There was a hammering on the door of Tarlock’s shop. It wasn’t prolonged; it was a short, loud burst, and the shopkeeper’s expert ear was sure it had been made with the pommel of a shortsword.

Which meant someone was standing outside his shop with a drawn shortsword. There was a short list, at best, of people he wanted in that situation, and a mid-length list, roughly, of people who’d be likely to do it who he didn’t want.

Not for the first time, he thought about hiring a bodyguard. Of course, (he told himself, making his way over to the door and rehearsing an excuse mentally in case he needed it) most of the people who he didn’t want there were people that would take an out of the ordinary bodyguard to help with, especially-

“Deirdre,” he said, both surprised and a little relieved, but certainly he recognised the tall, muscular woman who stood at his door, shortsword in one hand, foul expression on her face, and a bulging satchel obscuring some of the form-fitting black leather armour she’d become famous for. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She reversed and sheathed the shortsword in one fluid, obviously-practised motion, and stepped into the shop past him.

“Why else am I ever here, Tarlock?” she asked. “I have treasures to sell.”

He hesitated, glancing out into the street beyond, but shut the door behind her and followed her back into the main room of his shop.

He didn’t often have customers. Less often did anyone come with supplies. And yet Tarlock did very well for himself, because most of what he sold was sold when wizards came out to Hynafol looking for something strange, and the court wizards always had coin to burn and little understanding of its value.

Deirdre Blackheart and adventurers like her knew Tarlock had a reputation, and they knew the best prices they’d find unless they caught a wizard in town were paid by Tarlock. And so he had visitors, not uncommonly, who put true fear into him, any one of them a match for a regiment of guards - if Hynafol’s regiments were ever to be in town at one time; the thing that made their surroundings so popular with adventurers also meant the guard were put to it to protect the farms outside.

Hynafol wasn’t just a frontier, a town right at the edge of what the King’s men could protect, it had once been a capital in its own right - but so long ago that nobody living still remembered, not even the foul sorcerors who extended their life with unholy magics.

It had been called Lon Llyrith then, and had been protected by mighty wizards and great warriors. Tybella, Geoffroi, and others had long since passed into legend, and since that time, Lon Llyrith had discovered that while your staunch defenders can be lucky most of the time, if your enemies wield powerful enough magic they only need to succeed once.

Scholars of the time had written of the fall of Lon Llyrith, lamenting it as the end of the world; but the world lived, and recovered, and while monsters dwelt now in the shadows of the cities that had then brought most light, there were secrets and wonders to be found - and people like Deirdre would find them.

She had set the heavy satchel on the table already and was in the process of unbuckling the strap across her chest that secured the big broadsword to her back, leaving the shortsword in its place at her hip. She’d long ago concluded the broadsword wasn’t necessary against Tarlock.

Her short, braided red hair shone in the light of his lamps. “Well, Deirdre,” he said, “what do you have for me today?”

“Treasures from a temple,” she answered as she set her broadsword leaning in a corner of the room. “No god I recognise.” Which meant, Tarlock knew, no god in open worship today, and also ruled out most of the gods and goddesses of the time of Lon Llyrith, if they had truly been different deities.

Which meant cult shit. Dangerous, but highly sought after. He smiled to himself, and made his way across to the table, keeping his eyes downcast. Deirdre had a figure to admire, but it was only safe to enjoy it in stolen glances when her attention was elsewhere. “Much difficulty getting it?”

“None in the temple itself. No last enchanted guardians. No traps. But it’s in the collapsed valley to the west, in a bubble of air that I had to dive in the lake to reach.”

The idea of diving in heavy leather plate with a broadsword strapped across the shoulders was bad enough, let alone swimming back out burdened with a heavy satchel. But…

“Aren’t there creatures in that lake?”

“The eel-men.” Her attention wasn’t on him at all but she nodded, flipping open the satchel. So she’d fought those monstrous things in their own terrain, slowed down in the water.

Tarlock wasn’t sure but her armour might be a bit more scarred than before; the visible skin on her thighs and calves below the leather skirt and above her tall, hardened boots wasn’t, though, nor was the short strip of bare arm around her elbow.

