Chapter 9 A Deal with the Devil
A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL
Still somewhat dazed, I dropped my bow and quiver to the ground and rushed towards my loudly whooping friends for a victorious hug. Not realising that I had made an unforgivable mistake in doing so.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” A voice sounded behind me, characteristic of its mixture of Nordic and British accents. “You’re probably not the world’s best dancer, you know? But you are one hell of an archer.”
Einar stood right behind me. One of his companions had my bow in his hands. Dave and Josh left theirs too far away. I cursed myself internally but tried not to panic about being unarmed until they gave us a reason to.
I turned around and stared into Einar’s icy eyes. Still holding his gaze, I made a small curtsy with what I hoped was a confident, mocking grin.
“I took care of your little nuisance for you,” I said sweetly.
Unfazed, he smiled back at me pleasantly but with an imperceptible motion of his eyes that seemed to hint at a significantly less compact movement of the thought processes behind them.
“Indeed, you did. When you said you were good with the bow, I never even considered you meant this good.” He spread his arms to indicate the scene of destruction on the plain.
“You can only imagine how much I don’t want to let you go after seeing that.
” He looked me over with predatory intensity, and a chill ran through me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t take you seriously enough at first. I was only blinded by your beauty. ”
I tried not to blush or look away, wanting to seem like I was in any way used to commanding respect. Trying not to show just how flattered I was, how vainly pleased by such a superficial compliment. How deeply unsettled.
I was far from unaccustomed to men taking interest in me, their eyes ever trailing towards the bountiful bulge of my breasts, their hands tingling almost visibly with desire to embrace the sharp narrowing of my waist above the swell of my hips.
It was not rare that I sensed a man leaning closer to me in that unmistakable pull of attraction, towed by the instinctive belief embedded in his very cells that my figure promised I would be plentiful and push out strong young ones.
Whenever it happened, I felt compelled to shout from the bottom of my lungs: “It’s a sham! A lie! Nothing but false advertising!”
It made no sense for me to be attractive at all, much less the way I admittedly was. Just another of nature’s jokes, turning me into an involuntary fraud. A caramel-coated apple that was rotten inside.
Not at liberty to put any of this in words, I only raised my eyebrows in reply.
“I still can’t take you and five other people in,” Einar said, almost regretfully.
Dave, Josh, and Amit groaned in unison, and Monika resorted to protesting in Polish. Einar shot them all a brief, impatient look but otherwise ignored them.
“Food is worse than scarce right now. Until we can rely on our own farming, and we’re months away from that, it’s scavenging we depend on.
And yes, that would get a lot easier with you in our midst. And a bit easier still with a few presumably inexperienced archers.
But it wouldn’t make a difference enough to compensate for feeding six more people in total. Can’t do it, love.”
He shook his head.
“He’s right ‘bout the food, lassie,” one of his companions interjected in a Scottish accent, “ye shuid’ve seen yon fooker before. Lost like two stone, hev ye no? CanLys turned ye into a right fit bastard. Rest of us are just plain starved, ken.”
“Ah well, thanks for that little anecdote, Finlay,” Einar said with marked sarcasm. “Though I think the point I was trying to make was clear without your contribution.”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say next.
On the one hand, there was a chance that telling him about our coastal stash of weapons would sway him in our favour.
On the other hand, unarmed as we had allowed ourselves to be, there was not much stopping him from making us lead him to the weapons before sending us on our merry way without them, or worse.
He did not seem like the kind of man who would necessarily do that.
But he also did not seem like the kind who absolutely would not.
Just as I decided to err on the side of caution and not betray our secret, Monika blurted out before I could stop her: “Ve have many bows, crossbows, and arrows at the coast. Very many. Ve share with you and Renata teaches you to use them. If you let us stay.”
I cursed her internally and Dave actually swore out loud, inadvertently damning us further by confirming her words with his reaction. Einar’s eyes gleamed as he scrutinised us, no doubt gauging the measure of truth in Monika’s words.
“Well, aren’t you just full of pleasant surprises?
” he drawled slowly. “Alright ... if that’s true, I might be willing to let you all stay after all.
” His expression was indecipherable, but I felt like I could almost see his mind still working furiously behind it, considering all options. “It’s really up to you, sweetheart.”
I gaped at him, my mind momentarily blank.
“It’s not only that I want to fuck you,” he said plainly, leaving no room for doubt regarding his wishes. “A woman like you? I want to get to know you and I want you to get to know me.”
I noticed his companions exchange glances. Judging their reaction, they didn’t expect him to insist on this. But they made no protests either. Whatever he said went.
Blood flooded my face, and my heart thumped hard in my chest.
“You can’t be serious, pal,” Dave protested with a laborious exhale that was suffused with horror.
“Why not?” Einar enquired mildly enough, but his eyes narrowed with something that was akin to, but not quite, anger. “No, really, tell me. Given the circumstances, what is it you think should be stopping me from asking of her the most obvious thing she has that almost any man would want?”
“It’s not fair!” Stupid and brave at once, Monika kept arguing, trying no doubt to protect me, but only achieving the equivalent of cutting the supporting rope of a suspension bridge we were on. “Ve’re giving you veapons already!”
Einar laughed, but not cordially so.
“Princess, you should come to terms with the fact that from now on, society will look a lot different from what you’ve been used to.
It could be worse, you know? Let me show you what I mean.
” His expression was positively steely, and in a very rapid motion, he grabbed both my hands and twisted them behind my back.
I yelped more in surprise than with pain.
He stood close behind me and held me in place firmly by my wrists but briefly stroked my hip in a manner that was soothing rather than lewd, similar to how one would pet a scared animal.
