Chapter 91 A Chance Meeting
In a banquet hall.
Many people gathered to eat. Guards, nobles, pages, and maidservants mingled in a peculiar way. A young woman observed the large table laden with various dishes of food.
Alicia whispered to her: You do not have to pay anything. It is a community meal for the people of this area. By order of the queen.
Lupita turned around and looked at the young, beautiful woman her own age. She had been thinking about the food and who she had to pay.
Alicia: Hello, my name is Alicia. When I was young, I was not a servant in a noble house. I oce stood in a banquet hall, thinking that it was not possible for the food to be free.
Lupita smiled: Thank you. My name is Lupe. What do I need to do? I am sorry, castles are new to me.
The young maid guided her to the clean bowls and indicated that she could serve herself whatever food she wanted, taking as much as she liked. Lupita was surprised to see the guards stepping aside as Alicia passed by. They filled their bowls with deliscious looking food.
Lupita laughed a little: I think I have enough food for the whole day.
Alicia: Oh, yes, but you need one more thing. It is a sweet fried bread that a woman from the islands makes. She calls them buñuelos.
Once they were both seated, they ate while they talked.
Alicia: I noticed your confused expression and remembered my first day at the castle. And I saw that you are wearing a necklace similar to the ones my sister and I have.
Lupita took off her necklace: It was a gift from a castle guard. He is a man who has been visiting me for almost a year, on the same day of every month.
Alicia took off her necklace and looked at both of them and found the same mark made by the maker.
The maid: The same person made all three Pegasus figures.
Lupita: Ah. They were made near my neighborhood, by an old priest. When the guard gave me this one, he asked me if this necklace would be a good gift for a young woman he was in love with.
Alicia stopped eating: Do you know the name of this guard?
Lupita laughed softly: Juan. Seven out of ten men who visit me are named Juan.
Alicia, in a timid voice: What kind of work do you do, Lupe?
Lupita picked up her necklace, kissed the figure hanging from it, and put it around her neck: Honesty. I sell myself to men.
Alicia did the same with her necklace: Honesty. I am afraid this guard is the intended of my older sister, whom she will marry next month.
Lupita with wide eyes: Oh, Peace. I never intended to harm anyone with my actions. Men buy my body, and thanks to that, I can eat.
Alicia: Peace. I will not hurt you if you tell me the truth. But I need to know what kind of man my future brother of the law is.
Lupita looked her in the eyes sincerely: He started visiting me eleven months ago. When I was fifteen. He always paid me well. He never did anything violent to me. He asked me to teach him things about sex. I belive he knew little to nothing beforehand.
The mind of Alicia was reeling. Her heart and mind were in shock after the events of the past few days. Pedro, the most honorable man she knew, had visited a prostitute. She knew the guards did that, but she had never fully understood it. But after the revelations about the actions of the herald, she began to imagine Pedro doing the same thing with this young woman. Alicia looked at the small knife that lay beside her hand. The blade was sharp enough to cut through meat and tendons. The image of stabbing this woman was etched in her brain as if she had witnessed it.
Alicia spoke slowly: My mother died last night. But what she taught me does not have to die.
She looked away from the knife and met the eyes of Lupe: Kindness. I will treat you like family until you prove to me that you are an enemy. The guard, what things did he have on his vest, on the right side of his chest?
Lupita: Kindness, I will confide to you as if you were family. A tower with crossed swords at the top. In a large window there was a horn similar to that of a unicorn and two Pegasi wings, one on each side. It is just like the others nearby.
Alicia took a deep breath: What color was the thread?
Lupita: Yellow, like gold.
Alicia: And what about his face? Was he handsome?
Lupita looked at the ceiling and smiled: Yes, the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life.
Alicia: Shit. Do you like wine, cider, or ale?
Lupita: Wine, I do not want to drink cider anymore. Why?
Alicia: I am going to grab a bottle from the table and we will talk in a private room. I need some explanations.
Lupita: Is this allowed? There are guards near the bottles. And we are quite young. In my neighborhood, nobody cares about that, but this is a castle.
Alicia: We will put our bowls on that table over there, and you will walk past the table where the wine bottles are. I will follow a few steps behind you. No guard will be watching my hands.
Lupita smiled slightly. She had learned to walk in a way that made her breasts sway absurdly. She was so used to being stared at that she did not notice it anymore.
They got up and carried out the plan. Some women saw when Alicia took the bottle and hid it in her skirts. Only one man saw her.
Gunther smiled slightly. Like many pages, he had stolen a few bottles of drink, often for he and Frieder to share. He wondered to himself if the young women were like them. It was obvious to him that they were doing something in secret.
He watched them leave through a door.
Gunther thought: Be careful. Even the friendliest guards do not like people who are different like us.
He and two other young men learned how a guard could use that information against them. The captain in Blasser Hafen had forced them to do many things for him with threat of exposure. His mind could imagine that a guard could do the same to these girls without being punished, because it was considered normal for a man to want to lay with young women.