The woman was surely one of the greatest fighters of the age; if she’d been willing to swear fealty to a king, he mused, borders would have moved on the map. Instead, her desire for independence kept her in frontierlands, where law existed mostly as an ideal or an agreement, and where she lived a life bringing down threats to civilisation while barely taking part in it herself.

The first thing she lifted out was a book, wrapped tightly in treated leather. She unwrapped it carefully and Tarlock was relieved to see that the treated leather had kept the water almost entirely out; there was a little damage, no more than that. The book’s cover was embossed with multiple metal decorations, and a single emerald was set in the centre of the front.

“Holy book,” she said shortly. Tarlock, reminded that she could not read, first tapped the ring he wore on his little finger against it, then consulted the stone in the ring; one of the very few magical items he had not sold on, its ring had not clouded, and he knew therefore that the book did not contain magic. Written down, magic took on a sentience of its own and tried to enter other minds; the ring seemed to have a mind, and would be invaded.

He opened the cover gingerly and read the title, written in one of the languages of Lon Llyrith. No scholar himself, he nonetheless recognised some words; in this case, he saw the title included Conquest.

“A war-god, perhaps,” he mused. “Or a nation-god…”

“One hundred golden crowns,” Deirdre said. Tarlock winced.

“I’ll perhaps be able to sell it for ten more, but it could take months before I do. The orange robes were here last, they won’t be back before winter at the earliest. Let’s say eighty crowns.”

“Let’s say ninety-five, and I don’t rip out the final pages and sell them separately.”

Tarlock sighed and nodded. He opened his moneybox, took out a pouch, removed five crowns from it and set it on the table beside the book. “We have a deal.”

*

Deirdre felt a shiver run up and down her spine. A confused expression crossed her face for a moment but she dismissed it just as quickly as she could; there was no showing weakness in bargaining, just as there was no showing weakness on the battlefield. In point of fact, the two things were very similar in her opinion.

The next thing she extracted was a long black-bladed knife entirely carved out of a solid block of crystal. It represented excruciating care and finesse on the part of the crafter, but that wasn’t Deirdre’s focus. She just knew wizards would go crazy for anything that had been used for regular sacrifices.

She liked to begin with the big-ticket items so she could get the best price for them from Tarlock, before glances into his moneybox showed he’d reached the point where he might refuse or defer purchase. Easier to make her best money that way.

“Let’s not piss around here,” she said. “I’m looking at seventy-five crowns, minimum.” She knew he’d try to undercut her; it was part of the ritual of selling. But they both knew - she’d worked hard to make sure he knew - that she meant what she said. He’d come up to meet her eventually; he had too much to make on something like the knife not to.

Tarlock sucked air in over his teeth. “Again, it’ll be a while before I can sell it,” he said. “I’m expecting a white robe next, and they’re the only ones we can be sure won’t want to buy. I can perhaps offer you sixty.”

She opened her mouth to refuse him and felt the shiver again, this time feeling a brief moment of coldness right in the middle of her forehead too; it faded almost immediately, but she could already hear herself saying “You make a good point. Sixty crowns it is.” She stood frozen, stunned at her own self-betrayal.

Tarlock counted out another sixty coins and set them by the coinpurse. Deirdre took a deep breath and plucked out a small statuette, made of brass with silver and emeralds inlaid, a representation, perhaps, of the temple’s god. Her eyes met the empty brass shallows of the god’s face in statue form and she felt that same chill in her forehead, brushing into her mind, except that it felt this time like a pleasing coolness. “I’m right, aren’t I?” she asked. “We don’t know this god.”

“Well, I don’t,” Tarlock conceded. “The scholars, I’m less sure.”

“I want seventy-five for this one.”

Tarlock looked at her, and she couldn’t read in his eyes what he was thinking. “It’s not worth more than fifty,” he said. “And I need to profit. So I’ll say thirty.”

Deirdre found herself nodding shyly, that same strange feeling up and down her spine. “Thirty it is,” she agreed.

*

As far as Tarlock was concerned, that was confirmation. Something strange was going on; Deirdre Blackheart just didn’t operate that way. And there had been a moment, too, where he would have sworn he saw something strange in her eyes, a sudden brief glittering that was no reflection from the lamp nor a tear.

