I came to the town of Maydew in the last weeks of spring, beneath a sky whose memories of rain were fading. This was a nowhere town, still pregnant with the promise of industry, prey to its Lord and church whose taxes and tithes gutted its people each tally day. The people therefore were crestfallen in their day to day, drifting to and fro from home to workplace to tavern, never deviating from birth to the grave. For a city-raised woman like myself, the Maydew peoples' plight garnered little sympathy. Compared to the threat of a King's madness and industrialists' cruelty, their routines were something of a blessing. To anyone with the slightest bit of ambition it was a dreadful place, but there was a certain appeal in its provincial simplicity.
I boarded at the tavern on the main drag. The only building besides the lord's manse to have glass in its windows. A wealthy patron, I guessed. Its three storeys were rickety, but the rooms were dry and warmed by the heat billowing up from the common room. Of an evening the long-tables were filled by men on their aforementioned post-work respites. I sat at the bar drinking strong Carathian ale and occupied my mind by guessing at their professions. We were not far from the foothills of the Border Mountains, and so there were miners in their leather breeches and shirtless jerkins, their skin stained with stone dust and coal. The village blacksmith sat in the same seat every evening, right arm bulging, veins straining against the skin. Servants, I assumed from the lord's household, were obvious in their well kept cotton robes. I made notes diligently as each evening descended into inebriated steam, self-control dictated by a supervisor's morning inspection.
I was 23 then, a young woman of my profession. I had been given the name Vixxen; the men I worked with thinking they were dreadfully amusing. I had learned to block our their japes and their advances early, when I had entered the ministry at 17. I was tall, well built, my youth was a middle-birth upbringing which afforded me safety and sustenance enough to grow well. As a young woman on the road I took extra precaution, usually hiring out one of the ministry's muscle for protection. They were no better than the others, but they were usually quiet and they fucked like real men, not bureaucrats. The landlord of the inn took an interest in me one night, leaning over his bar to cast a curious eye across by scribbles. I assumed that he could not read, I may have been wrong. The neat rows of numbers I had kept were clear even to the illiterate. I dressed like a man when on the road; thick cotton shirt and hemmed trousers, long riding boots and and a tailored jacket which hugged my curves.
'What do you do then, city lass?' He asked.
'I catch foxes,' I replied. He left it at that. I'm not sure if he understood my meaning, but he left me well enough alone.
Another night I called on his employee - likely his daughter - to ask her some questions. She would be more easily swayed by my appearance there, by the clear authority my clothing and manner bestowed. I asked her, 'what is the largest industry in this town?'
'The mines,' she replied, eyeing my notes.
'Hm. And the second?'
'Likely the fields, farmhands, that sort of thing.'
'And whores? What about whores?'
She bulked a little at that. Beneath a withering stare she swallowed and answered. 'There's the brothel off Pike's Pass, half-mile north.'
I checked the map I had sketched. 'Near the mines?'
'Aye. Most of the men visit before coming on here.'
'And the girls there, all human?'
'What... what did you say you do?'
'I catch foxes.'
She frowned at me through eyes I guessed had never seen beyond the town's borders. 'Then why you interested in the girls at the whorehouse?'
'Are they all human?'
'Far as I know. All Marshirian too.' Maybe she was not as foolish as I had first thought. She had predicted my next question.
'How do you know that?'
'They come about their business here on Restday, only day the master lets them down from the hills.'
'He runs a tight ship then, this master?'
'Don't they always? His kind...'
I glanced up, hiding my excitement in catching her slip. 'Her kind, that being masters?'
The girl looked away down the bar, clearly hoping to see an impatient patron. No such respite. 'That's right,' she said. 'I have work to do.'
I watched her leave and made a note to visit the brothel on Restday, two days time. The master would send out his whores and stay behind to count them as they came back. A perfect time to question him. If he was foreign, as I suspected from the barmaid's slip, then he would be easier to interrogate without a host of protective whores about him.
The next night I was planning on retiring early. The stew served up by the landlord was decent enough, a plentiful winter - bless the Gods - had seen him able to serve up hearty meals through the spring. Well fed and with a belly swilling with ale, I packed up my books and was about to make for my room when a lithe hand wrapped about my shoulder. I turned, my senses heightened, and found myself face to face with a tall man who, even in the flickering of firelight, wore his dark skin like the moon's shadow. I frowned. 'Can I help you, sir?'
