He did not even look up from his tally sheets. “I be master here, missy, don’ you go a-lectrin’ to me, heanh? I made me a fine profit offn them two contrac’s, and there’s two less moufs to be fed to boot What all thet fine, upstanding merchant does oncet he’s out’n this dang Confedrashun’s tween him and his burklord. But us burkers is honest folks. We ain’t all borned liars and rebels like you friggin’ Ehleenee is. Now, gitchore purty ass out’n here and let me be!”
After Tilda, one of the servant girls, was raped in her bed by a drunken sailor who had wandered down from above, all the servants demanded that Master Froh afford them protection from the depredations and petty thefts of his roomers, “answer” was to fire them, en masse. Then he moved more roomers into the vacated chambers of what had been the servants’ quarters. He would have fired Koominon, as well, save that that worthy produced a properly drawn and witnessed contract guaranteeing him employment as major-domo and chef by Master Lokos or his assigns for a period of thirty years, and there still were more than eight years to go.
Thereafter, Neeka seldom saw the remaining two apprentices, as Froh saw to it that the boys stayed busy doing the work of the fired servants. Consequently, Neeka’s workload in shop and workrooms trebled and, shortly, she began to feel and show the strain. She had to exercise more and more self’ control to keep from snapping at customers. It became harder and harder to force her dead-tired body to do the compounding and distilling the proper, time- and energy-consuming way and not allow herself to succumb to the temptation of dangerous shortcuts and half measures.
Which was probably why she forgot to throw the big iron bolt on her chamber door that one night. She fought her way up from the depths of a sound sleep, trying to recall what noise had awakened her. There was only the merest ghost of a shuffling, scraping sound in her room, though on the two floors above, the usual carousing was still in progress.
Then she became aware of the smell, that sickening stink of a filthy human body. Then Froh sniffled. A cold hand touched her face and, before she could even gasp, clamped down over her mouth. The coverlet was suddenly ripped from off her, then his dirty, misshapen body was pinning her down, his foul breath nauseating her.
Chapter XIV
While his other hand and one bony knee were occupied at the task of trying to force her thighs apart, Neeka raked the nails of her left hand across his face. At the same moment her right hand grabbed his scrotum, squeezing and twisting at the sac, while kneading the testes agonizingly.
With a whining howl that quickly became a scream, Froh let go her mouth and sent both hands to the crotch she was punishing so savagely. Quickly, she smashed the heel of her left hand into his dripping nose. The cartilage snapped loose from the bone with an audible crack, and his blood spurted down on her face and body. As she fought from under the sobbing, bleeding man, she saw Koominon standing in her doorway, a lamp in his hand,
“Holy saints preserve us,” the undercover cleric gulped. “What wickedness have you done?”
The pig would have taken me, half-asleep, by force, Koominon,” panted Neeka.
“But… but he is master here, child! All in this place are his to do with as he wishes.”
Neeka felt as if a war club had come crashing down upon her head. “But, Koominon, didn’t Judge Gahbros speak to you about our rights? He said he would.”
Koominon shook his head. “Judge Gahbros is a full week’s journey west of here. He cannot help you, now.”
Neeka thought quickly. “Then, Koominon, you must go at once to the city governor’s palace. Komees Pehtros will see that justice is done.”
Koominon looked down. “Can’t you send one of the apprentices?”
“Damn it, Koominon, of course not!” snapped Neeka. “You know the guards would never pay any attention to a stripling.”
“Then… then one of the barbarians upstairs?”
But Koominon finally dressed and left. Going across to his room, Neeka armed herself with one of the prized knives he kept there since so much had been stolen from the kitchen by Froh’s roomers. Then she dressed and kept watch over Froh’s moaning, groaning, bleeding carcass until the majordomo returned.
Komees Pebtros strode into Neeka’s room with fire in his eyes, two scale-shirted Freefighters behind him, along with another man, another noble, by his dress.
Froh had apparently recovered more than he had been willing to let the grim-faced, knife-armed Neeka know, for he suddenly sat up on the bloody bed. One hand clutched his aching scrotum, the other pointed a shaking finger at Neeka. “Arrest her!” he whined. “She… she attacked me fer no dang reason. She’da kilt me, likely, iffen you hadn’ come up here.”
But he wilted into silence under the cold glare of Komees Pehtros, who regarded the naked, gory hunchback as if he were some particularly loathsome form of vermin. The noble turned to Neeka. “What happened, child? If it was what I think, well find this… this creature a safe lodging in the palace dungeons until Gahbros gets back.”
At an unusually loud burst of noise from above, Pehtros turned to one of his Freefighters. “Sergeant, go back out to the street and get a squad, then roust those scoundrels up there out. Use whatever force you feel you need. Crack heads or spill guts, I don’t care, but get them out!”
“Now jest a dang minit,” Froh recovered from his intimidation at the thought of possibly lost profits. “You ain’t got chew no right to put my guests out inna street Thjs here’s my house and them mens has paid for—”
“Shut your mouth!” snarled Pehtros. Turning to the other Freefighter, he said, “Go stand by Master Froh, corporal. If he opens his damned mouth without my leave once more, put your fist in ill” The big armored man grinned, nodded and for Froh’s benefit, loudly cracked a big fist into the palm of the other hand. Froh appeared suitably impressed by the demonstration.
When he had heard Neeka out, the komees turned to Koominon. “How much of this infamy did you see or hear?”
Refusing to meet either his questioner’s eyes or Neeka’s, the “chef replied, “Why… why none of it, my lord. I was unaware aught had transpired until… until Neeka came knocking on my door.**
The fat bastard is lying!” Neeka mindspoke to Pehtros. “Why, I don’t know. But he was there, standing in my doorway with a lamp, during that last part at least.”
The komees pointedly turned his back on Koominon. To the Freefighter, he said, “Take that piece of dung down to his bedchamber and see that he clothes himself. Well be taking him back with us. He’s under arrest.”
“No!” whined Froh. “No, it won’ thet way atall. She come an’ got me, brung me in here, she did. Then… then, when I wouldn’ pay her all what she ast fer, she hurt me, she hurt me bad. You cain’ put me in jail on jest the word of a dang ole whore. An’ everbody in this whole dang town knows my crazy ole uncle got her outen a friggin’ whorehouse. An’—”
He was interrupted by the Freefighter’s craggy knuckles. The buffet knocked his twisted body completely off the bed, to roll across the chamber into a corner, where he lay moaning. Lay at least, until he was grasped ungently by his scrawny neck and dragged out of Neeka’s room by the clanking soldier.
The moment captor and captive entered the master’s suite, Pehtros grabbed Koominon and jerked him into the smaller room, slamming the door behind. When he had shoved the priest-cook to a seat on the mussed, blood-smeared bed, he but furious whisper. “Now, father, will you speak the truth or two, that these may know it’s safe to talk.”
With a small smile, the tall, heavily muscled, black-haired man’s thick fingers sketched certain signs in the air before him, signs known only to sworn members of ee Klirohnohmeea.
Pehtros then turned upon Koominon, speaking in a low but furious whisper. “Now, father, will you speak the truth or not?”
Koominon looked up, met those hard black eyes briefly, then returned his gaze to the floor as he said, “But… but I have told the truth, my lord komees. Would you then question the word of a humble priest of Holy Mother the church? No true son of our Faith would do so.”
Pehtros snorted and the one called Pahvlos chuckled. “Save your verbal goosedung for those simpleminded souls it impresses, humble priest The tale you told me on our way here matches that just told by Neeka. Why are you trying to change your story? Are you in fear of that stunted little barbarian apelet? Speak, damn you!”