Chapter 21
Kurt reached the training camp for the second time that day.
His curiosity about Elise had dragged him to the castle, and now he was regretting the whole thing.
As well-composed as he prided himself on being, at present he felt more like a boiling stew, a demonic jealousy simmering from every pore.
He was still wondering who in the blazes the scoundrel waiting for Elise was, but seeing how familiar they were, he was drawing his conclusions rather quickly.
He had to be mad to believe a woman like that would remain entirely unclaimed.
Elise’s protector had surely lied. The witch said Elise was free, but the circumstances showed a different reality.
One needed only a single glance at her to know she was not only beautiful but trouble.
Those thin arms and generous curves always came with complications.
“There you are!” someone called from afar.
It was none other than the king.
Kurt startled. He hadn’t expected his friend to be here.
He had assumed the monarch was with the troops in the west trying to enlarge the kingdom, as it was the recent fashion among the kings of the continent.
Kurt managed a small smile and walked toward him at a brisk pace.
He could tell his friend was in an exceptionally good mood, and he could only attribute his high spirits to seeing all the territories of Bromheim finally united.
“Sebastian, I didn’t know you would grace us with your presence today.”
The king smirked. “Come now, Kurt. I have been looking for you all morning.” He drew Kurt into a hug and clapped him on the back.
“I was at your castle,” Kurt said, unsure how much to share with his friend about Elise. In the end, honesty won out. “I was waiting for someone I recommended for the opening on the magic staff.”
Sebastian’s smile widened with dangerous implication. “What’s her name?”
Kurt swallowed hard. He had not realized the whole matter was quite so obvious until now. It seemed anything related to Elise reduced his wits to the edge of folly. But before his friend began weaving romantic fantasies of the situation, he confessed, “She’s a witch…from Falaine.”
The king stiffened at once. Unknown to Kurt, his friend himself had had his passions with a witch ten years ago.
To Sebastian’s great misfortune, however, the woman had decided to leave shortly after he confessed his devotion to her and insinuated he intended to make a decent woman out of her.
So great had been the disappointment that the king never wed, and his subjects constantly worried over his lack of heirs.
“From Falaine, eh?” Sebastian finally said. “I can see you have a type.”
Kurt’s lips curled into a hint of a smile.
Sebastian was ten years his senior, and Kurt saw him as the older brother he never had.
He admired many qualities about his good friend.
One of them was his good judgment. The king was so observant he required only a few gatherings to discern a person’s motives and afflictions.
Therefore, Kurt considered it pointless to hide anything from him.
“There would never be anyone like Josephine,” he said. “That foolish boy who fell in love upon a few balls died the day he found out she preferred rank over sentiments.”
Sebastian sighed. “Perhaps, my friend. Although I know a few candidates who would be happy to prove your theory wrong. Adelle, for one. That is, of course, if you do not mind her father.”
Kurt grimaced. He knew he and Adelle made perfect sense on paper. She was the daughter of Commander Langohr, the very man who had started the war. The commander had taken a particular interest in Kurt, who was not only well-regarded for his military prowess but a duke no less.
But like many things that function perfectly on paper, reality had a way of ruining even the finest plans.
“She’s perfect,” Kurt mustered. “But…”
“But she’s not from Falaine,” Sebastian quipped.
They both shared a laugh before joining the rest of the men gathered in the open fields. The affair with Elise was already beginning to feel more bearable when Sebastian warned, “Careful with witches. Trust them with magic, but be wary with matters of the heart.”
“You say it because of the Duke of Wilher?” Kurt said darkly.
Sebastian paused, and his eyes wandered for a moment. “Of course.” A nervous cough caught his throat.
Kurt nodded, thinking nothing more of his friend’s odd reply.
After discussing more serious matters and the king informing Kurt of all the principal happenings along the kingdom’s border, Sebastian alerted him to an upcoming trip to Noldrin and a battle set to take place there.
