Page 50 of The Noldrin Witch

“She’s perfect,” Kurt mustered. “But…”

“But she’s not from Falaine,” Sebastian quipped.

They both shared a laugh before joining the rest of the men gathered in the open fields. The affair with Elise was already beginning to feel more bearable when Sebastian warned, “Careful with witches. Trust them with magic, but be wary with matters of the heart.”

“You say it because of the Duke of Wilher?” Kurt said darkly.

Sebastian paused, and his eyes wandered for a moment. “Of course.” A nervous cough caught his throat.

Kurt nodded, thinking nothing more of his friend’s odd reply.

After discussing more serious matters and the king informing Kurt of all the principal happenings along the kingdom’s border, Sebastian alerted him to an upcoming trip to Noldrin and a battle set to take place there.

“Use your time here wisely,” Sebastian said. “There’s a whole court of ladies waiting for you to take interest in marriage.”

“Some of them would surely be interested in becoming queens,” Kurt shot back with a smile.

Sebastian let out a dry laugh. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Kurt shook his head and rejoined the men under his training. The memory of Elise and the ruffian was still creeping into his thoughts. His imagination running through every explanation of why Elise was acquainted with such a man. For a moment, he considered that Elise might need protection, but he stopped himself, realizing he was only looking for another excuse to see her again.

*****

Morgaine made her way to Metz through the forest and then by way of her secret passage. It was time she paid her clientele a visit. With Elise’s affairs and her miraculous bond to Danu, she had neglected her trips to the city, and her purse was already showing the difference.

The hearty meals Elise prepared could make anyone gain a few stone in a matter of weeks. In addition to visiting her regular clients, Morgaine had also come to take a much-needed stroll. Her Elixir of Fine Form could only do so much. Just that morning, she had barely managed to button her skirt. The bodice had been an entirely different matter, though for that she was grateful the strings loosened enough to accommodate a woman twice her size.

She moved through the hidden alleys of Metz like a shadow. Her first stop was Butcher’s Alley, where one could find a fine cut of meat in more than one place.

Morgaine, a soul always devoted to the pleasures of the body, had discovered the many ways of reaching a woman’s pinnacle even before being deflowered at the tender age of eighteen. She had been a late bloomer, but ah, how thoroughly she had bloomed since then. A dedication so outstanding that only a city the size of Metz could provide enough men for such a tenacious force of nature. Even the king hadn’t escaped her appetites.

But Morgaine was a woman of strong will. Business before indulgence, as she always said. Today she was set on restocking her more committed patrons. She would pay a visit to Henrik at the apothecary and Hansel the butcher, but that would be later.

With all the resolve Morgaine could gather, she passed the many butcher shops until she entered the one most likely to reward her favors with coin. It was the last butcher shop on the alley, and she already knew who would be waiting for her with a penumbral expression. Her dearest and most afflicted client, Ginger.

The woman had entered into wedlock with the original owner of the butcher shop, a handsome fellow, though a touch too spindly for Morgaine’s own taste. She preferred a bit more flesh on the bone, something sturdier to hold onto during more vigorous…circumstances.

The happy couple had lived in perfect peace until a wicked snore took possession of the butcher each night. Ginger lived in terror, suspecting he was summoning demons with the rumbling sounds his throat produced. According to her client, the acoustic violence nearly rattled the walls of their bedchamber. Those restless nights had eventually driven Ginger to seek Morgaine’s aid.

Morgaine had many times offered a more permanent solution, one that would put an end to both the malicious snoring and the breathing altogether, but Ginger was happy with her man and had no wish to enter widowhood so early in life.

Single as she had been her whole life, Morgaine understood her client completely. She was sympathetic, and having once come dangerously close to being trapped in wedlock herself, she admired the discipline of women who had chosen to commit such a crime against the natural freedom of life.

The proposition had come from the king, no less, and while becoming a queen was not entirely repulsive, Morgaine had never directed her life down the path of riches, but toward whatever made her heart swell with bliss.

Morgaine was fond of fine men, and while working at the castle around ten years ago, she had soon developed an almost insatiable attraction to the king. It was an embarrassingly courtly fantasy, but Morgaine was a woman before a witch, and being in her second phase of womanhood, she still hoped to reach her third. She doubted the role of queen was the one meant for her. Maiden, Witch, Queen. No, there had to be something better to spend her next centuries on.

“Morgaine!”

A sudden cry pulled Morgaine from her memories. She crossed the threshold of the shop to find Ginger looking as though she hadn’t slept in weeks.

It was exactly as Morgaine had suspected. Her clients needed her, and she was there to spread remedies and goodness left and right.

“Darling,” she said. “What has happened to you?”

The woman not only looked distressed; her hands were possessed by a wicked trembling while trying to cut through bone instead of meat.

“How long have you been without the potion?”