Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (34 page)

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

Korah sniffled and asked her to bring some
warm water and a washcloth, which Brynlee did as quickly as she
could. She watched Korah dab her face, neck, and chest. When she
pressed it between her legs, she winced.

“Are you all right, Korah?” Brynlee
asked.

The young woman stood and limped to the
wardrobe where she donned a yellow linen robe. “Just part of the
job,” she said, in a tone that sounded like she might have been
talking to herself.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” Korah
asked as she fastened the robe around her waist. She went to the
bed and sat back down, nursing a pain in her left hip.

Brynlee shook her head. Not only had she not
thought of a name, but the ensuing party had helped her to forget
all about it. Besides, Brynlee rather liked her name and she wasn’t
sure she wanted to be called anything else.

“I’ve got a perfect name for you,” Korah
said. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes!”

“Emma. It’s an honorable name that means
strong and brave in my country. It…” Her head sagged. When she
looked up again, she offered a sad smile and said, “It was the name
of my baby sister. She died just a few days after she was born. It
would honor me if you took her name.”

Although touched by the suggestion, it still
bothered her that no one would call her Brynlee anymore. “What
about my real name?” she asked.

Korah put her hand over Brynlee’s heart.
“Keep it in here. Remember it always, but give it to no one.”

“Is Korah your real name?”

The young whore smiled. “I wish it was. In
my country, the name Korah means brave, a quality I’m afraid I
don’t have.”

“My sister once told me that sometimes to
help us be brave we can pretend to be someone else,” Brynlee said.
“Someone braver.”

“And is that how you got to be so
brave?”

Brynlee just shrugged. She didn’t think she
was all that brave.

“What was your sister’s name?” Korah
asked.

“Dana Falls. She was the oldest princess
of—”

Korah shushed her. She stood up and hurried
to the bedroom door. She closed it and came back to the bed.
“Listen to me very carefully, my dear,” she whispered. “You must
never ever tell anyone where you’re from or who you really are. Do
you understand me?”

Brynlee ruffled her brows. She didn’t
understand. It was no secret that there was much disdain in Perth
for the kingdom of Aberdour, but Brynlee couldn’t figure out why
she should be ashamed of where she came from. She loved her home,
and she knew that half of what the people believed about Aberdour
was wrong. Someone just had to tell them.

“Aberdour fell to the Black King many moons
ago,” Korah continued, “but there is a rebellion growing. Some say
that the children of Kingsley and Lilyanna Falls have escaped, that
the rightful heir to the throne of Aberdour is still out there.
Someone like him could unit the rebels. There are people here who
fear you, Bryn… Emma. If they found out who you really are, they
would hurt you very, very badly.”

Korah pressed her hand against Brynlee’s
heart again, as if shutting the last bits of Brynlee Falls away for
good. “You must keep yourself in there. All right? Promise me you
won’t tell anyone who you really are?”

Brynlee nodded, and Korah pulled her in for
a hug.

“Mungo wants me to learn to be like you,”
Brynlee said.

Korah sighed as if disappointed. “He does,
does he?” She pulled away and looked at Brynlee with great
sympathy. “When did he tell you that?”

“Just a little while ago. Downstairs. He
said he wants me to learn to dress like you and look like you.”

“Then that is what you will do,” she said.
“But not tonight. It’s very late, and you should get to bed.”

The echoes of the party downstairs had
passed their peak by the time Brynlee left Korah’s bedroom. She
walked down the hallway to the balcony that circled the common room
below and peeked over the railing. About half the guests had left,
some with women and some without, while a few remained behind by
the large fireplace to keep drinking and talking.

Brynlee circled around the left side of the
balcony and down an adjoining hallway that contained two bedrooms.
The door to the first room was closed, but she could hear the
bumping and scraping of furniture within along with the muffled
sounds of aggressive grunting.

She continued on to the second door that led
into a simple bedroom filled with narrow cots where she slept with
three other girls—Maidie, Vika, and Murron. All of them had
survived the attack on Aberdour and the subsequent journey to the
capital city. They were huddled together when Brynlee entered the
room with Murron sobbing in Vika’s arms.

