The room wasn’t even really a cell.

It was a corner of what she recognised at once, never having seen one before, must be a wizard’s study. The strange glass constructions, the glowing gems, the absent-mindedly-built-up heap of scrolls, and the books whose names, embossed on the spine, seemed to writhe under her gaze all told Vordur that.

And yet a cell it must be; they hadn’t even disarmed her, although the fact she was armed with the Vestments would have made it a challenge if they had. Wearing them meant the attention of the goddess Warchodaeth was on her, and removing them from her would, she sincerely hoped, invoke the wrath of the Goddess.

Still, she was confined, did not even have the full run of the study. There were no bars blocking her from the rest of the room, but five marks on the ground, matched to identical marks on the ceiling directly above, and she found simply that she couldn’t move beyond them, no matter the force she brought to bear.

Vordur was quietly furious. She should feel, she considered, betrayed; what she mostly felt however was embarrassed.

Nunna had not supported her, had even intervened at the crucial moment, and had been backed in her decision by the goddess, to judge by the miracle which had turned Vordur’s blade aside. Perhaps it was simply not her will that the man die; perhaps, as the husband of a Knight-Captain, he benefitted from her protection, even if the wedding was a fool’s one.

This, then, was the betrayal, and one she should have realised might happen; she had needed to talk Nunna into it, and therefore the woman’s heart had not been in it fully enough. And it was this which made Vordur as embarrassed as she was.

She had been in there for an hour, stewing quietly in her own irritation, with nothing to do once she’d confirmed the few scrolls near her position were written using an alphabet she did not recognise, before anyone else joined her in the room. She would tell herself, later, that it was this frustration which meant she did not recognise the other woman.

In fact, given how much Dewin’s style had changed since her adventuring days, she would never have been able to. The mage had worn loose robes, weighed down by dozens of trinkets worn on chains or leather thongs. Her hair had been bound back practically. Any hint of the shape of her body had been hidden; Dewin didn’t consider her female form an asset so much as a distraction, and she didn’t want to be bothered with her appearance or the people her appearance might attract.

The same was not true now, and years of hard riding, combat, hauling treasure and more had given her a fine figure, her arms and legs muscular by the standards of noncombatants, her body lean but soft, rounded in all the right ways. The garments she wore, accordingly, had been tailored close to her form and were in any case short, the better for others to enjoy the view. She knew the value of her body (to others and to herself) and was more than happy to exact everything it was worth.

“You’re ignoring me,” Vordur accused her, a minute or two after she entered, a minute or two of waiting for confrontation, poised for it, her whole self tensed for a conversation she intended to treat as if it were a battle.

Dewin, who had half-bent over an old armoire in order to read from an even older grimoire, her long legs crossed at the ankle as she did so, straightened up and turned to face Vordur. With one hand she adjusted the perch of the rounded spectacles on her snub nose. “What was that?” she asked.

“You’re ignor - wait - Dewin?” Impossible to believe; just as impossible, once her mind had made the connection, to doubt the evidence before her.

The smile which came to her captor’s lips was wry, full of not-so-hidden amusement. “Good afternoon, Vordur,” she said. “And as to your question; yes, I am ignoring you.” So saying, she turned back to her reading, and despite protests from Vordur which, in time, rose to yelling, Dewin ignored her entirely, cheerfully making notes on a new parchment, and refusing to be drawn.

*

In due course, another arrived in the room; tall, lean, and well-groomed. His robes were obviously expensive, made from fine fabrics which suited the rich surroundings; the court mage, no doubt, to the Duke. She didn’t know his name, but it didn’t matter. His eyes met hers and an amusement lit them from within. Whatever they had in mind, whatever tortures they proposed to use to buy her compliance - for surely, that was their goal; to have her recant her actions, tidy things away, and keep the wedding legal - they would start now, she was sure.

She prepared to stand her ground, and the only reason she hadn’t already drawn Warchodaeth’s sword was the fact her enchanted cell didn’t give her enough room for a swing.

“Well, well,” he began. “How are we feeling?”

“There is no we,” she answered flatly. “We aren’t friends, you and I. We will never be friends. Not even allies.”

“Of course not,” he answered.

“But we may be,” Dewin said. “We are not his equal. We cannot be his friends, nor allies, because we haven’t the right to refuse him.”

Vordur stared at her in horror. She had presented this as logical fact, almost as an inevitability. It shocked Vordur nonetheless. Dewin simply smiled.

“Do your worst,” Vordur offered defiantly. “I will stand.”

“What if, instead, I do my best?” he asked.

“Our best,” Dewin put in. He looked at her, his head turned away, so Vordur could only impy his expression from hers - and she couldn’t read her expression clearly at all. There was a smile in there, but there was so much else along with it.

She felt a flicker of uncertainty. “What do you mean?” she asked.

But the two wizards looked at each other, shared a smile, and said no more.

In due course the lady Tarian entered the room too. Her muscular arms and soft, beckoning bosom were both on clear display in her dress, and a slit up the side showed off the entirety of a powerful leg up to the hip.

