The Seduction of Fenn

In the shimmering pool of water overflowing from the stone pedestal she saw the girl. Twenty, and modestly thin. Long tresses of curled fire. In keeping with the obligations of her marriage she hid them beneath a bonnet so that other men would not lust after her. Each day she wore a dress that covered her from neck to knees, and stockings beneath it. The slightest sight of skin was enough to inflame a man. That was why the young man Fenn avoided looking at her, so that he would heed the sermons of the priest in the church. Rachel knew how to lift up his eyes and make him see the woman.

With her hand she drew a circle over the flowing pool of water. Lila stirred in her sleep, wincing at the touch of another mind on her own. Then the dream passed and she was once more none the wiser. On the other side of the pool the feeling of running water flowed down Rachel's face, taking on the features of the young woman in her bed. Her straight hair, shining black, drained of darkness to be replaced with Lila's red. Her curves muted, making her into a skinny young thing, and her skin colored ever so slightly rouge. Had anyone seen her, they would have thought Rachel the real thing, and Lila the shoddy pastiche.

"Sleep well, darling," she said in Lila's voice.

The night wind screamed as she rode it to the hovels in which the butcher's farmhands slept. He slept in a bed with two other hands; Rachel had watched him the night before to know her course better. The wind took form again to weave its way in through the window and into his ear, beckoning him from sleep. Fenn lifted his head up and saw a trace of her outside. Blinking and drunk, he rose from bed.

He almost walked into her where she stood outside. "Ma'am!" he snapped, and then lowered his voice. "Ma'am, I didn't see you."

Rachel looked into his eyes. "I know, Fenn, I'm sorry to wake you." She had wrapped herself in a fur mantle that the real Lila and her husband never could have afforded. It left her shoulders bare, and suggested the curved of her cleavage. She blinked at him. There wasn't any need for a spell, here. Her eyelashes were enough.

Fenn gaped. He looked back at the hovel for a moment, reasonably sure that she hadn't been the one to wake him. He was wondering if this was a dream. The woman in front of him seemed much too real for that. He pinched himself anyway, and then looked at her seriously. "Do you need something, ma'am?" he asked. His throat was dry.

Rachel stared past him into the house where the unmarried young men dwelled together. It was a stinking, hopeless place. She wordlessly commended him for his stubbornness. If she had lived in such conditions, she would have killed herself long ago. "Yes. But we can't talk here. Will you follow me?" Her skill at spellcraft was refined enough that the small affectations of the butcher's wife slipped into her voice without any effort.

"'Course," Fenn said, his mouth still hanging open.