Plight of an Empire

Chapter Thirty: Runa

Flast, Lytus

An odd sight in a brothel was a book.  And even odder sight was more than one book.  But the strangest sight of all was a man reading a book in a brothel.  And yet, there one sat in the corner of the whorehouse Runa was told to wait at.  She would have taken him for her contact had she not actually known who her contact was. But she really wanted to know what book kept a man’s attention more than a naked woman prepared to pleasure you for no more than a few pieces of silver.

The lettering on the leather bound cover had long since faded away.  It was an old book, there was no mistaking that.  She had seen plenty of old books in the library of her home in Elis Rock.  She was a long way away from there now.

A full breasted woman, with one of them hanging out of her corset, approached her with a horn of mead in her hand.  A long brown braid fell over her shoulder, covering a bit of her tan flesh.  Still, Runa looked away, blushing at the sight of the near naked stranger.  “You are young,” she said as she handed Runa the horn.

“So are you,” she replied, taking the horn.  The whore was only a few years older than her.  That was plain to see.  But she was more woman than Runa could ever hope to be.  She was soft where Runa was hard.  Weeks and weeks of Areone’s training had turned her body to stone.  “What is that man reading?”  She pointed with the horn to the man.

The whore looked over and shrugged.  “I cannot read.  Can you?”

Runa nodded.  “I was taught.  But I haven’t read in a long time.”

The whore’s russet eyes looked longingly at the book, then back to Runa.  “I wish I knew how to read.  But whores are not expected to think, only to fuck.”

“The same goes for a lord’s daughter,” Runa murmured.  She sent the whore away and she continued to wonder what stories were held in that book.  It could be the tales of Ragnak the Bold and his three hundred berserkers fighting against the evil King Nydris from when the five countries were divided into hundreds of warring kingdoms.  She always enjoyed hearing that story from her wet nurse.

The tale was as known to her as it was to every man, woman, and child in the empire.  She could recite it herself, though she never did as well as the bards and singers did.  Even her Nan could tell it better than her, and she was a woman with hair as white as snow and wrinkles as deep as the valleys of Didaan.  But still, she knew the tale well enough.  Ragnak was a mercenary hailing from the hills around the keep of Kinghill in Didaan.  When King Nydris came to power, from his seat at Greymoor, he meant to conquer the hills and make its inhabitants his slaves.  When Ragnak heard of this, he decided to take up arms against the tyranny of the evil king.  He led his mercenary company to battle against the forces of King Nydris, winning every battle until he found himself at the walls of Greymoor with three hundred berserkers at his command.  They laid stormed the castle, decimating that evil king’s forces.  When Ragnak finally reached the throne room that King Nydris had holed himself up in, he burst through the doors and slaughtered the king’s men.  When all were dead except for the sniveling evil king, Ragnak sliced his head off with a swing of his axe and took his seat upon the throne of Greymoor.  As bold as his move against the evil king, he earned the name Ragnak the Bold.  Even now, House Bowyer, who held the seat of Greymoor, claimed to be the blood of Ragnak.

A man entering drew Runa’s eye.  He had long, brown curls that hung to his shoulders.  With a glance, she knew it wasn’t the little lordling, Muarim.  He had hair the color of sand, she remembered.

Ever since Grandmaster Innes told her who her contact would be, she has been worried that he might recognize her.  Runa of House Haerich was a dead girl.  If she were found alive, it could raise the suspicions of the Cult.  Talking to him, she would have to be just a knife of the Cult of Lost Souls.