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I nearly tripped over my feet when she paused to glance into a room that was lit only by red, glass lanterns, which gave the room an eerie feeling. A man who looked like some sort of grizzled soldier, judging by his build and nearly bald, grey head, was roughly fucking a beautiful young woman…who was unconscious. He had her legs spread wide, and as we stopped to watch, he thrust in deep, then bent over to fondle her breasts and ravish her mouth as she lay limp beneath him. He did that for a second before straightening and fucking her some more.
The woman seemed satisfied with what she saw, though it left me feeling deeply uneasy when we went on.
“The young woman,” I said, catching up to the red-haired woman. “She agreed to that, didn’t she? Even though she’s asleep?”
The woman laughed. “Frontier boy,” she repeated again, shaking her head. “Don’t you know who you witnessed in there?”
I was going to look foolish in her eyes no matter what I said, so I admitted it. “No.”
She shook her head at me. “That’s General Orpheus,” she said. “And Lady Heloise.”
I shook my head, still clueless.
“She’s the youngest daughter of his worst enemy. Orpheus and Silvester have been rivals for positions in the Senate, and for King Julius’s favor,” the woman explained, slowing as we reached another doorway.
“And the daughter?” I asked, dreading the answer. “She agreed to help Orpheus get this…revenge?”
The woman shook her head at me. “So touchy,” she said, pausing to pat my cheek. “What do you care of the battles two men you do not know wage against each other?”
The urge to run filled me. “It’s wrong,” I insisted. “It’s criminal.”
The woman shrugged. “Lady Heloise will never know. She drank the tea in her own garden, and she won’t wake up until sometime tomorrow, when she’ll be back in her own bed. She’ll be sore without knowing why, that’s all. Her maid, who has been paid handsomely, has already thought of an excuse for her long sleep and her soreness.”
I gaped at the woman. “It’s still rape. And what if she becomes pregnant?”
“Then all of Royersford will rejoice at the miracle of a virgin birth,” the woman said, gesturing for me to move on.
“Virgin?” I yelped.
It was too much. Wherever the woman was taking me, whatever pleasure she thought I could find in the secret upper halls of the palace, I wasn’t having any of it.
I turned to storm back down the hall the way we’d come.
“Wait,” the woman said with an irritated huff, chasing after me. “You cannot just interrupt people whey they’re enjoying pleasures they paid good money for.”
I whipped back to face the woman, eyes wide. “Are you a madam, then?” I demanded. “Is the palace nothing more than a gigantic brothel?”
She looked at me with as much bafflement as I glared at her. “What do you suppose festivals are for, frontier boy?”
“For harmless enjoyment,” I said, throwing out an arm as if to make my point. “They are for games that even children could play, for eating and drinking and enjoying oneself with one’s friends.”
“All of those things are here to be had in the palace,” the woman argued.
“Yes, I’ve seen,” I said in a flat voice, utterly unimpressed. I shifted my weight and demanded, “Why did you bring me up to this part of the palace anyhow?”
“You are a handsome lad,” she said, shaking her head as if she didn’t understand my fury one bit. “You’re a frontier lad. I’ve a senator with connections to the royal family just through there. He’s watching two slave women fuck each other now, but he told me that if I ever find someone from the frontier, I should bring them to him at once.”
I gaped at the woman. “I’m not a whore to use for your amusement.”
Now the woman was offended as well as baffled. “Consider me a facilitator,” she told me, standing tall and looking down her long nose at me. “I bring people together. I do not whore people out. You should be honored and proud of being desired by a senator.”
“Well, I’m not honored, I’m insulted. And you’re not bringing me together with anyone,” I said.
I didn’t wait for her to grab me and stop me a second time. I marched off, taking a side corridor, since I didn’t have the heart to walk past the room where General Orpheus was violating poor Lady Heloise.
I had half a mind to find someone in a position of authority within the palace so that I could tell them what was going on, but I had the awful feeling they knew already and wouldn’t do a damn thing about it.
This was the Old Realm.
