Chapter 19: Rot

Keven wasn’t impressed.

When Leslie had said that her Duchy hadn’t been doing well of late, she was wrong; it was a disaster. Keven, Aaden, Kale and Selwyn spent some time, just jumping around and looking at the state of her province and the businesses in and around her town.

They found three deserted villages along the coast, one on the east side and two on the west. They found one farmer who had stayed on his land near the furthermost village. “Hi,” Keven said as they approached him, “can you tell me why the village is deserted?”

He stopped hoeing his garden and leant on the hoe. “You’re not from around here are you, Luv?” Keven shook her head in the negative. He glanced at the other three with her. “You young folk should move on. If the slavers hear that you’re here, they will be across the river faster than you can blink.”

“How long have they been raiding my villages?” Keven asked unhappily.

He raised an eyebrow. “Your villages? This village belongs to Lord Sam, for all that drunken bastard cares. I’ve been the only one living here for near on three years. The bloody slavers have been taking our people for at least ten years now.”

He spat on the ground and squinted back at Keven. “They took my three-year-old daughter three years back now. They killed my partner when she tried to stop them. I’ve had a bung leg, and a twisted back for years, so they left me for dead.”

“I’m harder to kill than that. I’ve been across the river a couple of times, but I can’t find my daughter. It got too hot for me to stay over there as I killed a couple of them when I was trying to rescue another family, so I had to come home,” he finished.

Kale came up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. The man shuddered, moaned and then grunted. They politely ignored the wet patch on his britches. Kale had been trying to tone down his weird after effect, but he said its intensity depended on how much help the patient required.

“By the Goddess of Genesis, what did you do to me?” the man said in wonder. He stretched to his full height and wiped a hand over his face removing the sweat and dirt.

Keven looked at him more closely, “How old are you?” she asked. She had thought his hair was white from age, but she now realised it was his natural colour. With his leg and back no longer twisted and the pain removed from his face he looked a lot younger.

He squinted at her and looked her up and down. “Twenty-seven, why?” he asked. Keven touched him on the temple and closed her eyes. They watched the man close his eyes and smile. Keven shivered, her eyes popped open, and she looked at him. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been while since I’ve been touched like that.”

Aaden looked at the two and had a feeling something significant had happened between them. He wasn’t sure how he felt about sharing Keven. She had warned him that she liked multi-partner relationships. He had hoped she would pick another woman, as he wasn’t sure he could do it with two guys if she changed.

He was still getting used to Keven swapping back and forth on him. She liked to fuck him as much as he liked doing her as either gender. He had no problem fucking a bloke, but he’d had a bad experience before Storm rescued him from the streets, when two men had raped him.

One had bought his services, but he then added his mate for free. He had tried to escape when he realised what they planned, but he hadn’t been quick enough. They had tied him to the bed and used him severely. He hadn’t been with a bloke again until he met Keven. She had been so gentle with him that he had started to enjoy all facets of sex again with her.

The white haired bloke looked at him and smiled. Aaden blinked and found a woman looking at him. She sighed in delight. “Oh wow! It feels so good to change. I’ve not been able to do that since the slavers whacked me in the head. I’ve always preferred female. I’m Barb. Who are you people?”

“Hi, Barb. I’m Princess Keven. These are my friends Wizard Kale, his partner Wizard Selwyn and Trainee Wizard Aaden.”

“Trainee?” Barb questioned.

“I’m one of Lord Wizard Storm’s versions of a novice. We have a complete box and can do more than what you would call a novice,” Aaden answered. He felt a lot better knowing Barb was a shifter like Keven and that she preferred the female persona. She was a damn fine looking woman.

“Ah, I see. I just have a diadem,” Barb said and made her diadem visible so they could see.

Kale looked at it. “Hum, I’d say that was original. You’re an Earth Druid with Nature and Lore capabilities. It’s an excellent combination as you could do a lot. I’ll have to get you a Mad.”

“A what?” Barb asked.

Kale grinned at her and showed her his arm. “A Mad is a device that has many applications. We have a spell book on it and it can be used for communication and access any of the data we have stored on the system that you have clearance to access.”

“Okay, I did ask. So Princess, what are you planning to do about the slavers?” Barb asked as that issue concerned her most.

“We are still working on that. Domo Leslie had agreed to increase the patrols on the roads now they are easier to travel. My first job is to get my Duchy working again. I wasn’t impressed by my first look.”

Barb barked out a harsh laugh. “I bet you weren’t. Sam has lost the plot. The place is falling down around his pointy big ears, and people are leaving in droves. There is no work. Even the farmers who have stuck it out so far are getting desperate.”

