The Lord of Illusion - 3 (5 page)

The whip cracked and sliced open her skin, the blood running hot down her back. Camille tried to distance her mind from her body, but it had been too long since she’d felt the lash, and she had forgotten the trick of it.

The whip cracked again and she grunted. The slave master turned beating into an art form with his magic, somehow imbuing the whip with a spell that made it sting as if salt had been rubbed into the wound. Presumably he had been chosen for the position because his welts also healed by the next day, offering no permanent damage besides the light scarring. A damaged slave could not work or pleasure the soldiers.

But from the first strike of the lash until the morrow, the wounds would burn and ache with magically enhanced pain.

Camille soon lost count of the number of times the leather struck her skin. Soon lost her vision to a red haze. She did not cry out, did not plead for help. There would be no point to it—and she would not give the slave master the satisfaction.

He gave her a final strike with a grunt of pleasure and left her where she lay.

Camille had no idea how much time passed before she managed to rise to her feet and stagger down the hall, holding her bodice over her breasts, unable to pull the cloth over her back.

She ducked through the door of the closet that she and Molly once shared and met the eyes of her fellow slave.

“Lud, how bad did he beat you?”

Camille turned and showed her back.

Molly hissed and led Camille to her old bed of straw and woolen blanket, disappeared for a time and returned with a bucket of water and a pot of salve. She tended Camille’s back with gentle fingers and not a word between them, until clean bandages covered the salve and she buttoned up Camille’s frock.

They never discussed the beatings. Had long ago ceased crying and flinching while they tended the wounds. Camille did not know why, but pretending the beatings did not happen somehow made them more bearable.

The same way that pretending they would have a normal life someday, with a proper marriage and a household of children, made the knowledge that the elven lord had made them sterile easier to bear. Although in truth, Camille could only be glad Roden set the enchantment upon her. She did not think she could bear having a child by one of the soldiers.

“Fie, I heard about the duchess.” Molly settled next to Camille on her own bed of straw. “You want to talk about it?” Molly must have come from a good family, for she had always spoken almost as well as Camille, although she often lapsed into the soldiers’ jargon, while Camille had cultivated her speech upstairs.

“No.” Camille shifted on the itchy wool blanket. Straw stuck through the thick weave and poked her legs. The salve would prevent the wounds from festering, but held no magical powers within it to stop the agony. When she spoke, she could barely raise her voice above a whisper. “The elven lord… it was too horrible. Tell me what you have been doing.”

Molly shrugged, the black shapeless slave’s dress revealing little of her figure, which Camille knew was shapely and lush, unlike her own thin frame.

“Just the usual. Scrubbing. Chopping. Copulating.” She flashed a toothy grin at the look on Camille’s face. “But I want to thank you for the presents you sent.”

Both of their gazes swept briefly to the corner of the room, to the loose brick behind which they stored their treasures. Slaves were not allowed to own property. Even the clothes on their backs belonged to the elven lord.

“Especially for the candles.” Molly lowered her voice. “I have written several stories since you left.”

Camille nodded. Sometimes she thought the only thing that kept her sane had been Molly’s stories. She had snuck the other woman as many journals and quills and ink pots as she could without the duchess taking notice.

She knew Molly would delight in them. And although Camille loved the stories of lands far away, she had hoped never to be in a position to listen to them again.

“Will you read one of them to me tonight?”

Molly nodded. “If they let me.”

“The soldiers still come?”

“Fie, and why wouldn’t they? Honestly, Camille. If you wouldn’t fight them, you might learn to manage—”

“Never.”

Molly sighed, giving up the old argument. Camille could not understand how Molly had adapted to slavery, while she continued to fight against it. They had both been forced to service the soldiers as soon as they became women. Molly recovered from those first initiations, finding ways to use her charms to cajole the men who had once treated her so harshly. A lovely girl with elven beauty and grace, with a hint of gold in her hazel eyes a testament to her small and often erratic gift of illusion, she had no need of using her powers to alter her appearance to please them. But she cast her features into an image of their heart’s desire, and they treated her more kindly as a result.

Camille found ways to discourage them.

She rose and fetched the bucket of water, scooped up some dirt from the floor, and used what was left to mix a heavy batch of mud.

“No, Camille. You look so pretty with your hair combed and your face clean.”

Camille slapped her muddy palms against her scalp and began to rub. “All the more reason for me to sleep in the kennel tonight.”

“Lud! We’ll have fleas in our beds again! Truly, Camille, I don’t mind the dirt so much, nor the stink, but the fleas bite.”

Camille shrugged, winced from the pain still burning her back. “Then I’ll just stay in the kennels. The master won’t mind.” Indeed, the slave master had a taste only for the young kitchen boys. So if the girls did not complain or bother him or try to run away—or seek to rise above their status—he left them to their own devices.

And perhaps she would visit Grimor’ee. On that first day the soldiers used her body so cruelly, she had crawled up to his tower to hide from them. The one place she knew they’d never pursue her. But Camille feared the dragon much less than she feared rape, and for his part, Grimor’ee had not eaten her. Since then she’d been able to slip away to the tower. Unlike the elven lord’s illusion of him, the beast appeared to possess a peaceful soul, and sometimes even seemed to enjoy her visits.

“No,” said Molly, her mouth a stubborn line. “You will come back here to sleep once you think you have enough stink to keep the men away from you. Some of them aren’t so picky, you know, and you might need my help.”

Camille hid a grim smile. She might not have any magic, but she had managed to fight off more than one soldier over the years, and the slave master never punished her for it. Indeed, it seemed to amuse him.

But for some reason Molly felt it her duty to protect Camille.

