Debtor's Promise

This is a longer work expanding the story Debtor's Kiss. It is more detailed and gruesome and heavy on the anal. I welcome feedback if you're inclined, further instalments are a work in progress.

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Did it titillate or disgust you, knowing how I easily opened my legs for the worst and the best of men?

I don't want to lose you now, so listen, selling this body wasn't all about money and sex. I was hungry for life, I needed mastery and pleasure, I ached for the freedom that men take for granted but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was born in the winter of 1510, in a single room timber framed hovel, one of many that leaned up against Vienna's city wall. The place was not a house at all by your standards.

My mother died on our earthen floor when I was very young, I barely remember her. My father never took another wife but my big sister Maragaret fed, cleaned and clothed us. I had eight older brothers; my twin sister Claudia and I were the youngest.

At no point in my life was I carefree or innocent. We lived in the kind of poverty that would make you wonder how the hell any of us survived. How do rats survive? They raid the storehouse. Claudia and I would sneak into the byre of any farm house and steal a cup of milk fresh from the cow in terrified silence. We'd be beaten or worse if we were caught, but we were too clever for that. Two of our brothers were torn to pieces by hounds for poaching rabbits in the Wald.

It makes me laugh when people say that love is all you need. We were hard people, it was a battle to survive.

Marriage seemed inevitable, but it horrified me. The tired little women, old long before their time, black eyed and down cast, never. That was not the life for me. We were lowly serfs, our father was somebody's property, but we children had freedom born of our father's indifference. When we came of age there was no marriage after all. Just like our brothers before us, we worthless girls were kicked out with only the clothes on our backs.

Claudia easily made a living as a whore. She was skinny but she had a pretty face and no matter how little we had to eat, her breasts were magnificent. I mean, it was easy to compare, especially at the brothel. The women all lay about with everything on display. When I asked Claudia if she could find me work with her new Madame, she laughed in my face.

I mean, she wasn't wrong, I was the scrawniest waif you ever saw, you wouldn't have called the fried eggs on my chest tits. My hair was a mess of ragged auburn that rarely saw a comb, my clothes a collection of beggers cast offs sewn together with a prayer. The smallest, the weakest, what were my chances? She suggested talking to the quartermaster at the barracks nearby. They were always hiring servants because no one ever lasted long.

To my father I'd been nothing but a mouth to feed and occasionally chastise, but to other men I was a curious creature. Free men and soldiers; they were nothing like my craven father. They drank, they fought, they pissed and shit as they pleased, and I couldn't get enough of them. I'd listen to them speak of things I had no business understanding, talk of the Sultan's ambitions in Styria, and the fall of Hungary. Talk of inevitable siege.

Strictly speaking, I had no right to be there but the quartermaster tolerated me. I'd fetch and carry, cleaning boots and relaying messages. A couple of them would clip me round the ear and say, 'get back to your kitchen', but not all. I discovered if you spent a quiet minute or two listening, nodding, a man might share his thoughts and his beer, maybe even give you a penny. Within a week I'd managed to clothe myself decently, find myself a spot by the hearth where no one bothered me but one thing leads to another.

If you had seen me on my knees under the mercenary's table, you would have thought my path was set, a downward spiral to a pauper's grave. Some women lose a little bit of themselves every time they suck a cock. That first time, I didn't know what to expect. I thought it would be like taking hot milk straight from the udder of the neighbor's cow.

The skin of his prick was so much softer than his hands, soft but hard, thick with promise. I copied what I had seen whores do, let my lips and tongue fuss and tease him until it swelled to iron in my loose fist. I worked his shaft carefully and suckled, nursed on his salty meat gently as my eager hand slid back and forth. I felt his hand cover my own, press my fist closed a little tighter as he laughed under his breath. His shaft pushed deeper into my mouth and my hand worked harder to please him, his fingers tousled my hair as he sprayed my throat.

The bitterness surprised me. I swallowed all I could because that's what I thought he wanted. Then he was done with me. I thought I might as well have been a rag in his hand as he got up and wandered off. The world kept turning, the fiddler played on, and nothing, absolutely nothing had changed, except now I felt a warmth in my chest, the first stirrings of my own lust.

I was surprised he came back. He brought me my own mug of thick ale and when I hesitated to take it, he frowned. "Need meat on your bones girl. Drink up."

