~~~~~Char
Our first week in Drinnen passed in a blur of activity. By the end of the seventh day Gehorg and one of us had been to all of the more reputable sort of inn and tavern and moved on to the more down at heel establishments. No one had seen Ella and some of the patrons and owners had made surreptitious religious signs against evil when they thought we wouldn't see. Gehorg pretended not to know what that was about, but I could see the lie in his eyes when he denied it.
I had sent Alverston up to the palace on several occasions to meet with the Lady Almaviva and try to see Sir Peter. Almaviva had imparted further gossip about Ella but nothing substantive and Sir Peter had continued to be unreachable. Kieran and Dirick had been able to cobble together appropriate garb after several days of marathon mending and cleaning and several sorties to tailors with Gehorg so that we would be appropriately decked when the time came to go to court. With the winter solstice mere days away we received invitations to the festivities at the palace from the Lady Almaviva. The thick velum of the invitations was not addressed to us by name and the thick black border acknowledged our status as incognito visitors.
Mandy went out at irregular hours on tasks of her own and came back looking careworn and frozen to the core.
I was plagued with exhaustion and after the first day of frantic activity I spent several days abed, downed by my illness and the rigors of the journey. Mandy dosed me mercilessly with her horrid oily brew and my cough eventually subsided and I regained my strength.
Though the illness was abating, the itching, burning madness of the yarn and leather bracelets and anklets that Mandy had put on me did not subside. Often during the day or night I would find myself rubbing the bonds trying to alleviate the discomfort. Mandy had smacked my hand away from them so regularly at meals and whenever she was nearby that whenever she looked at me now I had to suppress a flinch as she muttered darkly about the proclivities of young men. I had strange heated dreams that I could not remember and every time I woke my cock was hard as iron and aching. Mandy had been horribly and embarrassingly clear with me that the bonds would not continue to protect me from the Lorelei if I tried to relieve myself and each morning seemed to be a longer agony of waiting for my erection to subside before I could take a piss. Sometimes after a particularly heated dream red welts would appear beneath the bonds and Mandy would have to rub salve into my wrists and ankles to relieve the burning. I could barely think of Ella at all without burning itching weals appearing, a particular inconvenience given our quest.
As time went on and the solstice approached my excitement and anticipation of finding Ella and solving this whole debacle began to morph into severe anxiety for her and fear that something horrible had befallen her.
~~~~~~Ella
I awoke in the freezing dimness of predawn under the pine tree and hauled my stiff body from beneath its boughs to poke up my fire. I could hear a baby wailing in the other camp and saw some early risers pulling themselves from beneath the makeshift shelters and poking their own fires to life. I was out of food and filled my mug with snow to melt, hoping for at least a warming beverage to soothe my aching hunger. The thought of food sent me staggering to a snowbank to vomit, my throat burning with the thin acid bile that was all there was to come up and my tears freezing to my eyelashes. The heaving seemed to go on forever before I got myself under control and shakily returned to my fire. I gulped some of the still chilly water and cleaned out my sour tasting mouth then added more snow to my cup.
More people were rousing now and the smell of food was beginning to waft towards me from the other camp. I kept myself from heaving with an effort, chewing a handful of snow to keep my stomach from revolting. In spite of my best efforts I had to return to my desecrated snowbank twice more before my mug of water was heated through. When I returned, I noted that someone had added a ball of some kind of dried herbs to my heating mug of water and a sausage on a stick was stuck in the snow, the side nearest the fire browning juicily. I looked over at the other camp and no one met my gaze.
"Thank you," I called over anyway. No one acknowledged me.
The fat sausage was barely browned on all sides before I stuck it greedily into my mouth, chasing it with sips of the hot bitter liquid in my mug. Instantly my nausea abated and I began to feel human again.
When the other group had eaten and strapped their goods to themselves I swiftly quenched my fire with a push of a huge chunk of snow and followed, the eagerness from my father's order warring with the soreness of my body and the ubiquitous cold.