“My lady,” the wizard said, inclining his head respectfully as he did so.

She nodded in return, her lips pursed almost to repress a smile. “Consuriwr,” she said. “Is the patient ready?”

“She only awaits your attention, my lady.”

Without spoken prompting, Dewin had retrieved a high-backed chair from elsewhere in the study and was dragging it across to set it down in front of the area where Vordur had been contained. Tarian nodded again, then settled herself in the chair, back straight against the padding, hands at the ends of the armrests. She crossed one leg over the other, showing again that long, powerful leg.

She met Vordur’s eyes and then began to speak. “Last night,” she said, “before we slept, I went to my husband. I had set aside my evening down and wore only a loose, silken shift that has his particular favour. The material is so fine that if I stand before the light, he can see my body as clearly as if I wore nothing at all.” She smiled archly. “This provokes exactly the reaction I want.

“In this case, as I was bare below the mid-thigh, I elected to crawl on hand and knee to my lord husband.” Her gaze had not shifted nor flinched at any point. Vordur found herself oddly uncomfortable as she listened. Why was she being told this? “I looked up, of course, and took my gauge of his opinion. My noble lord has very clear preferences, and it’s my wifely duty to ensure I am an expression of them at all times.”

“Far more important to be the warrior you are,” Vordur retorted. She saw again no flinch in the other woman’s expression, no indication that her word had been felt at all. The Lady Tarian seemed entirely unfazed.

Vordur found herself suddenly dizzy. Her head was reeling, doubtless simply because of the sheer strangeness of the situation. This surely could not be happening; how was it that her rescue had gone so far awry that she was now hearing the woman she’d sought to tear away from this was reciting her night’s lovemaking with her husband, in detail.

She tried to interrupt several more times, but Tarian ignored her entirely. Eventually the former adventuress reached the point where she fell asleep, her head nestled on the chest of her husband, and Vordur exhaled, relieved that it must be over.

But the lady Tarian didn’t stop talking there. “I rose with the dawn - you’ll understand that, Vordur, I’m sure,” she said, “being used to the knightly life as I still am. And I walked out onto the balcony of our room, standing all but naked in the light of the sun, and I was there simply to take pleasure in the caress of warm sunlight against my body.

“But my husband, while dawn does not wake him, is sensitive to sound and movement around him. He woke in his turn, and saw me out there.” Her smile grew impish, her tone confiding. “He followed me out there, and his hands found my breasts even as his foot nudged my legs wider apart.”

To her horror, she could not fully shut out the details being confided in her. The dizziness in her head had intensified, and there was something else there, something itching at her, beyond also a growing sense of outrage.

Sir Swynol clearly considered his wife his property to be taken at any time he chose, in any way he chose. And she seemed to accept that; not just accept it, indeed, but she was an active participant in her own defiling.

Vordur shuddered, and tried not to think about why that shudder had felt so delicious.

The lady Tarian, meanwhile, had turned to the mages. “Wil that suffice for today, do you think?” she asked.

“Certainly, my lady,” the wizard Consuriwr answered, half-bowing as he did so. “None, I rather think, could have done it better.”

“”Well, then, I’m glad.” She took two steps closer to the boundary of Vordur’s space. “It has been good to see you again,” she said. “Although it does bring me pain to see how misled you have become.”

“Misled?” Vordur gaped. “What on earth do you mean?”

“Not just about what I want,” Tarian said, “though I am reliably informed you are basing your actions on a substantially outdate set of assumptions about me.” Her smile was lopsided, almost but not quite chastising the other woman. “Also about your own best purpose. And the Order tells me they suspect you of stealing the Vestments of the Avatar, too.”

As Vordur was still at that moment wearing the same Vestments, this comment struck her as particularly baffling. “You can see that I wear them,” she protested.

But Tarian shook her head. “No,” she said. “We’ve sent a messenger to the Order assuring them that we have you in hand and will be returning you soon. Sadly, you weren’t wearing the Vestments, so they’ll have to continue the hunt elsewhere.” She dimpled, her smile oddly triumphant, and Vordur shivered. Here, she thought, was power, being exercised so casually, so carelessly.

It did not seem to bode well for her.

The lady Tarian took her leave of the wizards, and Vordur eyed them sourly. Without any follow-up, Tarian visiting her just to relate her sensual exploits with her husband made no sense at all, but the wizards ignored her demand for explanation and returned to their studies.

Vordur found herself as affronted by this as she had been by anything else, so she began shouting, pitching her voice loudly enough to drown out their conversation.

Childish, perhaps, but she took delight in it, until after less than two minutes Consuriwr snapped something while gesturing at her and the sound emerging from her mouth was abruptly gone.

They continued to talk afterward. She pouted, frustrated, and paced, but could only listen to them. Not that she could always understand what they were talking about, but what little she thought she’d made out worried her almost as much as Tarian’s assurances.

