The Bastard, page 10
But I wanted more (Rule Number Two) and stopped just before she came. Rosylin burst away from kissing Maise to glare at me.
But I smiled. “Let’s try something different?”
Both girls had swollen lips from all their kissing, and their hair had become tousled. Gently, I moved Rosylin off me. “Lay down, both of you.”
Then, I showed them what I wanted, positioning them—with peals of sensuous laughter—until both girls were on their sides facing the middle of the bed, with Rosylin’s head between Maise’s legs. When I laid down to put my face back between Rosylin’s legs, I placed my hips in front of Maise so we formed a sort of circle.
Both girls seemed to understand what I was after, and soon, we all had our mouths full of someone else. I picked up where I left off with Rosylin, she pleasured Maise, and Maise took my cock in her warm, wet mouth.
In a few moments, all of us were squirming and moaning.
Surprisingly, Maise came first, taking her mouth off my cock and gasping as Rosylin brought her to completion. I knew well what Rosylin’s mouth could do, and it made me even harder to think of her doing that to Maise.
Then it was Rosylin’s turn. She shuddered, her legs clamping around my head as she came. I continued to lick and suck until she squirmed away from me, too sensitive to take anymore.
Maise had resumed working on me, and while concentrating on Rosylin had helped take my mind off what was happening down there, when Rosylin sprawled out beside me, I had to move away from Maise. It wasn’t quite time yet.
Rosylin had a lazy grin on her face, but when she caught my eye, her look was sultry. By now, I didn’t know which way on the bed was up, but both girls laughed and hovered over me. Rosylin kissed me, and I tasted Maise on her lips. It was sweet and sensuous, and I liked it. It seemed they’d already worked out who would get me first, because while I was kissing Rosylin, Maise lowered herself onto me.
She set a slow pace at first, riding me quietly and in a circular fashion. When she increased her pace, I put a hand on her hip, just to feel more of her. The girl was beginning to sweat, and when I looked at her, her eyes were closed in concentration.
Rosylin sat up then and moved to straddle my legs, behind Maise. Then she reached around and cupped the smaller girl’s breasts, pinching her nipples as she rode me. I put both hands on her hips, then, and had to resort to counting so that I wouldn’t come too early.
Maise came with a sharp gasp, sitting down on me hard and bucking while she rode out the wave. Her climax lasted several seconds, her entire body shuddering while Rosylin seemed to support her.
When Maise finished, she collapsed onto my chest. Then, smiling, she rolled off me and put her hand on my chest.
Then, I sat up and pulled Rosylin toward me. Although I had stamina, this session was pushing it to my limit. Rosylin sat down on my cock, sliding in slowly as if every bit of me was exactly what she wanted, her mouth open and her eyes closed. I put my arms around her waist, and she began to bounce up and down, grinding herself into my hips, her breasts bouncing in front of my face.
I held onto her, pulling her down on top of me vigorously, gritting my teeth as I tried to wait for her.
She began to make noises that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but pleasure, small, harsh, wordless cries that drove me mad. I growled loudly as she came, holding the shuddering woman in my arms. And then with two more thrusts into her, I came with a harsh yell of my own.
When we were done, the three of us lay tangled up together, panting and sweaty.
Maise kissed my cheek and laughed. “I like this, can we do it more often?”
I laughed. “Anytime,” I said huskily.
Rosylin sat up halfway and looked into my eyes. “You know you have friends here, right?”
I raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. Our relationship had always been more of the fun romp sort, and we rarely talked about anything too deep after lovemaking. But I didn’t mind. In fact, her words were nice to hear, and I said so. “What made you say that?”
She reached up and ran her fingers through my short beard. “I thought we’d lost you, you know. And it’s good to see that we haven’t. But you look a bit haunted, Mordie.”
“I’m okay,” I said, and I meant it. “I almost died, if you want to know the truth, but I’ve never felt better.”
