“The Lady ain’t gonna like this, eeh?” She giggled. Her blackened teeth and incomplete jaw repulsed Julian and aroused him at the same time. Ah, cheap whores, they were the greatest virtue of an Errantry war. One could do without them, but hey, let’s be fair, one didn’t. So far her Ladyship’s divine smiting hadn’t occurred yet. She probably had better things to do than divinely molesting innocent young rapists. He growled and threw himself upon her warm, skinny frame. Her ribs were clearly visible underneath the tightly stretched skin, but there was life in her eyes. An emotion somewhere between fiery passion and burning hatred, she was a good whore, this was how he liked them. Come on, whore, do your best. Howl, moan, scream. The loud clanging of jugs dropped or thrown downstairs accompanied his own growling as he took her. She barely made a sound. She had had many men like this knight. Too many to remember. From Bretonnia, from the Empire, from Kislev itself. At least they paid, that was all that mattered to her. If they didn’t, Ivan arranged something and they would get the money anyway. She let him come. It didn’t harm her. When he was done, he dropped himself onto her and almost broke her bones. His stinking breath warmed her face. That was the worst of it all. Her clients drank, too much. She only ever got the drunk ones. Dominika got all the rich ones, she only ever got the drunk ones. The stinking, sweating, hitting drunk ones.

Ivan came in. The drunk knight lifted his head from her chest and looked at the Kislevite. He growled. Ivan smiled. “You’re done. Pay and get out.” His tone was sharp and unforgiving as his personality. As long as he supported her, she stayed. She wouldn’t stay for any other reason.

The knight lifted himself from her wrecked body and kept looking at Ivan with those drunk eyes of his. The contrast with papa couldn’t be bigger. His sharp blue eyes under sharp eyebrows observed him like cat. His sharp hooked nose was lifted in disdain of the Bretonnian nobleman’s son. His grip around the dirk on his belt tightened. He had dealt with men like Julian of Bordeloux before.

The drunkard stumbled to his belongings and grabbed his sword, only to feel the cold steel of Ivan’s blade stabbed into his neck. She watched the man bleeding to death, not quite screaming but growling inaudibly in his dying spasms. Ivan stood over the corpse-to-be like a wolf stood over its prey. Proud and silent, savoring the moment. He turned to Lyuba.

“It cuts into the amount of customers, but sometimes it has to happen.” He said with a monotone voice. He wiped the dirk clean with a cloth he took from his belt and laid both on a stool. She didn’t smile. She hid her rotten teeth. She hid the sparkle in her eyes. She hid her joy. She hid everything she was, but she couldn’t hide from him. She had had many men like the knight and they were horrible in their own respect. She had only ever had one man like Ivan and she loved him, but he was vicious. The scars on her chest he had carefully drawn with his knife after he had taken her from her burning village. The way he had killed Natasya, Katharina, Alexia, Fransesca. But he fed her and gave her warmth against the cold and shelter against the Great Open. He was never drunk. He hardly ever hit her and he was strong.

He smiled, no, grinned at her. There was at once his own lust and viciousness in his eyes. He looked down upon her, not just on her ghoulish face, but also on her being. She was his slave. As he took her, he knew very well she would always been in his power. It was an old trick. Starve your whores, make them dependent on you. They’ll always follow you. Lyuba did, Dominika did. The other girls, did, up to some point. It worked most of the time, this syndrome. There was no hate in Lyuba’s eyes. There was nothing amongst the indifference. No pleasure, no pain. Just cold coins.