Iris felt her eyes get blurry, “C-Can we speak alone, master Gottfried?”

He looked around, “You see anyone?”

“Inside.” She asked as she shifted to her knees. “The stone hurts… I’ve been here for hours, I m-must have fallen asleep.”

She waited, he straightened up, seeming to understand. He rang the bell, “I’m in, go ahead and open it.”

“Why… Why this entrance, Master Gottfried?” Iris asked, wiping away tears she hoped he didn’t see.

“I don’t mind ah, being seen in public when I’ve got reason to be, but if I go through that main entrance… no thanks. I don’t need that.” He answered and one of the big orcs loomed in the entrance a moment later.

“Thanks, Xagen.” Gottfried said with a very slight slur and stepped inside. He looked over to the waiting Iris and said, “You might as well come on in, I’m going to my room, you want to talk, talk there. Otherwise, go home, I’m not in a great mood.”

She gave a hasty nod, scrambled to her feet and rushed into the suite.

It was the luxury she expected, with wide couches, an inlaid stone fountain bath that constantly bubbled, ‘The magic expended on that… I can’t even imagine…’ She thought. A bar on one wall was stocked with various liquor bottles and the ceiling was joined to the floor by a series of six purple marble pillars carved to the shape of ropes.

Iris hurried past the orc bodyguard and followed after the dark haired lord until he reached a large double door, he pushed one open, waited for Iris to enter, and then shut it behind them both.

He traced a hand over a glowstone embedded in the wall and light began to slowly fill the wide room.

“So? Why are you here? How did you even know I was here… what do you want?” He demanded, and Iris flinched, immediately going to her knees.

He softened when he saw her reaction and moved away from her to go sit on the bed and unlace his boots.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you… it’s just that I remember what you said, I can only assume you despise me, and you have a right to that. I did take your city, though I won’t apologize for it.” He stopped speaking suddenly when Iris approached and knelt at his feet, she casually batted his hands away and began to undo the laces on the dark leather boots.

“Let me, Sir.” She said, and he relented his efforts. “Did the fight happen, master?” She asked before being halfway down the first boot..

“Eventually. There was a large delay…” His eyes narrowed, “What do you know about it?”

“What was the cause, My Lord?” She asked, tugging at a stubborn leather string.

“Poison, poison activated by the elf’s weapon so that it would get around the early efforts to detect it. It probably wouldn’t have killed me, but I would have been a lot weaker.” He said as she tugged the boot off and set it aside before going to the next one.

“I see. Did he do it?” Iris asked, and Gottfried shook his head.

“I don’t think so, and he denied it. They arrested four nobles already, and it looks like there might have been more… what do you know, Iris?” Gottfried wasn’t asking, she felt the demand to her bones.

“I reported it to my Mistress. Then Lady Lyrica reported it up to the arena. She told me to go somewhere else for the night, gave me some of my tip money back and…” Iris fell silent when she felt his eyes boring into her head.’

“You came to the room of a man you hate rather than just get a room somewhere… I’m a little drunk but… I’d have to be a lot drunker for that to make sense. Why’d you do that for me? Wouldn’t it have felt good to see me bleed?” Gottfried asked, leaning forward with his arms over his thighs close to the knee.

“Maybe. But you were kind of nice to me before, and people who were not, were going to profit off of this… it didn’t sit well with me.” Iris said as she tugged off his other boot and laid it beside its mate.

“I just wasn’t an ass or a sadist, how is that ‘nice’ in your book?” Gottfried asked.

“You fed me good food, and the rest… in the world I live in My Lord, that is nice. I know better than to think it was more than a ploy, but it’s a game we all play.” Iris replied while he began to fumble with the laces on his shirt.

“A ploy?” he asked when she stood up and batted his hands away from the silk laces that held his dark shirt closed.

“Yes. Gods above! Was I this helpless when I was still a noble…?” She rolled her eyes and batted his hands away from the silk laces of his shirt when his fingers went up again. “Let me do it. I’m here anyway.” She said and cursed herself for her sharp tongue.

