Minister Ulmin sat at the table with a sour looking frown on his face, his wrinkles made his already sour look even worse, like a grape that was well on its way to being a raisin. Dried out, and not desirable in either state, as it had none of the sweetness of either state. The festive bright colored ribbons that wove their way through his long white beard, far from making him look more cheerful, was like a clown face painted on a charging bull. It didn’t make the bull look even a little bit happier, and arguably made it look worse.

He frowned because he was alone in his estate, because his wife was not back yet. ‘She will be. And when she is, she’ll stink of sex and spin some stupid yarn about enjoying the company of the Prince’s woman. I’ll ‘bet’ she was. Like I wouldn’t know the smell wafting off her. Like I wouldn’t see the stains on her clothing. She can’t even be bothered to lie properly.’ His bitter thoughts were halted by a servant entering his empty dining hall. A buxom young thing, one of his daughters from an affair twenty years earlier, she looked like her mother did in her own youth. “My Lord, General Leaman is here.”

“Send him in, Lanasta, and tell that blasted cook to send in breakfast… and tea, before the stars explode!” He snapped it out with annoyance he barely felt. It was more the feel of the pounding his head was taking from last night’s wine. He groaned and took up the cold cloth on the table, then pressed it to his head.

He was in the middle of his third groan, hunched over and frowning as sour as before, when General Leaman entered and gave a half bow to the trade minister. “You wanted to see me?” He asked abruptly, waddling over to the chair and sitting down with a grunt that lasted until he was firmly planted in the seat.

That put the pain in Ulmin’s head, out of his mind for a moment. “Yes… do you remember last night?”

General Leaman held his head briefly, showing that he shared Minister Ulmin’s pain. “I think anyone who says they remember all of last night, wasn’t present in the first place.”

“Do you remember the foreign bitch?” Minister Ulmin asked pointedly.

“Yes… she was in the reserved seating, at the Prince’s own table.” General Leaman’s puffy lips turned far down at the corners in a deep frown.

“Yes, she was. And she’s fucking him.” Minister Ulmin announced sharply.

“You can’t be serious? When did that start?” General Leaman’s deep set eyes bulged with alarm. “Is he insane?! He sells her a duchy, gives her purchasing rights all over the city, and more recently waves off her borrowing a whole regiment over one damn slave? Yes… of course he’s fucking the bitch… no wonder he didn’t get upset that she wouldn’t kneel to him… why would she need to go down on one knee, when she’s already gone down on two?!” He slammed his meaty fist on the table, winced, and drew his hand back from the rattling heavy wood.

“Ugh, don’t do that… it hurts… the noise…” Ulmin muttered.

“Sorry…” The General grumbled.

“Sure, but this is a real problem, worse than my… our… hangovers.” Minister Ulmin groaned out.

General Leaman tapped a finger slowly on the table as he thought it over, “You’re sure this isn’t just because the Prince is probably screwing your wife one more time before he sends her back to you, right?”

Ulmin’s fist tensed. “She’s young, I know that, I’m not stupid, I’m an old man, if I were forty or fifty years younger… but… the way she flaunts it! Like I don’t know where her mouth was an hour before she comes home, like I don’t know why her hair is a mess!

“So that ‘is’ it?” General Leaman asked, leaning back in the chair and resting his arms on the table, the tapping of his finger stopped.

“No! I mean that doesn’t help! Did it have to be the Prince! Did he have to have my wife?! He’s the Prince, damn it! He’s smart, charismatic, good looking, powerful. He could point at a woman and she’d recreate last night’s flood in her knickers! So why… why did it have to be Lodira… I practically raised that boy after his father died, we all had a hand in who he is today…” Ulmin’s sour face became bitter, the flesh drooped into a look of sorrow until he focused again.

“But it isn't just that. She brings a foreign religion, dangerous upset to trade, strange behaviors, and has little regard for protocol, showing up in… that, even under the circumstances, it was disrespectful. Who knows what else she’ll do if we let it go on? He’s obviously quite taken with her, and when Sobella is gone, dead… and you better believe I’m taking my wife to the country estate again, what then?”

