The Elfmaid's Curse (The Elfmaid Trilogy Book 1) (21 page)

            "Name it," he said.

            "I can't," she lied, trying to act nonchalant. "That's part of the curse. But I assure you, if you knew what it was, then you'd never dream of bedding me. Would never have even kept me these last two months."

            "I think she's lying," Raf said. "With a city full of soldiers we shouldn't have any trouble getting her well bedded. Then we'll know the truth."

            Danica shrugged, "Won't matter. The curse doesn't act that fast. Remember that other clan's curse? Did it act right away? Elven Magic is extremely subtle."

            That wiped the grins off their faces. They really didn't know for sure. Though it would have to be assumed that they didn't notice anything amiss at first. And they knew next to nothing about Elves, magic or otherwise. She had put that seed of doubt in their minds. She prayed it was enough.

            "Elven Magic?" Jost said. "I thought you said earlier that a sorceress cursed you?"

            Danica knew a moment of panic. Had she finally made a mistake? She couldn't remember exactly what she had told them. It had been so long ago, and her mind and emotions had been almost as jumbled as they were now.

            "Elves have sorceresses too, master," she said, praying her fear wasn't evident.

            The three Jordani men stared at her an overlong time with calculating eyes. Dett and Jost were unreadable, but every emotion known seemed to be vying for control of Raf's face.

            Finally, "Bah! We're wasting time," Dett said, spurring his horse forward. "We'll sell the slave and get us some real women for the night."

Chapter 10

            The tavern was pleasantly dark and cool. Spirited and exotic drum and flute music filled the incense scented air. Up against one wall, there was a single well-lit stage for the dancers Currently, a dark-haired young woman, dripping in cheap shiny jewelry and nothing else but a crimson silk veil, dancing seductively for some forty-odd disinterested men. Some fifteen women were working the floor, clad in nothing but thin silk veils and gaudy jewelry. All were desert folk by their dark coloration.  Their job was to entice men to either buy them drinks or take them upstairs for more intimate pleasures.

            Few of the men wore their veils. Inside such establishments, they removed their veils so they could eat and drink unhindered. The male staff members of taverns rarely wore veils, since they didn't want their patrons feeling uncomfortable. Oddly enough, they still expected their women to remain veiled when any man other than close family was present.

            "Present yourself, slave," Dett said.

            Danica was pushed forward. Fists clenched, head held high and eyes flashing angrily, she gave the tavern owner her most menacing look. Her masters had pulled her hair back in a ponytail, to showcase her ears. They suspected city folks would pay more for an elf. Danica suspected they were correct.

            He noted her demeanor, and the implied threat, with a frown, but sight of her Elven features and pointed ears piqued his interest.

            He looked her over slowly, gnawing at the inside of his lip as he considered. Danica began to fear the old, bald Samullan would actually buy her. Of all the men she had been offered to that day, he was the most repugnant. He reeked of cheap perfume over unwashed flesh. What little hair he had left was long, thin, and greasy, as was his thin mustaches and beard. The expensive maroon and orange silks he wore couldn't hide his heavy, drooping belly and rail thin legs. His every finger was encircled with gaudy rings, most looking like rhinestones set in silver-cased iron.

            "I'm not interested," he said, waving them away.

            "But she is a rare beauty," Dett persisted, lifting a lock of her luxuriant waist-length golden hair, and then indicated her Elven ears. The first place the Jordani warriors had taken her was a public bath, where she was washed and prepared for sale. He indicated to the room of dark-haired, dark-eyed women. "Surely a golden-haired elfmaid would stand out in this crowd."

            Danica was forced to hold her arms high and turn slowly. Her clothes had been removed several hours earlier, before her first inspection by a potential buyer. All she wore now was the wide silver slave bracelet and some nomad jewelry. Most of the jewelry was made of simple blue glass beads and red-dyed feathers. She donned a feather and bead brace on both forearms, and a wide choker of the same blue beads and bright red-dyed feathers. Her earrings were also red feathers and blue beads, hanging low to tickle her bare shoulders. The slave ankle bracelet would likely remain around her leg until she was sold or managed to free herself. If her buyer refused to pay for the slave bracelet, the Jordani would remove it. The silver in it was worth more than she was.