“What’s wrong?” Brynlee asked.

Vika looked up, her freckled face pink with
grief and glistening with wiped tears. She was eleven years old,
the soft-spoken daughter of a tailor and a seamstress, both of whom
had been murdered during the high king’s attack.

“Mungo’s going to put her to work after she
turns fourteen next month,” Vika said, as she rubbed Murron’s
back.

Murron was the oldest among them, hardheaded
and strong. It unsettled Brynlee to see her crying so freely.

“Doing what?” Brynlee asked, though, deep
down, she knew exactly what.

“Brynlee, you’re so stupid,” said Murron
pulling away from Vika, her face a distraught wreck. “What do you
think we’re doing here? What do you think this place is? Mungo’s
turning us all into whores.” She buried her face into Vika’s dress
once more, the back of her auburn head bobbing up and down as she
cried.

Murron’s words frightened her, and yet
confirmed what she had suspected all along.

There had been fourteen girls taken prisoner
from Aberdour. Three had died on the road to Perth. The witch,
Demulier Congave, had murdered a fourth on the day a rich prince
from Tay purchased Scarlett. Three others had been sold as
slaves.

Mungo sent the two oldest girls to work at
his other brothels in the various corners of the kingdom, while
keeping Brynlee, Maidie, Vika, and Murron at his main house in
southern Perth. The four of them spent most of their time serving
guests, cleaning the brothel, and learning the trade of
prostitution from Mungo’s whores.

Murron pushed away from Vika and jumped to
her feet. “I’m leaving,” she said breathlessly. “I can’t do this. I
can’t stay here.”

“What?” Vika said, rising to stop her. “No.
They’ll kill you if they catch you trying to escape.”

“Close the door!” Murron snapped to Brynlee
who immediately obeyed.

Murron grabbed a pillowcase and began
stuffing it with a blanket and a few extra clothes that she had
been given.

“Where are you going to go, huh?” Vika
argued. “At least here you’ve got a place to sleep, warm food—”

“My father told me that a respectable woman
always keeps her honor,” Murron said. “I can’t let them take that
from me.”

“Remember what Cordelia told us? It’s only
our bodies,” Vika said. “If we make it our choice, they have no
power over us.”

“And you believe that?”

Murron went to the window where she fought
for several moments to crank open the glass panel. Brynlee cringed
as she watched the girl flop a leg over the sill.

“It’s a long drop. You’ll break your legs,”
Vika said.

“I can climb down,” Murron insisted. “And
you’d be smart to come—”

The door to the bedroom opened and Mungo
stepped inside. Murron froze, one leg out the window, her eyes
locked upon him in terror. Mungo clasped his hands in front of his
round belly and smiled. “And where are we running off to at such a
late hour?”

Murron stepped back into the room.
“N–n–nowhere, my lord. Just… needed to smell the night air.”

He sauntered over to her. “Needed to smell
the night air,” he repeated, enunciating each word carefully. “What
was your name again?”

“M–Murron, my lord.”

“Yes, that’s right. And are you excited to
start working for me, Murron?”

Even from across the room, Brynlee could see
the shiver trickle down Murron’s body. She didn’t answer him and
kept her eyes locked on the floor.

“I can tell that you are quite nervous,”
Mungo said. “But can I tell you a secret?” He leaned down close to
the girl’s ear. “They all are at first. But that will not do.” He
began to unfasten his belt. “I didn’t make my reputation as the
best brothel owner in all of Perth by selling men nervous,
unwilling girls. Now turn around.”

Murron was shaking violently now.
“P–p–please, m–my lord. I’m sorry. I w–won’t try to run again.”

“I hope not, but you see what you’ve done?
You’ve put the very idea of running into the heads of three other
girls. I need to beat it out of them by beating it out of you. Now
turn around.”

Tears slid down the girl’s cheeks. “My lord,
please—”

Mungo lunged at her and flipped her around
as she screamed. He bent her over his knee and swatted her bottom
with a quick lash of his belt. Murron kicked and flailed, but he
continued beating her. Though she slid off his knee and lay flat on
the floor he continued beating her. When he finally stopped, he was
sweating and panting, and the exposed parts of Murron’s arms and
legs were riddled with welts.

