Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, page 23
Tsia grit her teeth as she went on. Of course. The people who helped to keep Hamelin rich.
Before Tsia could respond, the door burst open and the council’s aide hurried in, her eyes wide and her hair mussed. “Mayor Otto, there’s someone in the town square asking to speak to you. A … stranger. He says he can help us.”
Tsia headed to the door immediately, ignoring the suspicious looks passing between the councilors. The town had an unreasonable fear and dislike of strangers. They believed strangers snuck into the town when everyone was asleep to cause havoc with their stock and place curses on the people. Of course it was ridiculous, but Tsia had learned that their fear was very real. She wasn’t sure why, but they were willing to do whatever they believed necessary to protect their town from strangers and their supposed misdeeds. And based on the way they treated her, even though she had been in the town for over twenty years now, it was clear their prejudice was strong.
But she wouldn’t pass up any opportunity to end the rat infestation. If the town hated her forever for it, at least they would be rat free.
Pushing through the town-hall doors, she was met by a deafening commotion. Huge, dark rats darting in every direction, covering the ground as they squeaked and scurried. Townspeople who had dared to venture outside tried hitting them with brooms and mops, screeching whenever a rodent ran over their feet or nipped their ankles. Others simply swept the droppings that layered the ground, gathering it to various corners, but it was a never-ending task—there were simply too many rats.
She headed toward the town square, annoyance gripping her as she heard the councilors following behind. While they would most certainly want to see how she dealt with the stranger, she didn’t want them interfering. As they maneuvered through the streets, townspeople noticed them and decided to follow. By the time they reached the town square, a crowd had gathered.
The stranger stood in the center of the square, and at the sight of him, a tremor bloomed in her stomach. Handsome, tall, and broad, he was as statuesque as many of the useless monuments dotted all over the town, his form perfectly shaped as though he’d been sculpted. The golden tint to his bronze skin and the unusual tailoring of his midnight-blue clothing, along with deep brown hair that reached just below his shoulders, signified he wasn’t from anywhere near Hamelin.
But the thing that turned the tremor in her stomach caustic was the harshness of his gaze. Dark and glimmering, the pools of fury in his eyes forced her still, bewildered and almost speechless at the intensity within them.
Around them, more townspeople of Hamelin gathered, silent as they peered at the stranger, the air filled with squeaky commotion.
After a long moment, Tsia took a breath, pushing down the tremor in her stomach. “I am Mayor Otto.” Her voice rang loud and clear over the din. “Welcome to Hamelin. How may I help you?”
The stranger’s jaw clenched, but besides that slight movement, he remained still. “I can rid you of your rodent problems.” The gravel of his voice sent a flush of goosebumps up her arms, but she ignored it.
“We need no help from the likes of you,” Grimel blurted out.
Tsia exhaled heavily, but she ignored the councilor. “How?” she asked.
The stranger also ignored him but said nothing, simply watched her with that dark ferocity.
Grimel turned to the council, raising his voice so the crowd could hear. “He cannot rid us of this problem unless he caused it.”
For once, the councilors didn’t give any indication they agreed, their gaze moving between the stranger and Tsia. The stranger didn’t glance anywhere else; his eyes remained firmly on her.
“We tried smoking them out,” Tsia said. “We tried setting traps and locking them out of food stores and buildings. We’ve even tried to entice them away. There are simply too many of them to be controlled. How do you hope to capture them?”
“I don’t,” the stranger said. “I will remove them. Every single one of them will happily leave, all at once with no lingering effect to your town. It will be as though they never existed.”
The crowd murmured, but Tsia narrowed her eyes. “How?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” The word came out more forcefully than she intended.
Something changed in his gaze, but she couldn’t tell if it was surprise or annoyance that tainted those sinister pools.
