A Fall of Ashes: Chapter 14, Ending the Masquerade
The time of hiding as a whore finally come to an end.
Jakol pulled the hood off Ashes’ head as soon as he finished hooding the rest. “They’re ready, Mistress. You may come out now,” he said.
She took a deep breath, then walked down the line to the far girl. Lowering her voice to make it less recognizable, she intoned, “Mesta Col”.
The bright red rashes scattered across the young girl’s body faded.
Nodding her head, Ashes moved to the next. There too, they faded when she intoned that spell a second time. As did those on the third. She repeated the spell a fourth time, the last time she could and still have any defensive spells left. This time on Jakol standing in her place to make sure they thought all four were being treated and to clear up the flea bites he’d picked up.
In silence, the two switched places. Then Jakol spoke, “Thank you, Mistress, I will see you tomorrow,” and put the hood back on her.
In hooded darkness, his words seem to resonate with more authority. “The healer will be back tomorrow and each morning after that for the next ten-day. All of you have many things that need more treatment, and the healer’s debt to me will cover a ten-day of healing.” It was very believable.
In truth, none of the girls needed that much before they were healthy. On the latter days, she would be fixing minor stuff. She heard him removing hoods from the girls, starting at the other end.
Removing hers last, he handed all four to her. “Put those under your bunk and grab that soap and your water bucket. The innkeeper has told me of another place you can bathe.”
Damn, it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean she liked him doing that. While she was used to walking around nude again, she hated displaying herself that way and advertising that it only took some coin to have her. Yet the sooner they had the coin, the sooner she could quit whoring. Wordlessly, she retrieved the soap and bucket, then followed him down the stairs.
A floor down, women stood in most doors. Ashes noted these girls were as good, if not better, looking than she. It worried her. She doubted men would pass these up to go up one more flight.
After a closer look, part of why they looked so good came to her. “Master, can we have jewelry and makeup, too?”
Jakol stopped, looked over the girls, then at her. “I’ll see what I can find.” It worked; he’d taken her hint.
A girl they were passing said in a very cheery voice, “I have some I can sell you. I have extra. Makeup vender comes in every Ten-day, with good deals.”
“Vine,” barked the man sitting at the head of the stairs, his voice filled with warning.
That warning didn’t seem to have any effect on the girl he called Vine. She turned toward him, placed her hands on her hips, and her tone became saucy. “Relax, they can get all this in the market easily enough, so not selling it isn’t going to change that. I have a whole box of junk jewelry I don’t wear. Even selling some, I won’t run out of makeup before Sara comes by selling more. Helping them get set up isn’t going to hurt us any. They’re going to set up, anyway, so we might as well make a bit of coin helping.”
The man looked at them, scratched his short black beard, and let out a sigh. “All right, go ahead.” Then he stood, stretched, walked down the hall, and extended his hand to Jakol. “Name’s Kale. This insolent slut and her sister are mine on this floor, but am collecting for all of them. The other two owners and I take turns. I take mornings most days.”
“Chica has a customer right now,” Vine put in helpfully.
Kale looked at the tiny dark woman and said, “Vine, fetch what you’re selling.”
She bounced to her room with more energy than Ashes would have guessed and was back with two smallish wood and canvas boxes.
Kale and Jakol began dickering over the price.
On completing the deal, Kale looked her over and grinned. “Sampling the competition helps you make sure you are training your girl’s right. You want to try out Vine, and me take this one into Chica’s room, when she finishes? That will be soon, or I knock and collect more coin. If you like, we can do it on a regular basis.”
Not even looking her way, Jakol eyed the tiny brown skinned woman.
She gave him a big grin and ran a finger over her rather large nipple, emphasizing how much it stood out
Just then, Chica’s door opened.
“Sounds good,” Jakol said, glancing at the second small brown skin woman coming out with her customer, never once considering how Ashes felt about it.
Ashes suppressed a sigh and walked into the room the girl just left without voicing her protest. This was not helping him earn coin to pay that debt. But like it or not, this was part of being a whore for the next couple of ten-day. But it ended then. That, she promised herself.
Kale grabbed the girl’s arm and pushed her in behind Ashes. That woman all but jumped onto the mat and held her arms out to her, a massive grin plastered across her face, despite just having a customer. Ashes faked a smile herself, knowing that this would be far from the only time she would have to bed the two of them.
Near midday, Jakol finally took her to bathe at the food market well they’d started for. In the morning, there would have been a crowd watching her. By noon, most stalls were closed, and few people still shopped those left. But that didn’t prevent a foul-breath man covered in fish guts from offering a silver bit for her time, or Jakol accepting it.