If, as she had promised, Vordur was eventually to be released back to the Silver Shields, she would be able to tell them the comment about the Vestments had been a lie, and one which would bring down the Order’s rage.

Now, here were two wizards discussing magic that seemed pretty clearly to be forbidden in Vordur’s earshot.

How could they be confident there would be no trouble to come from this if she was indeed allowed to return in time?

She shuddered again, but again the shudder carried with it a tingle of something more appetising.

*

It was often said that almost anything could be found for sale in the more sophisticated cities of the surrounding kingdoms, but Nunna had never before put this to the test. She didn’t often find herself in one, of course, but when she did she rarely desired anything unusual.

It would be an exaggeration to say that her faith was her primary driver, but nonetheless she was a woman of simple needs, and most of them were fulfilled by her role in the Silver Shields or by the comforting reassurance that when she called down the Goddess’ attention, Warchodaeth looked when Nunna asked her to. (Others in the Order would hold that Warchodaeth looked where they bid, but Nunna felt this was a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between deity and devotee).

Nonetheless, she knew that certain alchemists and even low-tier wizards earned their coin by devising or manufacturing philtres or tinctures that could change the hair of the user in many different ways, and she was sure that in Diwydiant’s capital she would find what she sought.

It took her much of the first day at court to learn the right name she sought, but in due time she heard of a woman who owned a seamstress’ business but whose people were available for many more services, from the maintaining of nails to the shaping and dying of a lady’s hair. The question was only whether she would be able to afford the service.

By great good fortune, as she wended her way through the streets of the city, the redhead whose body and wisdom she had so admired, the one who had carried her warning to the lady Tarian, fell into step beside her, and a spark of excitement kindled itself within Nunna’s head.

“Good afternoon,” the woman said. “I trust you are well?”

“I am, yes,” she answered. It felt somehow like a concession.

“I’m glad to have found you,” the redhead said. “I’ve been looking for you. I hope you don’t mind?”

“No,” Nunna said, but she was startled to be the centre of a hunt. “Is something wrong?”

“Far from it. My noble lady asked me to seek you back out and offer you any support I might, in reward for your actions.”

“Oh.” Nunna flushed. “Uh, that’s not necessary.”

“Indeed not.” She chuckled. “But it remains the will of the lady Tarian, and I am here, in this case, to ensure her will be done.” Her voice shook as she delivered those words, and Nunna wondered why the words, which sounded like polite formula, seemed to hold so much weight for the woman.

Nunna was not sure how to reply, so she maintained a careful quiet. The other woman picked up the thread. “Tell me, now, truly, what do you desire?”

Heat prickles seemed to well up all through Nunna’s head at these words. She was suddenly giddy, a strange euphoria rushing through her. “Truly?”

“Truly.” The word was little more than a breath, but it carried an intensity.

“I want to be like the lady Tarian,” Nunna said. It seemed somehow more real now the words had escaped her lips, and it was surely beyond her in any case. She had no noble blood to back her ambition, so she would need a luck like Tarian’s, or she would need powerful people to support her in finding a match - and why would they?

“Hm.” Dewin was silent for some strides. “Forgive me for saying so, lady priest, but it seems to me that we must present you to the court somewhat differently.”

Nunna felt the same heat of desire, heard a roaring in her ears that seemed to her like the roar of a bonfire. She said, “I’m afraid so,” but it seemed somehow, with Dewin beside her, no setback. “I was hoping to have my hair recoloured, the same golden as the lady Tarian.” This seemed now the way to refer to her; Tarian Shieldmaiden she certainly no longer was.

“Ah.” Dewin slipped her arm into the crook of Nunna’s arm. “Come with me, then, and I will arrange it. My lady will absorb the expense.”

“Well… if you’re sure,” Nunna answered doubtfully.

Teilwr’s emporium was clearly busy, and Nunna was surprised when Dewin - and, by extension, herself - were ushered through into an inner sanctum sanctorum, where Dewin and the proprietress, obviously friends, stood together and conversed in low tones. From their glances, Nunna could be sure that she was the subject of their comparison, but she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know the specifics; this and her own politeness kept her from moving close enough to make out what they were saying.

At length, Teilwr smiled and nodded, ringing a bell. A younger woman, barely more than a girl, who wore a faintly harried expression appeared and was quickly sent on an errand, while Dewin drifted back to stand beside Nunna.

“Good news,” she said with a smile. “I’ve arranged for your makeover to begin.” She took Nunna by the arm again and began steering her over to a small, comfortably-looking chair by the wall. Beside it gleamed a large silver basin, and once she sat on the chair, Nunna felt the slight motion which told her how carefully constructed the it had been. With a little effort it could be reclined so that the occupant could easily have their hair washed from the basin.

“The same gold as my lady?” Dewin asked. “Or simply something similar?”

“What would you recommend?”

“Well,” Dewin said, “let’s begin with a sincere imitation of her advancement.” It would not be until a year or more later that Nunna would realise, recalling this conversation, that Dewin had not actually answered her question.

