Chicks in Chainmail (36 page)

A low growl emerged from her throat and they both looked startled at the sound.

He laughed at her.

"I take it that's yes?" and he dug a finger into her ribs.

She returned him an expression whose only relation to a smile was that her teeth were bared.

"Take your hand off my leg," she said sweetly, "or I'll hurt you."

He laughed uproariously and slapped his own thigh with his free hand.

"Oh, sweetheart, you are a one!"

She reached out for him and there was a nasty little crunch.

He leapt to his feet howling and pranced around with his hands cupped to his chest.

Indeed, Terion would break many hearts this night. And nearly as many fingers.

The moon rose another notch and the smug smile with which she'd been watching her erstwhile swain's caperings smoothed out and vanished. Terion rose to find other adventures.

She was playing dice for kisses when she briefly returned to herself. Opening her eyes she found herself looking into the bloodshot eyes of the fellow she was kissing. Their breath mingled, their lips were smooshed together, yet, the moment had something in common with those conversations where you've exhausted everything you have to say to each other but simply walking away would be rude and trying to go on is pointless. Terion blushed. Fortunately, at that moment an enthusiastic drunk tried to join them, throwing his arms around Ten and wetly kissing her cheek. It was with some relief that she broke his nose.

She was shaking out her hand when the moon rose higher and she winked at her woozy victim.

Her fellow carousers grew uneasy with the mixed signals she was sending. One moment she was soft and cuddly as an adolescent dream, next she had the harsh reality of a hangover.

She hunched her shoulders forward adorably and said, "I can do a sword dance."

The men laughed nervously. They didn't really believe that such a dainty creature could do anything so martial, though many of them bore wounds from wooing her. Still, they gamely hoisted her onto a table and one of them fiddled a tune.

Her
eyes
met those of a man she liked, while her hips carved extravagant figure eights in the air.

"Loan me your sword so that I can dance," she demanded coyly.

He laughed. "Ah, lass, it's very sharp, you'd cut yourself sure."

She pouted and looked at him from the corner of her eyes.

"What's the matter," she teased, her eyes dropping to his hips, "don't you want me to touch it?"

In an instant the sword was in her hand.

They began to clap and cheer and she began to dance. At first, she merely held the sword and danced a wild hootchie cootchie around it, accompanied by hoots and howls of appreciation. Then, slowly, it became a perfectly traditional sword dance, except for the bumps and grinds that at times threatened the more undulant portions of her anatomy with being lopped off.

Her admirers' appreciation began to level off as they recognized the skill with which she handled the sword. Those, admittedly few, not riveted by the parts of her that jiggled took note of the thickness of her wrists and the muscles rippling along her arms and resolved to seek commercial companionship instead.

Mother Guid pursed her lips as the dance ended in wild applause and everyone shouted for beer. If most of her girls were getting the night off, at least she was doing well selling drinks. She watched one of the men make the move she'd been expecting all evening.

A handsome young fellow with a black beard leaned close and whispered in the girl's ear, then lifted his chin to indicate upstairs.

"Noooo!" Terion said, her eyes wide. "Save your money. Why do you think the Lady created bushes?"

Mother Guid was behind her in a flash.

"Excuse me, dearie, would you mind coming with me for a moment?"

When they reached an uninhabited corner of the room, Mother Guid spun round.

"What's your name, dearie?"

"Terion." She blinked at Mother Guid and raised her arms to lift her long hair off the back of her neck.

The men breathed a collective sigh.

Terion hoisted a shoulder and peeked coyly over it at them. Then she turned back to Mother Guid, managing to put some hip action into the motion.

The room moaned.

Something clicked into place in Mother Guid's mind.

"Terion? Not the Terion who went for a soldier?"

The strangest expression came over the girl's face and she glanced around as though puzzled to find herself here. When she looked back at the older woman her eyes narrowed and her mouth hardened.

Mother Guid was suddenly aware of the hard muscle beneath Tenon's curves, and she smiled, nervously.

"It's so nice to see you again, Terion, dear."

The moon rose to mid-heaven and Tenon's smile returned, her eyes went soft and vacuous once more.

"You can call me Ten!" she chirped.

And Mother Guid nodded, smiling, nervously aware that something very strange was going on. The Terion she remembered was an out-and-out prig. She shuddered as she watched the girl prance back to her boyfriends and thought,
Now, Guid, if you don't ask questions, then you don't have to worry about the answers
.

She snagged Teri's arm and drew her back. "Well, dear, it's nice to see you again—but not if you spoil my girls' custom, you understand. What with my over-heads and expenses and the rent…"

Teri pouted, then clapped her hands together and giggled. "Oh, I understand!" she trilled, wrinkling her nose.

Mother Guid blinked.

Teri leaped up onto a table. "You wonderful men," she called out in a voice like heated honey. "We've been having such a wonderful time, haven't we?"

Roars of agreement, some of them through swollen, bruised lips.

"But we've been neglecting poor Mother Guid and her girls," Terri went on. "Ana we shouldn't do that. So we're going to play a
game
."

Eyes glittered as Teri clapped her hands and bounced up and down.

"First we'll have an
auction
, and then we'll have a
contest
, and it'll be such a wonderful—"

Several hours later Mother Guid looked down dazedly at the little chamois leather sack of coins one of her girls—known as Enna Ironthighs—slapped down on the table in front of her.

"I don't care!" Enna blurted. "I give up.
I'm
not a python with insides made out of old saddle leather. She's not
human
."

A roar rose from the taproom beyond. A table broke.

