Cold Comfort by Sharpeslass
Rating: R (for sexual content)
(This is set about a year before the events of LotR,TT.)
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. They are the property of Tolkien Enterprises/New Line. If I did own them, things would have turned out better for Grima and probably a bit worse for Faramir (sorry Kristen!).
The large cities of Gondor boasted many a luxurious bordello, where courtesans waited on the pleasure of soldiers, scholars and even spies.
The windy landscapes of Rohan offered no such luxuries. But not many miles ride outside of Edoras were large villages with a few inns and taverns where similar comforts might still be bought and sold.
It was to one such tavern that Grima, called Wormtongue, found himself drawn.
He was loath to seek out the company of common prostitutes. He told himself that such things were beneath his station and his dignity. In reality he hated the cold rejection he saw in the faces of these women, women who should by all rights bow and scrape before him, grateful for his attentions and his coin.
On this night even the repressed resentment caused by such treatment had been outweighed by the cold loneliness of his rooms in Meduseld. It was a loneliness he’d long lived with, now compounded by the ever more chilly treatment he received from Eowyn, she whom he loved.
He knew she would be his eventually. Some months ago a promise of power had been made and a pact sealed. But the time between the setting in motion of the scheme and its culmination dragged slowly.
As the White Lady continued to spurn him (to delay the inevitable) he had almost learned to be content with his own imaginings. His clever mind had crafted somewhat satisfying fantasies involving Eowyn and how she might come to love him body and mind. But sometimes these imaginings both dark and light were not enough.
On this night he found he needed to feed his starved soul on something more flesh than phantom.
He stayed far from the more polished and populated inns from which the sounds of song and celebration poured.
He was not welcome in those warm, tightly packed worlds. The women would not have him. They stayed fat on coin from Rohan’s riders. They listened also to the soldier’s gossip. There was no love for him in those places and with the riders of the mark standing behind them the women had no qualms about their brash and vocal derision of "The Worm."
Instead Grima sought a place poorer, and women more desperate for trade.
He found the Inn of the Broken Barrel.
Candlelight and the flames from a fire lit the windows of the stone and thatched building, but did not lend it a comforting air. Desperation and poverty seemed to ebb from the structure itself, and from the poor and disenfranchised lingering within and without. Distaste and revulsion warred with apprehension and anticipation as Grima crept along the dark alley beside the inn.
"Hallo luv," a ruddy redheaded woman called to him as he approached. "Looking for some good company, my darling?"
How he hated the voices of these women, coarse and overly familiar, unrefined and so far removed from his taste. The woman who had so addressed him was plump, her hair a tangle of thick curls. She would not do at all.
He turned to spit a response in her direction and the weak light coming from inside the inn illuminated his pale face. The woman recoiled visibly.
"’Ere," she hissed softly. "Don’t I know you?" It was an accusation. "The king’s worm you are. There’s nothing here for your like."
Grima felt anger beginning to seethe within him. How dare this common prostitute so address the chief advisor to the king of Rohan? He felt under his thick cloak for the sharp dagger at his belt, and was inclined to put it to use.
No one else had seen him approach and few would mourn the death of a common whore. His grip tightened on the hilt and he moved forward a pace.
He might not earn her respect, but she would at least learn to fear him. The woman read the threat implicit in his expression.
As she pressed her back to the wall he saw her glance sideways, gauging the distance from alleyway to tavern door. Grima noted her fear with satisfaction and a slow smile crept to his thin dark lips.
"I’ll go with you my lord." Grima whirled to face a new voice in the darkness. His prey, released by the distraction, fled for the relative comfort of the public house.
Grima regarded the figure before him standing in the half-light. She obviously had no idea how close she had come to witnessing a murder. By the looks of her she had doubtless seen worse, or experienced it.
She was a skinny thing, a good start. But unlike the stern and slender lady of Grima’s dreams, her posture spoke of defeat, of many long defeats. Everything about her was limp and almost lifeless. He could tell that she was still young but her eyes wore the dead slack gaze of the very old.
"Come here," he commanded, relaxing his grip upon the hilt of his blade. She stepped obediently into the light. Her hair, like that of most of the Rohirrim, was blonde. But it was a dull lank blonde, falling only just past her shoulders. She was thin and plain. But at least she had all of her teeth and she was clean… he cast a dubious glance at her grubby shift… for the most part.
The clothing, which had doubtless belonged to several others before falling into her own hands, was tattered and stained. It had been designed to emphasize endowments she did not possess, and was partially covered by a torn woolen cloak.
He noted dark bruises at the base of her neck and on her thin wrists. She looked more like a beggar than a whore, but in the dark, he thought, she would do.
Grown men had faltered under Grima’s piercing blue-eyed stare, but his long scrutiny left the girl unfazed.
"Do you know who I am, whore?" he asked roughly, still moved to anger by the previous encounter and striving to assert his superiority.
The girl simply shook her head. Her face betrayed no curiosity at all. It simply didn’t matter to her. All the better, he thought. If she didn’t know who he was, there could be no talk.
The possibility of such talk was another thing that had often stayed him from acting on his baser needs. The loathsome thought of these lowborn peasants and prostitutes jeering together over his nocturnal activities was unbearable to him.
"How much?" he finally asked.
"Three."
"Crowns?" He sneered at her, incredulous.
"Shillings, my lord," she replied simply. Grima’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Why do you ask so little?" he asked. "Are you infected with some disease?"
"No, milord," she answered evenly. "But the men don’t like me as such. I’m not pretty like some, and I can’t…" Here she faltered for the first time, seeming to cast about for the proper words. "I can’t pretend to like it, if you take my meaning, milord. Them others," she gestured toward the inn. "Them other ladies, they can make a man think that they like it, even though they don’t, leastways not much. That’s the trick of it that I can’t get, milord." She shrugged slightly. "So I do a poor trade."