Instead, Dewin began to untease the other woman’s braids, with another woman in Teilwr’s employ joining her to do so before too long. In keeping with her heritage, the braids in which Nunna wore her hair were woven tightly enough that they would hold together well for long stretches of time. She felt a little embarrassed at that moment in the work required before her hair could be recoloured. And yet…

Emerging into her mind with the warmth needed to hatch a fledgling idea was that if she was to be a lady in Tarian’s image, even a pale imitation, she would have to stop feeling embarrassed at receiving service from others. Part of her duty would be to wield authority, even if that were on behalf of…

…well, at that time Nunna couldn’t persuade herself that a noble husband was within the sphere of possibility. Warchodaeth’s protection was given to those who needed it whether or not they realised it; Nunna found herself considering a role intervening on behalf of a noble husband she worshipped, rather than the goddess she worshipped, and the blasphemy of it seemed to thrill through her.

With the braids undone, Dewin perched on a stool fetched for that purpose and reclined Nunna until her hair began to sink into the warm waters that the basin had been filled with. Teilwr passed her a bottle, and Dewin began to add drops from it into the water in which she had begun washing Nunna’s hair.

She was thorough, lathering up her hands and then Nunna’s hair in turn, and as she moved her fingers through the foam, caring a delicious sound that joined the roar of heat in Nunna’s ears, Dewin’s touch almost seemed at times to caress Nunna’s mind, not just her scalp.

Nunna let out a soft sigh.

“Better, is it not?” Dewin asked softly. “I certainly think so.”

Nunna closed her eyes. It was easier with them closed; she was already picturing herself with the golden hair of her idol, cascading down the dark skin of her bare back to reach the deep V of an elegant dress. She made another quiet noise as she did, something that might have been appreciation for her own imagination, might have been an answer to Dewin’s question. She wasn’t sure herself.

Long fingers probed her hair and teased her scalp, and as they moved, warm, tingling trails followed them along her head. Nunna sighed contentedly, her face settling into a smile, her head drifting, her thoughts twisting and curling, changing under the heat.

The lady Tarian was a perfect role model, she thought. But she should never have imagined that the path ended as a Knight-Captain. That wasn’t the goal. That had been only the prelude to Tarian’s story, with her new role poised to be far more important.

Dewin was still talking, but Nunna hardly noticed, she was so deep in her imagination. “...important to make alliances, of course,” was one phrase that filtered through, as was “We would expect loyalty, even after you had secured a favourable alliance, but…”

It was important, Nunna knew, but she couldn’t focus. She could feel the tingle and shimmer on her head as the dyes did their work, and that perhaps meant there was some magic bound in with them to strengthen the effect, or simply to make it easier to achieve.

In either case it was a heady experience, almost as much so as if the magic was settling into her very self. She relaxed into the other woman’s capable hands.

*

Vordur slept deeply, something she hard learned not to do over countless nights camped out on patrols, but which seemed so natural. She knew she was dreaming, but did not understand how she knew.

In the dream, she had shed her evening down on retiring to her opulent chambers. She wore instead only a loose, silken shift made of material so fine as to be almost entirely transparent with light behind it, one which ended mid-thigh.

She was proud of it, though she would have been hard pressed to say why. She ran a hand through her hair - long hair, settling in waves, not the almost boyish self-cut she habitually sported in the waking world, in concession to the demands of helmets - and secured her tresses behind one ear with an ornate emerald hairpin, then rose and moved through into a different room within her private quarters.

Here Vordur discovered that the room (which felt achingly familiar and comfortable, though she did not, now she had a moment to reflect, recognise any of the decor) was not private only to her. Ahead of her, seated on a comfortable low chair by a writing desk, she recognised Tarian’s husband Sir Swynol, though he seemed somehow more important.

An idea seized Vordur, a whim, an impulse she could not understand, and she sank to her knees, crawling toward him. She paused, a scant yard or two from him, and raised her lowered head so she could better take in his reaction. He had very clear preferences, she knew, and in the dream she felt it her duty to ensure herself an expression of them at all times.

His eyes lit as they settled on her, his lips widening into a smile. She knew she had pleased him, but still she did not approach him further, did not move. Instead she watched him carefully set aside his quill, cap the inkwell, and blot the paper. With that done, he turned in his chair to face her and raised his eyebrows.

It was an inquiry, but somehow she knew it was also invitation and instruction combined. She resumed crawling forward, lowering herself closer to the floor, feet and hands more widely spread, so that he could admire the action of her arms and thighs as she crawled. She knew how much he enjoyed it when she used the power and grace her body granted her with the direct intention to provoke his lusts, knew that even the hemline of her shift riding up her thigh with each motion would sharpen his attention further.

She hesitated for a moment when her head slid between his planted feet. The next step was to rise up onto her haunches, to tease his cock from his codpiece, to take it in her mouth. She stared at the tented fabric. Felt her body want to act. Knew she should.

She ached to do as he expected. And yet at the same time, she shuddered.

