Michael Sullivan: Avempartha

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Her voice quivered. “I just never thought I would ever find you.”

“Oh, okay. Well, you did.” He smiled at her. “And this fellow here is Royce Melborn.”

She gasped and threw her arms around the smaller man’s neck, hugging him tight and crying even harder. Royce stood awkward and stiff while Hadrian peeled her off.

“So I get the impression you’re glad to see us, that’s good,” Hadrian told her. “Now, who are you?”

“I’m Thrace Wood of Dahlgren Village.” She was smiling. She could not help herself. “I have been looking for you for a very long time.”

She staggered.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m a little dizzy.”

“When was the last time you had anything to eat?”

Thrace stood thinking, her eyes shifting back and forth trying to remember.

“Never mind,” Hadrian turned to Royce, “This was once your city. Any ideas where we can get help for a young woman in the middle of the night?”

“It’s a shame we aren’t in Medford. Gwen would be great for this sort of thing.”

“Well, isn’t there a brothel here? After all we’re in the trade capital of the world. Don’t tell me they don’t sell that.”

“Yeah, there’s a nice one on South Street.”

“Okay, Thrace, is it? Come with us, we’ll see if we can get you cleaned up and perhaps a bit of food in you.”

“Wait.” She knelt down beside the unconscious man and pulled her purse from his pocket.

“Is he dead?” She asked.

“Doubt it. Didn’t hit him that hard.”

Rising, she felt light-headed and darkness crept in from the edges of her vision. She hovered a moment like a drunk, began to sway and finally collapsed. She woke only briefly and felt arms gently lifting her. Through a dull buzzing she heard the sound of a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she heard one of them say.

“This is the first time I suspect anyone has ever visited a whore house and brought his own woman.”

Shines up purty as a new copper piece, that one does,” Clarisse noted as the three looked through the doorway at Thrace waiting in the parlor. Clarisse was a large rotund woman with rosy cheeks and short pudgy fingers that had a habit of playing with the pleats of her skirt. She and the other women of the Bawdy Bottom Brothel had done wonders with the girl. Thrace was clothed in a new dress. It was cheap and simple, a brown linen kirtle over a white smock with a starched brown bodice, but still decidedly more fetching than the rag she had worn. She hardly resembled the ragamuffin they met the night before. In addition to giving her a bed to sleep in, the women scrubbed, combed, and fed her. Even her lips and eyes were painted and the results were stunning. She was a young beauty with startling blue eyes and golden hair.

“Poor girl was in awful shape when you dropped her off. Where’d you find her?” Clarisse asked.

“Under the Tradesmen’s Arch,” Hadrian replied.

“Poor thing,” the large woman shook her head sadly. “You know if she needs a place, I’m sure we could put her on the roster. She’d get a bed to sleep in, three meals a day, and with her looks she could do well for herself.”

“Something tells me she’s not a prostitute,” Hadrian told her.

“None of us are, honey. Not until you find yourself sleeping under the Tradesmen’s Arch that is. You shoulda seen her at breakfast. She ate like a starved dog. ’Course she wouldn’t touch a thing ’till we convinced her that the food was free, given by the Chamber ’a Commerce to visitors of the city as a welcome. Maggie came up with that one. She’s a hoot, she is. That reminds me, the bill for the room, dress, food, and general clean up comes to sixty-five silver. We threw in the make-up for free ’cause Delia just wanted to see how she’d look on account she says she’s never worn it ’afore.”

Royce handed her a gold tenent.

“Well, well, you two really need to drop by more often, and next time without the girl, eh?” she winked. “Seriously though, what’s the story with this one?”

“That’s just it, we don’t know,” Hadrian replied.

“But I think it’s time we found out,” Royce added.

Not nearly as nice as Medford House back home, the Bawdy Bottom Brothel was decorated with gaudy red drapes, rickety furniture, pink lampshades, and dozens of pillows. Everything had tassels and fringe, from the threadbare carpets to the cloth edging adorning the top of the walls. It was old, weathered, and worn but at least it was clean.

The parlor was a small oval room just off the main hall with four bay windows that looked out on the street. It contained two loveseats, a few tables crowded with ceramic figures, and a small fireplace. Seated on one of the loveseats, Thrace waited, her eyes darting about like a rabbit in an open field. The moment they entered, she leapt from her seat, knelt, and bowed her head.

“Hey! Watch it, that’s a new dress,” Hadrian said with a smile.

“Oh!” she scrambled to her feet blushing, then curtseyed and bowed her head once more.

“What’s she doing?” Royce whispered to Hadrian.

“Not sure,” he whispered back.

“I am trying to show the proper reverence, your lordships,” she whispered to both of them while keeping her head down, “I’m sorry if I’m not very good at it.”

Royce rolled his eyes and Hadrian began to laugh.

“Why are you whispering?” Hadrian asked her.

“Because you two were.”

Hadrian chuckled again. “Sorry, Thrace-ah your name is, Thrace, right?”

“Yes, my lord, Thrace Annabell Wood of Dahlgren Village,” she awkwardly curtseyed again.

“Okay, well-Thrace,” Hadrian struggled to continue with a straight face. “Royce and I are not lords, so there is no need to bow or curtsy.”

The girl looked up.

“You saved my life,” she told them in such a solemn tone Hadrian stopped laughing. “I don’t remember a lot of last night, but I remember that much. And for that you deserve my gratitude.”

“I would settle for an explanation,” Royce said, moving to the windows. He began closing the drapes. “Straighten up for Maribor’s sake, before a sweeper sees you, thinks we’re noble, and marks us. We’re already on thin ice here as it is. Let’s not add to it.”

She stood up straight, and Hadrian could not help but stare. Her long yellow hair, now free of twigs and leaves, shimmered in waves over her shoulders. She was a vision of youthful beauty and Hadrian guessed she could not be more than seventeen.

“Now, why have you been looking for us?” Royce asked, closing the last curtain.

“To hire you to save my father,” she said, untying the purse from around her neck and holding it up with a smile. “Here. I have twenty-five silver tenents. Solid silver stamped with the Dunmore crown.”

Royce and Hadrian exchanged looks.

“Isn’t it enough?” She asked, her lips starting to tremble.

“How long did it take you to save up this money?” Hadrian asked.

“All my life. I saved every copper I was ever given, or earned. It was my dowry.”

“Your dowry?”

She lowered her head looking at her feet. “My father is a poor farmer. He would never-I decided to save for myself. It’s not enough, is it? I didn’t realize. I’m from a very small village. I thought it was a lot of money; everyone said so, but…” She looked around at the battered loveseat and faded curtains. “We don’t have palaces like this.”

“Well, we really don’t-” Royce began in his usual insensitive tone.