Under A Velvet Cloak by Piers Anthony Page B

a turret. She stood in this and gazed around the countryside, spread out like a map below. Now there was no town; fields and forests surrounded the castle. The illusion had changed again.
    “Welcome, Kerena.”
    She jumped; the voice was right behind her. She turned to discover a breathtakingly lovely woman wearing a crown-shaped tiara and a gown that hardly concealed her voluptuous form. “Queen Morgan le Fey,” she said, curtsying.
    Jolie ducked down as low as she could go. She was afraid of the sorceress and did not want to be discovered.
    “I will allow one question a day. The rest is business.”
    “How much is illusion?”
    “All of it.” Abruptly they were standing in an ordinary room with no view. The Fey, too, was changed, and was now a moderately dull woman of perhaps forty.
    “Thank you. I have expended my question, so will not ask what you want of me.”
    “Smart girl. I have need of information. You will obtain it. In return I will teach you how to locate your lost man, which will require magical arts. Perform well and you will be rewarded.”
    She did not need to add that failure to perform well would bring punishment. “I am ready.”
    “Men have secrets, but they will often betray everything to women they desire enough. I can no longer fascinate men to that degree, because illusion alone won’t do it. But you are young enough to have the body, nervy enough to use it effectively, and that is most of what matters.”
    “I understand.”
    “Sometimes silence is necessary, and the only way to be sure of it is with the dagger’s point. You will learn to handle that aspect too.”
    Kerena stared at the woman, horrified. “I don’t think I can do that.”
    “Not now. But in time you will.”
    Her first assignment was to seduce a young knight of the king’s court, and to learn where a particular cache of silver was hidden. Kerena suspected that the Fey already knew the answer, but was using this as a test case to see how apt Kerena was in this kind of interrogation. Well, she would try her best; she wanted to learn what the Fey could teach her.
    The Fey took her to the edge of town just before the knight was due to pass, and faded out. That was a nice trick of illusion; Kerena made a mental note to learn it when she could. Meanwhile she disposed herself in peasant clothing and waited.
    The knight was in plain clothes, anonymous, as he was coming into town for a session at the brothel. He was barely 21 and seemed more like fifteen. Kerena had to remind herself that she was only fourteen, though she felt far older in experience. Morely, the brothel, and Hirsh had done that for her.
    She stepped out to block his horse. “Kind sir,” she called. “Are you going my way?”
    He reined in the animal, contemplating her. Kerena’s hair was silken long, her face was innocent, and her shift was snug at the waist, accenting her bosom and hips. “That depends.”
    “I live on market street, near the center of town.” That was near the brothel district; he surely was well familiar with the area. “I am a poor maiden afoot, and it is a long walk I would be most grateful for a ride.”
    He decided it was a chance worth taking. After all, if she didn’t work out, he still would be close to where he was going anyway. “Come on up.” He reached a hand down.
    She took his hand, and lifted a leg to join her foot to his in the stirrup. In the process, of course, she flashed her bare leg well toward the juncture. The knight’s pupils dilated.
    It was a bit of a scramble getting up before him, during which her shift got pulled around to show rather too much flesh, and her breasts scraped across his arm. Finally she was there, her bottom pressed against his crotch, and one of his arms around her body just below her breasts. It was not an elegant mounting, but it had familiarized him with all the aspects of her body that might have interested him. Exposive dishabille was a special art.
    She engaged him in