She sighed and bent over for him. She hated it. Her debt could not be paid soon enough.
Seeing a spice shop reminded her. “If you get some cin-cin powder, I can improve it to be a much more effective flea powder with a spell I know.”
“Good thing you earned that coin, then. Wait here and I’ll be back.”
Goosebumps ran up her skin as he left her standing there naked, alone, and nearly helpless. Just a few more ten-day. Relieve flood her when he was back out in moments.
On the way back to the room, Jakol said, “I’ll just have the other girls use the water in your bucket for now. Then you four can take turns doing up each other’s makeup.”
“I haven’t touched makeup since I was fifteen and that was mostly soot, lard and blood-based things a farm girl could make from scraps.”
“You were a farm girl? Why did you choose to become a sorceress?” Ashes could not help but hear the disapproval in his voice.
“I fell into a fast-running stream. I would have died if a sorceress hadn’t found me and healed me. She only bothered to do so because she sensed my magic potential and needed an apprentice. I didn’t choose to be an apprentice. It was payment for saving my life.” He didn’t need to know the rest. She rubbed the ring that was responsible for her being an apprentice and not a slave, glad its magic kept people from noticing it. Slaves didn’t wear gold rings.
“So you didn’t have a choice,” he said, entering the inn. Her not having any choice but to learn magic seemed to make things better to him.
All the doors on the bottom floor were closed, showing that the girls had customers. On floors two and three, half the doors were closed, with girls standing in the open ones. Even their floor had two doors closed.
“Just set your bucket inside and stand in the door ready. You can do makeup and jewelry tomorrow.”
Only moments after taking her spot, a man came up the stairs, then smiled at what he saw. She touched her breast in a weak imitation of what Vine had done and gave him one of her fake smiles.
It was enough; his grin grew, and he handed Cass a coin.
When that man finished and she walked behind him to the door, all the other girls’ doors were closed. They too were all earning coin.
Cass gave her a smile as another man was coming up the stairs. By the time she could see that man’s face, she had her own smile back in place. He handed Cass a coin and Cass’s very non-fake smile grew. Maybe earning the needed coin wasn’t going to be that hard after all.
That set the pace for the afternoon and evening. There could be one, or even two girls standing waiting when she opened her door after a customer, but hers was rarely open long before someone was paying for her time.
Jakol brought up late dinners for all the girls, then barred her door when she entered it, locking her in. Speaking from beyond the closed door, he said, “She’s getting more customers during the day than you girls, so she gets to rest early.”
She frowned. It was a thin excuse. But she would take it; she had to have this time to study.
***
Each day, the girls got healthier and happier and became better, and even eager, at enticing men into their chambers. Her worry over not getting that much coin faded to a point she no longer resented doing the exhibition washes each morning after healing, nor when Cass and Jakol made her perform with the other women, on this floor, or one floor down. Especially as she got to quit when the other still had hours of work to do.
It would all be over soon.
**
Eight nights after arriving, the bar slamming back shocked her out of her sleep. The door jerked open, and Cass stood there framed by the brighter lamps of the hall.
Blood thundering in her ears, Ashes sat up.
As if that were the trigger, Cass staggered in.
He reached for her roaring, “Damn witch, in here sleeping when she should be working.”
“Kyayonday.” Her hand burst into flame, lighting the entire room.
Cass fell back; eyes wide.
She could see him considering going for his knife.
“What in the hell do you think you are doing?” Jakol said from the door.
Ashes let the flame on her hand die, and readied a different spell to put both men down.
Jakol grabbed the back of Cass’s tunic and yanked him from the room. “Idiot! Are you trying to die after that narrow escape?” His fist slammed into his son’s jaw.
Cass went down, eyes rolled back in his head
Ashes tried to calm her pounded heart.
“Thank you for not killing my son,” Jakol said, turning back to face her, looking her in the eye.
Keeping her voice calm and even, she said, “Set the bar inside. And close the door. I better not hear you trying to put another bar in its place.”
“Yes, mistress. I will grab your other books and bring them here.”
Her heart still racing, she fought to keep control of her voice. “I want that dress in your pack, too. This pretending to be your slave ends now. Not killing your son pays my debt to you in full!”
“Of course, mistress. However, I have bought you cloth and sewing supplies enough for a robe.” He bowed.
“Then get it. I’ll sew it now,” she said, suspicious of the gesture.
“Of course. I have it in Peaches’ room.” He backed out and closed the door.
He was babbling, Ashes thought. All the packs were in Peaches’ room. That was where he slept.