“What do you mean by a ‘ploy’?” He asked with a little frown, but he did move his hands away to let her work.

“You pretend to be a nice person, then give her nice things, tell her she owes you, and then some wine addled bard writes it as a love story pretending she’s weeping for a lost love when she’s sent crying back to her village. You spent a bit more than usual…” Iris said when she tugged the last lace free, only to be surprised when his eyes went wide and he pushed her away.

She stumbled and fell backward, her scathing voice was robbed of her, but before his shirt even fell back down the length of his arms to leave him bare chested in front of her, he spoke. “Get out.”

“Have you not disgraced me enough…?” Iris hissed back at him, ‘You’re insane, get out!’ Part of her mind screamed, but here he was in front of her and the temptation to speak her mind was greater than her will to survive.

“Disgraced you… I haven’t laid a hand on you!” He growled down at her.

“Maybe not. But so what? Isn’t that why you paid for my mother’s care? So I’d be in debt to the man who took away my city and my life? So when you came to my Mistress’ establishment you could tell me how grateful I should be? Your little ‘good deed’ made me feel lower than I already am! I was doing okay, I paid for everything with my hard work and cleverness, I didn’t need a damn thing from you, Master… least of all your pity!”

“I didn’t do that to make you feel bad… I didn’t think about that at all… and I definitely didn’t do it for a chance to screw you, Iris.” He snarled down at her, took his shirt up, and cast it aside.

“So why then? You met me all of one time, twice if you count when you asked for a spark.” She demanded, breathing hard when he stood up and went to a table that had a bottle of wine and glasses already on it and waiting. He poured both, then held one out toward her while pouring another for himself.

Iris slowly stood up and approached with small, tenuous steps.

“Why then?” She asked again.

His anger seemed to dissipate a little with her uncertainty, when he looked down at her, he asked, “Do you want the truth or a lie?”

She blinked several times and they took several sips of the rich dark liquid. “I’m curious about what the lie is, since you ask… but what I want is the truth, Master Gottfried.”

“The lie is that I did it because I felt bad about what happened with your city. I don’t, not even a little. Your city rebelled, joined our enemies, and would have hurt us if given the chance. Putting that down before it became a problem was my job and it saved more lives than it cost. I do feel some guilt over the fact that innocent people paid the price…” He gestured to her with his glass before finishing it in one draught and setting the glass down again. “But that’s how war is, innocent people always pay for just living on the wrong side. Even Uncle can’t change that. Not even our founding God could do it… if he couldn’t, what can I do?”

Iris finished her glass and set it down on the table. Without thinking, Iris responded according to her training and reached for the bottle. “Another?” She asked.

“If you have one.” He said, and she poured twice, they took the glasses up again and began to drink.

“That would have been a good lie, Sir, I wouldn’t believe it. But it would have been a good one.” Iris admitted.

“Thank you. Mother says I need to work on my ability to deceive, she claims I take after my father a great deal, and he was no good at it either.” Gottfried said, then added, “I think I believe her. I don’t take much after her except for a few things.”

“So… the truth then?” Iris asked, taking a hesitant sip of the rich dark wine, savoring the flavor of underlying nuttiness.

Gottfried sipped his wine and stepped away from her, he didn’t look in her direction, but rather toward the window out into the city. “Because you don’t want anything from me. You know who I am. What I am.” He went to the window, resting a hand on the long pane that took up the better part of the wall. His eyes roamed the city, “Everyone wants me to be this or that. Be the heir. Be the great champion. Be a General. Be a courtier. Be this. Be that. Even in the arena, my opponents want me to be the stepping stone to their own greatness, to be the start of their own legendary story. Even my happiest relief… the honest sands of the arena, is just another place where people want to take from me. I love my mother, but she’s no different. Always pushing… pushing… pushing. I know why, I don’t resent it…” he suddenly spun away from the window, drank down the last of the wine and threw the glass to shatter against the wall.