"I will." I took the mug and pressed it against my chest instead. "Why so sour?" I asked, watching his frown deepen as I disobeyed him. I smiled. "What's your name again?" I knew perfectly well what his name was.

He dropped back into the seat with a sheepish little smile. "Drink the fucking beer."

I did. I met Enzo's bullish gaze the whole time, gulped and gulped and smacked the mug down on the table with a satisfying bang.

He shook his head. "You're not fooling anyone, tough girl." He took a slow deliberate sip of his own drink.

I took in the clean shaven lines of his jaw, the flint in his eyes. He was a man of discipline, a shrewd man. "I need honest work."

"Bold little thing you are. Who'd have you?"

I shrugged and toyed with the empty mug.

"Can you fight?" he asked.

I looked carefully at his face, trying to decide if he was mocking me, trying to measure how dangerous he was.

His voice deepened as he spoke again. "Let's not get off on the wrong foot, little sparrow. When I ask you a question, you answer, 'Yes, master Enzo', or 'No, master Enzo', any more cheek and I'll tan your hide."

I felt a little flutter in the centre of my chest as I met his dark eyes. "I... yes, master Enzo. But no. I can't really fight. Not like you."

"What can you do apart from polish my tackle?"

"Cook and clean? I'm good with a needle. I remember names and faces, I can walk all day if needs be. Polishing your tackle is no burden at all."

"Scout?"

I frowned then. "The Wald's been my playground, but I've never gone too far from home. I could learn..."

"Let me be the judge. You have family?"

I flushed with shame, but lifted my chin regardless. "I'm the barrow man's youngest daughter."

"Claudia's little sister?"

Obviously Claudia and I were the same age but I wasn't fool enough to correct him

"Yeah. I mean, yes, master Enzo."

He cut my matted hair and put me in boy's clothes. I warmed his bed or his bivouac, but for weeks he seemed content without making full use of me. I followed him everywhere he went. I grew to read him and his moods, anticipate his needs. He taught me more about life and about myself in that time than I can say.

Enzo and his hundred men called themselves black crusaders. They were a mix of French and Italian deserters, a thoroughly cynical lot. Tired of christians fighting christians they came to Vienna to fight the Sultan. The veterans told tales of battles fought in Serbia years ago, whether any of them were really there is anyone's guess. Bloodbaths and sieges, massacres and betrayal. The peace that followed could never last. After the vassalage of Hungary, Austria was the jewel that Suleiman the magnificent wanted for his empire.

Vienna's newly appointed Hoffmeister, the well respected general Salmo, commanded thousands of men in the defence of the city. Both the court of Spain and the knights of the landsknecht saw the Sultan's push for supremacy as a direct threat to their existence. That summer, they sent relief forces to Vienna. Enzo's black crusaders would have been unwelcome among those troops. Instead, the mercenaries were employed as scouts to trail the Sultan's forces. We travelled miles from the world I had known. Our work was precise, inconspicuous for the most part.

It must have been one evening in early August. We were in Royal Hungary, tracking from one village to another with wild land in between. The hundred men had split into three smaller groups to cover more ground, but master Enzo was tight lipped about why, and the men had grown unseasy.

Rising above the trees about a mile to our west was a thin line of smoke that billowed out to a flat pall in the still air. Shrill sounds carried across the forest.

We moved off the main road onto little more than a muddy track following the sound of violence. We were drawn to a shallow valley as twilight fell, right across the river from a little hamlet.

The buildings were all alight by the time we found a place to cross the water. A ragtag huddle of Turkish wagons was pitched on the green, and a dozen men in various muddled armour were making sport of a woman between them. Her clothes were in tatters, her fair hair was wild and filthy. Their laughter at her pitiful cries and the glow of their arson made a vision of hell.

If it raised bile in my throat, it raised a murderous passion in Enzo and his men. They outnumbered the vile bandits two to one, it was no fight at all but a vengeful massacre, I didn't watch.

Hanging in the eaves of the burning fodder house was the most gruesome sight I'd ever seen. Without considering how foolish it was I climbed up the wooden frame and shimmied along the edge of the roof until I could reach the ropes. I sawed through the tough cords with my little knife as the flames grew more intense. I started choking on the black smoke and after I'd cut two of them down, the heat forced me to jump clear. Two boys, maybe a year or two younger than I, dead already, their faces purple, tongues black and lolling. I dragged them away from the building, but a larger man's body still hung swaying in the updraft. His clothes caught light and I watched him burn.

