A Fall of Ashes: Chapter 09, Hiding in Plain Sight.
Hiding as a slave become far more than Ashes bargained for
Darkness ruled most of the sky when Jakol started breakfast with the sun only bringing a hit of pink to the morning clouds through the ever-present haze.
Cass started rolling up the bedrolls.
Neither man tried anything last night. That was good. But it looked as if neither would this morning, though both wanted to. Last night she would have told them not to distract her as she studied by the firelight so she could finish memorizing the spells she’d used that day. She didn’t have that excuse now, and both men knew it. Knowing that, and not pushing for what they wanted first thing this morning, was a bad sign, a sign they would give away the fact she wasn’t really a slave the moment they ran into someone.
She took a deep breath, hating what she was about to say. “This isn’t going to work. Jakol, if you had a whore-slave you had bought along, you would not be doing that, and Cass would not be the one packing up the bedrolls. Both of you want to be doing me, but are not taking me.”
She moved closer to both men. “Frankly, I don’t want to be your whore. But the fate Mistress Gu has in store for me if she finds me is worse than anything you can imagine. I cannot risk it not looking completely normal for you to treat me as your slave and whore when others are around, so treating me as a whore has to be a habit. In the evening when we are alone, I’ll usually need to study and then sleep when we stop, but all other times you have to treat me as a whore you own, or someone will catch on. If you can’t, then give me the dress and some coins. It will be safer for me to make it out of her territory on my own. Safer that way for you, too, because I am not there to give it away.” She regretted that last line the moment she said it.
Jakol stirred the porridge in the pan he held. “It is hard to treat someone as a whore when she uses magic to start a fire.”
“I needed one fast last night if I was going to get my studying in before sleep. You will almost certainly see me do other spells. Get used to them, or I need to leave.” She shuddered. Alone her danger went up, but not as much as them giving her away would if they didn’t stop.
He held out his pan for her.
She took over the cooking, but her misgiving grew.
**
The moment she got that last spoonful of porridge down her throat, Cass put his hand on her neck, pushed her face down next to the fire, and entered her roughly from behind. It was hard not to complain about the unneeded roughness of it, but slaves didn’t do that, and she needed to get used to being treated like one. Just as important, she needed them to be used to treating her as a slave. As much as she hated it, her life depended on it.
His old man was next, and just as rough on her.
Neither took long nor offered to help her pack up after.
The absurdity of the situation hit her as they started down the road. Her trying to get these men to treat her as a whore struck her as incredulous after everything she had gone through to avoid being one. Neither man saw her silent chuckle at the insanity of talking men into treating her badly.
**
She made lunch, while both men took their ease. Then she cleaned the pan and three bowls and put them back in her pack, just as a real slave would.
But instead of getting started right away, Jakol stood, lowered his trews and sat back down on his pack.
She faked a smile, pulled up her shirt, and straddled him.
Maybe this would work, and they wouldn’t give her away. And why didn’t she mind being treated as a whore far more than she did? She actually enjoyed doing both men after lunch instead of hitting the road at once.
* *
That evening, Jakol stopped and turned to her. “Just how much of being a whore can you take?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, already suspecting the answer.
He kept his voice quiet and even. “I’ve been this far before. There’s a travel inn ahead. Do we stop for the night, or continue on?”
Damn. She did not want to stop! But she could see no valid reason for two men and their slave not to. Or for them not to whore her out for whatever coin they could get when they did. It would be too suspicious if they didn’t stop this late, and someone might investigate. She had not planned on whoring to anyone but them when she suggested she pose as their slave!
She took a deep breath. She didn’t have all that much choice at this point. “We stop. Don’t try and demand top coin for use of me, but don’t charge so little that I appear worthless or that you appear to be an idiot. If you get a room, please take me to it.”
The old man nodded. “Traveling to a job, we would all be staying in the bunk room, but when it is time to sleep, you will be between me and Cass.”
“Set,” she said before she could back out.
“A silver bit sound right?”
Too low, she thought, but didn’t say it. It was more than the Stallion would have been charging for her. “Set.”
“Then take off the shirt and scarf over your face. I would be advertising you if you really were a whore I owned.”
She again suppressed her urge to argue that it wasn’t necessary. “Set.”
The shirt hadn’t been much, but she hated giving it up. She set the pack down, took it off, and packed it away. Then her face scarf. But the ashes were far less of a problem than they had been.
Standing there, nude, preparing to go to an inn, brought back terrible memories. She checked her arm to assure herself she didn’t have her brand again.
Why did standing there before these men like that make her nipples hard?
Cass noticed them. It was all the invitation he needed to take her.
Then the elder did too.
She didn’t mind either one. Would she never stop getting aroused when men made her do things?
**
Twenty men completely filled the tiny inn when they opened the door, the sun still two hours from setting. From the looks of things, her price would rule out more than half of them. She relaxed some, but only some. That still left a lot of men with the coin for some entertainment.
They found room at the wall counter and ordered from older hard worn slave. Thankfully, no one offered a silver bit for Ashes’ services until after she finished eating the meal Jakol bought her.
“How much, said one man the moment she set her bowl down.”
“Silver bit,” jackal replied.
The man pulled one from his pouch and gave it to Jakol, then undid his trews where he sat.
It left her in more of a quandary than she expected. She would have to perform right out here in the open with a crowd looking on. If she didn’t do a good job and Jakol didn’t punish her for it, people would wonder why he didn’t. If she did a good job with all the others looking on, more would think she was worth paying out a silver bit for.