The broken but honest little speech seemed to tire her. She dropped her chin slightly and pulled her cloak more tightly about her.
"Oh, but I have no need of pretense," he assured her, moving yet closer, "only the use of your body."
She raised her slightly red-rimmed eyes to his.
"Three, milord," she repeated.
Grima, duplicitous above all else, found himself fascinated by the girl’s self-detrimental frankness. He gave a nod of assent and she took his hand. He pulled it from her grasp, startled by the touch. She simply shrugged. "If you’ll follow me then milord."
He hesitated slightly as she drew him toward the inn, but resolved to follow. What had he to be afraid of from this rabble? Despite those sentiments he was relieved when her course steered them past the well-lit common room to a dark hallway beyond.
At least one pair of eyes saw them pass.
"So the mouse has caught a worm," the familiar voice brayed into the darkness. Grima paused and caught the eyes of the fat whore whose life had almost ended at his hands. He trapped her gaze and she clearly read the warning within his eyes.
Her tongue was stilled and, infectiously, the quiet fear spread to her companions. As Grima turned to stalk after the girl he had purchased only silence followed.
Her room, if it was her room, was tiny but again clean. It contained only a narrow straw mattress, a pitcher and ewer, the stubs of several candles and a few tattered blankets. There was a fireplace, but no fire.
The girl lit a few candles, shut and latched the door, then drew close to him. Grima caught her hands in his as she reached for the lacings at the neck of his tunic.
"Your hands smell of onion," he observed with distaste.
"I work days in the kitchen, milord," she replied with what he regarded as an appropriate humility, lowering her hands and clasping them before her. "Today was onions…" She rubbed at her nose and let her eyes wander the room, waiting for him to make the next move. Was she witless? he wondered as he regarded her blank roaming stare.
"If milord wants girls what don’t have to do other work, there’s some places to find them," she continued after a moment, returning her eyes to Grima and seeing, as if for the first time, his clothing. "You look as though you could afford it milord."
Did she mock him? Neither her voice nor her bearing revealed outward signs of contempt and so he moved forward.
"You’ll do," he muttered, and grasping her about the waist pressed his lips to hers.
Her breath was fresh and sweet. A kind surprise… he thought. This might work after all.
When he released her, she moved back from his embrace. Her expression was as blank as it had been before, though Grima found himself breathing slightly harder.
"How do you want it milord?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but the harsh accent grated on Grima’s nerves. His ears were tuned to a colder, more cultured tone.
"Silently," he answered, holding a pale finger to her lips. She nodded and began to unlace her shift. He watched, staying to the shadows cast by her pale candles.
***
If anyone had asked her, which they hadn’t, she would have said ‘quickly.’ But ‘silently’ would do for a start.
She couldn’t pretend to be moved to the moans and groans of passion, which so many men desired to hear. Because of that, they often bruised her, wishing to draw evidence that the body beneath them was not a corpse. They drew their proofs from her sounds of pain. She could make those noises, the gasps and grunts of the assailed and injured.
But she never cried… not with tears. In some dark corner of her mind she remembered the day her tears had stopped. But what need had she to go looking into the darkness? Night had discovered her for itself.
The slight, pale man who was to be her first customer in many nights watched from the shadows as she slipped from her clothing.
She should make a show of it, this undressing. But for three shillings she did not offer a show… only the cold comfort that live flesh unadorned by pretense could offer. She did however stop herself from wrapping her arms around her thin body, though the room was so very, very cold.
He moved again to her side, looking not at her face, but her body.
"Do I repulse you?" he asked mildly, as his hand caressed her shoulder and neck.
She considered the question, allowing herself to see him, his pale face… his misted blue eyes. He looked like one made of damp stone, she thought. Moisture gathered on him and ran off again, as it would off of polished rock… not human flesh.
But he still had all his teeth, and he was clean… she regarded his lank hair dubiously… mostly. Besides his breath was not as bad as some, and his hands thus far were gentler than others.
"No milord," she answered with honesty.
He pushed her down onto her straw mattress and his hands groped at her skin. His eyes were closed. She reached again to unfasten his tunic, but he moved her hands instead to his belt. His eyes remained closed as she unfastened his breeches and reached toward his flesh. She felt a moment’s alarm when she found him.
This slight man had been gifted with a length many men of arms might envy. But she was not pleased. It would make her task the harder.
He opened his vivid blue eyes when her grip closed upon him. His mouth gaped betraying the pleasure of the caress, but his eyes seemed wary. She stroked him and he let out a deep gasp.
***
Grima had seen the brief fear in the girl’s eyes and grimaced inwardly. It was a lame jest of fate that he be so shriveled in form and yet so well endowed. As he felt for the prostitute’s soft opening he reminded himself of Eowyn. She would be alarmed by his size as well.
The thought aroused him. He fondled the girl beneath him. She made no sound. His lady would be shy also, he thought. He spat into his hand and rubbed the moisture between her spread thighs.
He then thrust into her seeing only Eowyn, feeling only Eowyn. The girl obligingly wrapped her arms and legs about him as he shoved himself into her otherwise unresponsive flesh.
His hands covered her but his eyes stayed shut as he imagined perfection beneath his palms, denying the intellectual voice inside him, which mocked the depredations to which he had descended.
To the touch her hair was so like his lady’s, his love’s.
Grima took her three times before he was sated. It had been a long, long time.
He paid and left quickly when he was finished. She had asked three shillings but some would have demanded nine… three for each time. This girl would have been content with three. He gave her a gold crown.
***
After he was gone she rocked on her stained mattress and held the bright coin. The girl might have laughed aloud then, had she remembered how. For, she would eat tomorrow, and stay warm beside a fire tomorrow night.
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