Robin Jarvis-Jax 02 Freax And Rejex by Robin Jarvis

flesh!”
    “I shall cry out.”
    “Then do so. None shall attend. The Jockey’s ways are never questioned.”
    Columbine pushed at his paunch and his fingers loosed on her arm. She spun around and darted back along the passage and down into the kitchen.
    The creaks and squeaks of the Jockey’s costume followed her. He came tippy-toeing down the stairs.
    The girl ran to her place and the heap of goose feathers whirled up into the air.
    “And where is Mistress Slab?” he asked, stealing closer. “Why is she not broiling over her pots?”
    “She is in the slaughterhouse,” the frightened girl replied.
    The Jockey laughed. “Ah, yes, ’tis sausage day. How the Punchinello Guards adore them. How readily they accept them as bribes. Would that you were so easy, my dirty scullion. Still, now we are quite alone, with only dead geese for witness and they shall not honk any secrets.”
    “Keep back,” Columbine begged, reaching for a knife. “Else there will be one more fat pig stuck this day.”
    The man hesitated. Yes, she would dare do it and that inflamed him even more.
    “My glance has oft been your shadow ere today,” he said as he paced warily from side to side. “Your hands are coarse as an ox’s tongue and your smudges and smuts rival only the midden-man. And yet… I have observed you long and I am enamoured and enslaved by you. The dirtier you are, the more like a queen you appear. A celestial goddess, come down amongstus, disguised in rags and ashes. My Lord, the Ismus, would bring you to his bed only if you were soaped and scrubbed by the tiring women till you shone like a shield. But I… I would have you as you are, all grimy from your base toil, with mutton grease and straw in your hair, soot etched in every cranny and aglow with sweat that smells of pepper and freshly sliced onions. I would tongue-bathe every inch of your fire-bronzed skin, baste you with the juices of my mouth and rip those rags from your shoulders and hips, as you have torn the feathers from that goose. You are a banquet I intend to gorge on and my appetite will never be sated.”
    “No closer,” she warned, brandishing the knife.
    “You have already pierced my heart, my pretty slattern. Bitter steel would only relieve me of that keen pain. Jab away, prick me, fillet me – shred my being even more than your grubby beauty already has.”
    He lunged forward. She struck out. The blade sliced into his reaching palm. He yelled in anger, slapped her with the back of his other meaty fist and smacked the weapon from her grasp. It went clattering across the flagstones.
    Then his strong fingers were around her throat and she was pushed against the table. He leaned in and licked the sweat trickling down her cheek. The cut on his palm dragged a vivid scarlet wake over her skin.
    “The Jockey rides everyone at Court in the end,” he hissed into her ear as she struggled. “One way or another. You must give him his due.”
    His frenzied paws snatched at her rags and tore them. Her bare shoulders glistened in the firelight and he buried his florid face into her dirty neck as his bloody fingers went roving.
    “My Lord Jockey!” a voice called suddenly.
    The man snarled and glared round at the stairs. The small, dumpy figure of the Lockpick was standing at the top of them.
    “What business have you here, Jangler?” the Jockey demanded angrily.
    Jangler bowed. “His Highness, the Lord Ismus, would speak with you,” he said.
    “His Highness can wait.”
    “On a matter most urgent.”
    The Jockey ground his teeth. His eyes shone as fiercely as the fire in the grates. Then, reluctantly, he stepped away from the girl.
    “Do not think I am done here,” he told her, clenching a fist till the blood squeezed between his fingers. “I shall be back; the Jockey will have his sport.”
    Columbine watched his stout figure go skipping up the stairs after the Lockpick. Then, shaking, she covered herself with the tatters of her clothes and sank down