The Woman on the Lake Ch. 08

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An encounter with whores.
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Part 8 of the 13 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 09/30/2017
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Author's Note: Sorry this took so long, had to take a break for a while. Also: I know I said my last story would be the last one with lots of story and no sex but... I lied. This one is important for plot though. Chapter 9 is perverted, I promise.

*****

Chapter 8

As a breeder of horses, Leda had never thought much of Horace. He was skinny - shabby even - but as she riding through the woods, she suddenly understood his appeal. He was fast and agile, and seemed to understand what she needed from him without much kicking or tugging. She had always assumed Brandon was a very talented rider, but perhaps he had just picked the right partner.

When the sun crested over the horizon, Leda dismounted and lead Horace to the river. As he drank, she noticed a few hoof prints, as well as what looked like a footprint sliding down the bank. She was on someone's path. From the tracks she could tell that one of the horses they were riding was large and erratic and that there were more men than mounts. One of the men was always in step behind another.

Brandon would have told her not to make assumptions. She may have wanted this to be Beast, Brandon and a kidnapped Alec, so she was only seeing what conformed to her theory. But Leda ignored this. She wished she could be objective, but once she saw the prints, she couldn't see anything else. She followed them.

After two days of riding Leda accepted she was lost. A heavy rain had washed away the tracks, and her food had dwindled down to few apples. She was wet and hungry and tired and she was angry at herself for assuming she was good at tracking just because rangers talked to her about it sometimes. The best thing she could do for Brandon now was turn around, take care of herself and his horse. But as she went to sleep she knew that in the morning, she would keep looking for him.

Why was she looking for him? What was it that she even needed to say? That she loved him? That she wanted to have his children after all? That she was sorry for allowing herself to be seduced by Rob?

But she didn't want children, and she wasn't sorry for what happened with Rob. Rob made her feel free and unburdened, in a way she hadn't experienced since she was a girl. There were other things she didn't regret; his arms lifting her out of the water, his calloused hands exploring breasts, his warmth of his mouth against her most sensitive flesh. Even if she never saw Rob again, she knew that simply revisiting that memory would always bring her pleasure. She had been told as a child that highlanders were all beasts - brutish and irresponsible and hot blooded. Highlanders weren't thoughtful or logical, she was told, they only relied on their animal instincts and magnetism.

It wasn't true, of course but... what had happened between Rob and her had felt animal. And she liked it.

But she also wanted Brandon. Brandon who always made her feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. Brandon who always thought of the future, never the moment. Brandon who knew about her past, about Gerald, about why she decided to become a trader. Also, Brandon was an Outlander. He understood what had been done to her, and what she had done to survive it. And he had his own past.

Two totally different men, and yet... she wanted both of them.

Horace woke Leda up the next morning. She slept like the dead, but Horace heard the cart coming over the hills and whinnied. He really was an exceptionally good horse.

She sat up to see only a grey haze as the sun peaked through the early morning mist. She thought she was dreaming at first, but soon she heard the sounds of a horse and cart in the distance.

A sharp jolt of panic moved through her. She scurried up from the ground and found her knife. She wasn't very good with it, but it was better than nothing. Her heart beat wildly. She considered hiding, but it was too late. The cart groaned as it came towards her.

The low voice came through the woods.

"Whatever you're holding, put it away." It was a strange voice - raspy and laboured, as though it might crack at any moment.

It wasn't a cart, it was a covered caravan. Not a ranging party then. Just a few whores.

But instead of a man at the front of the cart, two women sat sharing the reins. They were both fine to look at. The younger girl had dark smooth skin, and wore a purple gown that embellished her lovely waist and which pushed up her breasts - between which Leda could just make out the polished hilt of a knife. Over her gown she wore an officer's coat, and her black curls were free and wild. The woman next to her was thin, and tall. She wore a man's trousers and a woman's blouse,. Her hair was long, straight and black. Her cheeks were cut like a classical statue in marble, and her skin tan, but covered in the most alluring freckles. When she saw Leda, she smiled like a smug cat.

"Those apples I see?"

"Take them," Leda said carefully. "It's all I have."

She dark haired woman stopped smiling. She knocked on her seat, and another woman emerged from the curtained cart. This one was tiny, with a strange mix of brown skin and fiery red hair. In her hands, she held a crossbow.

She aimed it at Leda.

Leda stood frozen before the cross bow. The dark haired woman came down from her seat at the front of the cart casually. She was perfectly calm and focused as she looked around the campsite. Finally she came up to Leda, feeling over her body for any hidden pockets. Leda tried to ignore the other woman's intrusive hands as she was patted down. The only thing she found was the knife at Leda's hip, and she took it.