This day's travel was easier than the last. We had gained the floor of the valley and while we were still not travelling a road, it seemed that the flat way we went was farmland or at least sparsely treed. The group I followed dwindled as the day went on, groups splitting off from the main body and heading off from us. I confirmed my suspicion that they were all headed to family or towns where they would seek shelter when a woman and her two children made a beeline away from our group straight for a sturdy stone farmhouse, after conducting a tearful farewell with the other women. By late afternoon it was only myself and the child I had saved as well as her mother and two girls my age. We were all headed to the city, it seemed, which had loomed up ahead of us. As the light began to fail we finally joined a road and saw other groups heading towards the city. A farmer with a cart full of root vegetables trundled by us and my travelling companions begged a ride from him. They all piled into the cart, the little girl perched on top of the vegetables. As the cart was about to pull away the mother looked at me. She frowned angrily and her mouth pulled into a mou of distaste but after a moment's hesitation and two trundling steps from the mule, she gestured to me to sit next to her on the back of the cart.
Gratefully I gathered my skirts and hopped up beside her, our legs dangling off the back of the wagon. The other young women gasped and shrank back from me and her but she made a snappish comment and they fell silent, eyeing us warily. For all of this show of solidarity, she would not allow any part of her to touch any part of me and would not look in my eyes. At least I could rest my weary body. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I smiled at her cautiously but she resolutely cast her gaze down the road behind us. I gave up trying to engage her and just enjoyed resting my twitching muscles and pulled my frozen limbs closer to my body trying to get warm.
I must have dozed off but was jolted rudely awake when the wagon bumped harshly from the smooth dirt track covered in muffling snow onto a rough stone road which jostled the cart mercilessly. Shaking myself awake and flexing my stiff body to try to warm it I asked the woman next to me, "are we almost there?" She looked at me, then quickly away, the other women shifted uneasily. One of them made a sign against evil. Frustrated, I turned and stood on the bed of the wagon to see over the heaped produce and saw that we were approaching a huge gate and the end of a long line of other carts and people on foot. I sat back down and faced the woman next to me. She wouldnt look at my eyes but I waved at her until she looked at least at my shoulder. I pantomimed and spoke exaggeratedly slowly and loudly, "I need to go to the palace." She looked blankly at my shoulder. I tried again, "how long until the winter solstice?" She shook her head violently, clearly unwilling to try to communicate with me and frightened by my wild gestures. I tried both phrases in Ayorthaian, gesticulating intently with an inviting and, hopefully, non-threatening look on my face. Then I tried again in my broken, half-learned dwarven. One of the young women spoke up at that, disgust and disdain plain on her face. The other two girls looked at me with dismay and alarm. I desisted with the dwarven immediately. This tactic was getting me nowhere, I slumped back against the piled vegetables, feeling despondent, cold and hungry. It took us a good long while of stop and start progress before we made it to the gate and its stern and forbidding guards. It had begun to snow quite heavily and I could tell that everyone was eager to be indoors and out of the bitter cold. The farmer made us all get off his cart before he approached the gate and the women grudgingly got down, the oldest of the girls picking up the slack form of the sleeping child from the front of the wagon. He pulled up to one set of miserable looking guards and was waved through with a cursory glance at his goods. The group of women went to the other set of guards manning the smaller gate where unmounted people could enter the city. I followed a short ways behind them.
The oldest woman spoke deferentially to the armed men, never looking them in the eyes and maintaining a cringing aspect. A few stern questions were put to the woman and they were waved through the gate. As she and the others scurried through the barely opened door she motioned for me to follow. A squeezing panicky fear that I had been trying to keep at bay popped like a soap bubble and I cringingly followed the other women.
Just inside the gate, we all huddled in the lea of the wall. The woman said a few strained phrases to me, earnestly pleading with me it seemed, then the three of them made a sign against evil and turned their backs on me in unison. They walked briskly out of sight and I was left alone, but at least I was in the city of Drinnen! I felt my curse ease a smidgen as the weight of my father's injunction to arrive in the city before the winter solstice was lifted. As far as I knew, I had made it. Now I just needed to find him. The eagerness welled up inside me, warring with my exhaustion and fear and I set off into the city to find the palace, Conar Breitwulf and my scheming father.