He wished he knew even a little more of magic, to understand it better. What was happening here?

It wasn’t good enough just to know he could push the envelope. He was going to have to test how far it could be pushed.

When she brought out a pair of jewel-encrusted candlesticks, he made the choice to push it. Giving them a cursory glance, he sniffed dismissively. “Probably just coloured glass,” he said, in spite of the evidence of everything else she’d produced so far. “I’ll give you five crowns.”

He waited for this to be too much, for her to explode, for anything that would show he’d crossed a line. “Alright,” she said meekly.

Tarlock looked at her and smiled softly. He knew plenty now.

…It was probably wrong to want to use this to play with the Blackheart. To toy with her. At the same time, it seemed like a lot of fun, and personally profitable besides.

He almost didn’t pay attention to the deals he struck on the rest of what she’d brought in, just making sure to underpay significantly each time. His eyes were on her face for each one, looking for that same stranger shimmer he’d seen before.

Was he seeing it, or imagining it?

“Well,” he said, when the sales were done, “the usual?”

Deirdre licked dry lips and nodded. “I… A drink would be good.”

Tarlock turned and made his way into the back room, and the warrior woman followed.

*

“I wondered if you might have a little more time to visit today,” Tarlock said over his shoulder as he drew out the wine bottle from his store.

Deirdre felt that strange shiver again and nodded. “I… yes, a little more.” It was strange not to be controlling the conversation with Tarlock, or perhaps it was simply strange how normal it felt. The wine he offered her usually felt like a way of buying off the fear of violence. Now it seemed a concession toward her from someone with all the power.

Or perhaps all the change was in her head.

“Good.” He smiled over his shoulder at her, and she felt her lips answering with a nervous, insipid smile of her own. This didn’t seem to sit right on her face, but the tingling in her spine was more frequent now and it had begun to feel completely normal.

He settled at the big round table, large enough, she thought, that a family could fit there though she knew the shopkeep hadn’t any companionship he didn’t pay for, and that only when temptation and need got the better of him. The two goblets he set one in front of him and one to one side, a chair or two along, so that she would be sitting side on to him.

She sat, and wondered why it was that this ridiculous little man was defining her decisions for her. She took her goblet and raised it to dry lips.

Tarlock, meanwhile, took a pouch from a stool beside the table and produced a deck of cards. Deirdre tilted her head; gambling had never seemed to be Tarlock’s thing, from what she’d seen, or perhaps that was just because she wasn’t someone he wanted to gamble with.

Except she was now, clearly.

It was strange that she felt honoured by that.

He cut the deck and shuffled the cards. “I thought perhaps we should try something new,” he said. “We’ll double or nothing what you’ve earned for your finds. I win the hand, I take my money back. But you win the hand and I take the losses, you’re paid double.” He left it a moment, just long enough that Deirdre could feel a chill in her spine beginning, then said “You’re interested. Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. Tarlock nodded and began to deal.

She drew a five of acorns and a seven of staves, which didn’t give her much to work with, and bid for a third card; the fourteen of chalices came up, and Deirdre decided to bluff it out. Tarlock had a pair - just a low pair, threes of staves and flames - and she handed back the money she’d made from him, not as reluctantly as she probably should have done, before she fell quiet and nervous.

“Well,” Tarlock said quietly, “I feel I should offer you another chance to win your earnings back.” She was about to tell him he didn’t need to do any such thing but he continued on smoothly, “Double or nothing again? I’m sure you’ve got money or valuables about your person.”

She did. Deirdre felt slow, sluggish, but the shiver ran up and down her spine and everything felt better just moments later. “Yes,” she said again. “I’ll play.”

He refilled the goblets with his wine. “You’d be surprised how strong this is,” he told her. “I’ll wager even you could get drunk on it.”

She took a drink in response. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Tarlock offered her the cards this time. With skilled, dextrous hands she shuffled, cut, and dealt, and was delighted to find she’d dealt herself two Old Men, flames and chalices. An unbeatable hand.

Tarlock bid himself another card and offered a hand that was twelve-high against her pair. Deidre turned over her cards with a delight that was an echo of the woman who had hammered on Tarlock’s door with the butt of his sword.

