Trollheart

The man who sat on the couch, and over whom the titans stood, was, like them, black. But not just black. They were dark-skinned, certainly, and nobody could have denied they were black, but compared to their protectee, they were a kind of light brown. He was darker than the darkest ebony wood she had ever seen; so black, in fact, that were he to hide in a darkened room he would be completely invisible. Well, that is, if he closed his eyes and his mouth. The latter bore teeth so startlingly, brilliantly white that Lady Wetherwood fancied they must have been polished to a high shine, and wondered briefly, if this were the case, how he kept them so. When he smiled - which was not often - his teeth looked as if they could light up the darkest space. She also noted in passing that some of them seemed to have been filed down to points, which did nothing to detract from the feeling of unease you got when this man smiled upon you. He seemed the sort of man who would smile at things others would shudder at, be repulsed by.

But however white his teeth were, his eyes were whiter still, and initially she had taken them to be without pupil, but as she drew closer to him she realised that it was just very small and contracted - whether that was its normal state or not she could not tell - but it still gave his eyes an unsettling look of being nothing more than white strips of flesh cut into his face. Those eyes, she felt, could penetrate the soul and see into one’s thoughts. Perhaps this was one of the characteristics which made him such a feared man.

The three giants completely dwarfed him, but it was obvious who was in charge here, and as she came closer they turned scowling gazes upon her as one, their fierce, thick eyebrows knotting together and their eyes blazing disdain, contempt and warning. She stopped for a moment, but the smaller man barked an order in a language she did not understand, and they moved back - reluctantly it seemed - allowing her to approach the object of her rendezvous.

“Pent Zamakis, I presume?” She executed a perfect facsimile of a greeting she knew to be appropriate in his native country, which consisted basically of bowing stiffly from the waist, her eyes downcast, raising her hands, palm upwards, to demonstrate she carried no weapon.

“Girl Wetherwood,” he responded, the strain in his voice at having to actually converse with a woman evident. His expression was blank, emotionless, almost bored. “You may rise.” She did so, remarking archly

“It’s Lady actually. Lady Wetherwood.”

He smiled. She did not like it. “Of course, of course,” he grinned. “My apologies, Lady Wetherwood." There was heavy sarcasm in his pronunciation of the title. "I am afraid we have no such titles in my country, you see.” He seemed to bite down on every word, as if, again, the very act of lowering himself to converse with a female was a cause of great distress to him. It was, to her, as if he gazed upon some fantastic new beast he had never … no, that was not right. It was more as if he saw a beast he was very familiar with, but was forced, despite himself, to engage with it in a manner totally alien to him. She knew why this was so, and while she had use of the man, and would use him for her ends, she had no regard for him, and she intended to make that as plain as possible, without actually insulting him.

“I believe you have High Lords, Barons Supreme, Archdukes…?”

For a moment - a moment only - his face changed to a mask of pure fury, then it underwent several other transformations, essentially going through phases of emotion - she saw confusion, anger, disbelief, amusement and disgust - till finally settling, with some difficulty it seemed, back into its neutral aspect. He smiled, or tried to. The effect was not pleasant. She did however have to silently respect how quickly he regained his composure. At one point, he had looked like he might strike her, or order his guards to. Now, he was relaxed again, composed, if only on the outside, for she knew that inside he seethed with the rage he dared not show here.

“Ah. Yes. Of course.” She knew the root of his anger; he was positively fuming at her knowledge of his country. She! A mere woman! But he gave no outward sign and only went on to say “What I meant was, we have no such titles for women.”

“Of course.” She tried to keep the contempt she felt out of her voice. The last thing that would help her now would be - although she would have loved to have engaged in it - an argument on the rights of women where he came from. So she swallowed her pride, remembered her mission, and went on. “But in my country, we do tend to observe the social niceties. So, if you prefer you can call me Lady Wetherwood, or, if that is too much of a mouthful, Lady Beatrice will suffice as well.”