~~~~~~Char
The morning of the winter solstice dawned bright and painfully cold. It was today or not at all. I felt sick with fear for Ella and with mingled anxiety and painful arousal. Again I could not remember my dreams but I was drenched in sweat and it took the better part of fifteen minutes for my swollen cock to subside enough for me to relieve myself in my chamber pot. I considered my situation and thought again about dunking the whole of my swollen flesh into the icy basin of my wash water but couldn't bring myself to do it. The welt on my left arm was nearly a thumb's width thick and completely raw in the middle like rope burn. I dressed with care not to touch my welts or bump my tender private parts and went to seek Mandy. I found her in her tiny room under the eaves, and was dosed thoroughly with an oily spoonful of her tonic and salve for my red and chapped welts. She tut tutted over the state of my limbs and gave me disapproving looks as if the situation was my fault. I vacated the room as soon as I was able to seek breakfast and less judgemental company.
Final preparations were underway for our appearance at the solstice ball and both Kieran and Dirick were puffy eyed from late nights and early mornings, ensuring we would all be presentable. They were seated at a table in the common room nursing cups of hot tea and watching the stoic Gehorg work his way through a massive plate of breakfast meats. I sat down with them and a heaped plate was promptly brought to me. I dug into the steaming plate with determination if not precisely hunger. I had lost a lot of weight on this journey between the hardships of the trip and my illness and I needed to maintain my strength.
"Where is everyone else?" I asked and Gehorg shrugged.
"Alverston went up to attend the Lady Almaviva first thing," supplied Dirick. "That is why we were up all night finishing up the alterations on his outfit." He sipped his tea, wincing.
"The others went out to check with their contacts at those three most likely inns one last time," added Kieran. "They should be back soon." He yawned hugely, his jaw cracking.
"Dirick and I will see you dressed then take a few hours sleep, if that is all right with you, my lord," Kieran suggested before another huge yawn. I agreed readily and finished my meal hurriedly.
Dirick and Kieran whisked me back up stairs, their tiredness subsumed for the moment with brisk efficiency.
They stuffed me hastily into the modified finery while I watched dazedly. My own dark velvet doublet now had a high collar that had been stiffened with embroidery and more embroidery had been tacked symmetrically down the sleeves and across the chest. The back of the coat had been let out and relined to create a split tail that covered me to the back of my knees. My own good breeches had been gathered up and hemmed to the knee with a large bow and my stockings were visible from the knee down. The stockings were new, much taller than my own and thick cream colored silk. A fancy neckerchief edged in ivory lace spilled down my chest and my hair was swiftly curled with a hot iron and set with a mixture of egg whites before being tied into a tail to spill down my back. Dirick wanted to get after me with some kind of cosmetic but I told him that enough was enough and that I already felt foolish. The final touch was the elaborated knotted black satin scarf around my upper arm to denote my incognito status to the world.
I gazed at bits and pieces of my reflection in Kieran's tiny shaving mirror, held for me by one then the other of them and decided the effect was absurdly foreign but not terrible and that I wasn't hindered by the costume.
I took my leave from them, both seated dazedly on the edge of my bed, watching me go. I clattered back to the common room to see whether the others had returned and received appreciative glances and titters from two house girls coming out of the kitchen. I supposed they liked the new look and reflected that I was perhaps not so foreign seeming to them. When I reached the common room Vance and Gehorg were there, sipping small beer and leering at the waitress in a friendly sort of way. I sat across from Vance and he sobered. I noted that he was also decked in modified finery, though without the bows and embroidery, and looked quite dapper.
"Where are the others?"
"Lorne and Henry went up to the palace after checking their inns, I said I would come retrieve you and follow. There are festivities all day, we should try to take in as many as we can, according to the Lady. That will give us the best chance of catching sight of the Frellan Lord or the girl." I nodded briskly and left them to finish their beer as I ran up the stairs two at a time to retrieve my invitation and cloak.
I approached my door quietly so as not to disturb Kieran in his cot if he had managed to drop off already. As I approached I heard low voices and assumed Dirick was still there so they would be clearing up the detritus of costuming before sleeping and walked through the door.
I took in the scene at a glance, the wintery light from the window painting the whole in stark relief. My brain went dead and I chided myself that I needed to learn to knock on doors before just walking in places.
Kieran was laying on my bed in just his shirt, his bare legs resting on Diricks shoulders as the older man simultaneously rammed his cock into Kieran's asshole and stroked Kieran's cock with his hand. Dirick didn't hear me come in and Kieran had his forearm flung over his eyes, low moans coming from each of them.
I stood there for a moment, stunned and torn between staying silent and still so as not to be noticed by them and trying to sneak back out. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves and my wrist and ankle bonds burned faintly for a moment, drilling through my tumble of emotions. I began to stealthily back out of the room when I heard a gasp behind me.