The dark haired woman gestured and the little one dropped her bow. She then went to the cart and threw up the curtain, revealing two girls more lounging amongst a few sacks of grain - one white and freckled, the other brown and luminous. Their revealing gowns dipped low enough to show off their black marks.

So there was no man with them at all.

"Who are you?" Leda asked.

"Just a few girls on the road," the woman with the long black hair said, pulling back her blouse to show Leda the black mark on her chest. "Who are you?"

Leda said nothing, she only pulled back her shift and showed her the matching mark.

"Funny," the black haired woman turned to her companions, who smiled. "All of us being whores, you think we'd know each other."

"Different caravans, I suppose," Leda said with a shrug.

"You don't have a caravan," this time it was the woman in purple who spoke.

"You don't have a caravan leader," Leda said. "Where are your men?"

"One of our girls ran off with a solider. Our Caravan leader had to go find her, then bring her solider to the mines," the woman in purple leaned forward and met Leda's eyes. "Your turn."

"Same."

"You're lying," the little one lifted up her crossbow again, and Leda put her hands in front of her.

"Of course I am. We're all lying." Leda said. "And we don't need to. There are no men here."

"Doesn't make us all safe," The woman with the long black hair nodded to the cross bow, and showed Leda the knife she had taken off of her moments before. "Who are you?"

Leda looked at the cross bow, then back to the woman.

"My name is Leda. I was disowned by my mate but I got away before they could put me in a caravan."

"You don't look like you just came from a commune, where have you been living?"

"On the lake."

The black haired woman met Leda's eyes. "You can't have children, you're not in a caravan. Why are you alive?"

"Wait," the woman in purple spoke up suddenly. "I know who you are."

She looked Leda up and down. "You're the woman who trades in secret."

Leda considered denying it, but something about the way the woman in purple was looking at her made her realize she'd already been caught.

"It's not a very good secret, I guess" she answered dully. "But I do trade with the rangers, and with Cliffhouse."

"You're Brandon's girl," the woman in purple smiled.

Leda stiffened. "I'm no one's." Her voice trembled slightly. The woman in purple's smile faded.

"Alright alright," the woman with the black hair stepped in between them. "You're not his woman, we hear that, but you haven't been arrested for trading because Brandon's taken an interest."

"Can we agree on that?" The woman in purple slipped down from her seat.

"I may get arrested tomorrow," Leda said. "Brandon's Head Ranger but he's just a ranger, after all."

"I agree. Brandon only thinks he's all-powerful but... even he has limits for what he can get away with." She twirled the knife around her fingers, deftly moving the blade as though it weighed nothing, then she met Leda's eyes. "I heard he's been pushing a bit too far."

"What have you heard?"

"I heard he wants to send a young, promising ranger to the mines," she said, "And everyone is dying to know why."

"Brandon didn't tell them?" Leda tried to keep her voice even.

"He said the ranger tried to attack someone else's woman, but that doesn't make any sense, because all the women in the Outerlands are accounted for. That's the law."

She reached into her bodice and pulled out the knife she had tucked in between her breasts. It was a naked blade, and she played with it casually as she spoke to Leda.

"If there is a woman who is wandering around the woods, unaccounted for, we'd hate for someone to go looking for her," she looked at Leda carefully. "They might realize there are others. Lots of us, even."

Leda burned with shame. Of course it should have occurred to her that there might be others. Other disowned women, men and boys who escaped from the army she had even heard of babies that simply disappeared. She had been so overcome by Brandon's offer to take care of Alec's crimes civilly, it never occurred to her that she might be putting other people in danger.

"So how would you have dealt with a ranger who tried to rape you, and who might have intended to kill you afterwards?"

"We take care of ourselves here," the little one held up her crossbow.

"So you would have killed him?"

"That's how we survive," the woman with the long black hair looked at Leda. "We kill men who try to rape us. Then we take their food and their coin. It's that simple."

"Well, sometimes when we actually do want to fuck them, we just steal and let them live," the luminous girl in the caravan said this. "We can't just kill people for not raping us. That would be wrong."

The other women laughed, so Leda tried to appear relaxed. She made herself smile.

"Maybe we can make some sort of a deal," Leda went up to the woman in purple. "I've told you my name, what's yours."

"I'm Tatiana," she pointed to the woman with the long black hair, "That's Maria, in the cart are Nora and Beth, and the little one, you can call her Teeth."

"She means this," the small girl held up her crossbow again. "The bow is called Teeth. I'm just Nadine."

