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Blah, blah, blah. He tuned her out and stared at the floor. For a few moments, the motion of the carriage reminded him of the boat. One of the sailors grunted on top of him as he worked the head of his cock in, not caring that it hurt or how his bulk crushed Aspen. Hands were on him, and he couldn’t breathe.
“What are you doing?!”
He suddenly found himself on the road as pain shot through his knees, and his palms scraped on rough little pebbles. His stomach lurched as breakfast came back up in a disgusting mixture of soup, goat’s milk, and stomach acid. The carriage clattered as she screeched something in her panic, but it must have stopped.
“If you felt sick, why didn’t you say something?!” She climbed down as he gave another heave. Vomit splattered his trousers and the sleeves of his coat.
“Is he all right, miss?” called the carriage driver. “For Elira’s sake, he’s lucky he didn’t get run over by the wheels.”
“It’s just stress from his Father dying.” She lifted her skirts as she hurried over.
“Don’t touch me!” he snarled as he tried to scramble back on his ass.
The carriage driver remained leaning around to stare as Sira paused. Some lord Aspen was, splattered with puke, smeared with dirt, and grit stuck in his palms.
“Get up,” she muttered. “We can’t stay out here.”
Thankfully, she was stronger than she looked and was able to haul him up. Aspen felt like he’d escaped some great danger or was about to head into it. His legs shook, and he almost tripped getting back in. She followed, slammed the door shut, and thumped the inside of the carriage. Aspen flinched at the sound, and she pulled him to lean against her on the seat.
“You can’t do that.”
“They hurt me,” he whimpered. He’d just wanted to get away.
“No one can hurt now. It’s okay.” She pulled out her hanky to wipe his chin before she started plucking at bits of grit on his palm.
He sobbed as she tried to clean him up, although she could never get rid of the other filth ground into him. Finally, she stroked his hair, and he managed to quiet down. The Mother he had no memory of might have done this if she was still alive. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to sell his ass on the street and start a line of events that brought him here.
He should have listened to Vima too. The weathered street whore had told him to never get feelings. He should have stopped seeing Oriel, and he shouldn't have signed the contract either.
The rest of the trip was a blur, and he barely remembered trying to lie down in bed despite the dried puke on him. Sira managed to convince him to remove his trousers and coat before he buried himself under the blanket. Blissful nothing was all he wanted now.
“You should eat something.”
He ignored her. There was a lot of stuff he should have done.
He still felt like a doll the next day as Sira made him do things that normal people did like getting dressed and eating breakfast in the dining room. She said they’d have to hire a cook soon because she was getting too old to do everything, and Lan would burn down the place if he tried to make a meal.
Lan seemed to realize that his bulk and presence terrified Aspen, and he had been scarce. Aspen figured he should be grateful to the both of them, but he knew they had a secret agenda too.
They would have picked anyone that looked close enough to fake being Philre, and it wasn’t like Aspen was special. They also could have let things play out naturally, but they must not have wanted to lose their home and position here. Aspen had enabled them to stay, and he figured he shouldn’t begrudge them. Everyone wanted stability.
He felt anything but stable when Sira made him sit in the office after breakfast.
“Lan needs a break, and you need to familiarize yourself with stuff."
He could do math just fine, so the ledger wouldn’t be impossible to figure out. When he was King Leneer’s pleasure slave, he'd spent a lot of time horizontal since either the King was using him, or the younger triplets were railing him, but sometimes he’d sat with King Leneer in the office, rather like a pet. A few times, he’d gotten to look at stuff.
The King had said it was better to rule with a lighter hand. Strictness was required at times, and he’d certainly been strict in the bedroom, but terrifying his subjects and grinding them into the dirt wasn’t a good idea. If someone needed rent relief or had some trouble, mercy went a long way. Happier people thrived better in the long run.
A list of criminals at the jail in Cardinal’s Brook was placed in front of him by Sira. Three were serving sentences for minor theft, and a murderer was to be hanged next week. They also had a rapist sentenced to the rope.
Of course, rape wasn’t a crime when a soldier did it to an “enemy” or when a sailor fucked someone chained down in the hold of a ship.
“Lan took care of these, but you need to pick what to sentence this man. He’s a traveler, and he filched a coin purse from another at the tavern. A guard sent the note this morning.”
“Give him a week.”
“For that amount, it's longer-"