“I will not have whatever method you intend to use negatively impact the good people of this town. We have all suffered over a month with this crisis, and I won’t have you preying on our desperation with lies or methods that will further harm—”
Her words died in her mouth as the stranger lifted his hand. She hadn’t noticed that he’d been holding something. A flute—no, a pipe. But it wasn’t like any pipe she’d seen before.
Pure black and almost as long and thick as his forearm, the pipe was as unusual and stunning as the man who held it. Adorned with silver, it glinted as the stranger raised the mouthpiece to his lips. Then he took a breath as his other hand joined the first on the tapered barrel.
A strange sound burst into the air, unlike anything she’d heard before. Sonorous and melodic, it penetrated deep within her, entangling her in melancholic gloom and acute nostalgia, emotions that made no sense to her.
Tsia closed her eyes, the melody soaring higher, coaxing unfamiliar emotions deep within her as though it was unlocking parts of her that she’d never known existed.
Finally the last note rang out, rich and deep, then faded slowly to a strange silence.
She swallowed, trying to gain control over the sensation in her chest, but as she opened her eyes a shocked realization hit her—the rats had quieted. The surrounding townspeople were murmuring, astonishment and awe on their faces.
All the rats had slowed to a stop across the town square. When she looked closer, she saw that they were still moving slightly, their tails and whiskers twitching; they had chosen to stay still?
Tsia glanced at the other council members, and they were just as astounded. When she looked back at the stranger, his eyes were still locked on to her, and she suspected he hadn’t once looked away. “What is your price?”
“Twelve thousand gold marks,” the stranger said, lowering the pipe back down to his side. “I also have five questions for you to answer, Mayor Otto, as part of my payment.”
She frowned. “What kind of questions?”
His jaw clenched again. “Do you accept my conditions?”
Tsia’s eyes drifted over the square. The rats remained motionless even after the music had stopped. If he could truly remove rats, then the cost was surely worth it. The crowd seemed to agree. Many turned to her, urging her to accept his offer, but the councilors said nothing. Maybe they felt it was a bad idea to hire a stranger, or maybe they hoped something would go wrong, and this was their golden opportunity to blame her. Either way, no one in their right mind would turn this offer down.
She turned her attention back to the stranger, whose gaze remained a constant on her. “I agree to your terms. But until all the rats are gone, you will not be paid or receive the answers to your questions.”
The rats began to stir as the stranger nodded. “I will remove them tonight.” He turned away, heading out of the town square.
“Why can’t you do it now?” Tsia asked as the rats resumed their frenzied roaming.
The stranger turned back, those dark eyes locking on to hers. “Tonight.”
THE DARK STRANGER came at midnight.
Even though the town was overrun all the time, most of the rats slept throughout the day, so it was at night when they were in full force, swarming every inch of the town, vicious and overwhelming. For the last few weeks, no one had managed to get much sleep. Between the relentless racket the rodents created in pursuit of food and their aggression, it was impossible to relax. Most of the town locked themselves in their houses or basements to escape the brutal attacks.
Tsia could see the town square from her bedroom. She stood at the window and watched streams of rats covering the town like an ocean of furry little bodies swaying in all directions. Thankfully, the rats didn’t bother her too much. She had gotten rid of most of her food as soon as they had appeared. As such, they didn’t linger in her house as much as they did at everyone else’s.
She shook her head, hardly believing that the rats would be gone tonight. As she’d predicted, Grimel and some of the other council members were not happy about the deal she made with the stranger. They’d knocked on her door an hour before dusk.
“You cannot possibly give him twelve thousand marks,” Grimel had raged. “It’s too much.”
“It’s to get rid of the rats completely,” Tsia reiterated. “No dead bodies to deal with, no poison that would harm our children or crops, and no disease.”
His eyes were hard. “Twelve thousand is everything we have, and our collective town fund makes us the most powerful town in this region. If we give it to this stranger, we’ll descend to the poorest, lower than even Emmerthal. Can you imagine what that will do to us?”