That was a tiny lie. I was a bit tired after the day, and after my time with the girls, but it was all worth it.
I kissed Rosylin and then settled back down on the bed. “You’ll keep an ear open about what we talked about earlier?” I asked her.
Rosylin smiled. “About Rolf and his gang? Of course, love, if that’s what you want. But don’t go getting yourself killed. I don’t want to get that news again.”
I laughed. “Trust me, it’s not what I want, either.”
Maise wanted to know what we were talking about, so Rosylin filled her in on what she knew, which wasn’t much. But I wanted to keep it that way for now. Meghan knew everything, and I felt it only right that she did, but I didn’t need all the women in my life worrying about every step I took. As the girls stood to get dressed, I watched them lazily, feeling drowsy and content. They both kissed me, and I was asleep before they’d left.
I slept soundly, and at some point in the night, Rosylin came in and settled beside me. I smiled and pulled her into my arms, then drifted back off to sleep, hoping that we could have some more fun in the morning.
23
Other tavern girls responded in much the same way Rosylin did, although Cassandra from the Wooden Bucket turned white and might have collapsed to the floor if I hadn’t caught her.
“You’re dead,” she said. She literally thought she was seeing a ghost.
“Not by a long way,” I said. And from there, once she recovered, I elicited her help in my quest to dig up information on Rolf and his boys.
It turned out that news of my death had spread quickly, and I was surprised to find out how many people had grieved at my passing. Perhaps it was that, or maybe the pleasant surprise at seeing me walk in the door that made them so willing to listen for the information I sought.
Or perhaps they had always been willing, and I’d simply never put it to the test. Either way, by the end of the first week, I had enlisted the aid of the women from six different taverns. As an added bonus, more than just Rosylin wanted to reassure herself I was real. I’d never lacked for female company before, but now it seemed I wasn’t allowed to sleep by myself.
Not that I was complaining. In fact, quite the opposite.
It felt good to be alive.
There was just one thing that put a slight dampener on my bedroom activities. Sir George.
Turned out, he liked to watch.
He hadn’t been there that afternoon with Rosylin and Maise, but when Cassandra had invited me to share her bed, he planted himself on the windowsill and watched our fun with interest. He even screeched a couple of times when we began to make noise. Cassandra didn’t quite know what to think, so I tried to take her mind off the rat dragon by making her the center of attention for a while, and she soon forgot the tiny scaled creature.
Anyway, it wasn’t just the tavern staff I spoke with. I made a point of reconnecting with everyone I knew, from cobblers to bread sellers, beggars to clothiers.
I also reached out to the street urchins, the kids who lived on the streets eking out whatever existence they could. I even found my old friend Samuel again.
Nor was I averse to striking up friendships with some new people. My network was growing, and I again wondered why I’d never thought to do make it happen before my death.
By the end of that first week, I had lifted enough coin from various victims to approach a blacksmith who specialized in blades. A portly man with burn scars covering his thick fingers and a permanently ruddy complexion from years at the forge, he promised to deliver just the flexible, slim yet strong, useful sword that I wanted.
I didn’t ask him if he knew anything about Rolf and his cronies, not right away, but instead spent time chatting, just getting to know him. His name was Garath, and he’d learned his trade at his father’s knee, but times had grown tough recently when the King’s personal guard started to get their main weapons made by a competitor.
“Not a smart move, if you ask me,” Garath said. He worked as we spoke, pounding hot metal into the shape of a blade without conscious thought, his fingers and hands knowing their work through long practice.
“And why is that?” I asked, even though I was sweating standing in the heat of his forge.
“They’ve gone for that fool Barry Vell’s swords. Damned fool doesn’t temper his steel properly, not by a long way. You can’t tell just by looking, but a sword made that way is going to be brittle. You see, steel like what you need for a sword, it has to have a certain amount of give. It has to flex, not a lot, but enough so that if it struck a hard blow, it won’t shatter into pieces.”