It happens at times that my mind refuses to accept the horror of this world. It's not indifference, far from it. But I can't cry. I feel as though I'm the pilot of some strange vessel cutting through storm and swell unmoved. Unmoved. Not uncaring. Not at all. Perhaps it happened when my mother died, perhaps when I found my dead brothers in the Wald. Perhaps I was always this way.

"Sparrow!" Enzo's voice cut through my mind's quiet and the sounds of the flames and the wailing woman returned. "Get here! Leave the dead to the dead."

I scampered over to him and as he ordered, I took the goodwife aside, wiped the filth from her skin and covered her decently with the only dress I had.

"Use the fire," he commanded his men, "make a perimeter. We'll not be alone for long. Torch their wagons. Fuck the spoils, gold won't burn, just do it!"

I'd never seen him so afraid.

The poor woman was murmuring all the time now, I felt I should know the word but it eluded me.

"...szellem......ehes szellem..."

We spent a few hours huddled together inside a ring of fire. Then shock got the better of the poor widow and she fell asleep in my arms.

"Enzo. Master. Please..." I whispered.

He glanced at me and forced a reassuring smile. "Keep your knife in your hand girl, and get some rest."

I slept. With flames and hanged men dancing in my dreams. Enzo never did explain why he burned the Turkish wagons. By the light of dawn we found three heavy travelling chests in the ashes, each containing only a blackened skeleton. Enzo sealed them, and ordered that they be carried back to Vienna.

We buried the Halasz family, two boys and the charred remains of their father. Klaus, our mendicant brother, said a few words. The woman was calm by then, I recognised the numbness in her. Enzo encouraged me to bed down with her, learn to be less sparrow and more woman I suppose.

Language was an issue until Enzo assigned a bilingual recruit to help us. The young man was grateful to be spared latrine digging duty, and very respectful of the woman's modesty.

The first and most awkward knot we untangled was her name, or more accurately, what to call her. Halasz Janine was her name as a wife and mother. She had fully expected the bandits to keep their promise and crush her head with a stone after her brutal ordeal. She was a dead woman, that's what she told me, a dead woman waiting for somewhere to lie down. She didn't want me to use her name, nor even a respectful title like goodwife or mother.

"She said she's a good for nothing whore, a worthless..." Tamas rolled his eyes, "not a good word."

"Enough." I wrinkled my nose in disgust but Tamas just shrugged.

"Figures," he said. "Just call her Neni. Means auntie."

"Neni." I said firmly. "My sister's a whore. Beats being fucking dead."

Tamas raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Just translate please." I snapped.

When he did, she looked at me just as I expected and I took it on the chin. At least she didn't slap me.

When the men made short camp overnight they never normally pitched tents but Enzo insisted that Neni needed one. She and I bedded down together, young Tamas camped outside nearby.

Touch can build trust, calm nerves, and heal souls. I held her. At times her sleep was restless and I held her tighter. Night prayers I hadn't said in ages rolled off my tongue, and those were words we could say together, the lord's prayer. It was strange, but somehow we gave comfort to each other.

At daybreak I made her wash her face. I walked with her out to the latrine, waited with her, and walked her back. I felt she was one false move away from running into the forest like a deer, but these were somewhat honorable men, they had never troubled me.

"Safe," I said. She looked at me. "Safe? Neni... It's okay. Safe with Elizabeth." I rested my hand on her arm.

"Elizabeth." She dragged my name out, soft syllables foreign to her. She shook her head but she smiled for the first time.

After a quick breakfast we carried on through what had become a very wet morning, and continued into a wet and miserable few days. Neni bled. It was far more than rags could contain. Tamas discretely begged the men for an old sheepskin which we quartered into pads to make her more comfortable. I never bled much, being so underweight, but I knew this was not just a period. The walking was making it worse, so the men made her a stretcher to lie on. Tamas and I carried her between us.

That night, we made her some precious yarrow root tea and Enzo brought her jerky and garlic sausage. Brother Klaus spoke with her at length and his prayers comforted her. The weather was so bad, even Neni insisted Tamas come inside the tent to sleep. He kept well away from us and turned his back.

