She heard voices from somewhere beyond the door, but could not understand what they were saying. The language sounded much like Confederation Mehrikan, but also differed in many ways. Her first attempt to sit up resulted in a sick dizziness. But her mouth felt dry as sand and she was just mustering herself for another effort at reaching the water jug when the door was flung open, then shut and bolted behind a guardsman.
She was taken quickly, brutally. Then, while her ravisher lay still atop her, he said, “Likely you don’t know me, bitch, but you will, oh, how you will. I’m Loo Fahlkbp and it wuz my own first cousin, Garee, was striped and sent off to fight in the friggin’ mountins ‘cause of you. Damn barbarian run a spear right through his dang belly ‘cause of you.
“Well, I done fixted you good, now, bitch. You ain’ no off’ser’s piece no more. I done sol’ your ass to ol’ Djoy Skriffen, and ever payday I means to come back here and screw you silly. Now, turn your ass ovuh, I ain’ done yet. I’m gon’ plow your othuh hole.”
He rolled off to stand beside the cot, one hand on her shoulder and the other on her hip, leering cruelly. Suddenly, Neeka spun on her buttocks, flexing her legs, then driving both her heels into the man’s lower belly with all her force. The guardsman was slammed into the board wall so hard that there were crashes and thuds from the other side. Neeka sprang to her feet and leaped for the door—only to find it secured, immovable.
Neeka spun about. The man was staggering toward her, face red, eyes shining hate, lips twisted into a snarl. But her lover had taught her well. She ducked beneath the extended arms, arose on the outside. Grasping his hairy wrist, she slammed the heel of her other hand into the back of his elbow,
hard
. The guardsman screamed once and staggered backward. Neeka got one leg behind him and pushed. Good arm flailing wildly, he fell back onto the cot, half of him still on the floor.
The guardsman’s canvas breeches had become but two separated legs, the center seam having parted. With all her weight behind it, Neeka slammed her small heel down on her rapist’s genitals, then began working on his face with the nails of one hand while fending off his good arm with the other. She was still at it when his screams brought in three more people.
She was dragged off her erstwhile attacker and held as easily as if she had been a child by an immensely fat, immensely strong woman, who all the while laughed uproariously and made cutting jests at the expense of the crippled, battered guardsman. His face streaming blood, the half-nude man had to be literally carried out of the cell, groaning and sobbing.
When the men had gone, the big woman released Neeka and pushed her down to a seat on the edge of the cot. Wiping at her eyes with the backs of her big, blubbery hands, she chuckled a bit more, then addressed the girl in tolerable if thickly accented Ehleeneekos.
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Neeka. Neeka Mahreemahdees. Is what that… that man-thing said true? Has he sold me to some brothel?”
The fat woman showed yellowed teeth in a broad grin.
“Not just some brothel, Neeka, the very best brothel this side of Kehnooryos Atheenahs. My brothel, mine, Djoy Skriffen’s.”
Neeka felt lost, then, helplessly sinking, but she spoke strongly. “Then you’d better get whatever you paid him back before he leaves… because I warn you, I’ll
kill
the next man to lay hands on me!”
The fat woman chortled again. “I believe you would, Neeka, if what you done to ol’ Loo is a example. ‘Course, we have ways to gentle frac’shus fillies, in this house. But I like you, girl, you got spirit, more’n any other Ehleen girl I ever seed. You’n me’ll talk some more in a day or two, whin it’s safe to bring you upstairs. I think we can strike us a bargain.”
Some hours later, she was brought a tray of food—fresh-baked bread, roast pork, cabbage boiled with onions and caraway, a pint of wine—by
an”
attractive, red-haired girl who looked to be some years older than Neeka. That same girl returned later for the tray and dishes, but also brought a low stool on which she perched.
“You’re a
k
ath-ahrohs, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Neeka replied, “I’m pure Ehleen. Why?”
The ghost of a smile flickered briefly over the redhead’s full lips. “I never heard tell of a Ehleen woman could mess up a grown man as bad as you did that guard bastid. He couldn’ even walk when they took him away from here. They had to lug him in a cart. An” they think you done blinded one of his eyes, too. Lady Djoy like to died a-laughin’ at him. She ‘lowed what-all you done to him and her gettin’ a chancet to see it was worth what she paid for you, by itself.”
As her visitor was garrulous, Neeka just let her talk on, glad for the harmless company and anxious to learn all she could that she might plot her escape.