Vordur shook her head. “This is wrong,” she muttered. Off his surprised, almost injured look, she rose and began walking away in a hurry. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment; her body burned with confused, rejected desire.

With an oath, Vordur woke up. She had, it seemed, slept standing, had dozed off while pacing the limits of her confinement uncomfortably. Her legs ached from standing, as if she had been punishing herself, but the ache of frustrated, unfulfilled desire was much more present, throbbing through her. A thin film of sweat rested on her brow, testament perhaps to the effort of will it had taken her to resist Swynol’s temptation.

Nothing about her experience made sense, and she had been asleep for it. It would be easy to write it off as a dream, but she knew there was more to it than that.

The study was deserted again, lit only by one candle which had not fully burned down. Dewin had left some hours earlier on an errand (something, she suspected, to do with Nunna), but the man, Consuriwr, he had been there when she last paid attention.

She made a circuit of her trap again, testing the edges, and again she found no way to prize herself out.

Whatever was happening, she was going to have to withstand more of it, she thought. Her determination against the schemes of that infuriating wizard.

She was confident she would win in the end, she told herself, and tried to ignore the ache of desire that filled her body as she lay down to sleep.

*

Nunna admired her hair in the looking glass. Teilwr was thinking of the best ways to style it, she had been told. In the meantime she waited, just as she waited for the new gowns she had been measured for.

The path of the lady Tarian was not one she had anticipated, and she was far from sure how she could follow it and still serve Warchodaeth and the Silver Shields. She was too tied to the goddess, by her prayers and by Her miracles, to cast that aside, and she still held rank in the order (assuming, she reminded herself, that absconding with Vordur hadn’t burned that bridge - but as she had helped save Swynol, she had hopes).

Thinking of Warchodaeth, as she was, she could not help but reach out mentally along her connection to the goddess. There was something odd there, she thought, and frowned as she tried to understand what.

Warchodaeth appeared… strained. Was that right? Right or not, it was the word that presented itself.

Nunna felt a fleeting moment of guilt over it. The strain might be in her tie to the Vestments, which were currently still with a captive.

So far as Nunna understood it, there was no particular reason that this would have a significant impact on the goddess, but she was mortal, as were all of Warchodaeth’s servants, and the relationship between a deity and their avatar was not one she fully understood.

She imagined that the Vestments did not make Vordur actually the goddess’ avatar on the mortal plane.

But she was at a loss to explain it all in any other way.

The following morning, Dewin collected her early and led her into the ducal palace by a route Dewin did not recognise, then drew her up a winding staircase. It was dimly-lit but had at some time been beautifully decorated, the walls stocked with portraits and tapestries depicting mighty hunts.

Opening a locked door, the two women made their way into a gallery of seats looking down on the palace’s great hall, one carefully concealed from below to be almost unnoticeable. There was nobody else there, but some servant had clearly paved the way; a table by the edge of the gallery had been loaded with cold meats, fruits, bread, cheese and wine. Dewin led her two it and the two sat. Looking over the edge, Nunna realised that the court had not yet began to enter.

“Your pardon,” she said, “but why are we here?”

“I discussed it with you,” Dewin said promptly, a smile on her lips, “while I was attending to your hair. Do you not remember?”

Nunna flushed, and even with her complexion she knew it must be obvious to the other woman she did not, but Dewin simply laughed gaily. “No,” she said. “I didn’t think you had. Nonetheless, my lady insists.”

“Insists on…”

But Dewin put her finger to her lips. The two listened as the doors below were opened and, a handful at a time, courtiers began to drift into the room, talking in low tones.

It seemed to Dewin that it wasn’t just how well camouflaged the balcony was that should be admired. The room had been constructed with great cunning so that even quiet conversations below were neatly audible once they had echoed their way up to the gallery, while courtiers below would be entirely unaware - unless, she reflected, they had sat where she now did. “I feel like a spy,” she whispered guiltily.

“Think of yourself as a student,” Dewin whispered back. “Four generations ago, the Duke of that time had this construction carried out at home while a war kept he and his nobles elsewhere, in order that his children would be able to learn the thoughts of those beneath them easily, and even come to understand the political currents of the Duchy.”

She was smiling broadly. “Politics is a strange business,” she mused. “But it is the business of my lord and lady, and of my senior. So I persevere.”

The two were still talking in hushed tones. “And why am I here?” Nunna asked.

“Well, if we’re to reward you properly, you must get a sense of everyone available,” Dewin answered.

This still did not make clear sense to Nunna, but she found herself feeling strangely comforted by the idea, her scalp tingling. It felt right, somehow. “Very well,” she said, and turned back to watch.

“We’re lucky, here,” Dewin said. “The Duke’s father spent money to found a university of learning. Many scions of the nobility have been sent here to learn and to take advantage.”

“And this makes us lucky?”