The shopkeep tutted sympathetically. “Oh, that’s bad luck for you,” he said.

“What? But I - I have the Old Men of fire and wine!”

Tarlock smiled, a wry twinkle in his eye. “Yes, and I’ve the twelve of staves. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“It means I win…” But she couldn’t say it with conviction, and she could feel the coldness in her forehead already.

He shook his head. “Twelve of staves beats the Old Men. You know that, don’t you?”

Deirdre found herself feeling very small and slightly embarrassed, her cheeks burning. “I… yes, of course.” She hoped he wouldn’t see through her bluff.

He waited for her to place her moneypouches on the table beside the cards. She thought about holding out on him, but it wouldn’t be right. Wouldn’t be honourable. She couldn’t do that to someone she respected the way she respected Tarlock.

She reached into the cleavage of her black leather armour and produced a glittering ruby the length of her thumb, beautifully cut, and set it beside the others with a sense not unlike heartbreak.

Tarlock smiled. “Well, I can’t have you leave empty-handed,” he said. “I’ll stake you enough money for something good.”

“Against?”

“Against your boots.”

She hadn’t seen that coming, but she nodded quickly, and the coolness in her head felt wonderful and refreshing now.

He took the cards back and dealt, and Deirdre found herself with a Widow of Flame and a thirteen of acorns. She bid herself a third card, then a fourth, and felt more comfortable, having acquired a pair of sevens to go with them, but Tarlock also had a pair of sevens, and this without any other cards, so he won.

She quietly unlaced her boots, head bowed, as he watched, and drew them off and set them by the pile of winnings on the table. Her bare feet felt the coldness of the stone flags.

“There,” Tarlock said. “Barefoot in the kitchen.” He said it as if it meant something, and it took Deirdre Blackheart several heartbeats to remember that she’d once boasted that no man would ever get her barefoot in his kitchen.

She bit her lip, stifling the excited moan that wanted to bubble out of her once she’d put these two things together.

“I have a proposal for you,” he said quietly. She sat silent, quivering, waiting to find out.

“Since you’re still looking for the tables to turn in your direction, I want to wager against the famous black armour of Deirdre Blackheart.”

She was about to agree when he continued. “And I want the pleasure of removing it from you myself.”

Deirdre took a drink from the goblet and swallowed. She didn’t suffer men to touch her. This should be an easy refusal.

Intellectually, she knew that. But somehow, the words weren’t coming. They felt like a physical thing, a weight in her throat that stuck. It was as if she was choking on them.

Tarlock refilled her goblet and she drank without thinking about it. He’d been right, she noted distantly. This wine had a kick; she could feel herself getting drunk quickly, though she wasn’t at all sure why.

Would it really hurt her so much, she asked herself, to give Tarlock his way on this?

She wasn’t even imagining she might win. It wasn’t that she expected to lose; it was simply that she was gambling now because Tarlock wanted to gamble, and she found that she wanted him to be happy.

"I accept,” she said quietly. It felt like she was crossing a line she could not see. It felt wrong, at odds with who she was, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“This feels like an important hand,” Tarlock said. He gathered the card together and passed them to her. “You should shuffle. That way you know it’s alright.”

She nodded dully, offering him a gentle smile, and accepted the cards like a surrender.

That was it. Accepting the wager had felt like a surrender. Something Deirdre Blackheart had never offered nor taken. Yet here she was, losing, at a card table that didn’t even feel like a battlefield, and she had already yielded.

She shuddered as she cut the cards, and was faintly disturbed to realise it had been a shudder of pleasure.

She dealt out the cards, and bid a third for herself. Two sevens and an Old Man; a strong hand, if not perfectly unbeatable. Her heart lifted out of the confusion she had been feeling and she smiled, then converted that to a frown as her slowly-turning brain caught up and yelled Bluff, you fool.

Such as it was, the bluff must have worked, she told herself, because Tarlock didn’t bid a third card, and when he turned his over, he had a Vicereine and a six, not even suited.

She let out a girlish laugh of delight, almost a squeal, bounding to her feet, and revealed her own. “I win!”