“His inability to stop the slavers has them all worried. They have been getting even more brazen. The last time I bothered to go to town, I heard that they have been raiding Rockville every month or so. So you may need to do something about them sooner rather than later.”

The four wizards looked at each other. They would have to come up with a permanent solution. Keven turned to Barb, “Looking for a well-paying job with lots of perks?”

“What doing?” Barb asked intrigued.

“Well, we are building some printing presses and starting a new business printing cards, books and even a newspaper,” Keven informed her.

“Where is the paper coming from?” Barb asked.

“My sister, Levi, owns the Duchy of Oakville. They are going to make the parts and paper, and we’re going to use them,” Keven replied.

Barb nodded, “Smart, picking an industry where you could work to each other’s needs. That is if you trust your sister?”

Keven smiled, “With my life. It also helps that we have wizards to keep us honest.”

Barb looked around her crappy farm. She had barely scraped a living the last couple of years. She looked down at her body in the shabby clothes and knew she was gaunt underneath them. “What the hell, I was bored anyway,” she said grinning at the wizards.

She walked up to them, and they touched her. She found herself outside Keven’s mansion. She looked at the once impressive building. It was on a large allotment that took up several acres of river front to the west of the main wharfs of Rockville.

A long wide garden that desperately needed some TLC set the mansion back from the street. The drive curved in a ‘U’ around a central garden area that once contained impressive flower beds and a working fountain. The back of the property looked down over a short cliff that had a crumbling retaining wall built across its face. A small sandy beach, littered with rubbish like the lawn, sat below the 3m high wall.

“Hades! It looks even worse close up,” Barb said. She didn’t get any disagreement from the others.

Aaden knocked on the door. It seemed to take forever for someone to come and answer it, and he had to knock several times. The man, who did finally turn up, looked like he had just got out of bed even though it was mid-morning.

It looked like he had slept in the clothes he wore and they desperately needed a wash. The once fine clothes were covered in wine and food spills and stank something fierce. His blood red eyes squinted at them.

“We are here to see Lord Sam,” Aaden said politely.

“Piss-off, he’s not receiving callers,” The man said surly, as he glanced over them and dismissed them as unimportant.

Keven stepped forward. “Please tell him to pack his bag and get the fuck out of my mansion,” she said tightly.

“Who the fuck, are you?” the man snarled back.

“I’m Princess Keven, and this is my property. Considering the shape of it, Lord Sam has failed in his obligation to Domo Leslie and my mother. I no longer wish him to manage my estates. Who is the Mayor of Rockville?”

The man sneered, “Lord Sam is the Mayor.”

“Fine, he can consider himself sacked from that position as well. You will take me to him now,” she said in a steely voice.

“Fuck off,” the man said and slammed the door shut.

They all blinked to the other side of the door. Before he could fully comprehend them being there, he found a pistol stuck under his chin by the Princess. “I asked nicely. Now I’m pissed–off. Which room is his?” she snarled.

“You don’t frighten me. You have no jurisdiction here. Lord Sam has already applied for ownership under the desertion laws,” he tossed at her.

“Yes, I know. That is why as the legal owner, in accordance with the courts and the Domo, I’m here to evict him from my property. He is to leave with nothing but the clothes on his back,” Keven snarled.

She stepped back and removed a document from her satchel. She showed it to the man. He grabbed it and ripped it up. “Guards,” he screamed. “Guards.”

Four slovenly dressed men came running from a back room. To the surprise of all except Kale, as they entered the room Keven open fired. ‘Pop, pop, pop, pop.’

Kale had seen her flip the pistol from under her satchel and had mentally told the others to stay still. They watched the men fall and then writhe around on the floor in agony.

They were all fascinated to see the effects on the men being hit by the charged crystal balls that the pistol shot. Kale knew they could hurt, but he at least had some protection, unlike these men.

Keven then turned and ‘popped’ the man she has been arguing with. With a satisfied grin, she dragged a dainty chair that had been sitting in the corner of the room, over and sat in it very primly as she waited for the men to stop shivering, moaning and gain some control.

Kale shrugged and suggested to the others that they go see who else was in the house. Aaden and Barb grinned at each other and followed Kale and Selwyn in the self-guided tour of the mansion. Kale and Selwyn decided to do a few repairs as they went, happily teaching Aaden and Barb as they did, as if they didn’t have a care in the world and a perfect right to do some redecorating.

Keven knew they hadn’t abandoned her. She only had to call them mentally, and they would be beside her in a blink. They had simply left her to handle it, as was her right. She watched the men settle to an occasional shiver, as she calmly reloaded the pistol. She loved these pistols.

“You are an atrocious man, Sam. I believe you have already been served with your eviction papers. Apparently, you also need a few lessons in humility. Your presence is not wanted here anymore. My mansion looks and smells like a cesspit.”