A moment later, there was a knock.
“Enter,” she said, but ready her sleep spell.
Peaches opened the door, wine skin and cheese in hand. “The master said it will take a few minutes to dig out the dress and sewing kit. He is putting Cass to bed too. He will bring it soon. Here is food and wine while you wait.” Then she asked, “Are you really a witch?”
She dropped her voice to the one she used during the healing. “I am the one that healed you and the others.”
Confusion crossed her face. “Then why would you let men treat you this way? If I had magic, there is no way any man would dare touch me.”
In her normal voice and talking quietly, she continued, “Think about just how terrifying the person must have been that I would hide as a cheap whore chained to a wagon to escape.” Ashes shuddered again at all those close calls with the guards. “Magic makes you a target to people far more evil than your last owner or the men that come here. Even spending my life chain to that wagon would have been better than what would have happened had they caught me.”
“Then why didn’t you leave when you got to town?”
“Because I had to pay back Jakol for getting me out. But that debt is now paid, and I am leaving.”
Peaches looked at the slave brand she wore on her arm. “I’ll never be able to leave.”
“No, you won’t.” Ashes took a deep breath. “But you can influence how you get treated. You have an owner that treats you far better than your last. Give him reason to treat you even better.”
As she finished saying that, Jakol entered with a swath of reddish orange cloth, the dress, another oil lamp and her missing books. All he sat down and backed away to the door. “I am sorry for what Cass did.”
“Maybe it’s for the best. If he had gotten up the nerve to try and collar and brand me as he was considering, I would have killed him. I hope to be gone before he finishes sleeping it off. Even it you have any problem earning enough coin, selling just one of the girls will make up the difference.”
“We are close enough that I could afford that robe material. There will be no problem getting the rest without you.”
He looked down the hall, then back at her. “I watched how easily and heartlessly you killed those men with no pity in you. I’ve tried to make him understand just how dangerous you are, but he only sees the whore mask you use to hide. It is a good mask, perfect camouflage and even I sometimes forget how deadly you are. When he wakes up, I will tell him that you spared his life because of the debt you owe us. I hope he learns. I will leave you in peace. The other girls are locked in already with Cass. Come, Peaches.” He was the last out and quietly closed the door.
She relaxed when no bar slammed into place.
Heartless? Merciless? Was that really how he saw her?
Folded inside the dress, she found another pair of sandals and a bar of soap. Tired of being nude, she slipped on the too-large dress, then began laying out the simple hooded robe she would cut and sew. She could embellish it later. Feeling the fine weave of the cloth, she knew that she would do just that, but for this night she just wanted to get something she could wear out in public without drawing a lot of attention. She stood and draped it over her for size.
It was perfect, fully long enough for a hooded full robe with sufficient extra to make her a belt, pockets and scarf to hide her slave cut hair. She got to work.
**
A tiny pack made from that dress, and now robed, Ashes pulled open the door, wishing she had a mirror to check.
That hall was empty. Taking a deep breath, she went down the stairs.
That hall too was empty, as it often was this early.
Last night had been slow enough that even the second-floor hall was empty.
The man sitting in a chair with a young girl in his lap on the first floor addressed her. “I heard that an upper floor had a healer coming in, mornings. How do you keep getting past me?”
“I have walked by you often. You just never notice me.” It had been true. The man had been in that seat most times when Jakol led her to the well to wash up. She embellished it. “I can go unnoticed if I need to be.”
The man nodded. “I need healing.”
“Viges?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“Three silver bits.”
His voice rose. “That’s outrageous. That’s temple prices.”
Ashes moved to go past him.
“Wait. Alright, I need it done and I don’t want to visit the temple.”
He pulled out his coin purse and handed her the three silver bits.
“Mesta Col,” came far easier than it had only a ten-day ago. Her skill continued to grow. “You are healed.”
Once again, her patient dropped his trews and checked.
Pulling them back up, he said, “That’s a relief. Thank you.”
She walked on, unsurprised he didn’t try to hire her to cure his girls. The men that didn’t care for their slaves outnumbered those that did.
With coins now in her pocket, she headed for the gate.
With those three girls now knowing who she was, it would not be long before word of the mage that hid out as a whore started making its way around.
That she knew.
It was best she be far from this town by then. Several caravans were leaving soon, needing guards. Few would turn down a healer mage if the price was right.
Strike that. She would apply as a mage guard and leave out the healer part.
It was time to stop hiding behind others.
Her teacher had given her the tools and a chance to live, and she was going to take it. Straightening her shoulders she left the Pasion Rose and turned toward the gate, and a whole new life.
