fandomania | The Adventure continues...

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I took Piatrus’ behavior hard. He should not have kissed me or treated me like he did. I know that what I did was wrong. I should have asked first to see Anya’s portrait. It was unseemly for me as a woman to enter a man’s bedroom without permission. Piatrus had a right to be angry with me for invading his privacy. But just because I did that didn’t justify his kissing and pawing me. I suppose that some might say that I deserved what I got. But I didn’t see it that way. It was going to take a while for me to forgive him.

On the other hand, I had just lost someone whom I loved like a father, whose advice I treasured and whose well-being I worried over. Until he returned, I was stymied in trying to work out a solution. The only thing that I knew was that I could not tell Donal about this. It would devastate him and destroy his relationship with his grandfather and, probably, his relationship with his family as a whole as well. I couldn’t do that to Donal. I was going to have to find a way to cope with everything on my own. I had nightmares for weeks thereafter where Piatrus came into my bedroom and forced me to lie with him. I would wake up screaming and I scared my children a lot because of this. I wanted my husband home so badly, but it would still be many weeks before he returned.

In the meanwhile, I was starting to get letters from former Freedonian nobility asking for audiences. Some of the letters were from people I had known and loathed. They were shameless, self-promoting sycophants. The thought of having to deal with these people was too much to even think about. I tore up their letters and burned the scraps.

Then I got a letter from Donal’s father, Dashal conAgri. He asked me when a good time would be for him could come visit us and meet his grandchildren. I didn’t know how to respond to him. I knew that he and Donal didn’t always get along. On the other hand, from what Donal told me about his visit to his father in Rawn-Devu, they seemed to have made up their differences. Then I remembered that it was Piatrus who had bad feelings with Dashal over the death of Donal’s mother. Since I wasn’t feeling all that charitable towards Piatrus at that moment, I wrote Dashal back and told him that the early fall would be perfect for a visit.

The last letter I got was from an old servant, Aral, who had worked in my father’s house just before I was married off to Jaizel. In the letter, he stated that he had recently seen Laela and asked if he could come see me to discuss ways of extricating her from a bad situation that she was in. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do, but I wrote him a reply asking him to come to the compound the following morning.

The next morning, Aral arrived at the gates promptly at 9 am, as I had asked him to. I had the guards escort him to one of the sitting rooms. He looked just as I remembered him; about 5’6” tall, stocky build, and the typical Freedonian coloring of brown eyes, brown hair and olive toned skin. If I remembered correctly, Aral was around sixty-eight or sixty-nine years old. His pleasant face had grown more wrinkles than I remembered and his hair was almost white. But then I had not seen him in thirteen years, since I left my father’s house to get married. He was obviously dressed in his best clothes, but they had seen better days and were quite worn.

“Lady Patra!” He exclaimed, as he knelt on the floor and bowed before me.

“Get up, Aral! You don’t have to do this to me! Get up! And sit here, next to me. Tell me how you are doing?”

“No, Lady Patra, I couldn’t sit there like I was royalty! I knows my place, I do. I’ll just stand here, iffen you don’t mind, milady!

“Me and the missus left Kansari after them Georgists captured your father and publicly executed him. The missus has relations here and we’ve been living here ever since. I’ve seen you a couple of times as you drove by in carriages. I found out that you was living here, so I knew you was all right, thank ghods!”

“Did you see my father die, Aral?”

“Yessum, your ladyship, most unfortunate like I did. It were a sight I never wants to see again. No, ma’am!”

“How did he die?” I asked.

“Horribly. You don’t wants to know …” He replied, looking anxious.

“But I do. Please tell me?” I didn’t tell him how much I hated my father and that I wanted to know that he was properly punished for his crimes. It would help me put an end to that part of my life.

“Your ladyship is much too delicate to hear of such atrocities. But if you insist … Your father was castrated and then hung, drawn and quartered. They threw his remains down a public crapper so that he would be befouled forever.”

I must have paled when he described my father’s end. But it didn’t distress me in the least. His end seemed just to me.

“Now, now, milady!” Aral cried. “Let’s not dwell on this. We have to think of your poor sister! She needs rescuing!”

“Where did you see her?”

“In the red light district of Daihor. She was in a brothel window performing horrible sex acts!”