“My town looks like it has been robbed blind. Its state of repair is little better than my mansion. My farms are empty of their people because you have taxed them out of existence. Well, you have done all the damage you are going to do around here.”

“There is a rowboat on the beach with your name on it. I suggest you take these four men and row over to your boss Domo Ethan and tell him that you lost your job. You can give him another message from me as well.”

“If I see one of his slave ships cross the median of the river, I shall blast it out of the water. You have no idea what two full wizards and three powerful druids are capable off. Now get your fat ugly arse off my property and out of my city,” she said to him with menace.

“You won’t get away with this, Domo Ethan will not like your interference in matters that don’t concern you,” he threatened.

“That is where you are wrong. This is my Duchy. He is the one with no jurisdiction here and if he keeps meddling in my affairs and taking my people, he had better be ready for the consequences,” she growled.

Sam struggled to his feet. Keven waved the pistol towards the door. “That way, and don’t let the door hit you on your arse on the way out,” she said.

He grumbled and signalled to the men to follow him. As he went to go past her, he lunged for her. Keven blinked behind them and watched Sam go arse over tit, over the empty chair. It smashed beneath his bulk, and he crashed into the floor groaning in pain. Keven shot him just for the hell of it.

She watched as he shook and shuddered in the wreckage of the chair. The four men turned to look at her. Fear was very evident in their eyes. “Pick that sorry piece of trash up and get him off my property. I shall escort you to the rowboat just to make sure,” Keven told them and pointed the pistol in their direction.

They grabbed arms and legs and even between the four of them, they struggled to get the very weighty, jerking man, out of the room. Keven calmly walked behind them. They got Sam down the crumbling stairs to the dinky rowboat that the five of them barely fitted in.

She watched as one man pushed the boat off the beach and nearly capsized it as he tried to get in it. The other men cursed at him, and Keven grinned as she watched the most uncoordinated rowing she had ever seen. From here to the other side of the river was just over 600m and she was amazed how long it took them to cover the distance.

She took her time observing the boats at the wharf across from her. She was startled by what she thought were three boys when they had come to stand beside her. “Was that Lord Sam in that boat, Missus?” the older of the kids said.

“Yes, I sacked him and sent him back to Domo Ethan,” she said. She looked them more carefully and realised the speaker was, in fact, a girl.

The girl looked at her and grinned. “Oh boy! He ain’t going to like that. We’s better tell the kids to hide tonight,” she said to the boys with her.

Keven looked at them and said, “How about doing a little job for me?”

“What?” the girl asked slyly.

Keven grinned and said, “A rotab (fifty cents) each, for the next ten days. You three watch for the slavers. If they turn up, you come to the mansion and tell us. You do it quick, no matter what time of day or night it is.”

The children’s eyes went wide. Five queks each would keep them fed for many weeks. They went even wider when the lady put two rotabs in each of their hands.

“I need you fed so you can keep alert. Get some sleep and be back here by dark. You report to me each morning when the sun is above the river if they don’t come. I want to know the minute they cross the middle of the river. Deal?”

“Who is ya?” the girl asked.

“I’m Princess Keven the new boss. This is my Duchy, and I plan to make things better for my people. Who are you three?”

“I’m Pip, this is Pod, and he is Peas,” she said. Keven raised her eyebrows at the names, and their grins made her giggle.

“We is in. What are you going to do to them bastards?” Pip said with glee.

Keven gave an evil chuckle that made them shiver, but not in fear for themselves. “You catch ‘em, and I’ll blast ‘em,” she said.

They glanced across the river, then back at Keven and chuckled. Pip put out her hand, and they shook. Keven watched them run off to find some food to buy. She knew they would turn up and watch the river for her. She had also felt something odd about the girl but couldn’t decide what it was.

She reckoned she had found her first three paper-boys. She felt that Pip was very smart and could go a long way with some help. She remembered the stories of what Storm had done for the orphans in Trenton and decided this option was a good place for her to start. She knew that Aaden would approve.

They had noticed a lot of kids and older people. The younger working age group seemed the least numerous of her population. Her grandmother had handed over control of the bank account for her Duchy, and she did have a little to play with to help them. Though, she would have to keep an eye on spending. Thankfully, the wizards were going to save her a lot of hard cash.

She got back to the house and gasped when she entered. Tears welled in her eyes as she walked around. Kyle and the others had been busy. She couldn’t believe how much they had fixed. The mansion looked fantastic.

She heard giggling and headed to the kitchen. She found Selwyn and Kale teaching their cook how to make a forever-pot of stew and Storms flat bread. She had to laugh at the changes.