“We’ll end up needing to borrow money,” Margarethe piped up beside him. “And being poor will diminish our trading power—we will be at a severe disadvantage and may never recover!”
Tsia almost rolled her eyes at their histrionics. The simple fact was the town becoming poor would disrupt their lavish and excessive lifestyles. “There is no other alternative. Our trading is already diminished because of the rats; none of the other towns will do business with us. We need this to end.”
“But why are we letting him extort from us?” another councilor blurted out. “He is one of them. It’s obvious he is using sorcery to solve a problem he created.”
“Unless you can prove that, I don’t want to hear it,” Tsia snapped. “Our townspeople are exhausted and injured and hungry. Their livelihoods are being destroyed and they’re living in constant terror. They are the ones who have suffered while you’ve been protected by your fortified stone basements. Do you think our townspeople would agree with you? Do you think they would support the refusal of this man’s offer and assist in detaining him so we could possibly force him to rid us of these rats? I noticed how you didn’t say any of this when our people were begging me to accept his terms earlier.”
The councilors’ expressions hardened. “You are the fucking mayor.” Grimel spoke as if his words were a demand. “It is your job to make difficult decisions, even if they are unpopular.”
“Yes,” she shot back. “And that is true even when the decision is unpopular with the council.” She stepped back, took the door knob in her hand and began to close the door. “You’d better get home—dusk is approaching.”
The exchange had annoyed her so much, she’d struggled to relax and was still holding pent-up tension when she saw movement in the moonlit square.
The stranger, dressed in the same dark outfit, walked across the town square holding his pipe. Once he’d reached the center, he lifted the instrument to his lips again, blowing into it as his fingers danced over the tone holes. The mellow, heavy sound blasted into the air, permeating the square.
Tsia inhaled at the sound, barely realizing she’d been eager to hear it again; the tension in her body trickled away.
Rich and heavy, each note ran into the next, the melody dipping and rising fluidly until the sound split into two harmonious notes and split again into four. Soon he was playing a complex tune, heavy with harmony and resonance. Tsia had never heard such a sound from a pipe, but clearly this instrument was unique. Refocusing on the man and his pipe, she noticed golden engravings lighting up and fading repeatedly along the barrel as if each breath blew magic into the life of the instrument.
As before, the rats slowed to a stop, their heads tilted and their whiskers twitching. His tune became even more complex, increasing in tempo, and they began to move toward him, entranced. Rats from every street corner, every building, every crook and cranny, crowded into the town square and stilled to listen to the piper.
When he reached a quick tempo, his fingers rapidly dancing over the flute, he turned and walked out of the town square.
Amazingly, the rats followed, streaming behind him—a thick, bustling swarm of hairy bodies, with more joining from every direction as if eager to keep up with him.
Shock bounding in her chest, Tsia watched the piper lead the rats away. Almost every door around the square opened. Townspeople ventured out of their houses with amazed expressions as rats ran out of their homes and into the road, following the stranger. Many stepped into the street to watch while a number of them followed the spectacle through the town.
Tsia grabbed her cloak and hurried outside to join them, curious to see what the piper was going to do.
A large group gathered, trailing behind the piper and the growing crowd of rats through Hamelin until it was impossible to follow too close behind. Tsia noticed almost all the council members following along, including Grimel, but no one spoke, the eeriness of the moonlit scene as well as the strange music from the pipe seeming to render everyone silent.
Finally they reached the River Weser, and the rats ran over the bank with no hesitation, dropping straight into the water with a heavy pattering of plops.
As the final surge of rats fell over the edge, Tsia realized the music had stopped and the piper disappeared.
She turned, looking for him, but Grimel approached, his nose scrunched as he scowled. “He’s trying to trick us. Rats can swim. They’ll be out of that river within the hour.”
“They were entranced by him,” Tsia replied. “If he can force them to follow him and jump into the river, I’m sure he can make them drown themselves too.”