One of the house girls had come up behind me on silent feet, her arms filled with fresh linens and had witnessed the scene over my shoulder, dropping the linens to clasp her hands over her mouth in shock. I turned to her, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look me in the eye and pushed her into the hall, Pulling the door shut forcefully behind me. Still holding her by the chin, I backed her up into the opposite wall and held her there trying to decide what to do now.
"You mustn't say anything about this," I said to her in a low voice, trying to convey my meaning through the language barrier. She understood, nodding mutely, her eyes fixed on mine. I didn't believe her and saw terror spiking through her. I slowly took my weight off of her where I had pinned her to the wall and fished in my purse for a coin, pressing it into her clammy hand. She fled down the stairs looking fearfully over her shoulder at me. In a fit of pique, I kicked the fallen linens down the stairs after her with a growl.
Behind me, the door opened and Kieran's palid face came into view, still pulling his hastily donned clothes straight. He looked ill.
"My Lord," he began, then stopped. A crimson blush climbed up his throat and suffused his cheeks and I felt my own face heating painfully and my bonds twinging. "My Lord, I'm sorry. We didn't mean…" Dirick came up behind him, looking much more put together and very grave, his skin grey with anxiety.
I ushered them back into the bedroom but before I could close the door behind me, Gehorg and Vance came rushing up the stairs, crowding in being me.
"Cat's out o' th' bag," Vance announced closing the door firmly. "Gehorg heard one of the little girls telling the cook the pair o' you were buggering each other," he said pointing at Dirick and Kieran. Kieran sank to the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. Gehorg strode across the room and hauled Kieran up roughly by the collar and pushed him towards the sacks and saddle bags strewn about, saying only, "pack."
"We got te go," Vance added. "It's not safe te stay where those rumors persist."
"You knew about this?" I asked Vance in a low tone as both valets began frantic packing.
"Oh, aye." He replied nonchalantly over his shoulder as he tossed a stack of folded small clothes to Dirick. "They're not so unique among th' soldiers or between valets and their lords." He shrugged noncommittaly then left with Gehorg to gather up their own things and the belongings of Henry and Lorne. Gehorg looked much more upset about the situation, his mouth a thin disapproving line as he left the room. Looking at the miserable Kieran and Dirick, I left them to their packing and went to settle the bill.
The landlord had clearly heard of the debacle and would not shake my hand on the transaction, making me pay extra before he would release the chits for our horses. When I turned to go, he followed me to the door and I heard him spit noisily onto the ground behind me before he turned and reentered his establishment.
In record time, all of us and our belongings were riding sedately through town to the palace. Mandy, rousted out of her upper story room, was displeased with the entire situation and made more dark comments about men's lack of self control.
I reflected that we would have to find Ella quickly before we were run out of town.
~~~~~~Ella
I surmised a few things as I wandered through the town. Tonight was not the solstice. If the solstice celebrations were anything like at home, people would be visiting neighbours and family members until dawn, singing and drinking and eating while exchanging gifts. This cold night, everyone was indoors and at this late hour most lights were out. Bunting and banners were hung over several of the wider streets, but perhaps they were leftover from yesterday or a few days ago. I got a definitive answer in a huge square. A clock tower was decorated with a calendar of sorts, a holly wreath hung on every day but one. The solstice was tomorrow! Relief flooded me, I wasn't too late!
One side of this massive square was a high wall around what was surely the palace and I eagerly followed the wall to an iron bound gate manned by soldiers. Straightening my cold stooped shoulders I pushed my matted hair off my chapped face and walked up to them with the blithe confidence that I had previously enjoyed all the time in my life as a lady. The soldiers watched me come with the boredom and disinterest of men who were world weary and had seen it all. One of them spat out a spate of their guttural language and I rejoined with, "I am Ella of Frell, I am here to see my father, Sir Peter of Frell and my husband to be, Conar Breitwulf." They looked at each other gravely then one of them came forward.
"Frella whoore," he stated in heavily accented Frellan followed by a further spate of his own tongue. Shocked, I just gazed at him dismayed. My lack of action seemed to anger him and before I knew what had happened he had backhanded me to the ground, another angry spate of his language raking me as I lay there, he called me 'whoore' again and 'Rusalka beetch'.
