Rogue's Pawn (5 page)

“Oh yes,” Healer agreed. “Rogue’s people are very well trained.”

“What was that about a spell on my dress?”

“You spelled it so it couldn’t be removed. Several people tried. Even Lord Rogue couldn’t do it.”

What,
Rogue
tried? Asshole.

Healer’s eyes flew open in shock. I smiled weakly, imagining the image she’d received from my too-loud thought.

“It would behoove you to learn to think like a lady.”

I squashed my response to that one.

“Think back,” Healer prompted me. “At some point you wanted to make sure you kept the dress and somehow didn’t trust yourself to make certain that would happen…” She was thinking of a silly girl in a torrid embrace being slipped out of her clothes.

As if that kind of thing had ever happened to me, even when I
was
a silly girl.

When could I have done that? Oh yes. The Dog. How could I have forgotten? He’d loomed huge and black on the riverbank and I’d felt a thread of panic. My nightmare in brutal flesh.

“Do
not
think of him here,” Healer hissed. The serene lady vanished, Dr. Jekyll abruptly replaced with Ms. Hyde.

“Why not?” I snapped back. “I thought my new jewelry kept me from manifesting my thoughts. Isn’t that the whole point of having me shackled like a prisoner?”

Healer’s face flushed, pretty lips snarling unpleasantly. “You’re an undisciplined peasant wretch! A whore of a magical dilettante. You have no idea what you’re dabbling in. And don’t think I don’t know the filthy source of your power. No decent castle will have you.” Her mouth turned down in a final sneer as her eyes swept from my bare feet to my bosom.

The door opened and the plump brunette from the healing session walked in, leading a parade of young girls with buckets. Healer’s face fell back into calm serenity as if I’d never seen the woman behind the mask. Just like Nasty Tinker Bell’s reboot.

“We’ll have your bath ready in a jiffy, Lady Gwynn,” the brunette called out, curtseying in my direction.

The activity provided a welcome distraction from my discussion with the Healing Bitch. The girls scurried about, filling the tub, stripping the covers off the bed, which they scooted back against the wall, setting out bottles and towels, building a fire in the stone fireplace at the end of the room. All the while the brunette stood in the middle, reminding me of Mickey Mouse directing his legion of mops.

Darling slipped around the door, which had been left ajar with all the comings and goings. With a pleasant chirrup, he padded up to me and stroked up against my bare legs.

“Hi, Darling.” I crouched down to stroke his arched back. It felt blessedly normal to simply pet him, feel his cat vitality. He sniffed at my face. A pink raspy tongue licked my cheek. If I didn’t look around, I could be at home.

“Darling, come here to me,” Healer said in a tight voice.

As cats will, he simply blinked at her in disinterest, then butted his head against my hand. I obligingly rubbed his ears.

“You
do
understand, don’t you,” Healer said in her serene voice, but the Nasty Tinker Bell tone threaded underneath, “that he’s a Familiar, not a pet? I thought you knew this, since I saw your own Familiar in your head. But it seems I’ve given you far too much credit.” She glanced to see if anyone was listening to us, but the Brunette General was busily herding maids.

I wanted to say, “Well then, you
do
understand that Isabel is just a plain old cat, don’t you?” But I kept it very whispery in my head.

Darling purred and rubbed against me again, arching his back in a way that meant he wanted to be held. I gathered my arms around him and stood.

“He doesn’t like…!” Healer started and trailed off as Darling’s purr filled the room. He rubbed his whiskers on my chin, then tilted his head at Healer, a coy look in his eyes. She stared back, her displeasure obvious under the thin veneer of calm.

Anyone who spent any time with cats should know they love best to be contrary. I had no idea what made a cat a Familiar and not a pet—except Familiars maybe possessed more intelligence, could communicate in some ways. Isabel was certainly a pet.

But then, apparently, so was I.

Darling delicately sniffed the underside of my chin, his cold nose tickling me, then, with a renewed purr, dug his head into my collarbone.

“Lady Gwynn.” The brunette appeared at my elbow, long delicate fingers clasped in front of her generous bosom. “Your bath is ready.”

“I shall leave you.” Healer tried her serene smile, but it looked gritted out. “See that you eat—I replenished your fluids, but your body needs sustenance after the healing coma.”

Healer walked to the door, waited expectantly. I set Darling down on the floor and felt a bit bereft.

“Come along, Darling.”

He didn’t.

She clucked at him.