'Sit down, foxcatcher,' he replied. His accent was not Marshirian, not Carathian either, it was plain and provincially spun, but with a hint of something exotic I could not place. 'I'm here to save you a trip.'
I was diligent, though I could not say why. As I sat back upon my stool at the bar and watched him sink onto the one beside, I drank in the sight of him. The man was tall and tan, with a bright, open expression which played across his thin, wide mouth. His hair was swept back from his face, left long, brunette and thick. The stubble on his jaw was neatly kept, there by intent. He had the full body of money, of good coin and a stocked larder. Mid-born, I guessed, perhaps the son of some non-noteworthy wealth. 'You are the master of the local brothel,' I said plainly. My throat was dry. I swallowed.
'I am,' he replied. 'And you've been asking around about me.'
I wanted to be coy, to be measured with him. Something in his eyes commanded me, his gaze burning a hole through the carefully curated facade I had been wearing for years. All I could say in reply beneath that glare was, 'I have.' He did not frighten me. If he was coming to me he knew why I asked for him, he knew the protections I carried. It was a different compulsion to fear I felt, his words and poise so far without threat. He didn't say a word, just kept looking. I lost myself for a moment, drifting away in a stare which invited further comment. My lips moved wordlessly for a moment, mind preoccupied with the thought of his dark skin beneath my soft, learned hands. The sound came to my voice before I could stop it, rising like the heat in my blood. 'I was making enquiries after your origins.'
'And why were you doing that?'
'I had reason to believe that you may be of dissenting persuasion.'
'Meaning?' He knew the answers to these questions before I could formulate them myself. His daring offended me but I was too taken in his scent, in his body. He wore an open shirt of cheap silk, clasps open over his taut chest. As my eyes drifted I caught sight of his hose and riding boots, the bulge there at his crotch apparent. I was staring before I could think to stop myself. I looked there at the heart of his manhood, to where the silk was caught in folds and pulled taught about the ridges of his sex. My mouth was dry. 'I catch foxes,' I said, but I didn't believe it.
'You hunt elves and foreigners,' he said. There was a lace of fury and hatred to his not-quite-exotic voice.
'I do. Look, master... this is none of your concern. If you have nothing to hide...'
His hand came up like a shot and coiled itself around my collar like a viper. I felt myself falling towards him, and I thought perhaps that he meant to strike me. Either that or kiss me. For the second of my collapse I would have welcomed either. 'We don't like your kind here,' he hissed in my ear. His breath was warm. It unfurled like smoke down the back of my shirt, sending tendrils of shivers which shot down nerves and gathered in my awakening womanhood. I ducked my head down onto his shoulder and let him chastise me. I could not have broken free of that grasp with even the strength of the Gods behind me.
'If you want secrets, foxcatcher, you're coming with me.'
I opened my mouth to obey, but before words escaped, his fingers were there. With a strength I did not anticipate he forced my lips apart and I felt the bitter taste of some poison diluting on my tongue. The heat of it through my body was like being caught in flames, it burrowed and it probed, and as it gathered in my groin with throbbing intensity everything went dark.
When I came around I suspected that I might be dead. Once the irony of the thought passed I opened by eyes to a stone chamber lit only by the wan incandescence of candles. I was led on a hard surface, and when I attempted to shift I found that I was bound about the ankles and by the wrists. My heart stirred. Confusion gave way to fear, gave way to rationalisation. If I was meant to be killed then I would have been by now, surely? I struggled against my restraints, spread-eagle and helpless. The stone upon which I was held was cold against my naked - I was naked? - skin. My futile attempts at escape only highlighted that, to my surprise, my body was alert with arousal.
I had been drugged. My mind raced. I knew all the poisons and toxins common to this part of the world, and a number more besides. There was none I had come across to knock a woman out and cause her to wake permanently aroused. I flexed muscles often ignored, a pulse running through my sex. There was something inside of me, I realised, and I was so aroused, so wet, that it offered no discomfort. I should have been terrified, but instead my mind raced with all the delights of the flesh which may be about to befall me. I flexed my muscles again and gasped at the wave of pleasure which cascaded through my insides and across my slick skin. I ought have been furious, indignant, terrified. But waking so, as though already on the edge of some relief, stole all but the dredges of gratitude.