“Of course,” Dewin said cheerfully. “Those scions then attend court here. They make friends, gossip, and get to see the Duke’s perspective.” She looked across at Nunna with an expression that underlined how significant she considered her next comment would be. “And many of them will find, if not love, the person they will marry here.”

Nunna’s scalp tingled, sizzling with a heat that stretched from the roots of her golden hair down her spine to her groin. It was not, she decided quickly, lust, because lust was unfocused, was only need. This was something more. The idea of marrying into a dynasty, as her heroine had, of becoming one of those who knit alliances together through devotion and ties of blood, excited her in a way she hadn’t anticipated.

She whimpered, and Dewin shushed her hurriedly. “I’m not sure how loudly we can talk here, without being heard,” she explained, her voice low and urgent. “Best not to push it too far, just in case.”

Nunna nodded agreement and Dewin smiled in satisfaction, then turned back to study the throng below.

*

“I had spent this morning training three of my husbands’ men in single combat,” Tarian told Vordur, her eyes bright with excitement. “Now, of course, while we are having our conversations,” (“What conversations?” Vordur demanded bitterly, hoping to make the point that she was not listened to, but Tarian continued speaking as if there had been no interruption) “I am not as present at court as my duties would suggest, but you have rather presented me with a higher duty.

“Still, it means I do not see my husband as often as I would, so I made haste, after tidying my hair,” which she gestured toward, inviting Vordur to admire the remarkable beehive she had sculpted her blonde tresses into, “and applying a light scent, to intercept one of the serving staff. We do not, at present, have our own dedicated maid, but one still delivers a tray to my husband in his quarters if he is busy in the morning.

“I caught her before she reached her destination, and I relieved her of the tray and took it in to him myself.” She looked significantly at Vordur, her eyes confident and expressive, and for the first time it occurred to the captive to wonder why it might be that she never seemed able to look away from Tarian’s gaze as they talked. “My husband was delighted to see me, and bid me to stand by his desk as he ate.

“I did as he bid, and of course I needed to find ways of entertaining myself.” There was a complicity to the way she spoke, an unspoken invitation to Vordur to glory in it as much as she clearly did.

An afterglow that spread out to encompass others, Vordur thought sourly. “I decided that calisthenics were my answer, and I therefore began the series of stretching exercises we were both taught at Rhaedr Coch.” It was true that they were effective exercises to carry out before sparring or when one found herself with a few minutes free before going into battle. It was also true that they made much of the female body.

Vordur realised to her growing shock that she had begun smiling at the story.

She was smiling. This woman was obviously enchanted against her will, and Vordur was smiling about it.

“Well,” Tarian said with an answering smile, “naturally, my husband took notice.” She continued to recount the entire wicked story with a grin. It was certainly true, Vordur thought sourly, that she was enjoying herself, but of course that wasn’t really her. A spell must be involved.

“You have been ensorcelled, Knight-Captain,” Vordur told her earnestly, once the tale had come to an end. “What you feel is not of your creation, nor of your desire.”

Tarian looked at her oddly. “Indeed?”

Emboldened, Vordur plunged on. “This wizard, my lady,” she said. “He has enspelled you, and Dewin too, I am sure. You must have noticed how differently you both act and think now. It must be fought. It must be stopped. It is why I am here.”

“You are here, Vordur, because I require it,” Tarian told her coolly.

“You, or the wizard?”

“It is true that he has an experiment he finds you useful for,” Tarian allowed. “This is no bad thing.”

“I think he is trying to enchant me,” Vordur said, dropping her voice. “As he has you.”

“Oh, Vordur,” Tarian answered, her tone almost pitying. “How thoroughly you misunderstand.”

“I - no. Knight-Captain, believe me, I-”

“You have so many facts correct,” the lady Tarian cut her off smoothly. “But you have still misunderstood the situation entirely. You can only cause trouble like that.”

She hesitated for a moment, but quickly seized on the key problem. “But we must cause trouble here, my lady,” she said. “If they are permitted to get away with this, what will it do to the Order?”

“You should have thought of that before you took the Vestments,” Tarian said gently. “Consuriwr believes that the Silver Shield is vulnerable, now, to something no divine order has ever had to face before.

“In part, of course, there has never been a danger before because nobody has thought to try it and had the opportunity to do so.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Tarian smiled. “You worry too much about the wrong things, Vordur. I can understand this. After all, I used to do the same.” She paused at the doorway. “You have a duty, young lady. A real one. But you are still chasing an old, false dream.

“Once you let go of your own delusions, you will be far happier.” She looked over her shoulder with a slow, confident smile. “Just exactly as I am.”

*

Vordur slept deeply, something she hard learned not to do over countless nights camped out on patrols, but which seemed so natural. She knew she was dreaming, but did not understand how she knew.

In the dream, she was just waking. The bed in which she lay was obviously a costly one, the mattress packed with soft straw, the quilt around her body padded luxuriously with the down of the eider. Sunlight streamed in over the balcony, the wooden door to which stood open.