He pulled cat attitude and acted as if she were empty air. Instead the freshly made bed became his chief interest. He padded over to it, examined the height and leaped up, landing soft as dandelion down in the center, where he curled up, suddenly exhausted.

By the time I looked at the doorway, Healer had gone.

Chapter
Six

In Which I Am Offered Something Even Better than Surcease

“Thank Titania
that
one is gone.” The brunette sighed, then winked at me. “Now we’ll have some peace! Bhrta, Mina, come help Lady Gwynn out of this dress. You’ll have to let us, lady. Lord Darling, I’m going to close and lock this door for privacy—do you care to stay or go?”

Darling tucked his head under, stretched, and to all appearances fell into an immediate and deep sleep.

“That answers that. Now release the spell, Lady Gwynn—I’m sure you’re perishing to get clean. I know I would be.”

“You know, my name isn’t Gwynn.”

“Lord Rogue says it is, Lady Gwynn. I’m not one to gainsay him.”

She stood before me, bright black robin’s eyes expectant. The maids, little brown sparrows of girls, waited quietly behind her, eyes cast down, ready to flee. I pulled on the spaghetti straps, but couldn’t quite seem to get a grip on them, no more than I could tug on a raised mole. I reached behind me to the zipper. It felt sewn on.

“Lady,” Brunette said gently, “release the spell first, then we’ll get the zipper for you.”

Okay, I’m a dunce.

“I don’t know how,” I confessed. “Besides, don’t these—” I held up my wrists, “—keep me from doing any magic?”

“Undoing is not doing,” she assured me gravely. “So my granny always said. Though I’ve no experience with such things myself. Shall I call Lord Rogue? Surely he’ll know.”

“No! I mean, I’d rather not involve him in any…well, undressing on my part.”

She winked at me again. “No worries, love—I wouldn’t let that rascal near my bedchamber either, even were I so lucky as to have him express interest.”

The little sparrow girls exchanged a glance, fluttering giggles at each other.

“Let’s see.” She pursed her lips, clearly marshaling her problem-solving skills. This was a woman—or, whatever, since, though shorter than many, she still sported the odd bone structure they all shared—who knew how to remove obstacles from her path. “The magical types all have different ways of doing what they do. Some use wands, some words, some funny costumes. You just don’t know your way yet. Like a youngling first come into power.” She raised an eyebrow, waiting politely.

“This is helpful—keep going, please.”

“Well, maybe you just need to think about what you did when you cast the spell and work backward. Just as if I spilled soup on the floor—I might think about how I’d get it unspilled, as it were.”

“So I kind of need to wipe it up?”

Interesting.

I pictured the Dog standing over me by the brook. Uneasy, I slid my eyes to the group, but no hysterics ensued. They only waited. None of them, thankfully, seemed to hear my thoughts, or at least didn’t respond to them.

At a whispered word, Bhrta went to add more hot water to the tub. Thinking about the Dog made my heart clench. Like digging into a wound to find the sliver of glass, I prodded my memory, ignoring the pain. In the fraught swirl of birds and terror and the Dog leaping for my throat, I found an image in my head of wishing the dress to stay on. It glowed there, like a bubble preserved in amber. I could feel the shimmer of—magic?—around it.

I mentally felt around the bubble. It flexed, resilient, part of me and yet not. Experimentally, I popped it. It vanished as if it had never been. I slid one strap of the dress down. Easy peasy. “I think I did it!”

“Of course you did, dear.” She bustled behind me to slide the zipper down. “Such a simple thing for a powerful Lady Sorceress as yourself.” She slipped the dress down my legs and I stepped out, clad only in the woefully overworn black silk panties. “No wonder Lord Rogue has gone to such lengths. Slip that off, pet, and we’ll get you into the tub.”

At the brunette’s direction, one of the sparrows bundled up the clothes I’d stepped out of and moved to the fireplace. My last anchor to who I had been was about to go up in flames.

“No!” I lunged for them and the little girl quailed, puppy eyes enormous in her panicked face.

“Tsk, Lady Gwynn,” Brunette clucked, “no one is taking your things. We’ll get them clean. We’ve a bit of laundry magic, too.”

I felt abruptly foolish. Ridiculous. Everything seemed to be spinning away from me. Had my life seemed lifeless and empty? I no longer recognized that person I’d been. Or who I was now.

The sparrow girl edged away from me and set the bundle by the door. I dropped myself into the hot water, exhaling in relief. This, at least, felt normal. Comforting. Brunette was hustling the girls into warming the towels by the fire, which snapped and crackled in a merry counterpoint to the cool fog out the windows.