Iris stood in quiet disbelief. “But it’s exhausting! I did that for you because it was a relief. You of all people should have asked for something, but you hate me… and because you hate me, you wanted nothing from me.” He snorted, “Quite the paradox. I like you in part because you despise me, and you’re right to do so. So, after I left… that was my gratitude. You were the first real relief I’d had in my whole damn life.”

“So… you didn’t do that so I’d be just a grateful whore… or to belittle me or humiliate one of your fallen enemies?” Iris asked, almost unsure she could believe him even though it, put as it was, made perfect sense.

“No.” He said defiantly. “If you want to think that… fine, get out. The payment to the temple stands, if you prefer to think of it… you did a good turn for me today… maybe even prevented a wider conflict. Who knows how these things can spiral out of control? But you did something important for me, I did something for you. Fair trade, you can go, slave. I won’t make you endure my company.”

“I have nowhere to go.” Iris replied. She then poured more wine into her empty glass and held it out to him. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” She asked when he took it from her.

“What’s that?” Gottfried asked.

“We both live by dealing in lies. I pretend I don’t mind what people want to take from me, I even pretend to offer it, I put up with their touch and I whisper lies into their ears, pretending they’re desirable so I can take from them to enrich my mistress and get something for myself. You play a role like mine, pretending all the time to be eager to be whatever people want you to be. In another life, we both might have been great players on the stage.” Iris let out a weary laugh as he finished half the glass and passed it back to her.

She finished it and poured another, which she handed to him again.

“If you didn’t hate me, and weren’t in the position that you are, we might have even been good friends.” Gottfried said as he accepted the glass.

“Maybe. But it isn’t… it isn’t really you I hate. I blame my family and our stupid corrupt governor more than the emperor or his swords. They were traitors… grasping fools. I’m the child of a traitorous line, and I prove that daily by how I make my living. In a way, they make me feel worse than you did… though you didn’t help.”

He nodded solemnly, finished half the glass again, and passed it back to her.

When she finished and poured the next, she added, “I hate what I became because of you. It’s only a matter of time for me, someone will offer my mistress enough, or someone in a private room will go too far and pay a fine… or I’ll have a run of bad nights and have to make up the difference somehow. It was hard to dance for the man whose campaign led me to that place. Even if it was my own stupid city’s choices.”

Iris’ eyes welled up. “I was supposed to have a house of my own, I was supposed to have a good husband… I was supposed to have a child to dote on… I saw an example of how I used to live, on the way here… a noble woman buying a tiara for her daughter… that should have been me one day! Now I’m…” She made a little fist and pounded it on his iron chest.

“When you did what you did for my mother… I know I should have felt grateful, instead I felt like that was it, the opener to the last humiliation, fucked one last time before I was fucked the usual way…” Iris squeezed her eyes tighter.

“Iris… I was just relieved, I was thankful for just a few hours of nobody wanting to use me for their own gain. You can go, I’ll never see you again, I promise.” Gottfried stammered out.

“Stop it.” She said, and he stopped everything but his breath and his heartbeat.

“I’ll buy your freedom, you can go and-” Gottfried stopped speaking, she didn’t look up, her forehead was in his chest, but her fingers covered his lips.

“Right now, I don’t owe you anything, you don’t owe me anything… no promises, no oaths… no debts or demands… right?” She asked, and he nodded up and down, rubbing his lips over the fingers that remained in place.

“Don’t offer me a damn thing then… and just… let me… make a choice without weight either way…” She whispered.

For a moment, Gottfried was lost in confusion, until he felt her free hand on his belt and heard the buckle coming undone.

Whether it was the moment, the wine, her warmth, his youth, her youth, their youth, their common ground, or some combination of all of those things… it didn’t matter.

The momentum carried their hands into action, Gottfried let her lead, but savored the taste of her lips, then of her skin. A long night of firsts ensued for them both. It continued until they both fell sound asleep, still entwined and still joined together beneath the blanket and sheets on a bed large enough for eight to have slept side by side in comfort with space of their own.