Vordur rose and stretched luxuriantly. It was a combat stretch, one which she had learned in days past at Rhaedr Coch, but after a good night’s sleep it was a true delight; to feel her body come back to wakefulness, to respond to her so well. To be aware of the coiled, sensual power she had at her disposal.

She left the quilt behind and made her way onto the balcony, where the touch of the sun warmed her bare body. Eyes closed, she delighted in it.

She hadn’t felt that way before. Her focus had been on her duty in the Silver Shields since a very young age. She had begun by ignoring the temptations of her own flesh as a distraction. It had, somewhere down the line, become a point of pride, and she rarely noticed anything. The dream brought clarity on that decision. Put into stark relief what she was missing, in a way she had been easily able to ignore while waking.

She felt hands on her breasts, someone coming up behind her who felt free to touch her as he liked, and she moaned in delighted satisfaction. Her hips drifted backward of their own accord, following impulses she was barely aware of, to grind against his crotch.

He squeezed, then released, and she turned in his hands. As their eyes met she recognised Sir Swynol.

Vordur faltered. “I… no…” she said.

Swynol’s hand slid into her hair, so much longer than she kept it, and closed around a handful into a firm grip. He smiled into her eyes as her mouth opened wide.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What are you doing?” he countered.

“My duty,” she answered, and wondered what she meant by it. And then he tugged at her hair, again, drawing his hand out and round in an arc that pirouetted her on the spot as if she was his puppet, until she faced out over the busy ground below the balcony again.

He planted a foot between hers, using it in two quick sideways sweeps to spread her legs, and he pushed his hand forward in her mane of hair to bend her at the waist, body warm and beautifully displayed in the soft embrace of the sun.

And then, with a twist of his wrist to half her motion forward, he tugged back, pulling on her hair and drawing her body back against him. Her buttocks touched the tops of his thighs, her open lips met his stiff cock there.

Time seemed to hang still for a moment, a question suspended in a moment of time.

Who was she, truly? What was her duty?

She had two answers to each, but knew that once she had acted here, the choice would be made.

Swynol tugged at her hair again and her eyes crossed. She thrust herself back and down, driving him inside her, with a low, almost animal moan.

The floodgates were opening. Her vision swam. She moved against him with the learned behaviour of an experienced, lusty slut, not the pure and chaste knight she had always been. It must, she thought, be the dream granting her this knowledge, but for the first time she wondered how it would be to learn for real.

She planted her hands firmly on the stone rail of the balcony and began to move with the bucking of his hips, stable enough now. Lifting one foot, she ran it up and down the back of his calf, and was rewarded when his grip on her hips tightened, the pace and the power in his thrusts intensifying.

If this were a dream, she asked herself, how good could the reality be?

*

Nunna paused suddenly, tilting her head. Her attention had been on a young man, until recently the second son of the Count of Rajaa and now his heir following a hunting tragedy. But something in the world had changed.

Her eyes darted around the gallery and the room below, wondering what it was that she’d noticed. Nothing too obvious, she thought; one of those subtle tricks that changes the appearance of a room, as when one of four lamps burns out and the tone of the light is suddenly different, the shadows shifting in a way that suggests nightmare.

Whatever this was, it was nothing so sinister, and yet it coloured everything. Perhaps, she thought, the grand windows of the great hall below were simply not admitting so much light, a sudden cloud having covered the sun.

But the quality of the light was unchanged.

Then she felt another shudder, a passionate moment of bliss which vibrated through her. This time, her senses extended and looking for it, she recognised what she felt immediately.

What was much less clear was why she was feeling it or where it had come from.

She sat back, blinking rapidly, and saw a small smile on Dewin’s lips. It was strangely familiar, and for the first time Nunna placed her properly in spite of all the changes to her appearance.

“Dewin?” she asked.

The wizard put her fingers to her lips conspiratorially, and Nunna fell silent, uncertain, but still alight with curiosity and duty.

*

She carried the tray through the corridors of the palace, one hand lifted, fingers spread, so she could bear it shoulder-height on her palm. It was important to carry trays in this position, Vordur knew. Part of her duty. When she bore her tray in this posture, any man of rank could examine her figure clearly. This appreciation was part of her service, part of her duty to those greater than herself.

She swept into a private chamber, at which Sir Swynol sat at his desk, reading a correspondence closely. Vordur approached him, head bowed, those long locks that at times seemed the strangest part of the dream hanging over one shoulder. Once she reached the desk she lowered the tray and set it down.

“Ah,” Swynol said, and pointed at a point on the floor one pace closer to him than she stood. “Stand here, in case I want you.”

Vordur stepped closer, folding her hands demurely behind her back, head still downcast rather than meet his eye and be thought to be rising above her place, which did not feel so high a place as her knightly status should convey.

She waited, tense with excitement. It would be good if he needed her, she understood, or even if he simply wanted her, not for any complex reason but because it would give her a chance to serve, to do her duty.

He was taking his time over his lunch, and Vordur found herself restless. She did not want to depart, so instead she took it into her head to remind him of what he owned, what he could take at any time he chose, with only a word.

