Erlina groaned as the palace guard dug his fingers in her hair and pressed her head against the mattress. She bit her tongue and turned her face to prevent herself from choking. The cheese stench of old sweat burned in her nose while the soldier's stiff manhood plough through her crotch. His free hand kneaded her breasts. By this time's tomorrow, they would be bruised again.
"Oh, yes," the soldier ( Conrad?) panted in the elf's ear. His breath smelled like beer and rancid butter. "Hold still, my precious elf whore. Let me fuck you like all knife-eared waste is supposed to be fucked."
One of Conrad's companions slept in the bunk bed above them. Erlina could tell because she had given the guy ( Seth? ) pleasure only a few minutes ago and heard him snoring now.
Conrad pulled his hand out of her dress's neckline and grabbed her hip instead. The frequency and the force of his thrusts increased. The mattress squeaked beneath Erlina's body and the bedroom's wood creaked. The beer sweating guard grunted when he came inside her and slumped, burying her underneath his huge figure. He wheezed like an old mabari after chasing a squirrel across the yard.
"That felt great," Conrad grunted as he finally caught his breath again and wiped the sweat from his forehead before he pulled out. "You are the dirtiest and cheapest piece I've ever met, knife-ear."
Dirtiest and cheapest piece, Erlina repeated in her mind and fought the urge to throw up while she sorted the skirt of her dress. If Anora were still Lady of this house, no guard would ever dare to treat her like a dirty, cheap piece. But things had changed ever since this bastard king Alistair had climbed the throne and married the Cousland spitfire.
"I think you owe me, Conrad," Erlina said as she gathered her hair in a new ponytail.
"Yes, yes." Conrad lifted the mattress, pulled out a couple of letters and handed them over to Erline. A golden ring shone on one of his fingers. "The throneless queen sends her regards."
The envelopes were lettered in Anora's neat handwriting and addressed to noble peers and clerics of Ferelden; powerful men and women who remained loyal to the deposed queen even two years after Alistair's coronation.
Erlina tucked the letters into the left pocket of her apron and pulled another batch of envelopes from the right one: messages from powerful men and women to Anora.
She was kept under house arrest ever since Alistair had won the throne at the lands meet during the Blight. They treated her well, allowed her to have guests, to write letters and to go on walks in the garden. However, guards followed her at every turn and chancellor Eamon read every letter from to Anora himself before they got delivered.
Laying with the palace guards was the only way for Erlina to win her Lady some private minutes and letters.
The elf heard the door closing behind her back. She was alone now, apart from the snoring Seth in the upper bunk bed who agreed to wait outside Anora's quarter when she received a befriended Arl this week. The condition: Erlina had to blow him whenever he demanded it. He demanded often and she obeyed because she would do anything for her queen, the only true ruler of Ferelden.
The elf had never thought well of the royal guard, but the longer she played this game for Anora the more she despised these soldiers. She kept a list of names from guards who had proven themselves disloyal to Alistair. These men would be useful while Anora fought for her throne, but as soon as Anora regained her crown, Erlina planned to make sure that these guards would retire from service - under tragic circumstances.
However, for this moment, she bowed down to pull off the sheets and threw them into the basket on the floor. Erlina had learned pretty fast that spying looked a lot like housekeeping if you carried a basket with dirty laundry through the hallways. So, to reach the laundry room, she took the route through the castle which crossed the corridor with Alistair's study.
At this time of the day, the bastard king was often visited by his narrowest confidant Eamon Guerrin, the former Arl of Redcliffe. Usually, the two men didn't speak about official issues during these meetings. They discussed the king's private matters. That he missed his wife, for example, or that he feared to leave Ferelden behind without an heir. Erlina flashed an evil grim when this secret crossed her mind: The king's unladylike wife wasn't even woman enough to bear him children.
The elf didn't always find out anything and in most cases, she only caught a few shreds of the conversations in Alistair's study. Still, she had the talent to puzzle shreds into secrets, secrets which made the king vulnerable.
When she drew near the study's on this evening, she heard Alistair laughing behind the closed door: "You're with child! Despite the Taint in our blood? By the Maker! That's a miracle!"