Leda didn't know if she was meant to laugh at this, but she was beginning to feel more relaxed now. While she was still fairly confident these women could kill her, they didn't seem to be in any hurry. And one of them, at least, knew Brandon.

"I know I said I don't have any food with me," Leda said. "But I do have food at my cottage. Quite a lot, actually."

"So?" Tatiana asked.

"I think we should make a deal." Leda said. "You help me find what I'm looking for, and I can help you."

"By doing what?" Tatiana scoffed. "And don't say you'll get your ranger to protect us. I've already spread my legs for Brandon. He's pretty, but he's not a god."

Leda couldn't stop the jealousy that overcame her. Brandon had fucked this woman. It didn't matter, she supposed. He was a man, he even had told Leda that he was skilled in making women scream with pleasure as he fucked them. He was practised.

But she couldn't think about that now. Brandon was a man in the Outerlands. He did what he wanted with women. He had that power.

But Leda had power too.

"What if I told you that I have the only working farm on the east shores?" She said.

Some of other women scoffed at that, but Tatiana was listening.

"With or without Brandon, every year, I have a crop of potatoes. Every week, I have fresh eggs. I have onions in the ground and beets and peas in the summer. I have a rooster, my goats have kids. And my horses have been breeding for years."

"So?"

"So, nothing gets built in the outer lands but I've built something," Leda said. "Something that has lasted."

"Any day some man could take that from you," Tatiana said.

"They haven't though. Why would they? They have a war to fight. They don't know a thing about turning over soil or keeping crops warm during a frost. They have no interest in what I do, they just want me to do it for them."

"They let you do it because they're afraid of Brandon," Nadine said.

"They're afraid of hunger," Leda said, and she looked around the camp to see that every woman was listening now. "You know it's different for rangers than it is for soilders. Their leaders don't care if they have enough to eat when they're patrolling around the mines, they just want them to kill people. I'm the only reliable source of food some of these men have. They're afraid of hunger. Aren't you?"

There was an uncomfortable quiet and Maria came forward, touching Tatiana's hand softly before she turned to Leda with a hardened look on her face.

"Yes, Leda, we're afraid of hunger," she shrugged and looked over at the caravan. "Obviously not now, but it'll be harder to steal when the snow comes. What do you propose?"

Leda relaxed now, and looked at the women with trader's eyes for the first time. They wouldn't be any good for food and they had no practical skills to her eyes, but their ears and necks and wrists were heavy with pretty metals and precious stones.

"I'll take some of what you have stolen off your soldiers," she said, then looked the girls up and down again. "You do take their weapons, don't you?"

"Sometimes," Maria shrugged. "You'll have to learn to use them if you want them to be any good for you."

"Fair enough," Leda shrugged. "Also, any clothes. You'd be surprised what the girls at Cliffhouse would give for some blackmarket clothes."

"Girls at the communes are wearing whore's clothes?" One of the girls in the cart scoffed.

"Why not?" Leda said. "They're doing the same sort of work, they might as well dress for it."

She could have sworn Maria cracked a smile at that, but she didn't say anything, so Leda continued.

"For my part, whenever you're on the East shore, you can have a cottage to stay in. I'll make you all a hot meal and load up your caravan with whatever food you need," she considered. "And right now, you can take all the food I have on me."

Maria motioned to Nadine, who clutched the crossbow closely once more, before putting it down.

"It's a deal," Maria said, and turned away, calling to the other girls to move on.

"One more thing."

Leda took a sharp breath.

"I want you to take me to Brandon."

She turned to Tatiana with an apologetic grin. "I know he's not a god, but he's about to do something stupid for me and I'd like to stop him."

"So stop him," Tatiana pushed her hair from her face haughtily.

"I tried to do this by myself, but I'm not very good at it and I got lost," Leda tried to stop any emotion coming into her voice, but Tatiana still looked at her with pity. "He's going to the nearest fort, I think, to see the leadership about a man who tried to rape me. I see that's not a good idea now, so I'd like to stop him."

Tatiana looked to the other women.

"Forts are dangerous for us," Maria said. "Sorry."

"Brandon isn't at a fort, he's at an officer's encampment near the towers." Tatiana looked at Maria. "And with her distracting the head ranger, the rest of the boys will make quite a mark for us."

Maria looked Leda up and down, taking in the lumpy britches and oversized shirt. "She's going to distract him?"

Leda blushed. Compared to a woman like Tatiana, she looked like a little boy.

"I just need to talk to him," she said.

"Well it's men and whores only and you don't make a very convincing man."

Tatiana smiled. "We'll have to turn her into a whore."

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