She renewed her acquaintance with the combat stretches taught by Rhaedr Coch. These entailed arched backs, extended legs, flexed muscles, all at different times, and as she had schemed and hoped, they caught his eye wonderfully.

Swynol reached out and cupped her buttock in one hand, gripping firmly. Vordur giggled, thinking to herself as she did so that it almost sounded like someone else rather than her.

He made a sudden downward motion of his hand. She was stronger than him, of course, but he hadn’t put his full strength into it in any case. He didn’t need to; it was sending her a message, and as Vordur understood now, a message from a superior was a duty to obey.

She dropped immediately and eagerly to her knees, eyes bright, smiling wider. Her hands rose to rest on his inner thighs, warm and inviting. Her eyes flickered up, long enough to catch a tiny nod from him.

That was enough. Her hand delved into his hose and found his hardening cock.

*

When Swynol entered his private chambers later that night, there were two women waiting for him.

Tarian stood by a full length mirror, still wearing the green gown embroidered with cloth-of-gold she had worn that day, her hair elegantly sculpted into a tower.

Standing almost silhouetted at the balcony was another woman whose long raven hair was given shape by a soft white silk-and-lace headpiece across her forehead. She wore a short black dress with a plunging neckline and white trim and ornamentation and a spotless white cotton apron from a cloth belt perched jauntily atop her hips. Clipped to her belt over her left hip, in what seemed almost a parody of a scabbard, was a long feather duster, the handle to which gleamed silver.

Between the white trim of the skirting just above her mid-thigh and her ankles, her legs were bare, but her feet were encased in black-and-white polished leather shoes with tall heels rising up from them. The tone of her thighs was made clearer by these strange ‘high heels’ and showed her to have been, if no warrior, an athlete; her bare biceps told the same story before her arms disappeared into long white gloves.

Swynol took this in slowly but hungrily, staring at her with wide eyes.

“What is this, beloved?” he asked Tarian.

“A gift, my darling husband,” she answered, her tone sparkling with layers of nuanced amusement. “A dowry, to hear Consuriwr tell it.” She smiled. “Dewin and I have been conspiring in secret again, my love.”

He laughed, coming further into the room. Tarian took two paces and stood just behind his preferred chair. “Is it time for explanations?” he asked.

“Among other things. Does it please you to sit?”

Swynol chuckled again, but took a moment before seating himself. He’d already intended to do so, but waiting made it clear that he set the timetable. That, in reality, he was in charge.

The other woman, dressed as some unusual maid, sank to her knees and began to crawl toward him, as Tarian rested her hand affectionately on her shoulder. Swynol finally placed the woman approaching him.

“It’s the attacker,” he said wonderingly. “She looks completely different now… that figure… but I know that face.”

“Yes, and she thinks entirely differently too,” Tarian agreed. “This is Vordur. I did mention to her yesterday that we needed a servant of our own, and it seems she is now ready to fill that role.

Vordur placed her hands on his inner thighs. Her eyes flickered up to meet his, and Swynol, understanding that she would be as devoted as his wife even if he didn’t yet know why, nodded, just fractionally, just as he had for his wife the day before at lunch..

That was enough. Her hand delved into his hose and found his hardening cock, brought it out. She kissed the tip reverently, Tarian letting out a delighted, needy mewl as she did, then took him in her mouth.

As she did so, Tarian began to moan, her fingers tightening on his shoulder. Vordur’s head began to bob up and down, and Tarian responded with as much delight as if she performed the act herself.

Swynol was no wizard, but he prided himself he was no fool, either. “Consuriwr linked the two of you, somehow,” he said. “And you have taught her submission.”

“Just so, my lord husband,” Tarian breathed. Swynol took a handful of Vordur’s hair at the back of her neck, holding it lightly but firmly.

“And then you sent her to Teilwr.”

“No, my lord husband.” Tarian’s breathing was ragged still, the pleasure of Vordur’s eager worship throbbing through her. It did not stop her showing her amusement. “Consuriwr has a theory. What she wears is still the Vestments of the Avatar.”

He turned to look up at her, sharply, surprised. Tarian grinned down at him. “As we corrupted her, I am told, Consuriwr believes she corrupted the goddess. She is, after all, Warchodaeth’s presence on our plane.”

“These are not the Vestments.”

“I witnessed them change myself, my lord husband,” she answered evenly. “She was having… ah, an epiphany,” and she grinned, “and as she did, the bracers became gloves, the boots changed as you see, the tiara became a headpiece, the breastplate became this dress, and the sword…” She gestured at the feather duster.

“What does this mean for Warchodaeth?”

“Consuriwr and Dewin have a theory,” Tarian said. “Which they propose to test, just as soon as Dewin finishes attending to a different project.”

Swynol’s attention returned, inexorably, to the tongue at his crotch, growing more skilled but never failing in its eagerness to please.

He had much to mull over, but it would not be weighed up that day. He had other things to focus on.