Hohp Leebos claimed to be twenty-two, but looked a bit older. She was three-quarters Ehleen. Both her parents were long dead and her husband, a fisherman, had been lost at sea only a few months after their marriage, leaving her almost destitute. Finally, near starvation and having exhausted the charity her late husband’s former mates could afford, she had taken to the streets, whoring in the dockside taverns, as had Neeka, briefly. One night, having narrowly escaped being taken by the infamously brutal city guards, she had asked the advice of a friendly tavernkeeper, and so had made her way to Djoy Skriffen’s house.
Honest, kind and merry in her quiet way, Hohp Leebos was now possessed of a large clientele of regular, faithful customers and was one of the very few of her whores whom Djoy Skriffen trusted to leave the house unescorted by one of her goons, or to serve food to secret purchases such as Neeka. And Neeka soon found out why.
Hohp shook her dark-red head and said, “Aw naw, Neeka, I couldn’ do nothing like that. Lady Djoy, she’d jest skin me alive and, for all we’s friends her and me, likely she’d hand me to them house guards of hern, an’ I sure don’ think I could tek that; them fo’ treats women like animals.”
Leaning forward, she patted Neeka’s hand. “Listen, honey, Lady Djoy’s gonna bring you up in a coupla days, soon’s the fella you’s the mistress of gits outa Esmithpolisport. Things’ll be a whole lot better, then, you’ll see. ‘Cause Lady Djoy, she really likes you, honey, likes your spunk an’ likes the way you tore inta thet bastid guardsman. You jest do whatall she tells you to an’ you gonna make out just fine. Most the customers is good men and with Lady Djoy bein’ your friend an’ all, like she’s mine, you won’ have to lay with any lessin’ you likes ‘em, an’ too, Stoo an’ the rest will halfway kill any bastid what tries to mark you up.”
Neeka reiterated with cold intensity, “Hohp, I shall kill the next man who lays hands to me. Believe that, for I mean every word of it”
Hohp shook her head again. “Aw naw, honey, like I done tol” you, mosta the men is real fine fellas, Lady Djoy, she don’ let no town trash or dock scum in here. O’course,” she puckered her lips as if to spit, “them friggin’ guardsmen is another breed of cat, they is.”
Then her face brightened. “Come to speak of cats, honey, did you ever see a fencat kill a ol’ wharfrat? I tell you, that’s a pure pleasure to watch. Them cats moves like pure light-nin’. I wuz watchin’ one of them what come down from the fortress chase this here rat out’n the house an’ kill im in the back courtyard whilst I ‘uz a-waitin’ for cook to make your tray up.
“Well,” Hohp stood up and lifted the tray, “I better be a-gittin” back. We’ll talk some more after you had your nex’ meal, honey.”
It had been long since she had mindspoken one of the fen-cats, and Neeka carefully framed her mental projection. Almost immediately, dear Ratbane was there.
“What are you doing in this unhealthful place, friend Neeka?”
“Oh, Ratbane, please, you must go back to the fortress and tell Djordj what has befallen me. Three guardsmen kidnapped me and have sold me to the evil woman who owns this house.”
“The male two-leg called Djordj is no longer in Esmithpolisport. He and his man rode north as we fencats were coming here,” replied the animal sadly, for she had been very fond of the young captain. “And the new chief of the fortress cannot mindspeak.”
Neeka thought hard and frantically. “Then… then, Rat-bane, do you know Master Lokos Prahseenos? I have signed a contract of apprentice-indenture with him. Surely he would deliver me from this place?”
“Friend-of-fencats Lokos?” beamed Ratbane. “His is the most powerful mindspeak in all of the
Thoheekahtohn
of Esmith. Yes, I shall go and find him.”
Neeka caught Ratbane’s instructions to the younger cat to continue exploring the house until she returned. Then the fencat’s mind was gone, and Neeka could but lie and worry and wait.
Hohp Leebos brought her next meal—several small rolls, half a baked guinea hen swimming in a rich sauce, peas stewed with garlic and young carrots, a dish of pickled vegetables, a steaming pudding of breadcrumbs and dried fruits with spices and honey, a full
half-leetrah
of really good wine—the heavy tray was fitted with a baked-clay cover and Hohp indicated that the food was to last her needs until midmorning when the kitchen came to life. Despite her earlier promise, she did not linger this time; as soon as she had unfolded the stubby legs of the tray and disjointed the fowl with the knife from her girdle, she departed.
Aside from greetings and goodbyes, her only comments were, “Soon’s you git upstairs, you’ll be able to carve your own vittles, honey. Lady Djoy, she ain’ the leas’ bit a-feared you’ll kill yours’f, thet bein’ why we don’ give othuh new gals enythin’ sharp,” the redhead chuckled. “Aw, naw, honey, she
Aspects
you; she’s afeared you might use it to carve up me or somebody ‘nd try to git away.”