Grimel’s face contorted, his lip curling as he shook his head in disgust. “Your husband, Elger, was never so naïve. I don’t know how he could have overseen the legal stipulation that his early death meant your appointment in his place. You are not fit to be mayor. He would have known that.”
Tsia had trained herself not to flinch whenever Elger was mentioned, but she almost did this time. “Well, he is dead,” she said bluntly. “And my current appointment was made by the people of this town. They are whom I serve, not you or my late husband.” Before he had a chance to say anything else, she turned and headed back home.
It was almost alarming how quiet and peaceful the town was without the rats. Families had gathered in the empty streets, locked together in fierce, relieved hugs or weeping into each other’s arms.
Tsia entered her house with a heavy sigh, weariness creeping into her. It’d been over a month since she was able to have a good night’s sleep, and now that the rats were finally gone, she and the whole town could rest properly.
As she entered her bedroom, terror slammed into her. A scream caught in her throat at the sight of a large, dark figure standing by her bed. She froze, her heart pounding in her chest. “Who are you?”
The figure stepped forward into the moonlight shining through the window, and her eyes widened. It was him. Broad and majestic, his imposing presence charged the air, sparking that tremor in her stomach again. Now that he was closer, the strength of his fierce glare was like the full force of the sun. With his striking clothing and good looks, he was alarmingly out of place in her boring, muted bedroom, but that was because he wasn’t supposed to be there. As a widowed mayor, she was forbidden to have a man in her bedroom, least of all a stranger. The council would certainly have cause to terminate her appointment if they found out.
Tsia swallowed her fear, anger rising in its stead. “What are you doing in here? How dare you enter my private—”
“I will go anywhere I please in this rotten town.” His gravelly voice, ladened with disgust, cut through the newfound silence, jarring to her ears. “I have questions for you.”
Tsia scowled at him. “And why cannot they be asked in the morning?”
Something changed in his eyes and he suddenly moved toward her. Surprised, she backed away, but he was towering over her before she’d even taken a few steps. The scent of him invading her nostrils—heady, warm, and earthy, with a distinctive depth that somehow felt intimate and significant. The tremor, which had bloomed inside her the moment she saw him, reappeared. What was wrong with her? Why was the stranger inspiring such a reaction in her? At first she thought it was just nerves, but she’d never felt nerves like this before. Still, the thunder in his face restored her fear and tightened her throat.
“I am the one asking questions.” His growl vibrated through her. “And I will do so at any time of the day or night as I please.”
Tsia’s back hit the wall, and she pressed herself against it as he came closer. But despite him physically cornering her, she knew from her experience as mayor that she had to establish some kind of authority of her own, otherwise she’d lose control of his cooperation. She held his gaze, challenging him with a glare of her own. “There’s no need for you to be in my private rooms.”
Impossibly, his eyes darkened even further. “There is.”
Tucking both hands underneath her cloak, the piper pushed it over her shoulders, revealing a nightgown she’d cut very short for a cooler sleep.
She was so shocked by the action, she stilled, her whole body tense as she tried to fathom what he was doing.
His eyes flickered down her body, and the tremble in her stomach became volatile, spreading through her and tugging every nerve in her body until a tingle spread between her legs.
His dark eyes flicked back up to hers. “You followed me out to the river.” The grit of his voice sent a delicious flush through her. “I could smell you.”
A flaring heat spread up her chest and neck, mortification and a strange gratification battling within her.
“Among all the festering shit and putrid odors of this town, your scent is like a beam of beautiful bliss.” He lowered to the floor slowly, his furious eyes remaining on hers until he was on his knees. His large hands dragged her cloak down her back, trapping her arms behind her. “I caught a hint of it this morning, and I ignored it.” The pools in his eyes churned. “Because I won’t allow you to continue to make me suffer.” His gaze lowered to between her legs, where the jagged hem of her nightgown fluttered with every word he uttered. “But I’ve never smelled anything like it. That delicious, intoxicating fragrance.”