            "She'll bring in a lot of money for you," Raf said.

            The tavern owner snorted in disgust. "Even all these girls don't bring in enough. The market's flooded with beauties."

            "Not blonde Elves!"

            "Elves are bad luck, and she feels worse than most. Go away," he said and turned his back on them.

            Growling, Dett grabbed Danica by the upper arm and dragged her back out into the crowded street. She tried to suppress a smile of satisfaction. Besides the fact that the Samullan had been repugnant, his tavern maintained very obvious and tight security. Not the kind of place she needed to be sold to. Fortunately the nomads weren't aware that she was giving everyone threatening looks. That, and the glut in the local market, was throwing everything in her favor. The fact that the desert folk were even more superstitious than the Jordani didn't hurt either.

            "Tarhun strike them all down!" Dett cried as they stepped back out into the loud, hot, dusty street. The God of Storms didn't respond. "We should've taken her south, to Elfhaven. Jarlanders and Tyrians aren't afraid of Elves."

            "Now what?" Raf asked.

            While the three nomads discussed what to do with her, Danica stood by quietly and tried to act disinterested. She studied the street scene, with its thick crowds of swaggering soldiers, playing children, merchants hawking their wares, and women hidden behind heavy robes and veils quietly following their men. Most of the men wore the white turbans and caftans of the common citizen, more often than not with veils hanging off the turbans and hiding their mouths. The desert folk had strange fetishes about covering the mouth that Danica could never understand. Most would rather run naked through the streets, with only a veil covering their mouth, than vice-versa. A few wore the dark blue turbans of the City Guard wound around and under conical steel helmets. Even fewer wore the bright red of the nobility.

            The wealthier Samullan citizens could be distinguished from desert nomads by their love of colorful clothes. The caftan was basically a garment of the poor. Most noble and wealthy men wore either a white or light brown djellaha, but every color of the rainbow could be seen peeping out from underneath the loose outer garment. The citizens of cities also commonly wore the turban instead of the nomads' favored headdress, the large folded cotton cloth called a kaffiyeh. Samullan women wore bright silks and satins underneath their concealing robes and veils when out in public, though they shed the robes within their own homes, but usually not their veils.

            The narrow, paved street was hot and dusty, with haphazard and barely level flagstones. The larger streets were cobbled and better maintained, the smaller ones generally just packed dirt. To Danica's left the street gently dropped as it curled its way down though the whitewashed buildings to the great Lion Gate. A short ways to her right the street divided, with the right-hand branch rising more steeply in wide steps, and the left going up a gentler slope.

            Very little wind made it down into the maze of erratically twisting and turning streets and alleys. What little wind that did barely ruffled the clothes drying on lines stretched between the buildings above their heads. Looking up, Danica could see only patches of cloudless blue sky through all the clothes hanging from the lines. The surrounding buildings seemed to be leaning across the street towards each other, leaving the street mostly in shadows even at midday.

            Two City Guards rode by on horseback, pushing the pedestrians aside with superior weight. No one, not even one of the arrogant soldiers or red-turbaned nobles, was stupid enough to question their actions. Riding side by side, reeking of arrogance, they took up the better part of the street. She watched them as they urged their mounts up the steep stair-like street to her right.

            Samulla was a city stacked on top of itself. Half the lower streets were like tunnels, covered by structures and bridges built over them. The streets twisted up and down just as much as back and forth. It reminded Danica of a child's discarded pile of building blocks, with spires and towers thrown in for a more dramatic effect. Legends had it that secret tunnels and tombs honeycombed the hill beneath the city, filled with ancient lost treasures, and horrors unspeakable guarding them.

            "...you understand, slave?" Dett was saying.

