19 June, 1574. The cellars beneath the Spanish embassy, Paris, France.
“Come, la lobuna,” the guard growled in Spanish.
Yassimine cringed. She did not understand everything spoken to her in this strange language. But that phrase needed no translation.
Grinding her resentment and anger deep into a corner of her heart, Yassimine calmly placed her sharp tambour hook and thimble aside. She rubbed her eyes free of the grit from peering at the fine work with only a single smoking oil lamp for light. Then she rotated her shoulders, relieving them of the hunched posture required for this needlework.
She hated leaving the fine embroidery in the middle of a section. She had learned early that life was perilous. Any task left unfinished might never reach completion. But completion and relief of boredom were all she sought from the work. Christian women hungered for needlework. They had nothing else to lighten their lives.
“Vamos,” the guard snarled, impatient with her hesitation.
Yassimine rose slowly from her stool, careful to keep grace in each motion as her mother had taught her from an early age.
Move like water, smoothly, so that one drop blends with the next. Here and there are the same to the eye. She heard her long dead mother’s voice in the back of her mind. That little bit of love was the only thing that had kept her sane since her capture five years ago.
That and her anger.
The guard who had spoken entered Yassimine’s cell holding a whip in one hand and a torch in the other. She backed away from the implied menace in the weapons and in his eyes. A second guard entered the room holding a chain made of silver links. The guards always worked in pairs with a second pair watching from the narrow passage outside the iron door.
One of their tonsured priests also stood guard, carrying one of their hideous crosses showing their god dying most horribly upon it. She ignored the man and his talisman. They could not harm her unless she believed they could.
The Chain Man crossed himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before snapping the silver links to the leather collar studded with iron around her neck. She bared her teeth and growled at him. He jumped back, crossing himself repeatedly.
Very briefly, she enjoyed his fear. Then the whip slashed at her arm, tearing the heavy black gown The Master insisted she wear. She flinched away, still snarling.
The Chain Man yanked her metal leash. She hoped his fear had made him soil his netherwear.
With heavy steps, she followed where they led her. She fought to hide her elation. Removal from the windowless cell deep underground could only mean one thing: The Master needed her skills.
Dozens of torches lit the passage, turning the darkness into day. Yassimine blinked rapidly, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the absence of shadow. The guards hated what their imagination put into those shadows.
Yassimine held her head high. Her mouth salivated at the scent of their fear.
The steep stairs to the ground level strained Yassimine’s legs. Too used to sitting or pacing the confines of her cell, the unwanted exercise made her long to bend forward and use her arms to help lift her legs up each rise. The guards kept her leash too short. She bit her lip until it bled rather than cry out with the pains in her thighs. The men granted her a short reprieve at the landing while they checked to ensure the absence of the servants on the back stairway to the next level.
Surreptitiously, Yassimine rubbed the coarse wool of her gown against her legs. The scratchy material brought her blood to the surface of the skin, easing some of the ache. Heightening her anticipation of what was to come. She breathed deeply of the air that did not smell of her own body, fishy lamp oil, and moldy earth.
She tasted life in that breath. Seven lives. Seven people inhabited the chambers surrounding the stairs. Servants probably, men and women who worked hard for their scant pay, but appreciated the luxury of a bed with blankets and enough food to keep their bellies happy. She, too, could appreciate those things. But she was not free to move about, to converse with others of her kind, to breathe fresh air. Her own fears made her realize she did not truly trust the freedom others took for granted. There was always a silver chain to pull her back into confinement.
Another painful flight left her breathing heavily. She resisted the urge to let her tongue loll. Panting would not cool her heated blood. Shedding this hideous gown and wimple might.
“What day is this?” she asked the guards in broken Spanish. She dug in her heels and refused to move forward until they answered her question, no matter how much pressure Chain Man put upon her leash and collar. The heavy silver links would separate before they defeated her strength of will.
“Nineteen June,” Chain Man grumbled.
The words meant nothing to Yassimine. “How near the Summer Solstice?” She narrowed her search for information. She had been confined too long, her sense of season, and the movement of moon and stars across the skies had diminished. Once, she would have known precisely where and when she was without thinking.
“Three days.”
Numbers, days, and weeks were words she had come to learn. Three days, less than one quarter of the moon phase.
“And the phase of the moon?”
“Dark tonight,” Chain Man admitted on a grin, as if he knew her dependence upon the moon. He hauled once more on the chain.
This time she followed more willingly, understanding now the weakness in her muscles. A bit of her heart lightened. The Master must have wondrous tasks for her if he brought her forth from her sensory deprivation at the dark of the moon near the day of the shortest hours of darkness.
Still holding the cross as a kind of barrier between Yassimine and himself, the priest knocked upon an ornate double door inlaid with paler woods, mother-of-pearl, and bits of gold leaf. Such a portal should adorn the palace of a sultan. Yassimine had learned that The Master wielded as much power over his subjects as a vizier, though he bore a different title and different responsibilities. He reported to a king and a high priest, but mostly he acted upon his own authority, for his own purpose.
A muffled voice from within summoned the priest to throw open the portal. The guards thrust Yassimine past the opening and slammed the doors shut once more. She heard their sighs of relief through the massive panels. She almost rejoiced out loud at their fears.