“Use your time here wisely,” Sebastian said. “There’s a whole court of ladies waiting for you to take interest in marriage.”
“Some of them would surely be interested in becoming queens,” Kurt shot back with a smile.
Sebastian let out a dry laugh. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Kurt shook his head and rejoined the men under his training.
The memory of Elise and the ruffian was still creeping into his thoughts.
His imagination running through every explanation of why Elise was acquainted with such a man.
For a moment, he considered that Elise might need protection, but he stopped himself, realizing he was only looking for another excuse to see her again.
*****
Morgaine made her way to Metz through the forest and then by way of her secret passage. It was time she paid her clientele a visit. With Elise’s affairs and her miraculous bond to Danu, she had neglected her trips to the city, and her purse was already showing the difference.
The hearty meals Elise prepared could make anyone gain a few stone in a matter of weeks.
In addition to visiting her regular clients, Morgaine had also come to take a much-needed stroll.
Her Elixir of Fine Form could only do so much.
Just that morning, she had barely managed to button her skirt.
The bodice had been an entirely different matter, though for that she was grateful the strings loosened enough to accommodate a woman twice her size.
She moved through the hidden alleys of Metz like a shadow. Her first stop was Butcher’s Alley, where one could find a fine cut of meat in more than one place.
Morgaine, a soul always devoted to the pleasures of the body, had discovered the many ways of reaching a woman’s pinnacle even before being deflowered at the tender age of eighteen.
She had been a late bloomer, but ah, how thoroughly she had bloomed since then.
A dedication so outstanding that only a city the size of Metz could provide enough men for such a tenacious force of nature.
Even the king hadn’t escaped her appetites.
But Morgaine was a woman of strong will. Business before indulgence, as she always said. Today she was set on restocking her more committed patrons. She would pay a visit to Henrik at the apothecary and Hansel the butcher, but that would be later.
With all the resolve Morgaine could gather, she passed the many butcher shops until she entered the one most likely to reward her favors with coin.
It was the last butcher shop on the alley, and she already knew who would be waiting for her with a penumbral expression.
Her dearest and most afflicted client, Ginger.
The woman had entered into wedlock with the original owner of the butcher shop, a handsome fellow, though a touch too spindly for Morgaine’s own taste. She preferred a bit more flesh on the bone, something sturdier to hold onto during more vigorous…circumstances.
The happy couple had lived in perfect peace until a wicked snore took possession of the butcher each night.
Ginger lived in terror, suspecting he was summoning demons with the rumbling sounds his throat produced.
According to her client, the acoustic violence nearly rattled the walls of their bedchamber.
Those restless nights had eventually driven Ginger to seek Morgaine’s aid.
Morgaine had many times offered a more permanent solution, one that would put an end to both the malicious snoring and the breathing altogether, but Ginger was happy with her man and had no wish to enter widowhood so early in life.
Single as she had been her whole life, Morgaine understood her client completely. She was sympathetic, and having once come dangerously close to being trapped in wedlock herself, she admired the discipline of women who had chosen to commit such a crime against the natural freedom of life.
The proposition had come from the king, no less, and while becoming a queen was not entirely repulsive, Morgaine had never directed her life down the path of riches, but toward whatever made her heart swell with bliss.
Morgaine was fond of fine men, and while working at the castle around ten years ago, she had soon developed an almost insatiable attraction to the king.
It was an embarrassingly courtly fantasy, but Morgaine was a woman before a witch, and being in her second phase of womanhood, she still hoped to reach her third.
She doubted the role of queen was the one meant for her.
Maiden, Witch, Queen. No, there had to be something better to spend her next centuries on.
“Morgaine!”
A sudden cry pulled Morgaine from her memories. She crossed the threshold of the shop to find Ginger looking as though she hadn’t slept in weeks.
It was exactly as Morgaine had suspected. Her clients needed her, and she was there to spread remedies and goodness left and right.