            "Master? I didn't hear," she said, startled to realize that they had apparently made a decision concerning her and she didn't know what it was.

            He clenched his jaw a second, then, "We're going to give one more place a try."

            Not sure she really wanted to know, "And if I'm not bought?"

            "Then you're going to start working for us," he said.

            "Working?"

            Chuckling, Raf said, "Selling that little sun-bronzed rump by the hour, slave."

            Looking down, with her bile rising, she nodded understanding. It hadn't occurred to her that they might try that, but she wasn't surprised. All she was to them was a means to bring the clan a little extra coin. Whether that came from her outright sale, or from her prostituting herself, didn't matter.

           
I'm a knight. I can endure anything
, she told herself forcefully. Doubt nibbled at her waning confidence, whispering that she couldn't handle the humiliation.
I've endured slavery before, and torture! Th...This won't even involve pain. At least not much.

            Dett took her by the upper arm and started up the street, his grip tighter than necessary. She bristled at the manhandling, suppressing an urge to jerk free and punch him. After two months of such rough treatment, she was surprised she was still affected by it. That knowledge alone helped to shore up her confidence, knowing she hadn't completely surrendered to fate.

            They climbed up the steeper stair-like street veering to the right. Each step was very deep, the slope's grade not being too terribly steep, but Danica found it even more difficult to walk up in some ways than standard stairs. Somehow the three to five strides then a step up broke up her rhythm and aggravated her to no end.

            "There's one," Jost said, pointing to a dark doorway to their right. A tin placard above the door swung on a rusty iron bar, emblazoned with a faded red wine jug. Strings of brightly colored glass beads hung thickly from the lintel. "A tavern."

            Danica was pushed inside, with the Jordani following. It was a dark place, with a low ceiling and a crowd of tough looking patrons. She estimated there were some thirty-odd men sitting at the small round tables. She was surprised to see only four other women inside, all veiled and wearing bright dancing silks. It was the first place they had found where the men so dramatically outnumbered the women. Most of the men were Samullan soldiers, with a few nomads, both steppe and desert, and a sprinkling of Jarland and Tyrian warriors. A bar took up the back wall, with a dark stairwell to the right and a door leading to the kitchen to the left.

            The patrons all turned to watch as they made their way to the small bar. The tall, thin, swarthy man behind it looked them over as they approached. He wore only a light cotton caftan, a stained apron, and a white turban. His beard was black and thin, but well-kept and clean looking. He didn't have the look of evil arrogance that Danica thought so many of his desert brethren did.

            "How may I serve you?" he said. "Ale? Beer? Wine?"

            "Do you own this tavern?" Dett said, eyeing the slim young man with doubt.

            "I do," he said, eyebrow rising with suspicion. "Why?"

            Smiling, he pushed Danica forward again. "We have a slave to sell. An elfmaid and a rare beauty for these parts."

            Danica quickly assessed the man before her and his tavern, and made her decision. There was a gentleness about him that she could possibly exploit later. There were no sulking guard near the doors to stop an escape attempt, either. She smiled warmly at him, trying to hold her body in a way she hoped he found enticing.

            "That she is," he admitted, eyeing her with interest. "But I don't own slaves. And I don't care to start now."

            "But how do you manage?" Dett said, surprised. He looked the four young women over closely. They met his gaze defiantly. "Bond servants?"

            The women let out tiny cries of outrage, but kept quiet otherwise. Their reaction told Danica that they were tavern girls, and quite free to come and go as they pleased.

            "I manage. This tavern has been in my family for generations, and we have always run it as a family. No slaves to eat up the profits," he said, obviously proud of the fact. "And a bond servant is just another type of slave. And another mouth to feed."

            "They're not slaves?" Jost asked, indicating the four women in skimpy clothes and gaudy jewelry sitting with the patrons. The women, one and all, gave him sharp looks.

            "Tavern girls," he said, shrugging. "They generate a little coin for the tavern and don't require any maintenance on my part."