She scanned the inn again. Only old pock-marked slave who no one wanted anything but food and drink from were available.
In front of the man that paid for her, she went to her knees with a false smile on her face. She would do a good job and hope she didn’t regret it.
He was easy to please, and she finished him quickly.
A second was already offering a silver bit as her head came up. And a third held up another.
She faked a smile for both. Jakol took the money from one, then the other, committing her to both men. Unlike that first, both wanted her on their lap, facing them. It forced her to keep her smile and even kiss both before and during sex.
A fourth paid while she was doing the third. She was getting tired but sat down in his lap too, with the same eager-to-please smile.
The door slammed open. Three guardsmen stood there.
Their lieutenant bellowed into the crowd, “Looking for a young sorceress that killed some citizens and two guardsmen. She may or may not be in the company of a couple of farmers.”
Ashes turned back to the man in whose lap she sat, concentrating on keeping him hard and interested in fucking her as any common whore would be doing under these circumstances.
The guard gave out a very accurate description of her except for her not having long hair anymore.
Ashes’ blood went cold, but she kept up the act, not even bothering to look in their direction.
Yet no one pointed to her, and the guard’s eyes slid right over the nude blond whore fucking the guy right in front of him.
He and his men left to search the woods for them.
She wanted to dance and sing. Instead, she smiled with eager anticipation at the fifth man, offering Jakol a silver bit.
* * *
As Jakol settled up for breakfast, he remarked to the innkeeper, “Not as well as I anticipated. I had thought she would turn a profit at each stop. Didn’t even break even this time. I’ll never get my investment back at this rate.”
The innkeeper laughed and said, “Drink less or stop earlier. Either one would have made you a profit.”
“True. I’ll consider both options down the road.”
“Since you are going through Liport, I’ll give you this advice. Get your slave branded or keep her on a leash, and don’t ever let that leash out of your hand there, even to someone giving you coin for her favor.”
“Thanks, I’ll put a leash on her before we enter Liport.”
With that, he led the way outside.
The rain during the night had cleared. The air was clean.
She knew the volcano had been over for weeks. Maybe the choking ash was over, too. Things were looking up.
As soon as they were out of sight of the Inn, Ashes grabbed Jakol’s arms and gave him a big kiss. “Your stopping there, and accepting silver bits for me, is why they didn’t catch me. Had they found the three of us camped by ourselves, then not even this disguise would have worked. I won’t forget that.”
He grinned back at her, “I almost crapped my pants when he described you so well, then looked right past you.”
Cass asked, “Why haven’t you been giving us as good a time as you were giving them last night?”
“Cass,” his father warned.
“It’s fine, Jakol. I’ll answer. Partly your fault, partly mine. Most times, you are taking me, not having me please you. That’s your fault. But when I’ve pleased you, I didn’t do as good of a job as I should have. Remember, I’m not really a whore, so not use to having to please. If you really did own me, then you would be right to punish me for not doing as good a job as I could. So, from now on when I please you, I’ll do a better job of it.” She grinned the naughty grin she learned back in Oak Well when the guys were courting her, which she hadn’t used since. “Would you like me to do so now?”
“Lunch is soon enough,” Jakol put in, then he smiled. “I will admit, seeing you perform last night, I am looking forward to you performing that well for me.”
“I will, from now on.”
He didn’t offer to let her put back on the shirt. Nor the scarf. She wanted to ask too, but didn’t. If she started making such requests and he granted them, the chances of them doing something that gave her away would be higher. Nor did he put his own scarf over his face, though Cass did.
* * *
It wasn’t until they were getting ready to stop for lunch that Ashes noticed how much slower Jakol kept the pace than she would have. The two men made lunch a leisurely drawn-out affair. They made Ashes use her skills to please each; first Cass, while Jakol cooked. Then, after eating, Jakol, while Case cleaned up.
Getting back on the road, she sighed. The men liked that arrangement so well they didn’t have to tell Ashes that would be how lunch went from then on, and she wasn’t in a position to say otherwise.
Only two hours later, they came to a small hamlet with an inn a little larger than the last.
Jakol decided to stop instead of pushing on.
As frustrating as it was, Ashes couldn’t fault him for it either, nor in not asking her opinion. If she had been a whore he owned, stopping now would be the right decision rather than risk not finding as good a place to put her to work later. She understood that.
But that slow pace and them stopping, and they had made less than a third of the distance Ashes would have covered alone. And once again, they’d deprived her of time to study her spell book.
**
Later that night than she wanted, exhausted, Ashes lay down between Jakol and Cass on the bed rolls they put on the bunk room floor, wanting nothing more than sleep.
Jakol had spent five of the eight bits he got for her favors and would spend one more on breakfast for the three of them tomorrow. He would not only cover their travel expenses this time, but turn a profit on her. Unless she said something, the rate of travel would take them eight days just to reach Liport.
***
By the time Ashes woke, the sun had already risen. They would not get the early start she had hoped for.
She resolved not to complain about him taking his time, or using her to turn a profit. Guards had again come into the Inn after she lay down between Jakol and his son. They completely overlooked the naked whore sleeping between two arms-men. It had only been two, and they hadn’t really been putting out any effort, but it made her cautious, unwilling to do anything that would lessen the cover she had as a whore.
Let him make his profit on her. Besides, they would not make back near what she had cost them by taking shelter in their place and killing those men. She owed them.
