"Get your lazy slit out here Yaiyona . It's about time you started to earn your porridge. A gentleman of the road wants to look you over before you show him his room."
Master Innkeeper Chamton, as he insisted she call him, shouted that from the big gaming wheel counter that served double duty as the Warrior Welcome Inn's registration desk. Since his hefty wife's family owned the inn he wasn't a master of anything. Instead he served as the male face of a brothel inn servicing men whose business brought them to the mustering barracks and taxing warehouses of the Prophii of Eastenmarch.
Chamton had wrapped the ribbon around his wife, V'yramit, three years ago in a Neitherport. The ceremony had been the start of a complicated business deal that was supposed to end with a baby heir or heiress. After a year of planking, unsatisfactory on both sides, the business deal unraveled when a young neighborhood child watcher named Genchana presented V'yramit's much older second cousin with boy and girl twins.
By producing both an heir and heiress Genchana satisfy the requirements of several contradictory wills, estate entails and letters of intent. She also deprived a tribe of law shouters of the spoils of what had promised to be several massive court cases.
It was also a victory for the local Afradit temple. Before she became a child watcher Genchana had been a temple servant. While she wasn't a true novitiate studying to become a licensed courtesan, she was intelligent, friendly and willing to assist the true novitiates. Many were orphaned, discarded or otherwise abandoned field girls whose future had been a choice between a beggar's bowl or a village planking hut. Now they were trying to turn themselves into sophisticated licensed courtesans whose future might even include the Imperial compounds. So nobody objected when Genchana settled down by a privacy screen to listen to talk about the love goddess's far-from-secret secrets.
While Yaiyona didn't wake up in the morning and look around for prophetic signs that this was the day she should burn cursing papers and bring Genchana down, she couldn't help feeling that Genchana's success had been a factor in her own downfall.
Genchana had left for the port city two years before Yaiyona began teaching music and dance in the temple. Her status hovered below that of a temple priestess and above that of a temple servant. The previous male teacher had discovered the upcountry temple was nowhere near as prosperous as he believed and the novitiates were nowhere near as obliging as he hoped. So he had attempted to carry away the more portable of the temple's musical instruments during a big moon festival's chants and rituals.
When he was discovered he managed to get away with the temple's only decent horse, and the coin in the temples offering box. Yaiyona had passed him as he galloped up the road towards the Snowing Mountain pass and she trudged down in the moonlight hoping to find someone willing to feed her. This was a holy night when the goddesses looked into the souls of their believers.
If it wasn't for the chaos while the temple priestesses try to organize a posse she wouldn't have stopped to beg a meal. Afradit temple were not noted for taking in scarred females with a visible curse mark on their cheeks but after an impromptu song and dance interview where she called upon a herd of bad luck demons including the spirits of the dagger tooth cats--they prowled in the forest at the top of the pass -- to devour the fleeing man she found herself eating from a stew bowl while negotiating with the under priestess who did all the work that ran the temple.
She didn't finish her stew with a very generous offer. Room and board in exchange for servant tasks when she wasn't teaching. Plus a vague promise of some coin in the future.
Her answer would have been 'I'll help out until you find someone permanent' if she hadn't been shown the temple's instrument collection. Part of the temples endowment by the Prophii, they must have come from his palace's music room. She could see why the fleeing man wanted to steal them. The long twangor had the maker mark of a legendary craftsman from the previous dynasty on its scroll. Sell that and the coin would have fed, dressed and kept her warm in a decent room for a decade.
What more could a young songstress want? A collection of superb instruments, singers and players with maybe some hint of musical talent, and a position where no one would scream at her if she dared deviate from the traditional canon by working on her own compositions.
It might have worked out as she hoped if the Prince Imperial hadn't decided to silence questions about his ability to succeed his grandfather, the ancient and senile Emperor, by conquering the clans and tribes on Blue Seal Isle who resisted Imperial rule from their mountain strongholds. And if Genchana's shipping company hadn't gotten the lucrative contract to carry warriors and supplies across the inland sea. And if to celebrate the contract Genchana hadn't persuaded the company to endow a temple to the goddess Afradit in Neitherport.
