Veneful
22nd year of Wollstonecraft III
Smith, son of blacksmiths, was born and raised in the southwest of the continent of Hölle, in the time of the Great Campaigns.
When kings sent mercenaries to exterminate groups of savages in the forests and burn priestesses in the shadowed temples across the Lushshore.
Smith joined the Pigmane’s Vassals, where he built a career with sword and shield, and later as a mounted soldier.
With a horse and looted gold, he bought the title of knight in the kingdom of Veneful, where, leading the Firemares, he became part of the royal army.
It was in the battle of Hollowtriad that he earned the right to the lands between Veneful and Ebonyfrontier.
It was not exactly a gift.
Wollstonecraft I needed to protect the place and increase the efficiency of warnings against attacks coming from the south.
However, the city prospered through decades of truce.
The merchants were not nationalists and accepted silver and women from wherever they came.
The result was the growth of the city, from one hundred and fifty inhabitants to the current Wollstonecraft, with three thousand seven hundred locals.
Streets paved with cobblestones from the local quarry, where coal was also extracted.
Simple homes, blackened with mangrove mud and willow wood. Two- and three-story masonry dwellings of dark stone for the bourgeoisie and the low nobility.
Two years earlier, the Apostolic Sacred had erected a church amid the bucolic scenery.
On Sundays, before mass, executions took place, pyres and hangings, all approved by the old knight Smith.
The city’s name honored Wollstonecraft I, father of King Lidell IX, poisoned in his first year of reign, and father of Fitz II, who died in the battle of Cranebound in his third year on the throne, having been disastrous in strategy and losing two great northern cities to Brinefrost.
Fitz II was the father of Wollstonecraft II, the Saint, who ruled for twenty years, father of the current king, Wollstonecraft III, then in his twenty-second year of sovereignty.
In those times, having children signaled nobility.
Smith had nine wives and fifty-one descendants, not counting the bastards.
Of the women, four were still alive, and he spent one season of the year with each.
Among his children, nineteen still lived. Most had died of fever, others defending the city from attacks by criminal groups, attacks that had lessened in recent years.
Despite his four houses, with small children who saw him more as a grumpy grandfather than a loving father, Smith spent most of his days in Towergarden, downtown, on Flech Street, which led to the city hall and the new abbey.
He told his wives that work demanded it.
A lie.
His sons handled the bureaucracies, which increased year by year.
Even the training of new soldiers remained under the charge of Horace Gould, loyal friend and second in command of the Firemares, now promoted to city guards.
Towergarden was a refuge.
A luxurious three-story residence, surrounded by gardens of pink hibiscus, where he could drink and smoke all day, and receive the young prostitutes from madame Cuth Riseley-Prichard’s brothel.
She herself accompanied the whores that full-moon night. She, in the ominous mansion, at the piano, stopped singing.
— Six witches I saw burn, my faithful shield. And not even a paltry spell did I witness. And my eyes, ever watchful, have seen much. I carry stories as many as the gray hairs of the one I cherish. — madame Riseley-Prichard mentioned casually, drawing attention to the real problem she feared facing. — For one of those bishops to speak of my… daughters… that is what they are, word of honor in my mouth and in my feelings. What do they lack? Only will. You know well they hate women. Some do like them, but only those who have not yet bled. They prefer the boys who do not take up arms, so very young.
— They are like pests in the fields. They glorify the peace I won, and keep, in the name of the God they believe in. They strip my voice and blood of their due merits. The older my words grow, the louder theirs resound, seeking to erase from memory our enemies felled by my sword. — irritated, Smith sat beside the madame, who played spaced harmonious notes, like a prelude. And he stared at her cleavage with attraction, which she noticed, displaying her sinuous body before the resolute man. — In the morning we will depart for the house of the newly accused witch. One of those bishops found her, or so he swears. If nothing is found among that woman’s belongings, solitary and withdrawn as she truly lives, I promise you, my faithful lover, that I will spill that apostle’s blood in place of the one he has accused.
— And what will you do if she truly is a witch, the female in this case? Your courage astonishes me. Were I in your skin, I would say my legs would run in the opposite direction before even nearing the suspect’s home.