It was interesting to hear, and not just because it showed that I’d made the right choice. Garath was an expert at his forge. He knew his stuff, and I was more than happy to pay him my hard-earned coin to get the best weapon I could.
“So why did the King’s guard start going to him?” I asked.
“Damned if I know,” Garath said, shrugging his huge shoulders. Using a pair of tongs, he raised the piece he was working on and peered at it with a practiced eye. It was a curved blade, and even I could tell that it was going to be beautiful. A work of art, almost. He had folded the steel back on itself many times, and I could see the results of that layering in the blade.
Apparently satisfied with his work, he dipped the blade in a bucket of oil and held it there for some seconds.
“Damned if I know,” he repeated. “Thing is, it isn’t about cost, because that fool charges more than I do. Although he is a bit quicker,” Garath admitted grudgingly. “But that’s because of the shortcuts he takes.”
We talked a bit more, eventually working our way back to the sword he was going to make for me. I asked for one of the curved blades he was making as well, for no other reason than I liked the look of it. We agreed on a price, and Garath put down his work for long enough to shake my hand.
“It’ll be done a week from tomorrow. Come back then and you can pick it up.”
When I returned to pick up my sword and my curved blade, I saw that Garath had taken the time to craft a scabbard for each, or at least had contracted that part of the work out.
I paid over my coin and drew the sword. I had to admire the man’s workmanship. It was a beautiful weapon, straight and deadly, with a keen edge and a point to be taken seriously. Yet even though I was a novice, even I could tell this was a practical weapon, made to kill. Despite its beauty, it was not a decorative piece.
“Beautiful,” I murmured. “Now, I guess I’d better learn how to use it.”
At this, Garath laughed, a big, belly laugh that seemed to come out of nowhere. “Or you could go the way our good King did and get the thing enchanted.”
He said it flippantly, not really meaning his words, but it got me thinking.
Perhaps he had a point. Perhaps Meghan could work her magic on the metal, enough to give me an advantage if and when I might need it.
At the same time, it probably still made sense to learn how to use it normally. So, as well as picking pockets, talking to townsfolk, and generally setting my plans into motion, I spent a good chunk of each day thereafter practicing with my new weapon.
24
Information began heading my way. The news collected by my various contacts proved both comprehensive and full of unexpected detail. Before I’d been back in the city for a full fortnight, I learned that Rolf and his followers had been very busy indeed.
I’d had very little insight into their activities before my fateful meeting with the King’s Justice and his executioner. I only knew about those jobs Rolf had offered me. For all I knew, he could have been just as busy then as he was now, and I simply hadn’t known of it.
Rosylin, Cassandra, Samuel, and many others were more than happy to fill me in.
Rolf and his boys were leaning heavily on the owners of a new brothel in town, demanding a share of the revenue as the price of doing business. He was also providing Blackcoats as guards to a gambler who’d lost far more than he could afford, charging that gambler’s wealthy merchant father a fortune to protect the son, even though the bookie involved could more easily have been warned off.
Interestingly, it seemed that Rolf–or at least Durstan at Rolf’s behest–was responsible for Garath losing his contract. Durstan had accepted an almighty bribe from Garath’s competitor and had put the word out that Garath was the one using substandard techniques.
And this was just the tip of the iceberg. There were smuggling scams, extortion rackets, and all sorts of dubious activities, all of which I’d been aware of for most of my life, but only indirectly.
Never had I known how far they all went, or how organized it all was.
It seemed that Rolf was at the heart of most of the crime in the city, not the petty thieves like me. Even the street urchins indirectly reported to him, their thefts collected by a shadowy figure in the sewers and effectively taxed by Rolf and his men.
Nor did it end there. From what the girls said, it seemed that nearly a third of all the Blackcoats were in on the game. It was like there were two distinct groups of them in operation, with one answerable to Sir Lancelot, the official Captain of the Blackcoats, and the other answerable to Rolf.