“Darling,” she said. “What has happened to you?”
The woman not only looked distressed; her hands were possessed by a wicked trembling while trying to cut through bone instead of meat.
“How long have you been without the potion?”
Ginger set the knife down on the counter and shook her head wearily. “About a week. I tried sleeping in another chamber, but Jeremy’s snoring now reaches the entire house.”
“You know there’s always the other potion I’ve been telling you about,” Morgaine whispered.
“No, no, Morgaine,” Ginger said. “I appreciate your concern, but my Jeremy is a wonderful man. He has been a blessing to me. Well, a blessing on the days I can catch some sleep. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t still be with him. It’s because of you that we are trying for a child.”
Morgaine took a deep breath and nodded. She ended up leaving an extra vial for Ginger free of charge.
After profuse thanks and even a few tears from the woman, Morgaine made her way out of Butcher’s Alley before she fell into temptation and paid an early visit to her favorite butcher.
She was headed toward the neighborhood of the noble ladies just a few blocks away.
She had brought twenty Beauty Potions to provide for them, and for that she expected to collect enough coin for a month’s comfort.
Her first stop was the house of the wife of Commander Langohr.
The guards at the gate recognized Morgaine immediately and rushed to open the doors.
Once she was waiting in the foyer, the owner, Lady Regina, practically threw herself at Morgaine and hugged her as though she were a long-lost child of her own.
Once more, Morgaine came to the rescue of one of her afflicted clients.
This one suffered from the not uncommon condition of having married a son of a cur.
The burden weighed so heavily on the poor woman that not even one potion was enough to calm her nerves.
In this case, Morgaine hadn’t dared offer the alternative potion, fearing that if word got out, she might very well end up in the dungeons.
No, with this one Morgaine reserved a softer approach.
She suspected that a good night in the bedchamber with a comely gentleman would cure whatever malady or curse the noblewoman had brought upon herself, and Morgaine possessed just enough sensibility to suggest as much.
“I’m going to leave you the usual potions, dear Regina,” Morgaine began.
“But seeing how affected you are, I’m going to ask you to visit my friend Henrik, the apothecary.
His shop is in Poisoner’s Alley. I’m myself on the way there after visiting a few other patients.
He would know what to do, and I only ask that you keep an open mind.
He is an expert in this particular field of afflictions.
Bring light clothing, since he will see to giving you a massage you are not to forget. ”
“Ah,” Regina gasped, plainly understanding the implication. “But Morgaine—”
“Do as I do, my darling,” she interrupted. “This is my domain, and I have known you for two years already. If it is gossip you fear, worry not. Henrik is one of the most discreet gentlemen in the entire kingdom. Once you see him, I’m quite certain you will not object to my recommendation.”
Lady Regina’s eyes lit for a moment. She gathered the calmest countenance she could manage and nodded.
“What would I do without you?” she said.
If it was true that Morgaine’s methods were unorthodox, she was also confident she had brought more happiness to the entire ton because of them.
There was a certain grace and benevolence that followed her whenever she set out on a mission to rescue the poor afflicted souls of Metz, and for that she took more pride than she ever would in being the wife of the king himself.
The rest of her consultations passed without major incident. Morgaine had only taken interest in one comment concerning the king: Sebastian was back at the castle.
She had thought of going with Elise to show her where the famed rock was, but this changed everything.
She still felt a certain stirring in her heart every time she heard mention of her former lover.
They had shared some of the most intense passions Morgaine had known in her three hundred years, and she did not know whether his being a king had played some part in it, or if it was Sebastian alone who had managed to unsettle her so thoroughly.
At any rate, it was better to steer clear of the castle.
The mere mention of Sebastian had already awakened the usual reactions in her.
Considering her job done for the day, she set off again toward Butcher’s Alley to pay a visit to Hansel in hopes of finding some remedy herself.
After that she would go straight to Henrik, where she hoped she might deliver a bit of additional affection.