But Tarlock was looking at her with a supercilious smirk of amusement, and as she reached for the pile of wagers on the desk he simply said “Really?” and there was so much conviction in it that she faltered immediately, looking back at the cards to understand what she didn’t see.

“I-“

“That’s a losing hand,” Tarlock said, and this time his voice was gentle. As if he’d realised she didn’t see. As if he were teaching the game to some young naive fool.

She flushed as crimson as her hair, and nearly sat down - but she caught herself, and remained standing, so that Tarlock could collect his winnings.

He rose in his turn and smiled. “Well, now,” he said. “It’s good armour. And famous. You’ve taken something valuable and made it something without price.”

Deirdre was biting her lower lip, she realised. She didn’t understand why. His eyes had hers skewered, and everything seemed to be moving slowly.

The coolness that had slowly pressed into her head was filtering down her spine to her body now and it was a welcome sensation, a sign that everything was going right, something for her to welcome.

He reached out and ran his hand over the hardened black leather that covered her shoulder, and to the surrendered Deirdre, she felt so vulnerable and open that it was as if he touched her skin directly.

Tarlock took his time finding the buckles and the fastenings of her armour, and he found each one by touch rather than by looking, his fingers lingering over the hard exterior that long use had moulded to her own muscular body.

He lingered over the release of each clasp, his fingers exploring under the joins in the armour as they were revealed, parting the armour from her body. He was close to her, and silent, and intent, and his breathing was slower and louder than it had been.

Deirdre stood there, staring directly ahead, and she did not move, and she struggled to keep her feelings out of her face. She was excited, she was suddenly aroused, she felt so meek, and she didn’t know what to make of how she felt, so she wanted no trace of how she felt to be clear to anyone else.

Not even Tarlock. Not even the man she had finally surrendered to.

The back—and-breast eventually came free into two pieces after Tarlock had prized the pauldrons from her shoulders. Deirdre wore a loose cotton shift beneath to prevent the leather from damaging her skin; after nearly a month in the badlands, sleeping in her armour so she couldn’t be taken unprepared, the shift clung to her torso as the armour had, having been compressed into shape.

Tarlock worked his long, slender, shopkeeper’s fingers under the hem of her shift and lifted it from her body, and Deidre Blackheart, who would stare down or fight any man on the mere possibility he was trying to take advantage of her, did not open her mouth to protest because Tarlock might have counted the shift as part of her armour even though she did not.

She was revealed for him to see from the waist up, her breasts bare in the presence of a man for the first time, a thing she had sworn would never happen, and her short sword rested in its scabbard at her hip, and she did nothing about it except burn with embarrassment and sudden desire.

He hooked his fingers next under her swordbelt, lifting it up so he could find the fastenings that bound the armoured strips of her pteruges, the protective armour skirt, around her waist.

Deirdre felt her hips betray her; she rose up slightly on the balls of her feet, pushing her waist into his hand, making it easier for him to release the knot in his hand.

It wasn’t possible for him to remove her armoured skirt slowly, and Tarlock clearly seemed to have realised that. Instead he whipped his hand back away and Deirdre felt several of the toughened leather strips crack against her buttocks with the speed the skirt vanished from her. A quiet whimper escaped her bitten lips.

Tarlock grinned and let the swordbelt fall back into place on her bare hips, now the only thing she was wearing. He looked at her with a gleeful, confident smile, and she shivered again happily, all thoughts of the shame of surrender forgotten, all question of protecting her body from the gaze of men - well, of this man, at least - forgotten.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her quietly, and while it wasn’t a question she’d been ready for she found she had an answer waiting.

“I was thinking I can’t leave like this,” she said quietly. It was hard for her to read his expression; was he happy with that answer or disappointed?

…When had that question become important to her?

“Very true,” Tarlock said, and he smiled. “You’ve not had much luck with games of primus today, have you?”

She shook her head, and Tarlock chuckled. “Of course, some people might argue that it’s lucky you find yourself barefoot and naked in my kitchen.”

And suddenly Deirdre could see that argument, could understand why the case would be made, and tentatively, even wondering why she was doing it, she nodded agreement. What a privilege this was! How blind she had been not to realise it.