And then I went to see Ember.
Ember was a willowy, shy woman who worked at the Goose and Quill. It was this tavern that served the hot cocoa drink I’d told Anwen about so many weeks before. At first glance, Ember was quieter in comparison to some of the others, but she had quick eyes and a laugh that was like music in a harsh, difficult world. Her husband, a friendly giant named Big Jacob, owned the tavern, but although I hadn’t known her long, I thought that it was Ember’s brain that kept them in business.
“It’s always been like this,” she told me one evening when I stopped in for some cocoa and a chat. “It’s almost as if he’s the King on both levels. Like he has done it on purpose, set Rolf up to be in charge of the crime. You know, to make sure all of the coin goes to his coffers, and nobody else’s.”
“So,” I said thoughtfully, “either way, the King benefits. He taxes everyone through legal means, and then he gets a cut from the jobs that Rolf and his boys get up to.”
“That’s about the way of it,” Ember said, leaning on the bar for a moment and smiling, and then she lowered her voice. “Everyone knows the King has been hiding a secret evil for years, but no one knows what it is. Maybe it has something to do with those cries that come from the caverns below the castle. Mordie, the King is just as dangerous as his Blackcoats, don’t forget that. But although he’s the King and no one could do anything about it, he still doesn’t advertise what’s happening, and neither does Rolf. I only know because I hear things, you know.”
I stared at her, the cooling hot cocoa drink in my hands all but forgotten.
Of course! It all made so much sense. I was surprised nobody had made the connection before.
At the same time, I wasn’t surprised. I mean, it wasn’t the type of thing most people considered. That your King, the ruler of all the lands as far as the eye could see, the man responsible for protecting his people against invading armies, wyrms, and other pestilences, could also be the man at the root of all the misery as well.
“Does that change things?” Ember asked, watching me closely. Of everyone I’d spoken to, only she seemed to understand that my questions had a purpose. That I was looking to settle some score between myself and Rolf. Yet that hadn’t stopped her from doing all she could to help me.
I thought at first that it did make a difference. How could I get my revenge against Rolf if he was under direct orders from the King? Then I shook my head.
“No,” I decided. “It doesn’t matter. Rolf is a Blackcoat. He works for the King either way.” Then I thought some more. “And besides, I get the feeling that even if it’s true, even if Rolf’s schemes work to benefit the King, not all of them do. He had me join him in a job, a simple kidnapping for ransom. But it turned out that the target, a woman named Anwen, had caught the King’s eye.”
Even after so many weeks, I could picture Anwen’s beautiful face very clearly. The strength of character, the willingness to fight. I had my heart set on revenge against Rolf and the others, but not against her. For Anwen, I wished only for a chance to apologize.
“Given that, the King would never have approved of her kidnapping. At least in that instance, Rolf was acting alone.”
Ember looked at me thoughtfully. “It makes sense, because I think Rolf has some sort of network that he uses to find out information, but I’m not sure who. Could be anybody. But he uses them to find out where he can make a profit.”
Again, I was slightly stunned. Of course he did. Rolf couldn’t keep up with a whole city. He needed help. And he likely got his information much like I was doing, only on a larger scale.
Ember put her hand on mine. “Can you use some of this to your advantage, then?” she asked wisely.
“I absolutely can.” I glanced at Big Jacob, hoping he didn’t mind that his wife was practically holding my hand. Although that hadn’t stopped me before, and in that sense I’d always made my own damn rules, but I didn’t want to be too obvious about it. No point in starting a fight. Ember followed my gaze. She laughed then, and it was a musical sound.
“Mordie,” she said, still smiling. “Did you think Big Jacob was my husband?”
I nodded. “He isn’t?”
She shook her head, and a lock of her blond hair fell out of place. “No,” she smiled. “He isn’t. Jacob is my brother.”
I grinned. Well, that was a nice turn of events.