For a moment his eyes blazed with the same rage as had his bodyguards, but then he smiled and masked his fury. “Lady Beatrice, then, it shall be,” he decided. She nodded graciously. She took the time then to take note of how phenomenally small he was. She had never met a dwarf, but she fancied they could not be as short as he. He barely came up to her knee. Yet, as she well knew, size was not everything, and what he lacked in stature his huge dark guards more than compensated for. She wondered fleetingly if he were a dwarf - though she had never heard tell of any black ones - but decided it would be very impolite to ask. “I am a most busy man,” he went on, waving a hand negligently as if to indicate that she had only secured his time through his grace, and she had better not waste it. “I am still not clear on how you were aware I was in your country, yet the intelligence you bring - if genuine - could make perhaps forgive such impertinence.”

“Oh believe me, Mastra,” she said, using the formal term of address, and again causing the slightest flash of anger in his eyes, his lips twisting in the barest snarl, “I have done my research. Mastra Pent Zamakis, owner of Borderland Wood, one the the three largest logging concerns in Nabicon, heir to the fortune of his father, Trell, who passed away - rather suddenly - ten years ago.” She noted again the red fury in his eyes at the unremarked-upon but pointed reference to his father’s death, and continued. “The first - and so far, only - Nabiconian firm to expand their interests outside of that country, and swiftly growing to be the biggest landowner in Calathena, with footholds in Verthrant and Pichala which are far from negligible. Listed as one of the richest men in the world, and certainly the richest in Nabicon.”

Zamakis exchanged a look with his guards, and turned a withering glance upon the woman. “Were we in my country,” he told her darkly, “you would be severely punished for such an outrage.”

She returned the look cooly. “Well then,” she observed, “it’s fortunate indeed that we are in my country, is it not? At any event, my research did not end there. I believe you are currently the prime suspect in the - rather brutal - murder of the head of your biggest rival, Overcon Industries.”

His look of contempt and hatred could not be mistaken, nor even hidden this time, as he glared at her with the full force of those white eyes. She spoke before he could.

“Oh, I’m quite sure they have the wrong man,” she assured him with a laugh, “and that they will realise this very quickly. After all, Mastra Zamakis,” she told him, her eyes locking with his, “you are a respectable businessman, are you not? I’m quite sure you are not in the habit of literally killing the competition, hmm?” She smirked, and knew that he wanted nothing more badly at that moment than to smash her in the face, but he was not in Calathena now, and he had to restrain himself. Rich and powerful though he was, the authorities here would not stand for an unprovoked attack on a member of the upper classes. So, though he had to grind his teeth to do so, he smiled tightly back at her.

“There can be no doubt it is so,” he agreed. But she realised he was sweating. “Dasha!” he snapped, with fury in his voice, misdirected as it was. “Abarahha! Simpa!” One of the giants hurried off, and wordlessly returned with a tall glass of sparkling water on a tray, which Zamakis snatched rudely from him and, upending it, tipped the entire contents down his throat in one gulp. As he belched loudly - completely failing to excuse himself - Lady Beatrice remarked

“They don’t say much, do they? Your men I mean? Some vow of silence, code of honour?” she hazarded. He smiled a wolfish smile.

“I believe it is most difficult, Girl - ah, Lady Beatrice, for one to speak when one’s tongue has been removed.”

She gasped. “How awful!” He leaned a little closer. She could smell his musk. She did not like it.

“I prize loyalty above all other things, Lady Beatrice,” he told her. “But men are fickle, and coin talks louder than any Mastra. However, the man who cannot talk, cannot betray my secrets, or myself. This is how I prefer it. So all my guards have their tongues removed before entering my service.”

Beatrice glanced at the fierce brutes, for the first time with sympathy and pity. Zamakis’s reputation for casual cruelty was not exaggerated, it seemed. He saw how she looked at him, frowned (more, she thought, at the idea that a mere woman might criticise him than anything else) and added “It is performed with their permission, of course, Lady Beatrice. I am not,” he smiled that awful smile, “a monster, after all. I do however,” and he rubbed his fingers together in a gesture understood on any continent, “pay very handsomely.” He leaned forward suddenly, grabbing her arm. “I would pay much, Lady Beatrice, to entice you to my bed. I would pay,” his eyes grew very large and very white, almost as if to swallow her whole, “any price you would care to name.”

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018