So when the Prince Imperial called for a horde of warriors to assemble in the ports of the channel sea, the Prophii of Eastenmarch had answered by calling for a mustering of his warriors and would be warriors. With the promise of mustering silver now and newly conquered farmsteads complete with field and bed slaves for the most conspicuously valiant later, a river of young men had signed up for the campaign.
After a minimal amount of training in military discipline and martial arts the Prophii of Eastenmarch's would be warriors marched off to join the Prince Imperial's horde. Naturally the girls and women who had come here to earn their share of the mustering silver went with them.
So did the license courtesans in training and all but one of the temple priestess. The excuse was that they would work with Genchana to set up her temple and returned with a promise to assist the true temple of her heart with the periodic gift of coin from a daughter temple. The actuality, Yaiyona strongly suspected, was that if the endowment was as generous as Genchana claimed, that was the last she would see of that group.
To transport the women Prophii provided wagons. They range from elegant harem coaches with canopies, bug screens, floor cushions and traveling game tables to farm wagons that still smelled of manure that had been spread on the field the day before. The priestess and the novitiates rode in the harem wagons. Field girls without family or exceptional beauty rode in the farm wagons. Besides night duties they were expected to become the laundry women, field cooks, wound binders, uniform seamstresses and and doer of all tasks the warriors of the Eastenmarch expected camp followers to do.
At the very last minute and by order of the Master Tally of Taxes Yaiyona was forced to stay behind. Somehow he had been granted or just grabbed authority over the temple and the pig farm attached to it. The one remaining priestess, the only ordained one from the Cathedral temple in the Imperial compound, was old, lazy and so fat she needed help to rise from her favorite chair. She was no match for the Master Tally when he started shouting orders.
Yaiyona and her trunk were to travel in the temple's freight wagon. The instrument collection were to remain with the temple – Yaiyona knew the Master Tally had his own plans for that fortune of musical instruments if he ever discovered how she managed to hide them – but her trunk with her performing clothes and, more important, her laboriously written out scores of songs ranging from the temple's solemn invocations and chants to the most raucous celebrations of the pleasures of worshiping the Most High Goddess Afradid went off to war without her.
Someday she had planned to publish those scores. Then she would send autographed copies to the leaders of the musicians circle who stood silent when the Lord High Stallion broke all traditions by trading her to a Neitherport merchant. That would prove that she had not remained in the degraded position she now found herself.
Genchana had gone on to become a young matriarch with considerable authority over how the profits of a major shipping company were spent. She had become the overworked servant of three refugee families.
On their march to Neitherport some of the Prophii of Eastenmarch's would be warriors decided to practice their looting skills in a village that had been recently being granted a charter that freed them from the Prophii's taxes. A village where V'yramit family owned another inn. After they lost the baby lottery Chamton's wife's family hadn't been forced to apply for beggar tokens. They came away owning four inns and two bath houses.
Now they only owned three inns. They had petitioned Genchana to use her influence to obtain the charter, something the Prophii of Eastenmarch knew about. So he saw no reason to rein in his men. And if some buildings accidentally caught fire when a few tired men had become boisterous: that rated a shrug and a comment that the village was no longer under his protection.
She dropped those thoughts when Chamton shouted again. "I said get your lazy planking slit out here, Yaiyona. Now!”
"I ain't ready. Gonna dress first. Just woke up. " Yaiyona lied.
She had woken when she heard the visitor bell and had been listening to them haggle over room prices. Chamton had been trying to up the price of the fanciest room with all the extras. The most expensive extras being her body. If the gentleman of the road came up with the coin he could do anything to her as long as she was still fit to work in the morning.
Her gentleman of the road had turned surprisingly poetic when he argued with Chamton. "I've already told you I'm not interested in walking the trails were so many men have walked before. I'm certainly not interested in collecting the surprises that fell out of their packs as they jumped over hummocks or squeezed between hedgerows where the trail narrowed."
Chamton wasn't impressed by the suggestive imagery. Or perhaps because of his crude mouth and manner he didn't notice it.
"You don't know what you will be missing. I got her from the temple up the road. The Goddess Apridit temple. They use spells and potions to keep their girls virgin cleaned so nobody can come back complaining they can't piss in the morning because they got a case of the scratches and drips. If that don't reassure you she can put on a private show where you don't have to touch her. Her special private shows where she sings the songs that put darts into Grandpa Grump tube. And if they don't turn you on, she can tell tales about how the Lord High Stallion turns the Arrogant Imperial Seven Sisters into battling spread-legs fighting over who will be first to be mounted. And they ain't songs she learned in the taverns. Way I hear it, the Lord High Stallion sent her down to the temple for extra training so she could teach his stable of tribute mares new ways to pleasure his personal guard and anyone else he wants to honor."