General Leaman flushed, the dim memory of Duchessa Aiwenor speaking of how she skinned the Tlalmok merchant alive came to mind. The raw brutality of it, said so casually that it chilled his blood, he began to tap his finger on the table again. “She’ll fuck him a lot more, he’ll turn to her since they’re already screwing, the Prince is a proud man, but sensitive on matters of the heart. He might do with her what he did with Sobella.”

The tapping finger went faster and General Leaman felt sweat on his brow as he tried to imagine the worst case scenario.

“Right.” Minister Ulmin replied with a sharp nod, then groaned as the sudden motion spiked his hangover pains. He brought the cold cloth back to the bald place on his head.

“So what do you propose we do about it?” General Leaman remarked, “The foreign gash has Prince Sado, enough money to fund entire armies, the favor of our prince, and now a legitimate title and lands. Besides that, it is at least of some concern what happened to her slave, if one of us did it, it’ll make yet another problem. But if it was someone from another city and she gets more power here, then…” He opened his hands as if presenting the obvious, and his finger tapping resumed.

“We get rid of her, of course.” Minister Ulmin answered. “She slept with both my wife and the Prince last night, so she’s offended me in every way she could, I may have to tolerate what my Prince does… and I can’t publicly accuse my wife without offending her family. But I’ll be damned by the stars if I’m going to accept some foreign slut using my wife before sending her back to me stinking of sex like a whore after hours!” Ulmin slammed his fist on the table himself, and winced at the sound and the shooting pain up his arm.

“You want to have her assassinated?” General Leaman furrowed his unibrow distastefully.

“Not exactly. I want to let the Tlalmok do it. You see, the contents of the letter demanding Sobella’s life, also required that she be escorted by someone ‘trusted’ by the Prince. This Aiwenor came to us as a mercenary, didn’t she? So, we ‘hire her’ as a mercenary and send her with Sobella. She’ll be out of the way for at least a week and maybe a month. During that time, we can simply bribe her slaves to run off, leaving her with nothing to look after here, or tell them that she died and set them free in her will. Whatever it takes, as long as they leave. And while she’s away, a simple letter informing the Tlalmok that as a ‘token of our gratitude for their mercy’ along with Sobella, we’ve sent the one responsible for killing one of their merchants. They’ll make very, very short work of her then.” Minister Ulmin gave a sharp nod, and groaned again, clutching at his head with both hands.

He sucked in air through his teeth and gasped out, “I just need you all to vote with me on the measure, and the Prince will no doubt agree, we just need to not say anything about ending the life of his new whore along the way. He can find some other hole for his cock, and will forget about her in a month after she doesn’t come back. Then… then everything will go back to normal, the way things always were. Are you with me?” Minister Ulmin asked, and slowly reached out a hand to General Leaman.

The fat old General stopped tapping his finger on the table, and instead took his colleague’s hand. Yes… but… after breakfast, I’m starving.”

“The same… where is that blasted cook!” Minister Ulmin muttered, and leaned back in his chair, limp and as tired as he imagined his wife likely was from playing with the prince and the foreign whore.

Nua slipped into the steaming waters of the bath, the faint ripples of the light blue waters emanated out from her every step, and then had power added to them by the footfalls behind her.

When Nua seated herself on her favorite bench within the deeper waters, Kaiji knelt amidst the steam with a brush in hand, and lifted her owner’s leg at the ankle. It raised out of the water, and the powerful magic caster was enthralled by the muscle tone she found there. ‘It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time.’ She thought, and the faint widening of her eyes that was imperceptible for most, was further hidden by the white steam that rose between her Mistress’s eyes and her own. She began to scrub, grunting faintly as she strove to perform the common task as best she could.

True to her prediction, a few others of exceptional wealth entered the bath, she saw them, but paid no mind at all. She instead, let them see only that she was diligent and thorough, the perfect servant. Washing someone else, as it turned out, had an art to it, ensuring nothing was missed and any filth or grime removed was only the first step. The rough brush had to be applied in such a way as to make the experience pleasant, and she had to be able to tell if it was comfortable for the one she was serving.

‘How did they do it…?’ Kaiji asked as she tried to recall how her slaves had looked at her when they’d washed her body for her. She felt eyes on her, and her breathing intensified, ‘In small things, power lies.’ She reminded herself again, and recalled the best of her slaves, the purple tag who she used to seduce unwary people and wheedle out their secrets. A conversation came to mind.