"This has got to stop," Mother Guid said. Too much furniture was being lost; and besides, she
had
all their money.

Terion woke next morning to a body drained and aching, her head pounding like a battle ram and a taste in her mouth best not thought about with her stomach in this condition.

"Terion?" a timid voice whispered.

Cautiously, she slitted her eyes open. Daylight pierced them clear to the back of her skull. She recoiled, then sang out, "Ah!" for the pain movement caused. "Close the door," she whispered.

Feric obeyed and stomped over to her. "Drink this," he ordered.

"Can't."

"Drink! It will help."

It tasted vile, but not as bad as it smelled Almost instantly, the crushing pain in her skull began to recede, the ache in her limbs as well. She sighed with relief.

"Thank you," she said, looking at him gratefully. There was an oddly pinched look about him. "What's the matter?"

"Do you remember anything of last night?"

Terion frowned. "I seem to remember… sitting on Gaffy Swanthold's knee…" she said in shocked disbelief, "and letting him tickle me as he would" Then she chuckled "What a nightmare!"

Feric was shaking his head. "That was at the start of the evening. Mother Guid came over to complain about you. 'I'm not one to mind a frolic,' she said, 'my girls have been known to kick up their heels, but that Terion of yours is a whole other matter!'" He looked at Terion with concern.

"Kick up their heels! Ha! Is that what she calls it?" Her grin faded at the expression on his face. "You're telling me the local madam thinks I'm too wanton? You're not serious!"

Feric's lips compressed. "They carried you home last night, Teri. Singing. You attacked me when I put you to bed. You tried to rape me. I barely got away from you and then only because you were so drunk."

"I never did!"

"I've got bruises to prove it."

Her hands clenched the blanket and her eyes pleaded with him. "I don't remember any of it," she said plaintively.

"It's the curse," he said, his face grim. "When the moon is full, you become… a wench."

"A wench!"

He nodded. "A low tavern wench—more of a slut, really."

Terion gave him a look that had turned many a fierce man's bowels to water.

Feric merely sighed. "I expected something like that. It's a very clearly worded curse, you know. Most unusual."

"Still," she said, dazed, "for a spur-of-the-moment effort it's apparently quite effective."

"Well, the cure is also clear." He smiled wryly and patted her hand. "And it's entirely up to you."

Terion eyed him apprehensively, but he remained silent, gazing at her with those understanding brown eyes of his. She licked dry lips nervously.

"Are you going to tell me?" she asked.

He looked away embarrassed.

"Terion, are you celibate?"

"Well of course. It's only sense if you're a woman mercenary. It simplifies things and it's the most effective contraceptive there is." She shrugged. "Why do you ask?"

"It's suggested by the structure of the curse. Obviously, Rank knew you well."

"Not as well as he wanted to," she snarled. "My captain took service with him six months ago. Easy duty, he said, soft as a kitten, he said. But Rarik wouldn't leave me alone,
I
had to go riding with him,
I
had to guard his quarters late at night. He'd stare at me and stand close to me and touch me." Her eyes were bright with fury. "He magicked me, Feric. One night he kissed me." Terion was blushing furiously. "And I… kissed him back. All the while I knew what I was doing and I couldn't help myself. The moment his control slipped, I took up my sword and I struck him." She was shaking with rage at the memory. "He cursed me with his dying breath. I fled. Because I knew the captain would have to hang me when he saw what I a done."

Feric stared at her in a kind of pitying horror. Not quite able to believe that his friend had killed a man because she felt herself responding to his overtures.

Terion calmed herself with an effort. "What do I have to do to break the curses?"

Feric bit his lip. "You have to accept… even revel in… your, urn, sensuality."

She blinked. "I'm a soldier."

"And a human being."

"But I have a reputation for prudence and sobriety," she said indignantly.

"Modify it."

"You don't… I just… I like to keep myself to myself," she muttered.

"You like to be in control, Teri. But to break this curse your feelings must sometimes rule." He sighed. "It's my fault. You weren't like this once."

"Oh, true. There you went, off with your fairy lover, blissful as a pig in clover, never a thought to me."

She'd begun in a light, mocking tone, but finished almost viciously, "I've had wounds that cut to the bone and not one of 'em hurt as much as that." She turned over in the bed, facing the wall.

He winced, but gamely carried on.

"Terion, either you accept this part of yourself and allow it a place in your life, or three days a month it will control you completely. And soon you'll have quite a different reputation."

She sniffed. Feric thought it was in contempt, but she might have been weeping. He gave her privacy, to think or cry as she saw fit.

Feric wondered what he was going to do with her tonight. He could put her in the shed and nail the door shut. No, she'd probably tunnel her way out.

He didn't want to confront her in her wench persona. When Terion had stood over his bed, reeking of sensuality and beer, she'd frankly terrified him. Feric sighed He'd see her through this. Somehow, he'd help her.

When he returned with water from the well she was sitting glumly in the doorway.

"Even if I wanted to become… to appreciate…"

She sighed. "Well, I couldn't do it by moonrise, now could I?"

He sat down beside her, placing the bucket between his feet. "Why not? That's the way it is sometimes. You change your life all in a moment. One summer evening we were going to be farmers and married. The next morning, you were a mercenary and I was Feric the Fey. You just have to make up your mind and believe in your decision."

She leaned her head wearily against the doorframe. "It's hopeless," she said.

Feric reached for her and guided her head to his shoulder. He stroked her hair and kissed her brow. "It is not. It's a change, that's all."