"Get away!" He yelled at me in his broken Frellan, "come not you back here!"
My curse took hold and I began to crawl away from them before I could regain my feet. A hard kick in the hip rolled me onto my back and I cried out as I tried to scramble away from the guard on my hands and knees.
Eventually, he returned to his post, but not before he had kicked me several more times and I was well away from the palace gates. I managed to get to my feet by holding onto the corner of a building and hauling myself up but I soon discovered that my hip could barely bear my weight and I had to use the wall to support my halting progress down the street. I eventually found a small alcove between two buildings protected from the wind and sank down gratefully, wrapping myself in my cloak to rest. I swiftly fell into an uncomfortable and unsettled sleep until dawn when I awoke to the freezing cold and discomfort of the stone beneath me.
Even so early, the town was coming alive with business as shops opened to sell a half day's worth of goods before the holiday started in earnest in the afternoon.
It took me only a moment's groggy awareness to note what had woken me. It was not, as I had first surmised, the bone deep shuddering cold, but a rhythmic tugging on my boot. I clawed my way out of my frost rimed cloak and sat part way up to see an urchin struggling with the lacing of my boot. The child leapt back when I moved, clearly having thought me dead. They crouched on the sidewalk, only a step or two away from my prone form and considered me. The child was so thin, filthy and wrapped in rags as to be genderless and their dirty matted hair obscured their face but as I sat up more fully and bared my own countenance to them, they fell backwards into the street before jumping up shrieking 'Rusalka' and running off into the crowd. Several passers-by looked after the shouting child then at me, skirting further from my alcove than they had already been.
The hostile stares and fear in the faces around me forced me to my unsteady feet and on my way. I was extremely stiff from the cold and the beating I had suffered last night and hobbled like a crone down an alley away from the press and the glares.
I kept moving and found myself eventually in a stream of back alley human refuse, all staggering along together. No one looked at eachother and all of us seemed to be travelling together. Crossing larger streets was reminiscent of my recent descent of the mountain side with groups furtively scuttling across between waves of traffic. Without a clue where I was going, I followed the person ahead of me, unable to extricate myself from the tide.
We eventually came to a small plaza filled with garbage and the rustling of folk and vermin. In the middle a small stone building squatted, its sturdy wooden doors thrown open to the elements. The crowd slowed and cued in a mass, waiting for room to get into the building. The movement, though seemingly random, was swiftly subsumed by the antechamber of the building and I along with uncountable others pushed into the warmth of the chamber.
When I could see ahead of me I noted that the building was much deeper than it had appeared on the outside. The mass of humanity was swept into a high domed room with a long dias at the front, rows of dark wood pews lined the walk way, some occupied but mostly just delineating a path for the foot traffic. As I watched, the derelicts in front of me knelt down on the edge of the dias and brown robed persons in deep hoods would come kneel in front of them. The ragged ones would then whisper to the acolytes who laid reverent hands on their heads. They were then led to a room to the right which emitted light and heat and the smell of food with such force that it staggered me. I could feel my empty stomach somersault at the mere contemplation of food.
Not wanting to risk mangling the ritual and being barred from that glorious feast, I latched on to a stooped and balding man ahead of me and eavesdropped very carefully on what he whispered to the acolyte, committing each syllable to my well-trained memory for languages. He was led away and the acolyte returned, I knelt, making sure not to make eye contact with the brown robed figure who knelt before me. With precision, I said exactly what the man ahead of me had said. Everything was perfect right down to the stress of the words and the lilting cadence of them. I smiled to myself, pride making me a bit giddy along with the anticipation of food. I waited patiently to be taken to the food but nothing happened. Confused, I looked up into the hood of the acolyte and saw deeply etched lines of disapproval and anger glaring out at me. The figure made a peremptory gesture and armed men I had not noticed came forward and seized me by the arms. They dragged me away from the light, warmth and smell of food and into a dark hall. They dropped me into a small cell, smelling foully of piss and pulled a large door shut on me. Through a tiny window at the top of the door the acolyte's face peered down at me, rattling off a spate of percussive and disapproving but unintelligible syllables before the tiny window was vacated and I was left alone. I cried for a long time then fell deeply asleep. My exhausted body revelling in the relative softness of the thin straw mattress and the relative warmth of this tiny stone chamber.