Mungo looked at Vika, Maidie, and Brynlee
who were standing against the far wall in shocked silence.

“I trust I’ve made myself clear,” Mungo
said, refastening his belt.

“Y-y-yes,” stammered Maidie.

Vika nodded, but Brynlee was too afraid to
move. Slowly the whore master walked over to her, wiping the sweat
from his brow.

“And you?” he said. “You won’t try to run
from me, will you?”

Shaking, Brynlee said, “N–no, sir.”

“That’s a beautiful girl.” He caressed her
face with gentle fingers and then left the room.

As Brynlee watched him stroll down the
hallway, she felt a drafty chill sweep toward her. Then she heard
the front door shut. She thought it odd that more guests would be
arriving at this time of night.

She looked back into the room at Murron who
was being comforted once again by Vika.

Leaving them behind, Brynlee trotted down
the hallway to the balcony overlooking the common room and peered
over the railing. There were two cloaked figures walking in from
the entrance, dark against the shadows of the entry corridor. They
stopped midway down the hall and used a key to open a doorway that
led far beneath the house.

Brynlee felt her pulse quicken as it dawned
on her who the two figures were.

She tiptoed down the stairs, past the few
guests left in the common room, and down the entry hall.

The side door that led to the underground
chamber was usually locked. Brynlee had been down there once
already to watch Neesah vanish in a tub of black water. The idea of
returning to the dark crypt made her shiver, but she found her
curiosity stronger than her fear.

“Pretend to be someone else,” she whispered
to herself. “Someone braver.”

Brynlee tiptoed down the stairs into the
darkness of the cavern beneath Mungo’s house. She stopped every so
often to listen, but she heard nothing except for her own
breathing.

When she neared the bottom she saw light
coming from the large black room where she and Neesah had been
taken after they had arrived in Perth almost four months ago. A
part of her wondered if the poor young girl was still in there,
soaking in the cold water of the mysterious tub.

Hundreds of candles illuminated the room,
casting a flickering light on the two figures within, Ustus Rapere,
servant of the high king, and Demulier Congrave, the smooth-skinned
witch with the bright green eyes.

“How many?” Demulier asked. She pulled a
wide hood away from her face and laid it across the vibrant copper
shoulders of her silk gown. Her face looked deathly pale in the
dark shadows, framed by shiny locks of black hair.

“They found just one of the gems on the
man,” Ustus said, “but we hear that he may have been given up to
four by Merek.”

The witch looked furious. “The ways I will
burn him if I ever get my hands on him,” she muttered.

Ustus folded his cloaked arms across the
green chest of his patterned tunic. He looked just as he did the
last time Brynlee had seen him—treacherous and vile. “He sold the
gems to buy back his sister, even though I already told him that I
could get her back for him.”

“And could you?”

Ustus shook his head. “I was just telling
him what he wanted to hear.”

“Then his decision to splurge the gems on
his sister was a wise one.”

“For him,” Ustus said. “How can we complete
the ritual without the gems?”

“We cannot,” Demulier said, pacing. “And by
now they are scattered into the populace of Efferous.” She walked
about the room in deep contemplation. She unbuttoned her cloak and
set it on the table, revealing a deep gold brocade neckline and the
sides of two impressive breasts.

Ustus seemed distracted for a moment.
“Orkrash does not suspect anything, not yet anyway. I am not sure
how many more lies I can conjure to convince him to be
patient.”

“Tell him the truth, that the wizard was
assassinated by a thief who took the gems. Then advocate for
sending soldiers throughout the empire of Efferous to hunt down the
pieces.”

Ustus looked stunned. “Hunting down six
shards would take—”

“We need that gem!” Demulier shouted. She
calmed, tapped her fingers together, and added, “I could always use
the high king himself as the vessel. That would not be preferable,
but it would be possible.”

“Dangerous?”

“That is hard to say. My master has plans
for Orkrash that are beyond my sight.”

Ustus became giddy with excitement. “You–you
speak to the master often?”