Bitchmaster update

Lona straightened Katrine’s dress and veil. “No, no. Send her in, with my thanks, Gilgim.”

Vika entered. The raincoat that was her only garment hung off her, exposing her body as a bakery would use glass windows to show off its wares. Katrine looked at her whorish appearance in dismay, looking down to compare it to her own outfit, all the charms of her youth on display. She could only wonder if her attempts to be stoic made her appear as sluttishly blasé as Vika did, treating her own body like a piece of meat to be sold in the market.

“Do I look like that?” she whimpered aloud.

Vika eyed her critically. “You wish.” She turned to Lona, as if the appearance of this scantily-clad woman in the queen’s chambers proved some suspicion of hers. “I was just saying the family retaining my services for the day had only females among its rank…”

“It’s not for either of us,” Lona protested. “And Katrine is my daughter.”

“I do see the resemblance,” Vika commented.

“We’re not blood-related,” Katrine said.

“Perhaps your father has a type…”

“May we attend to business?” Lona asked, giving Vika an appraising eye. 

The woman looked as succulent and carefully formed as some rose that’d been cultivated for generations to have the perfect coloring, its bloom in precise proportion. The breasts, the lips, the hips, the legs—they all seemed to reflect each other in pristine symmetry, to which Vika’s aptly applied cosmetics provided a most suitable frame. The woman instantly struck Lona as someone who knew how well-formed she was and put that knowledge to its best possible use. As a skillful merchant would invest a gold coin, so too did Vika treat and pamper herself, making a naturally gifted body into a work of art.

“I serve at the pleasure of the queen,” Vika said, her speech so ornate it verged on mocking. She threw in a curtsy that similarly skirted the line between respectful and… something else.

“I wish for you to perform at the wedding reception this night,” Lona said. “You’ve heard of… Horn and the bargain made with him?”

“On the contrary, I try not to care about such things,” Vika said blithely. “But when one has ears and all are speaking, one cannot help but hear…”

Katrine bit her lip nervously. “All…? As in… everyone?”

Lona stepped between her and Vika as if sheltering her almost daughter. “You will dance specifically for Horn and you will beguile him. Seduce him. Then take him. Make him give all his lust to you instead of Katrine.”

“Leaving him spent before his marriage is to be consummated,” Vika observed, shaking her head ruefully. “Such a devious, underhanded ploy. I’d always hoped the city’s leaders could manipulate so finely.”

“Mother—“ Katrine started to say, but Lona shushed her.

“Quiet, girl!” said over her shoulder. She focused on Vika once more. “Will you do it?”

“My uncaring ears have also heard talk of the man Horn… how he came to this castle and… presented himself to you. It sounds as though there will be much of his lust to spend.” Vika smiled, her ivory white teeth one more aspect of her perfection. “I am intrigued by this. But it also sounds a vigorous prospect. One that would stretch my… imagination. I believe I should be duly compensated for such an arrangement.” She looked past Lona to Katrine. “Isn’t it so that when one hires an expert to perform an arduous task, it costs far more than doing it yourself?”

“You would be paid your weight in gold,” Lona said.

“Your highness, am I not dutiful to keep my weight a small thing, so that men may only love my body so much? If this were not so, would the test of desire still fall to me?”

Lona rolled her eyes. “Twice your weight in gold. To reflect properly on your self-denial.”

Vika bowed deeply. The money, at least, it seemed she took serious. “Much obliged, my dear queen. You make me feel so very patriotic…”

***

The High Church of Petrichor was built of stained glass. With the rain streaking down over the prismatic walls, the colors that were cast inside flowed and hummed, seeming alive as they shifted from one shade to the next. A hundred of Horn’s ‘honor guard’ sat alongside Petrichor’s elite, yet to Lona’s eyes, they resembled a pack of stray dogs more than they did any praetorians she had ever seen. She was far more used to creatures of gleaming armor and intricately inscribed weaponry, their handsomeness far too picturesque to actually be sullied by battle.

Horn’s men were not such paper tigers. Though they had obviously been cleansed of the trail—how could they not, in Petrichor, where running water was the norm?—they were still hairy, scarred, things of obvious violence. Their armor, though repaired and shined for the occasion, still bore as many cuts and dents as their bruised bodies. Their weapons, though currently clean of blood, were evidently well-used. Such an unruly mob, Lona felt sure, could riot at any moment. 

But in Horn’s presence, they were absolutely cowed, their discipline such that the nepotistic ranks of other praetorian guards could only dream of. Lona was reminded of a wolf pack, with Horn both alpha and dog trainer, director of the violence and apart from it at the same time. 

He knelt with Katrine before the pulpit as if born to such civilization, his hand alongside hers on the priest’s altar, the wax from melting candles dripping into their empty rings. When the priest’s sermon had finished and the vows had been exchanged, that wax would form the jewels of their wedding bands. Amber, Horn had called it, though Lona was unsure if that were the proper translation.

Despite the outlandish spectacle, the rose of Yasminia society wedding an incongruously massive barbarian, cutthroats and mercenaries seated alongside esteemed guests, attention seemed to be pulling toward Vika.