Tarlock’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I happen to be looking for a woman to keep. Someone who will learn to cook for me, who will warm my bed, who will offer me pleasure when I want it and solace when I need it. Someone who will put my needs ahead of their own, and who will bear my children to carry me legacy forwards.”

Deirdre nodded, honoured that he was trusting her with something so personal. People didn’t usually confess their personal thoughts to Deirdre Blackheart. They rarely even tried to talk to her about anything they thought she might not be willing to listen to.

It didn’t even occur to her that what he was saying might have any bearing on her own life until he continued. “What I propose is this. We cut the deck, the best card wins, double or nothing. You win, you earn back everything you’ve lost.

“But if I win, you fill the role of my kept woman. You put your body into it, and you put your heart into it. And the good news is, you’ll never have to leave.” He grinned. “You’ve got to agree,” he said, and Deirdre felt that wonderful shiver again.

“Yes,” she agreed immediately. Tarlock wasn’t wrong; it was the right offer, and she had to agree.

He shuffled the deck and offered it to her to cut. She had the four of acorns; Tarlock had the five.

She knew this was a loss, but she’d been wrong twice before, so she lifted her eyes to Tarlock and waited for him to confirm it. Rather than say anything, he put out his hand and cupped her buttock, then pulled her in close and took her in a kiss, as confident as if she was property he owned.

Deirdre Blackheart yielded further to her surrender, moaning into his mouth, melding her body against his, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him close.

The chill upon her did not fade, but instead became so total and so complete that she no longer noticed its effect. She and its effect were now indistinguishable, and she had never even noticed.

He lifted her bodily and settled her on the table, next to her abandoned armour, and he took her for the first time, listening with a cocky satisfaction as Deirdre Blackheart turned her back on everything she had been, embracing her life as a kept woman.

*

She had taken to going barefoot even when she left the shop, over the past several months. Her hair was no longer braided out of her way, conveniently for fighting, but worn loose and long, and while she still wore black skirts (always slit up the thigh, so her long muscular legs were on display as she walked) and black blouses (loose and cut low or as tight as she could tailor them) anyone who had not watched her gradual change in appearance would not recognise her at all.

Walking back from the butcher with meat freshly purchased for Tarlock’s dinner, she heard voices inside the front room, where Tarlock did his work as a shopkeep; she changed course and slipped into the back room, which was her kitchen domain. Passing in front of the open door, she was seen briefly by Tarlock’s customer, but aside from his eyes dwelling on her figure, it was clear he gave her no thought.

“I know that armour,” she heard him say. “That’s the armour of Deirdre Blackheart.”

“I have her greatsword hanging over my mantle,” Tarlock confirmed and bragged at once. “And her shortsword in its scabbard is on display in my own quarters.”

“Does your woman not mind?”

Tarlock just laughed. “Why would that matter?”

Deirdre tilted her head, listening with interest.

“If you have her equipment, what happened to her?” the wizard asked rather than answer.

“Her story is done,” Tarlock said simply. “It ends, I think, with an enchantment.”

“Ah.” The wizard nodded. “Lon Llyrith?”

“Indeed.”

“There are rumours always of curses afflicting those who go there,” the wizard said. “I have never entirely believed them, but you show this… Perhaps it’s true. But I would think somebody would have to do something to be cursed and enchanted in that way.”

There was silence for a time and when Tarlock spoke, it was with the tone of someone coming to understand a thing they had been forced to accept as a mystery. “If, for example, they were to rob a temple?”

“That would be very possible,” the wizard answered. “From what we’ve learned, the gods we left behind, we left behind because so often their vengeance was beyond anything we had expected.”

Tarlock was silent, as was Deirdre, but Deirdre Blackheart was not thinking through the ramifications of the wizard’s insight; she was tending to the fire, the first of her preparations to cook dinner. It was likely, she knew, that her rear and her long legs protruded into sight through the door to the main room, which Tarlock might take as an invitation; the wizard seeing was irrelevant.

“There may be traces of the curse in her armour,” the wizard said, “and I would like to study it. How much?”

And Deirdre Blackheart listened idly as the shopkeep who held her surrender sold off the armour that had protected her in her past life, and felt only contentment.