Though she was not really hungry, Neeka forced herself to eat part of the well-prepared and tasty repast. It was a way to pass the time without worrying herself sick over whether or not Ratbane had been able to find and summon help. The wine was a fine vintage, and she was sorely tempted to seek the temporary solace of drunkenness, but she forced herself to dilute it with a large proportion of water from the jug.
She had barely finished and recovered the tray when she had a second visitor, Djoy Skriffen. Under one fat arm, the huge woman carried a bundle and, in the other hand, a silver decanter and a brace of tiny goblets. Behind the brothel keeper strode the most thoroughly evil-looking man Neeka had ever seen.
The male was tall, but small-boned and very slender, and the wide, padded, carven and inlaid chair he bore so effortlessly looked to be as heavy as he was. His beardless face was heavily pocked, crosshatched and misshapen with the puckered traces of old scars, and a pair of beady, ratlike, black eyes were separated by a great, hooked beak of a nose. The nose was dripping, and he wiped it from time to time on the shoulders of his shirt, breathing through open lips and the gaping void where his front teeth once had been.
Djoy set the bundle on the cot and the decanter on the stool and, after indicating where she wanted the chair, sank into it gratefully. The chair creaked alarmingly under her weight, but held. Noting that Neeka was trying vainly to cover her naked body from the gaze of the man, the big woman chuckled.
“Neeka, don’t you worry about Iktis, here. That damn Loo Fahlkop come in here drunk last year and knocked out Iktis last two front teeth. He was happier than I was when you tore into that bastid this morning. And sincet we got word you killed him, well, you can figger Iktis’s your friend for life. Much as he likes hurting women, I doubt he’d do nothing to you, even if I told him to.”
While talking, Djoy had unstoppered the decanter and filled the goblets, now she handed one to Neeka, tossed down her own and quickly refilled it.
“He… that guardsman is
dead
?’ Neeka felt stunned, weak with the knowledge she had killed, though she endeavored not to show her real feelings, sensing that an appearance of tough callousness was all that would impress these evil people and retain their grudging respect for her.
Djoy chuckled again, echoed by the lounging Iktis. “Aye, he’s dead, and good riddance, say I. Stoo brought word down from the fortress, about an hour ago. While that Zahtohgahn, Master Hahmeel. was setting the bastid’s elbow back in the socket—you gonna have to show me how you done that, sometime, Neeka—Loo started puking up blood and in five minutes, he was dead. The fortress surgeon cut him open and said sornma his innards was just split opened.
“This here little Ehleen cunt fixted Loo Fahlkop good, didn’t she, Iktis?” Djoy poked at the thin man with an elbow.
Iktis’ smile broadened enough to show that his jaw teeth were still in place. “Yeth, my lady. I but with I had been down here to thee it” Despite the lisping impediment of missing teeth, the slender man’s Ehleeneekos was pure and unaccented.
“You take your post, Iktis,” said Djoy. I’ll be out in a while, but I wants to talk to Neeka a little bit more.”
With a nod, the man spun on his heel and departed, moving lightly and almost soundlessly.
Djoy waved a fat, beringed hand at the bundle. “I brung some clothes and things there for you, Neeka. Nothing you could use for a weapon, of course.” She grinned yellowly. “The Blue Lady knows, you’re dangerous enough without one. I never done all this for no new girl afore this, but you is special. You got guts and you knows how to handle yourself, too. And on top of that, you a Ehleen.
“Neeka, I was borned a Kahlinzburker and I been a-whoring the mosta my life, all over the Middle Kingdoms with the Freefighters, and in my first house in New Filburk, and then here. I done never had me no trouble learning new languages, they comes natcherl to me, like. Like you can tell, I learned Ehleeneekos right off the bat and I talks it good.”
Neeka had seldom heard the tongue of the Southern Ehleenee so misspoken, thickly-accented and generally butchered, but she wisely kept her thoughts to herself, simply smiling noncommittally.
Djoy poured herself another measure of the fiery brandy and went on. “But, Neeka, these here Ehleenee is a stiffnecked bunch of bastids. I gets along just fine with sailors and soldiers and Confederation folks, but mosta these here Ehleenee treats you like pure dirt lessen you is a Ehleen your own self, and I thinks some of these here rich Ehleenee what lives in Esmithpolisport would make me damn fine customers, if I just had a real Ehleen to deal with them.