But The Master did not want to see her tiny triumph.
“Come into the light where I might see thee,” a disembodied voice commanded roughly in her birth language.
Yassimine glided toward the blazing fire in the hearth. Each step barely bent the nap in the thick carpet. She longed to cast off the tight leather shoes with their thick soles and allow the soft texture to caress her feet.
The Master snapped his fingers, ending her reverie.
Yassimine stepped into the garish light of the fire. Heavy curtains blocked the natural daylight. She could feel the allure of the sun through her heavy clothing. All of her being needed to dash to the window embrasure and throw open the draperies. It had been so long since she had felt the sun’s caress on her face, smelled the sharp wind as it blew across the steppe unimpeded. At times she could scent every life, every blade of grass, every tree, and stream the wind had touched.
Now all she smelled was the reek of an unwashed male body, stale wine, and air too long enclosed. Not much better than her cellar prison.
“Yes, Master.” She knelt before the massive chair that faced the fire, keeping her eyes lowered.
“I have a task for you, my demon.” The man lisped in his highborn accent.
Yassimine risked a glance through her lowered lashes at his sallow face—pale, thin, and unhealthy. As always, his servants had perfectly groomed his pointed beard and mustache. A few strands of silver had crept into his hair and beard since last she had been summoned to his presence. His heavy-lidded eyes and pursed lips, painted to achieve the color of ripe strawberries, gave him the look of a weasel ready to burrow into her soul, leaving a trail of filth on its route.
He reached out with the hook that should have been his left hand and lifted her chin. Inwardly she smiled at the loss of that limb. He deserved the disability.
She forced any glee out of her expression and posture, concentrating instead upon the heavily jeweled cross he wore about his neck. The fire cast reddish tints upon the precious metal and brought the stones to life.
“How may I serve you?” she asked in her imitation of Spanish, his tongue. She thought she could speak it as well—if not quite so fluently—as he could. But if she ever dared hope for a future, that was one secret she must not reveal to him.
“The Holy League awaits the return of the new French king, near the night of the full moon.”
A frisson of excitement and alarm coursed through her blood.
“You will, of course, be granted the freedom of the city for three nights, to honor the event.” He smiled with half his mouth, the right side. The other half remained almost frozen. That side of his face rarely showed emotion. That side of his body rarely moved without a great deal of effort.
Still smiling, The Master rose and walked stiffly over to a brazier full of glowing coals. He opened a golden casket nearby and withdrew a large chunk of red meat.
Yassimine’s mouth watered. Many moons had passed since she’d last tasted meat. The Master knew that meat sharpened all of her appetites and shattered the careful control he imposed upon her. Withholding meat and light, and dousing her with special numbing herbs allowed him to suppress her nature. Or so he thought.
The meat sizzled on the brazier. The scent made her nostrils flare and her blood run hot. She opened her mouth, the better to taste the air.
“Ah, I see that you long for this food as you long for freedom. And so you shall have it. After I have tamed you.”
“Anything, Master,” Yassimine panted, not caring about the indignities he would require of her, just so she could taste the meat.
“Cast off your robes.”
Yassimine made to stand, the better to shed the heavy wool that chafed her skin and constantly reminded her that she was this man’s slave in all things. She endured it all for the rare taste of meat.
“No need to rise, my demon pet.” His smile did not reach his eyes.
Still on her knees, Yassimine slowly unwound the wimple from her hair, freeing the heavy black locks that fell to her waist. Forcing herself to take her time, she began working on the ties at wrist and shoulder that bound the ugly gown to her form. She knew what this man liked, a slow and tempting revelation of the merchandise he had purchased at so dear a cost.
The heady scent of the meat made her fingers clumsy. But at last the voluminous folds fell away. Then she freed her feet from the heavy shoes. She no longer cared that The Master’s eyes feasted upon her naked breasts, the smooth skin of her belly, and the luxuriant dark mound below. Silver chains burned slightly where they pierced her nipples and navel. Exposure to light and air increased the discomfort. The small pains unleashed a wave of desire. Heat and moisture sprang from her body in anticipation. She twisted slightly, making the chains dangle and sway, enticing The Master’s eyes to follow their movement.
As always, the master’s gaze fixed upon the bespelled links that bound her to him, body and soul.
“Bend over,” he commanded her, licking his lips and swallowing hard.
She obeyed willingly. The meat, so close and yet so far, weakened her knees as well as her resolve. Just let him finish with her quickly so that she could eat the meat before the fire seared all of the blood and life from its juices.
He ran the tip of his hook the length of her spine. Arrows of pain shot throughout her body as he broke the surface skin and droplets of blood sprang free. She snarled at him, ready to attack her attacker with teeth and nails. He laughed at her protest.
Then he was inside her, thrusting deep and long. She forgot her resolve to feign indifference. A scream of pleasure erupted from her throat. Fire filled her loins and her breasts. Pleasure coursed up and down her spine replacing the sting of his hook. Intoxicated by the scent of fresh meat and the sensuality of her physical and magical chains, she abandoned plans to kill this man today.