Chapter Text
Robert wasn’t quite sure he’d ever met anyone with luck quite this bad. Or perhaps the man was simply too far in his cups to read the cards, even when Robert wasn’t trying to rob the man for everything he had.
Indeed, Robert never let a man leave a gambling table without taking him for a little something, but Robert hadn’t gotten this far on a charitable nature. And anyway, he told himself, these wealthy sods just blew it all on liquor and slaves and whores anyway, didn’t they? Why shouldn’t their gold go to Robert?
He didn’t even cut their throats for their purses in some dark alley. He looked them in the eye while he robbed them.
It wasn’t Robert’s fault if he was simply too good to get caught. But there was no sport in it, he reflected, when he could have beaten them without any of his tricks. Some men were simply too easy a target.
Like this one.
He scooped up the last of the man’s gold and smiled. “Well, Ser Aidecourt, it seems the evening’s festivities are concluded. Shall I buy you all a drink before I go?”
“No,” Aidecourt managed, his eyes bleary and his words slurred. “M’here to gamble!”
“And gamble you have,” Robert assured him. “But unless you have credit with this fine establishment, I’m not sure-”
“Bring Bitch,” Aidecourt ordered loudly. He fixed his eyes somewhere in Robert’s vicinity and gestured vaguely behind him “I bet Bitch,” he slurred.
Robert put on his charming smile. “I believe my appetite for sport has been well-sated, good ser. I will buy you all one last drink and bid you adieu.”
It was difficult not to flinch as the drunk lord brought a hunting knife down on the table, hard. “You leave… when I say you leave,” Aidecourt told him. The lord left the knife stuck in the soft velvet of the card table and hiccoughed soddenly. “N’I bet Bitch. All or nothin’.”
Robert watched the knife quiver in the table and swallowed. Perhaps, he thought, it would be best to let this particular lord leave with his ego intact.
“Very well,” Robert said. “I propose a simple cut of the deck.” He reached out for the cards, ready to stack this game as he had all the others. He would simply let the lord win, cut his losses here, and find another house and a slightly less soused lord to rob.
The lord watched Robert’s quick hands as he shuffled the cards. His eyes narrowed with something that might have approached a thought. “I wanna deal ’em,” he decided.
Damn. Robert might actually end up with this poor Bitch, whoever she was.
He heard the clank of chains and tightened, the fine wine gone sour in his stomach. Would the poor girl be nude, as they often were? Would she be some debtor’s daughter, or a prisoner of war who did not speak the common tongue?
He saw the flash of too-much skin and raised his eyes, just enough to spare the poor girl what shame he could.
“M- Master?” the poor thing whimpered.
Aidecourt kicked her.
Good gods, Robert realized. Not her. Him.
Robert had never seen a male pleasure slave in person before. He knew they existed, of course, but… Well, he tried to steer clear of slavers in general. Their poor charges turned his stomach.
And this one…
There was no doubt as to the slave’s intended use. This was not a slave intended to guard, or to entertain with wit and song, or to serve food and wine.
This was indubitably a pleasure slave, kneeling in submission, wearing nothing but chains at its throat, wrists, and chest. Chains, he realized, and some metal contraption on its cock.
Robert didn’t realize he was staring at the contraption until the pleasure slave spread his knees and straightened, flushing all the way down his chest, to present it to Robert better.
Robert cleared his throat and turned abruptly back to the card table, his own cock twitching sympathetically in his trousers.
A miserable existence, he heard, from where his heart used to be. Poor thing barely even looks human in all that metal.
“S’a fine bitch, innit?” Aidecourt slurred. “Worth a – hic – a bet.”
“My lord,” one of his attendants tried to say, “your husband will be most displeased if you come home without…” Her voice died as Aidecourt wrapped his meaty fingers around the knife still stuck into the table.
“Gimme the cards,” Aidecourt ordered. “All or nothin’.”
Robert had nearly forgotten the gods-damned bet. He gave the deck to Aidecourt and tried not to look at where the lord had kicked his pleasure slave, and the bruises that were rising swiftly to the poor thing’s pale skin.
Gods, he could see the poor bastard’s ribs so clearly.
“Well?” Aidecourt demanded.
Robert turned back to the lord and realized the man had already cut the deck, and was holding up… the queen of diamonds.
Excellent.
Sorry, lad, Robert thought at the poor slave, with no sincerity at all. Your master was lucky for once, tonight.
And he reached forward to cut the deck with a light heart. He would leave this hall tonight as he left all others – free, unencumbered, and with no cares in the world. He would lose this bet, push all of his hard-stolen gold back to its rightful owner, tip his hat sadly at a lad who would not last the year, and then return home to his peaceful, uncomplicated life.
Or, he realized, turning over his card. Perhaps not.
He had chosen the king of spades.
Fuck.