"I guess I'll have to live with those regrets. Tonight I must declined your most generous offer for one more humble. That offer will be a clean, private room with a feather filled sleeping pad and cover. One with a good lock and its own fireplace and enough wood to drive off a traveler's chills. With no extras. For one night. Although depending upon how my business goes tomorrow I may say for a second night. All for an honest price of a 1/2 silver. Which is probably more than it's worth since this is an empty inn on the outskirts of an even more empty mustering ground."
She stopped paying attention as Chamton protested that the inn was full. Actually a true statement although his claim that he would be forced to charge eight coppers for her to shift guests and prepare the rooms with fresh bed coverings was outrageous.
She checked that everything she was wearing was in place for tonight's playlet. Her custom version of the Warrior Welcome Inn's very friendly chambermaid uniform included a long skirt that dropped to her ankles. It would've been demure if it hadn't been split down the front starting above her belly button. To hold it together in the non-custom version three to five sets of ribbons were tied into big bows. On gambling nights back when the mustering barracks were crowded and the inn hired at least eight chambermaids, folding doors were opened and the reception area became one large party room. The prettiest chambermaid became the dealer in a popular military card game. If a winner's hand included certain card combinations he could untie a bow and enjoy the pleasures offered on the paper pinned behind it. From the stack of papers she found in a storage room the pleasures ranged from a free drink and some pleasant conversation, plenty of those, to an all night frolic for the winner and two friends with the chambermaid of his choice, only two of those.
Yesterday the uniform had five bows. Now there was only short stubs of ribbons where Zlobree, V'yramit's older sister, had cut them away. This was now her nightclothes, ones that she would wear in her new sleeping room by the reception area. Since Zlobree locked up the servant hallway that contained the room where Yaiyona normally slept after growling out a long threat detailing what would happen if Yaiyona dared to disobey her orders Yaiyona had found herself in a cramped storage room lying awake on bed pads and covers too tattered and stained to be worth washing.
Sneaking out and sleeping under horse blankets in the stable on a cold night just to prove she wouldn't be ordered around in such a stupid manner wasn't worth the trouble. Maybe tomorrow she would discover a way to wiggle out of the middle of the legendary feud between Zlobree and Chamton.
The wife's sister blamed Chamton for the failure to produce a baby heir or heiress. When they were separated by a days march, the feud had simmered. Now that they were living cramped together it had burst out into something that was almost awesome in its insanity.
Normally Chamton would love to have a near naked girl he thought he had a right to control near him. But not now. He hadn't recovered from his stupid overdose of Blue Wine. After four days pissing still brought on clinched teeth and suppressed groans. And if his body acted as it normally acted around near naked girls: there would be no suppressing his groans.
It was ironic how this had worked out, Yaiyona thought. She would start her act by clutching the skirt to keep it closed. When Chamton ordered her to show off her charms, something she was certain he would do, her gentleman of the road would see a filthy loin covering soiled with an artistically splotched layer of greenishly tinted red paint where he would expect to see moon blood. The makeup paint and brush kit was another gift from Zlobree. She'd been ordered to decorate herself with appropriate courtesans designs. Which would have been possible if the cubby had a large mirror.
Judging by what she heard about collecting gifts along a well traveled trail the sight of a greenish red splotch signaling an advanced case of the drips and scratches should send him running. If it didn't and he pulled back the veil on the summer hat with the crush feathers and torn brim that she would be wearing he would discover the curse mark on her right cheek, unfortunately a very real and prominent curse mark. And if for some reason that didn't discourage him she would play the too eager, too stupid and too greedy country whore who offered a multitude of future nasties for a moment of less than expert pleasure followed by an angry tirade demanding more coin.
As expected Chamton now yelled, "If you don't come out now I'm coming in to drag you out!" So after an "I'm coming. I'm coming." she pulled back the curtain and looked into the reception room to see what sort of a gentlemen of the road she would be dealing with.