, I would have told him all the story; but he didn’t ask. “Very

good,” he said again. “Get you gone, then; no doubt you’re waited for. Oh, and here, for that

dry throat…”

He took something from a bowl and tossed it casually. I snatched it from the air: a

crystallised plum, dense and juicy. My thanks came out in an awkward stammer which his

fingers disregarded entirely, wafting me gently towards the door.

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I ducked out with my face set firmly towards the hallway and the street beyond -- and

I’d barely gone half a pace before my wrist was seized and I was tugged away, down a side

passage, and through a service door.

It was the same girl, of course, who had lain in wait and grabbed me. She’d brought

two friends with her this time. The three of them took me to a storeroom, and their leader

said, “Come on, then, what’s Master Luke been up to? Apart from finding himself a pretty

boy, which is no news at all? Tell us everything!”

“I c-can’t,” I stammered, “I have to go back.”

“You can give us ten minutes. You might have had to wait that long anyway, longer, if

our master had been busy. Besides,” she said, taking the sweetmeat from my nerveless fingers

and tearing off a shred of it, feeding that to me with her fingers and then sucking them

reflectively, “I want to look at that back of yours.”

“There’s no need…”

“No, but I want to anyway.” Her friends were already stripping me, as quickly and

casually as they might have unharnessed a pony, paying my protests no mind at all. No slave

is body-shy, but I’d sooner they didn’t pick over my bruises -- and my wishes had as much

weight and significance as a dropped feather in the wind.

She whistled softly, and didn’t touch at all. “Did Master Luke do this?”

“No, of course not.” A free man might use his whip on someone else’s slave -- as Master

Lucan had used his switch on me -- in swift discipline or temper, or just to chivvy them out

of the way, but a proper punishment whipping was the prerogative of the owner. Or their

staff. “The kitchen-master whips at the guildhouse.”

“Be glad it wasn’t Master Luke,” one of the other girls murmured. “He’s a hard hand

with a whip.”

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“So’s this one, though. Never mind, sweet” -- cool fingertips on my cheek like a kiss --

“we’ve numb-oil here for you, liberated from the bathhouse specially. You can talk while we

ease all your hurt away. What’s he

done

?”

“I don’t think Master Luke would approve of you numbing off a whipping,” I muttered.

In truth, I was sure of it. The kitchen-master was another matter today, but --

“It wasn’t Master Luke who whipped you,” she said astutely. And fingered her own

slender switch, and said, “Are you going to be good, or do I have to be mean? Lie down on

that table, and start talking…”

So I did that. I told them everything that their master hadn’t asked -- maybe he knew

that I’d be due this interrogation, and he’d take the news from them later? -- while gentle

fingers worked oil into all my sore skin. By the time we were done, I was feeling no pain and

starting to drift; I needed her sharp nails in my ear to bring me back.

“Up you get, laze,” she said, laughing at me. “You need to get back where you belong.”

“Give Master Luke our love,” one of the other girls said, slipping the tunic over my

head again as I sat up slowly, “but tell him to be more careful, yes? For us?”

“I don’t know your names.”

“Nor does he, most likely,” their leader snorted. “Just say the chapterhouse girls, that

should be enough.”

“It had better be.” Even my belt was knotted for me, these girls were so used to

dressing other men. But then, so was I. “If he’s forgotten us already -- well, send him back

for a reminder.”

“

Bring

him back.” That was their leader again, giving me a smile with my crystallised

plum.

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I wished I’d have the chance, but it was nonsense. I put what was left of the plum

whole into my mouth, so that I didn’t have to say so. They took me out the back way, kissed

and petted me goodbye, and I ran for home.

Where I found Master Lucan in the stable yard and his horse too, saddled and ready,

with Pip at her head. And the guildmistress on the back step, with Sharra at her shoulder. All

of them waiting, as it seemed, for me.

My back twitched, despite the numbness. But at least the kitchen-master wasn’t visible,

with his strap in his hands. And I hadn’t been that long, I wasn’t so terribly late, was I…?

Mentally I cursed the girls who had delayed me as I trotted up to Master Lucan’s side.

“About time,” he snapped. “You delivered the chest?”

I nodded, mute in the face of his impatience.

“Any message for me?”

A shake of the head this time. That wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t think he meant

messages of love from slave girls.