“Oh, no! Poor, poor Laela! But what can I do about it?”

“I was hoping that you could go and buy her freedom.”

I sighed. “I have already rescued her once. She didn’t seem to appreciate my doing so. Why do you think that she wants rescuing? The last time I saw her she was free and made her choice not to stay with me, even though I told her she was welcome. Why do you think that she isn’t where she wants to be?”

“Oh, no, your ladyship, no woman would do the things that I have seen her do voluntarily! She had to be forced to perform! She is just a child!”

I sighed once more. Against my better judgment, I allowed myself to be swayed by Aral and his vehemence. I rang for my maid to bring me a cloak and a bag of coins that I kept in my drawer in my room. I then sent for Captain Quinton and asked for several guards to accompany me to rescue my half sister. When he heard where we were going, he tried to dissuade me, saying that the red light district was not a place for a delicate lady as I was. But when I told him that I was going no matter what, he capitulated and told me that he would accompany me personally with two other guards. He muttered under his breath that he hoped that Piatrus would never hear of this or it would mean his job.

He returned in half an hour with two guards and five horses, one of which wore a side saddle. Within minutes, we were all mounted and Aral directed us to where he last saw Laela.

We had to dismount outside the walls of the district and walk in on foot. The streets were narrow, dingy and poorly paved. There were small cabins closest to the gates, perhaps five feet by five feet wide, each with only a green door and a red lantern suspended next to it. Some of the cabin doors were open and I could see naked women reclining on the small bed inside. The rest had their doors closed and moans and cries emanated from inside them.

The buildings on the street then changed to larger buildings, mostly two stories, with large glass windows on the ground floor. The windows showed small cubicles with naked men and women, both singly and in couples performing various sex acts. The last one on the street before it turned to go to fancier, better kept brothels displayed a very nude Laela in its cubical. There were a number of men watching her, making crude remarks and leering at her.

She was squatting with her knees held wide apart displaying her private parts to her audience. She was pleasuring herself with her finger and I could hear her moan. She then sat down on the floor, where she strapped her ankles to shackles attached to the floor, which held her legs so wide apart that it must have hurt her to do so, although she didn’t seem to mind. She then lay back and strapped restraints over her thighs, hips, waist, just under her breasts and around her neck. She then placed her left arm and wrist in manacles and placed her right arm and wrist in another set of manacles which automatically closed around her limb. She looked as if she couldn’t move an inch. A naked man with a huge erection entered the cubicle and mounted her with no foreplay. She screamed in pain as he entered her and again as he began biting her breasts. The men watching this hooted, clapped and whistled.

The man continued to pump his member inside her and, when she seemed to start responding, he withdrew, denying her pleasure. He then lit a candle and dripped hot wax all over her crotch and breasts as she screamed again and again in pain. It was when he attached a metal studded sheath to his member that I had to turn away. I couldn’t watch anymore. I found a nearby bush and vomited. I couldn’t believe that Laela would allow herself to be so publicly degraded.

Aral pleaded again that she needed to be rescued; that no woman would voluntarily allow this to happen. Captain Quinton refused to let me to enter the brothel. I didn’t want to anyway. I gave him the bag of coins and asked him to do what he could.

I refused to watch any further, although I could still hear her moaning and screaming. I heard the two guards trade crude remarks as they watched her performance. I just wanted to leave there and try to wipe this horrible sight from my memory.

When Captain Quinton returned, he came back alone. “I have spoken with her and she said she liked it there and refused to leave. The proprietor told me that she was there of her own free will and that the window show was her idea. He didn’t force her or coerce her at all. He said that she was one crazy whore who was willing to do anything or anyone, the wilder and more painful, the better. I am, of course, cleaning up their language considerably. Your sister has a remarkable command of crude language.”

Aral protested that no finely brought up lady would want to live such a life. I gave him the bag of coins and told him he could try for himself. If she wouldn’t go, he could keep the coins for himself and his wife. I had had enough.

As we turned to leave that terrible place and return home, I made the mistake of glancing over towards the brothel. Laela had reentered the cubicle, leading a male dog. My world started spinning around and I fainted.

I didn’t come to until we had returned to the compound. Captain Quinton carried me into the house and left me in the care of my maids.