“Thank you for your help, Lady…”

“I’m Blackbird, Lady Gwynn. You can leave off the title with me—always seems silly, to keep reminding everyone, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never been nobility of any sort.”

“Lord Rogue says you are, dear, so that makes it so.
His
title I am always careful to use—” she winked at me, “—or my granny would tan my behind. Now dunk your head, pet, and give your hair a good soaking, so we can get you clean.”

The water muddied immediately with ugly reddish-browns and Blackbird set the sparrow girls to bailing water to dump out the window, while the other brought freshly warmed water from the fireplace. I listened for how far the water fell, but couldn’t hear it actually hit the ground. Good thing I hadn’t jumped.

“What scents do you prefer, love?” Blackbird settled herself before a tray of bottles.

“Umm, hazelnut?” At least, that was my favorite body butter. Damn, I’d miss that stuff. “Vanilla, cinnamon, mace.”

“The dark sweet scents,” Blackbird agreed, a wink in her voice. Like an alchemist, she combined drops from various glass bottles. Then scooted a stool behind my head and poured some warm liquid into my hair. She carefully worked her fingers through the snarls, massaging my scalp. It comforted me and I soaked it up. Except I might still be behaving badly.

“Should you be washing my hair? Seems like a noble lady ought to, well, supervise or something.”

“Tush.” Blackbird poured more liquid into the congealed mass at the nape of my neck. “’Tis a privilege, dear. I volunteered, or was about to when Lord Rogue asked me.”

“He asked you to wash my hair?”

She chuckled. “Well, not in so many words, but rather to help you dress for the reception.”

“Reception?” I sat up too abruptly, sloshing the water, and she tsked at me.

“Yes, reception and banquet. Your debut. Now close your eyes.”

She called Mina over with a bucket and doused my hair, sluicing away the suds. Blackbird poured more goop into my hair and settled in for a second wash. I waited for her to resume our conversation. She changed the subject instead.

“I’m going to add some oil and comb it through to get the tangles out. Then we’ll wash once more lightly and we should be done.” She handed me a cloth with more of the scented soap in it, so I could scrub myself while she worked. Hopefully it wouldn’t be hard on my complexion. Least of my worries, I guessed. My mind was probably grasping at inconsequentials because I couldn’t yet grapple with this vastly changed reality. Still, I needed to focus on next steps.

“So when is this reception?”

“Oh, in a little while,” Blackbird returned so breezily that I knew she was ducking the subject.

“Will you be there?” I winced as she tugged a wooden comb through the snarls. The comb smelled of sandalwood.

“Only in the background, dear. I’m not so important, thank Titania.”

“Is Titania your queen?”

“A ruler?” Blackbird sounded confused as she launched into another shampooing. “No, Titania watches over us. Okay, Bhrta, rinse.”

I sat still while the water sluiced over me. “I don’t suppose you have some kind of razor?”

“A sharp blade?”

“To shave my legs?” I lifted one leg out of the water and laid it on the rim. The silver ring circling my ankle winked in the light, the same color as the fog. I’d forgotten about it. How quickly one becomes accustomed to shackles.

Rubbing my fingers over the sharp stubble on my leg I could believe it was at least two days’ growth. Bhrta and Mina came over, politely curious. Blackbird bent closer, eyes wide.

“Why do you grow hair on your legs?” she asked, completely astonished.

“Not by choice, I assure you. That’s why I want to take it off.”

She shook her head dubiously. “Maybe better to get Healer to fix that for you.”

“Never mind—please tell me I’ll have something to wear to this reception? Maybe something long enough that no one will see my legs?”

“Oh yes!” The sparrow girls nodded with her. “Now, stand up and we’ll give you a final rinse.”

I reluctantly left the warm water and let Mina pour several buckets over me, while Bhrta bailed from the tub. Where was all the water coming from anyway? This was far more than they’d brought in originally and no one had left the room since Blackbird locked it.

Blackbird wrapped me in warm towels—there were advantages to this being-waited-on business—and led me to the fire. The buckets warming there were all full. All except the one Bhrta was still using to empty the tub. The buckets by the fire looked different, somehow. I unfocused my eyes and they almost glowed. That same shimmer as the amber bubble in my mind. This was their “magic.” But wasn’t magic simply technology that one didn’t fully understand?