“Good, then. I can be on my way. Finally. Once I’ve done one last little bit of business

here, which has been waiting on the courtesy of your return. The

eventual

courtesy.” And

then he looked over my shoulder to where the guildmistress was waiting, in her eternal

patience; and he said, “A boy who can’t even run an errand swiftly has little value. Will you

take twelve shillings for him?”

“Oh,” she said, “I think he’s worth a little more than that. Sixteen, in good stamped

silver.”

Master Lucan frowned at me, while I gaped at him, while my heart raced; still

apparently talking to the mistress, he said, “I’m not sure he’s bright enough to justify that.

Still…”

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And he took a purse from his belt and counted out sixteen bright silver shillings that he

must have had ready for this because no one carries that kind of money in their purse, not

even a mage in all his pomp and pride. Then he reached up to my collar and slipped the guild

tag off its ring, added that to the coins, walked over to the mistress and paid for me.

Bought me.

And came back to me, to where I stood shaking on the cobbles there, unnamed and

newly traded; and casually unknotted the crimson rope of my belt, slipped the guild tunic off

my shoulders, and let it fall.

“M-master?”

“Hush,” he said. And pulled a thong from his belt, reached my wrists round behind me,

tied them tight -- and then just stood there for a moment, with his arms around me, so that I

could drop my head onto his shoulder and feel curiously safe.

He made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort, and one hand squeezed my

butt lightly. “You,” he murmured, “will need to earn every penny of that absurd price I just

paid for you.”

“Yes, Master. Yes, please…” as I rubbed my cheek against his sleeve.

“Another day, you can share Rosinace’s burden; if she has to carry me, I don’t see why

she should carry all my bags as well. Today, though -- well, today we’ll just see if you can

run.” He peeled himself away from me as he was speaking, to run a tether from the horse’s

saddle to the ring of my collar.

“I can run, Master. And I can carry my share, too.”

“I’m sure you can. Tomorrow, you can prove it.” He finished the knot at my throat,

tugged it, nodded his satisfaction; and then he stopped, looked at me sharply, said, “You’re

very eager to work, for a boy with a purple back.”

His fingers ran testingly down my spine and I blushed, for reasons that had nothing to

do with nakedness.

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“Hmm. Are you sure you had nothing to tell me?”

“The, the girls of the chapterhouse sent their love to Master Luke…”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Did they, indeed? I should have known you

wouldn’t escape their attentions. Oh, don’t look so worried, boy. I’m not going to punish you

for anything they did; I do know you won’t have had the choice. Even so, you should be

aware that I do not normally carry numb-oil. And I do mean to buy a whip, when I buy you

a new tag for your collar with my own name on it; and I will use it. You will find me a strict

master, and very demanding.”

I swallowed, and mumbled, “Yes, Master,” and still couldn’t have wished for anything

else. I wanted to tell him so, to say that he was more than I’d ever dreamed of, but masters

aren’t interested in confessions of love.

Nor do they make them. His fingers tilted my face up, and I saw something in his eyes,

not a softness but a sharp affection; his lips met mine in a swift, exhilarating kiss. That was as

much as I dared hope for, more than I’d ever dare to expect.

Then he stepped away, lifted his foot to Rosinace’s stirrup, and mounted.

Pip passed him up the reins, and checked the girth; then, as part of the same natural

action, he checked the rope on my collar and the thong that bound my hands, and took the

opportunity to slap my butt in a mute farewell. He’d be lonely, a little, for a while, but he

had other friends in the house, and no doubt the mistress would buy in someone else to

replace me. Slaves come and go; you see your friends sold on, or left behind. We’re all used

to it.

I pressed my cheek to Master Lucan’s boot, but he cuffed me away without so much as

a glance. I dropped back a pace and looked over my shoulder; the mistress was paying me no

attention, of course, all her attention on the departing guest, but behind her Sharra blew me

a quick kiss. Master Lucan lifted his hand in a polite farewell to the house, then he dug in his

heels and kicked us both into a trot, Rosinace and me.

144

Thom Lane

Head high, I ran out of the stable yard and out of the city, out of the only life I knew:

collared and branded, naked and bound, nervous and excited and in love.

Bought, sold, and owned.

Mastered.

His, entirely his.

Thom Lane

Thom Lane is an English writer who has published romances and erotica as well as

fantasies and other books under other names. In his tales of Amaranth, he is combining as

many of those genres as possible…