I combed out her damp hair, worked the blonde tresses into two braids that took years off her. I smoothed comfrey balm onto her mottled green bruises. Her throat, her wrists, her high cheekbones. She adjusted her bodice so I could do the same to her ribs and breasts.

"Where are you from?" I asked. "Before you married?"

She looked at me blankly. I gave Tamas's foot a kick and he grumbled, but asked her my questions.

"She doesn't want to talk about it," he mumbled.

"It's alright. I was wondering if maybe she has any cousins or something."

Tamas dragged himself up into a sitting position, his hair all tousled, fluff on his chin in patchy shadows. He didn't seem at all threatening to me, but I felt Neni tense as she averted her eyes. He asked her the question in his most patient, most gentle way as though he were speaking to a small child.

She didn't answer.

"I don't know what you're expecting of her," he shrugged, "it's too soon. Trust master Enzo, he'll see her right."

"You've seen this before."

"Yeah, they often try to top themselves. Decency's a fucking prison right? For you girls? She can't see past it yet, but give her time."

I offered him the lukewarm coffee pot and he took a cup. Neni lay down gingerly, turned her back on us despite her bruised ribs.

"Sparrows don't sleep?" He rolled his eyes as he said it.

"We do." I nursed my own half cup as the rain hammered on the canvas. I could hear the rumble of thunder, and the heavier tone of the big tarpaulin drumming away outside. At least the men had some shelter. "And we dream."

"You're really kind, you know? Not that it's any of my business."

I gave him a look. Kind? "Do you always try to save them?"

"Depends. We're scouts here, so... You can't see us doing the terrorising, can you?"

"Depends who's paying you?"

He shrugged. "Whole world is in chaos right now. Plenty of work for everyone, we can be choosy."

"We can be kind." I drained the last bitter dregs and set the cup aside.

"He fucked you yet?" he asked.

I felt no shame at his question, but it surprised me. "He feeds me all kinds of sausages, says I'm too skinny."

Tamas smirked and flushed pink himself. "Damn."

"You'll all hear it if he fucks me. He's huge and I'm a... virgin? Maybe? My mouth doesn't count does it?" I rested a finger on my chin and smiled at him.

"God damn!" he choked on his coffee and set it down, wiping his wet chin on his sleeve.

I thought about letting his question slide, but it wasn't in my nature. "Why ask?"

"Jesus Christ." He pulled out a flask and took a swig. When he offered me some, I took it. The spirit was some kind of strong brandy and it warmed me right up. The rain showed no sign of stopping, and Neni was fast asleep. Still he kept his voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, don't spread it around please, but he and I had a little thing together."

"Don't," I said gently, "it's not safe..."

"What the fuck? You don't care?" He laughed and took another hit of brandy. "You don't care if he's been up my arse?" He gestured with his finger as he said it.

"I care. Why'd you tell me?" I took the flask again without invitation and sipped more cautiously this time. "You want to hurt me or him?"

He stared at me. "Stupid fucking question."

It was. He was hurting himself. "You love him," I said.

"Whatever. You can't give him what he needs."

"I'm just a charity case. Does he still look at you, can you feel it?"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"Too late. Maybe you should go to him. Tell him I sent you." It did hurt. It really hurt. I thought about the times I'd sucked him off, all the times we fell asleep together and wondered who he'd been imagining in my place.

Tamas flushed with embarrassment, "I'm sorry. I can't..."

"No, you're right. Because I already knew it, didn't I? Why else dress me like a boy and never use my name? And he still doesn't want me. Nice shot. Goodnight Tamas."

"No, no, no!" he hissed, "you've turned it all on its fucking head. He never looked at me the way he looks at you."

Neni stirred and we sat in dead silence until her breathing returned to normal.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, and my injured pride. "Was he your first?"

Tamas nodded. "Last summer."

"Difference is, when he tires of me I have nothing. You see that, right?" I said.

"You're a servant, not a slave, if he lets you go he'll pay you."

I smiled bitterly. "Maybe in bird seed."

I snuffed out the little lamp and snuggled up to Neni's back.

I had no right to be jealous of Tamas. Six weeks ago I'd been homeless, penniless, now I had coin, a full belly, and somewhere I belonged. Enzo must have had his reasons for taking me in. Still, I was the one who dreamed of his weight pressed on top of me, I was the fool who wanted to be fucked. I breathed in the scent of Neni's hair and felt my nipples harden against my linens. What did Enzo want? What did he need?