“Because you’re thin enough to be blown away by a stiff wind,” said Molly, as if reading Camille’s very thoughts. “Didn’t that old woman feed you?”

“Of course she did.”

“You missed a spot on your nose.”

Camille quickly spread some mud over the curve of it. “Better?”

“Yes. You look perfectly ghastly.”

Camille set down the bowl and gingerly lay sideways on her pallet with a groan. The dogs would be overjoyed to see her again. She would bed down in their dirty hay pile in the stables, and by morning she would smell of manure with a spice of urine, and her clean dress would have a wealth of stains to cover it.

She quickly banished the memory of Lady Pembridge’s rose-scented toilette water and sighed.

How quickly she had fallen back into her old role. She could suffer the hard bed and endless toil—even the occasional beatings. But she could not suffer a man’s hands upon her body ever again.

“I am cursed, Molly.”

“Don’t be a goose. The entire land is cursed by the elven lords. Do not think it is all about you.”

Camille propped her now rather crusty head in her hand, caught a breath from the pain of the movement. “I am serious. First the Ailesbury children and now the duchess.”

Molly pushed her pale hair behind elegantly pointed ears. Camille envied her those ears. Despite all of her otherwise elven looks, she had rounded human ears.

“You cannot blame yourself. The elven lord killed them, not you.”

“If only I’d had the power to stop him. To be given eyes speckled with every color of the sovereignty, and to hold none of those powers, seems like the cruelest trick of nature.”

“Fiddle. No one can stop them! And don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself. You were given a will of iron and I envy you that more than you know. Did you not raise yourself up to a servant, not once, but twice?”

Camille’s gaze drifted upward and she stared at the cobwebs strung across the wooden beams of the blackened ceiling. Several years ago she had met the Ailesbury children, Rufus and Laura, who loved dogs and stumbled upon Camille asleep in the kennel. They struck up an immediate friendship. Their tears and combined temper tantrums won her as their nursemaid, and she had spent several contented years with the family. Until the children had been tested by the elven lord…

She could still feel them within her arms as the elven lord sent a monster from a nightmare toward them. Neither of the children showed much affinity for magic, but suddenly they created a shadow that swallowed Roden’s monster as if it were an insect.

The children had been ripped from her arms to be taken to Elfhame. Although by then, the entire court knew that the rumors were true. That the children were murdered behind closed doors. Camille—nor the children’s parents—could do anything to stop it. And Camille was sent back to the kitchens.

And now, with a half-breed murdering the elven lord of Verdanthame and taking over his sovereignty and scepter, Roden looked as if he would no longer bother to do his killing behind closed doors, despite his continued lies about the fate of the children.

Poor Lady Pembridge.

Camille frowned and the mud cracked, a chunk of it falling on her blankets. It would stay trapped in her hair for months, but she needed ashes to wipe across her smooth face instead of mud. “This won’t stay on for long. I must go, before any more soldiers come for their ration of drink. They will not care that I have been beaten.”

Molly stood up, brushing at her skirts. “It would go easier with you if, like me, you would just use your charms on them. I’m sure
I
shall find a proper husband from the lot one day.”

Camille stood. “Ha. My charms! I have missed you, Molly.”

“I missed you too. Although I wish you had not come back. You gave the rest of us slaves hope.”

“Did I? How odd, to think I can give anyone hope, when I have to fight for it myself.”

Camille left their little closet, Molly trailing right behind her. They peeked around the corner into the kitchen. The servants had all left for the evening, abandoning the room to the soldiers and their drink. Most of them took their ration and left, but many of them stayed. And kept their eyes on the slave quarters.

“I shall distract them,” whispered Molly, careful not to brush up against Camille’s back as she passed her and sauntered into the light surrounding the table in the room. She put her hands on her hips, outlining the curve of her waist, and tossed back her ivory hair. “Well, gentlemen. Who will be the first to offer me a drink?”

While the men fell over themselves to bring Molly a tankard, Camille crept to the fireplace and rubbed ashes where the mud had flaked off. She hadn’t realized the lateness of the hour, for Cook had banked the fire for the evening.

Molly did an excellent job of capturing the soldiers’ attention, for not one of them glanced up at Camille’s silent shadow as she opened the door into the courtyard.

Devil take it. The sun had fallen, a light dusting of snow still hovering in the clear air. The night brought more soldiers for their ration of gin. And to the doors of the slaves’ quarters.

A group of them made their way across the cobblestones to the kitchen.

Camille fought down panic. She could not return to her closet, for that would be the first place they would look for her. She could not run to Molly, for the girl might get hurt trying to help her. And the pain of the beating had sapped her strength. Her elven speed and agility would not help her this night.

She was right back in the position that she swore she would never be in again.

Camille sidled over to the oven and reached for the herbs, sniffing at them, hopefully to find the ones that smelled the most foul. Garlic. Dried Onion. She quickly rubbed them against her neck. This would not do. She now smelled like Cook’s favorite roast. And then her eye saw the slop bucket. She opened the lid and the stink made her eyes water. Thank heavens the lads had forgotten to dump it.

She had her hands half-buried in the mess by the time the soldiers entered the room. Camille tried not to imagine what might be in the refuse as she smeared it over her black gown, into her hair, down her naked legs. Along with shoes, slaves did not warrant stockings.

The men stomped through the door, bringing cold and wet and terror with them. A few joined Molly’s group, but the rest headed for the back cellars of the slave quarters, and Camille could hear Ann’s voice yelling at them to enter her room only one at a time.

Camille closed her eyes and swallowed. She hadn’t had time to give a greeting to her other fellow slave, but then again, she couldn’t be sure Ann would care. The half-breed spent most of her time absorbed in her tiny golems, creatures that she made from stick and mud with the magic she inherited from Terrahame.