— Was it not your voice that once doubted words and accusations held as sacred before phenomena never witnessed?
— Doubts? Not only. Precautions! The only charms in my home are those that come from between the legs of the delights who visit you.
Throughout the house, besides the circular three-story library, the prostitutes played, ran, wearing only one-piece semi-transparent dresses, drinking wine, laughing, sometimes bursting into giggles.
Drunk, they allowed themselves freedom, dreaming.
And if they had been born under that wealthy roof?
And if the knight demanded exclusivity, or treatment as a lover?
Even concubinage would be like earning a life!
In fact, they would receive nothing from him except what had been agreed with the madame, who kept most of the silver for herself.
— And where are they? They seem younger each time, yet it is I who walk toward the end. What does time not destroy, dear Cuth? Look at me. — Smith was enormous with fat, noble garments squeezing his plump legs and protruding belly. Extremely tall. The life of peace had transformed him. He was more pig than man. — I am still one of Mane’s soldiers, I’ll never cease to be.
— They used to say horrible things about that knight… — Riseley-Prichard was interrupted as the man with long white disheveled hair and beard stood and searched for the young women in the hallway. He saw Etchells run past, sliding on the rug over the waxed mahogany floor:
— He was no knight. He was a savage, and the stories do not tell half of his deeds. Yet the lords of this land perceived him as such, and they set him against the enemies of the state.
— Littles! — shouted the madame after the sound of something breaking on the first floor. — Stop testing our good noble’s patience! Come! Upstairs, now!
— Allow them to enjoy themselves. Part of my fondness for youth is this peace that comes from ignorance. And here, there is nothing that cannot be replaced. — the madame was not convinced.
She knew the elite’s mood changed like the wind.
When out of Smith’s presence, she pinched the youngest, promising beatings if they misbehaved.
Soon, when she returned to the piano, playing her favorite opus, Paradiso by Monet Courbé, she heard Barrett Etchells laugh, followed by the sound of the bed hitting the wall in rhythm with Emma Feinstein’s moans.
On the bed with the three, Smith stayed on top, embraced by the quiet Arlo Rayner Parkes. With long red hair and a thin body that made her seem even younger. Small breasts, almost like a boy’s chest. Ribs visible beneath delicate skin, freckles from face to back under the little dress fallen to her waist.
Smith’s mouth kissed that of the prostitute Parkes. She embraced him like a father, staying at his side, her red bangs hiding her closed eyes.
She was warm, with Feinstein lying with open legs, receiving the excited and large man holding her thick thighs.
Feinstein, with black hair and eyes fixed on the sweat of the strong man taking her for himself, wished to marry someone who loved her like that, and who could pay for the twenty-candle chandelier that lit the spacious room.
Etchells was the youngest. Sometimes, at louder moans, she lost herself in involuntary childish giggle. She had blond hair down to her narrow shoulders and an expression of curiosity.
Daughter of one of the oldest prostitutes of the Chalice brothel, Etchells had started early, before any other, in an auction two years and six months before meeting the knight she embraced, imitating Parkes.
Smith’s mouth left the redhead and went to the blonde, who enjoyed the drunken tongue kissing her as she threw herself over the large man’s bulk.
They were not virgins, and when he lay down, they knew how to satisfy him with their mouths all over his body, and then, one by one, like on a throne, demanded his attention and love.
In the morning, Otar Smith, second son of the knight’s eighth wife, woke him among the three tousled young women, marked with hickeys and bites.
— The witch’s house, old man. They are waiting for us. We have to go now. Bishop Sartorius is, as always, in a foul mood.
— How do you enter like this without being announced? Have you no decency toward me?
— Decency? Two of these young women could be my daughters. The golden-haired one could be my eldest son’s daughter. — the little one smiled as if praised, turning away and returning to sleep. — Forgive me, I don’t care. I will never judge you. You earned the life you safeguard. Now get up, or they will burn another woman.
Smith bitterly remembered the duties that still forced him to leave Towergarden, took a deep breath, and said goodbye with three kisses on the three foreheads of the three naked delicate.