“Wrap up your lovely hair in this towel, dear, and we’ll get you oiled down.”

I bent over and shook my hair out, then wrapped it up tightly. The towels weren’t made of the familiar terry but of a silky-feeling fabric. Blackbird bustled back with her tray, slid off the towel I was wrapped in and began rubbing oil into me. Which seemed a bit odd at first, but then no different than a masseuse working on me. She smoothed the oil over my throat particularly, warning me that though it was healed, the skin had been rushed through the process and needed special care. Good to know. The fire warmed my skin, heated the oil so the fragrance of cloves, nuts and cinnamon swam together. Blackbird carefully oiled under the collar and other silver bands as well, then buffed them with a cloth—might as well treat them like jewelry, she observed with characteristic cheer.

Then she sat me on a stool, once again draped in a towel, with my back to the fire. She combed my hair, spreading it to the flames, while Bhrta and Mina finished cleaning up the tub. Mina brought over a tray with food of the fruit and cheese variety, maybe some kind of pastry things. I ignored them, though my stomach felt hollow. Not that it would hurt me to burn a little fat.

“Best have something, dear. Lady Healer said you were to eat.”

“No, thank you—not at the moment.” I tried to think of an excuse. Failed. “Are the water buckets magic?”

“Oh yes—Lord Rogue fixed them up for us, so we wouldn’t have to haul water so far. They just stay full all the time, no matter how often we empty them.”

“Like the pot of gold that never dwindles.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing as that, pet. It doesn’t sound nearly so useful.”

“Tell me more about how magic works. Can you perform magic things or do spells?”

“Me?” She fluttered. “Oh, Titania, no.”

“Why not?”

“Lady Gwynn—you should know. Some have the gifts, some do not. It’s unkind for someone as powerful as yourself to be so cavalier of your special status.”

I turned and caught her hand. “Lady Blackbird—that’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t know where I am or how I got here.”

“Don’t you?” Her black eyes glinted, just like her namesake’s. “It seems to me you’re the person who was there every step of the way.”

“I was in my own world and then I was here.”

“That’s often how it works.” She looked sympathetic and tried to pull her hand away.

I sighed at her. “Won’t you give me any information?”

“It’s really not my place, Lady Gwynn. Lord Rogue would—oh dear.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I tried to be careful, but I seem to have broken off some of your hair underneath in unsnarling it. I’m so, so sorry for it.” Blackbird sounded apprehensive. Of course, with prima donnas of the Nasty Tinker Bell and Lady Healer of Everything Under the Sun ilk running around, I wasn’t surprised. I reached back and felt the bristly stub at the right side of my nape.

“Oh, no worries. I did that.”

“I see, dear, of course you did. I believe I can braid it in.” Blackbird began tugging and weaving, apparently braiding my hair into some kind of up-do. She leaned in close to my ear, whispered, “Did you by chance cut your hair and add blood to it?”

“Yes.” My heart thumped, remembering the bizarre impulse—and the vision I’d seen in Rogue’s mind about it.

“And were you near a gate?”

“A gate?” I kept my voice and thoughts very quiet.

“A place where, perhaps, in your world odd things occur?”

I nodded.

“That’s it then, Lady Gwynn. You spelled yourself here. There’s no two ways about it.”

“So I could spell myself back?”

“A powerful sorceress such as yourself could do most anything she set her mind to, I would think.” A thump sounded behind me and Darling padded over to rub against my legs. I stroked his arched back while he purred.

“He’s taken to you, that one,” Lady Blackbird chirped out in her normal bright tone, briskly finishing the braids. Confidences were over, I supposed.

Darling left my hand to butt against her legs. “Of course, we are all his servants where ear scratching is involved,” she added, leaning over to perform the service. “Now! Let’s get you dressed.”

With the help of the sparrow twins, Blackbird wrapped me in layers of silk-and linen-ish fabrics, cut into wide strips so they encircled me like a sari or a mummy’s wrappings. Strips went between my legs, around my thighs, my belly and waist, secured over my shoulders, then wrapped tightly around my rib cage to bring my breasts together. Good thing they’d offered me the chamber pot behind the screen first, because this underwear was not the do-it-yourself kind.

The chamber pot did the reverse of the water buckets. It magically emptied. Blackbird warned me to be careful not to drop anything in there I liked—several ladies had carelessly lost jewelry that way. When I asked her where the stuff went, couldn’t Rogue conjure it back again, she blinked at me and supposed the things went to the same place the water came from.