Then came the cold, hard pressure of the steel blade pressed against my throat.
I saw Dave’s eyes go wide with fear. But it was the dull side of the knife Einar had chosen to expose me to.
For demonstration purposes only then. He wanted me to know that he didn’t want to hurt me.
I knew then that I was damaged beyond repair because excitement rather than fear rushed through my body like electricity.
“People choose vat is society.” To my surprise, Monika held her head unwaveringly high and spoke with even more conviction than before. “Now you are making a bad choice.”
“Am I? Well, the best society under the current circumstances is a live and uninfected one. And to achieve it, we must be prepared to sacrifice almost anything else, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Like my pants?” I asked from the corner of my mouth.
He shook briefly with laughter behind me.
“Well, I hope I can make it so that it doesn’t feel like such a sacrifice for you.”
His men snickered, and I blushed further despite trying not to.
“Look.” Dave’s hand trembled visibly as he raised them in a gesture of surrender. “Either the weapons are enough or we have no deal. We’re not in the Middle Ages. Renata’s body is not a bargaining chip here.”
“Ah, but we are in the Middle Ages. No, in fact, we’re not even there yet.
We’re back in prehistoric times. Make no mistake, if those weapons truly exist, they ceased to be yours the minute they were first mentioned.
You can refuse my offer and go your own way, but not before I make you surrender them.
And I will make you, let there be no confusion about that, either. They’re my weapons now.”
Einar spoke in a low, nasty tone that strongly discouraged further protests.
“Now, in the interest of ever getting to the end of this tedious discussion, I will only speak to Renata from here on until its conclusion. It’s her company I want, so it should be her decision whether she grants it or not. The rest of you lot will shut up and stay silent from here on out.”
My friends tensed up, as if suddenly exposed to a gust of biting wind. I myself froze at Einar’s words, but it would have been hypocritical of me to fault him for them considering that not two hours before I myself contemplated an armed robbery.
“The weapons do exist,” I assured him, “and they will do you a lot more good if someone trains your people to use them.”
I felt him lessen the pressure on the knife the moment I tried to speak and was strangely touched by the way he took care not to cause me unnecessary discomfort.
If he was a man capable of inflicting damage on others, and I had little cause to doubt that he was, he was also one abhorrent to doing so inadvertently.
“And they will do you a lot more good if you have people to train in their use,” he pointed out tolerantly from somewhere high above my left ear. “So far we’re perfectly agreed.”
I turned my head to look up at him, the dull side of the blade sliding threateningly across my skin.
“We are. Why would you choose to sour such a promising deal with crude insistence on something I might have agreed to willingly in time? You can’t be that insecure, surely, not with your looks.
What then, do you not think me worth a little more effort?
Does humiliating women excite you? Or do you just get off on making others feel powerless? ”
Einar’s eyes narrowed and darkened, the anger distinct in them this time. His features hardened ominously.
“Ooh, did I strike a nerve there?”
Einar took the knife away from my throat and fastened it back to his belt. It took him no longer than that to get his face under control and give it back its appearance of pleasant nonchalance.
“I am sorry if I offended you.” He made me shiver with the intensity of his gaze. “When I was aiming to do the exact opposite. I simply wanted to be sincere with you. If you are to live here with us, if I am to see you every day ... well, I know what kind of a man I am.”
“And what kind would that be?” I raised my eyebrows.
“A man almost incapable of repressing his desires. I know I wouldn’t give you a moment’s peace till I got my hands on you. Better you know it too.”
“Why do you want this—me—so much?”
“What can I say, I’m intrigued. How often do you get to meet a beautiful woman who dances while shooting fifty furies single-handedly?” He shrugged, his slight breathlessness the only hint of him being anything less than perfectly composed.
“And what happens if I disappoint?”
“I doubt that you will. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Despite his imposing, threatening presence, there was something strangely straightforward about him, something transparent that I found appealing.
“Will you swear to me that neither you nor anyone else will force the same deal on Monika here?”
“Nobody will force her,” he assured me. “I’m sure she’ll have some fairly insistent suitors, but it’ll be up to her to choose among them. Or not.”
“Yeah, some of us are gentlemen, unlike this brute here,” the shortest of Einar’s companions commented in an unusual, hard-rounded accent and smiled at Monika pleasantly while lighting a cigarette.
“Albert is wrong. I’m not a brute,” Einar said seriously, not taking his eyes off me. “I’m just a man who knows what he wants and is honest to a fault about it.”
Reluctantly, I had to admit that I found his sincerity compelling.
Whilst I abhorred people with no moral compass, I reserved a certain fondness for those who had one that pointed not to the north but to a pole of their own making.
I cared about a person being principled more than I did about what their principles were.
I considered it futile to debate whether someone was good or bad, for those were shifting, unstable criteria.
Strength of character was what I looked for, and I was already certain I could find a great abundance of that in him.
“Yes or no, Renata?”
There really was nothing to consider given that my choice was either to accept Einar’s suggestion or to subject us all to grave danger.
We needed our bows and we urgently needed a shelter.
Fulfilling his request wasn’t too high a price to pay.
Did I not find him immensely attractive?
Sure enough, once we were alone, he could treat me in any way he chose to, nice or brutal, it would be his call.
But even if he chose cruelty, what did that matter to me anyway, if it served a purpose?
There wasn’t much he could do to me that I would truly mind.
“Oh, what the hell. Why not?” I let out a breath, and already some of my courage blew out of me with it. “Now, will you finally lead us to our settlement, or do I need to sign something in my own blood first?”