‘How did you get him to talk… nobody has gotten information out of him before…’ Kaiji had asked with awe as the slave made her report. The sylvan courtesan had chuckled.

‘In the bath of course, nobody expects to be interrogated then. I made him utterly relaxed and asked him nothing, it’s all in how you touch them, most talking is done without talking, speak that language, and the mute will sing an opera!’ The words echoed down to the present as Kaiji tried again to riddle out their meaning.

Slowly, gradually, she felt it coming to her, this service was as much a display of her devotion as it was of her skill. ‘Effort is good, but they’re watching to see more than that… I’m a demon-elf, rare by itself, rarer still in a collar, and more than that, by now everybody knows who I used to be. When they see me, subservient, obedient… devoted to her pleasure in every way, in awe of her like… like a goddess, her status rises.’ She recalled the talk of the art and the value that the Lur’gin company got from all others, just because of how much the Lady Aiwenor had paid for her, comprehension was complete.

‘I serve a goddess… and I must show them that this is what she is. If this woman is a goddess to the once mighty Kaiji of Komestra… her power will only grow with the esteem of those who see it. As that rises, she can save more and more of my people… if I have to fall into the mud to draw my people from it… then there is no filth too great… and a goddess... A goddess she is… whom I love.’ Kaiji’s private resolve transformed itself to action, her hands caressed her powerful mistress without hesitation, and with the utmost grace.

Others were pretending not to watch, but Kaiji knew better. She watched her owner’s face, looking for any sign of discomfort or displeasure, her slow scrubbing went on, leaving no inch of the muscled and powerful body of the warrior woman untouched. The soft flesh was divine in her eyes, from front to back, her eyes only widened when Nua turned around in the water, and moved her hair aside to bare the marks.

‘The pain that must have caused… only a goddess could bear this… surely…’ It looked to Kaiji’s eyes like the flesh of her back had been peeled away, and then ‘painted’ on, and over it a massive emblem that would be known only to those who saw the backs of foreign coins.

She tried to imagine the blonde elf’s pain, and found that she couldn’t. And so she showed her delicacy, the pattern was truly beautiful in its own way, and yet because she knew it had to have hurt terribly, she showed great reverence for the touch she gave to it.

Only the faintest hint of lines beneath suggested it was not the first attempt, and a moment’s temptation to touch, snapped back at her as if she’d struck herself. ‘No! Help her rise! Ask another time!’ Kaiji demanded of herself, and bowed her head in utter humility.

“I pronounce the mistress clean, if it pleases you.” She used a tiny voice that said plenty to those observing the interplay of power.

Nua nodded, and they departed the waters. ‘Kaiji is strange today… but she was right about the baths at least, I can feel their appraisal over everything, I should have considered that myself. Among an open-faced people, symbolic acts count for much.’

And so Nua behaved as if it was normal and routine, when Kaiji reached up, and unbound the long dark hair from her head, and began to use it to dry her owner’s body, missing nothing, front or back, until she came to her feet and finished the task, prostrate at Nua’s toes.

“I pronounce you dry, mistress, if it pleases you.” Kaiji whispered, but her ‘whisper’ carried beyond them. Intuitively looking toward the source of an echo in the intimate setting where people cleaned and coupled alike, the demon-elf mage and advisor to royalty sought the deepest abasement she knew. She pressed her perfect lips to the tops of her mistress’s feet, imitating Priceless in one of her earliest of lessons.

Like a worshipper of the stars before an altar begging for a better fate. ‘But I don’t need to beg the stars, I am before my goddess, and she has already promised a better fate… all I must do, is help her make it happen, and for that… and for my Priceless, there is nothing I will not do. Not for the mistress whom I love… who gave me my love, my life, and will save my Priceless…’ Naked before her naked goddess, abased and without shame, she kissed the surface of the other foot, hoping fervently, and certain accordingly, that she had sent the status of her Mistress to new heights, before Nua opened her arms and said shortly, “Robe.”

“At once, mistress.” Kaiji said, rising immediately and scurrying to obey, so that the mistress she served, as if bringing her a robe, was the same as bringing a goddess a world, and in a way, to her, it was so.