Despite her present situation, Tessa was a woman of character and determination, of intellect and ingenuity. It was both her blessing and her misfortune to be an attractive woman, and there were few men who had not appreciatively eyed her reddish-auburn hair, her green cat’s-eyes, her fair complexion. Her legs were long, muscled like a dancer’s, but by no means masculine. She was lean but well-proportioned in a way which men desired.
Men. Desire.
Although Tessa was not yet twenty-five, she knew enough of both. As she lay in her cramped bunk of the tradeship, she thought back over the times which had cursed her.
It had been her father who first initiated her, falling prey to the feelings which had stabbed most of the village men, even when Tessa was no more than thirteen years. She could not help her early maturity, or the way her clothes refused to conceal the ripeness, the fullness of her young body. The innocence of childhood had been a merciful veil, but she still felt ashamed when she recalled those early years.
She had been fifteen when the mother had died, and it was raining the day the family buried her on the high hillside, where her father’s sheep grazed. The rain washed away everyone’s tears, but never the memories. It was late that evening, after all the other children had been sent to sleep. It was understood that Tessa, being the oldest child, would assume the duties of the mother, although Tessa did not realize how completely her father had decided the change of roles would be.
As she stood tending the cooking fires in the iron stove, banking them and adding an extra log for warmth during the night, her father came and stood close behind her. Even as he touched her shoulder and bent to kiss her slender neck, she knew what he wanted.
His hands were rough, calloused, clumsy. His breath smelled of stale bac and garlic, his body greasy and heavy with the odor of his sheep. Turning, she saw the burning in his eyes, the slight trembling in his hands and his voice as he told her how beautiful she looked, how much she resembled her mother. He mumbled something about how a man’s need did not die with his wife as he pressed his large sweating belly against her. Edging away from the hot iron of the stove, she moved to the wall where her father’s hands fell upon her, touching her, exploring her with an urgency that was terrifying. It was as though he had been waiting only for his wife to die so that this moment would be at hand.
He would not look her in the eye as he forced her down to the divan, pausing only to turn down a kerosene lamp. Then he was upon her, sweating and heaving, taking her in the darkness. She was so sickened that she could not scream; she could not even cry.
For ten years he abused her until he became stricken with a disease which slowly sapped him of his strength and his ability to walk. The slow paralysis heralded an end to her abuse, but not the degradation. Deprived of his profession, unable to herd his flocks, the father became a businessman. A wealthy trader from the city of Prend offered her father a small fortune enough to support him for the rest of his wretched life—in exchange for Tessa. Although the merchant dealt primarily in spices and herbs, there was a thriving, though underground, trade in servants and concubines.
The bargain was struck and Tessa was taken aboard The Silver Girl, which would follow the Kirchou into the G’Rdellian Sea, with stops in Eleusynnia and Voluspa before putting in at Taithek, where the demand for Scorpinnian concubines brought the World’s highest prices—sums which made the amount paid to Tessa’s father meaningless. It was a civilized World . . . only when it chose to be.
And so she sailed now, with a cabin of other unfortunate young women, to the southern end of the G’Rdellian Sea. She knew the government of Eleusynnia would take issue with slave trading, and that she would be safe if she could jump ship once The Silver Girl put in at that magnificent city. Tessa had reached the point in her life—which up until now had been a long and featureless repetition of events—where she must begin to live for herself, or finally die. Life as it had been previously mapped out for her was simply not worth the living. She would take chances, she told herself, as she lay in the darkness listening to the sails flap in the night breezes, the groan of the wooden decks, and the occasional grunted commands of the ship’s crew.
She spoke to no one of her plans, not even her fellow prisoners, of whom she found none worthy of trust. Most of them were worse than she, a shepherd’s daughter. Street whores, orphans, and beggars to the last. Tessa listened to them carp and laugh among themselves, picking up their uneducated accents, trying to place their origins. One was obviously from a settlement north along the Cairn River. Another from the gutters of Hok in Pindar. Still others from the backward provinces near Baadghizi. They all eyed her with, at first, suspicion and, later, hostility because she did not join in their coarse amusements.
There was also the problem of the crew. Hardened men with few pleasures available during the long cruises, they were more than agreeable at the prospect of cargoing a cabinful of future concubines. As each watch changed there were wholesale invasions and impromptu parties, and endless indignities.
By the time The Silver Girl reached Eleusynnia, Tessa did not care whether she lived or died. The only thing she knew was that she would not be sailing any farther. She hated her father and she hated the other women and she wanted to kill the men, all of the men. They were animals—panting, sweating, stinking animals—who did not speak to her, hardly looked at her, when they hung over her on their elbows and knees. She hated them.
But that evening, as the watch changed, there were fewer crew coming to invade them because the ship had made port, and those on liberty would be slinking into the night streets of the city looking for new conquests. This would be one of her best chances, and she moved quickly, selecting one of the smaller men who came loudly into the cabin. He was an older man with small bones and pinched features, a bald head and eyes that seemed to have a trace of kindness remaining.
She drank with the man and let his bony fingers probe and caress her. She forced herself to hold him, to nuzzle into his neck, to laugh at his attempts at bawdy humor. When he was sufficiently full of wine, she begged him to take her up on deck where she might look upon the majestic lights of Eleusynnia under a quartering moon. The man looked at her oddly, but perhaps he was a bit of a romantic himself, for he nodded his head and laughed as he guided her not too roughly from the stuffy cabin.
Tessa had never killed a man before. It was especially difficult because this one had been as close to kind as anyone she had ever accompanied. As he held her against the gunwale, pressing his thin lips against her, she let her hands drift sensually down the small of his back, touching his belt, feeling the hilt of his knife in her long fingers. The weapon felt hard and smooth; she knew she must move quickly, efficiently.
Twisting her body into his, she gasped loudly as she pulled the knife free from its scabbard, immediately plunging it between the lower ribs of his back. The man tensed, then screamed as she tore the blade through him. Something dark bubbled from his lips and his eyes became glassy, unseeing. There was noise and the clatter of boots on the deck, growing louder. Tessa looked from the crumpled shape at her feet to the approaching figures on the deck, then finally to the shimmering oily surface of the water as it slapped lazily against the hull.
Over the side without thinking, she felt a rush of air and a bracing sting of something far colder than she imagined. Her clothes gathered in the water and weighed her down, causing her to struggle as if in a quagmire. Paddling in half panic away from the ship, she heard the rough voices of the men as they searched for her in the darkness, and suddenly a flare arced gracefully out over the harbor, guiding her way to the nearest wharf and exposing her position to the night-watch of The Silver Girl.
Their firearms started popping and cracking, snitting into the water around her. Once she tried sinking, holding her breath and feigning a hit, but when she was forced finally to the surface, the volley of shots began again. Davits creaked in the distance and she heard a boat being lowered. If she did not reach the wharf, they would overtake her and death would be graciously hers. It seemed unfair, now that she had come so close to freedom, to fail.
The wooden pilings seemed to grow closer, but she could not be sure of this. The flare had died out and another was arcing high above her, casting a horrid orange glow on everything. The longboat had smacked into the water and she could hear the angry shouts of the men as they leaned into the oars.
Then there was a hand grabbing her arm. It was a strong hand which held her like a gentle vise. With a fluid movement, she was being pulled from the water, gliding like a ballet dancer, up and over the edge of the wharf. A tall man with sandy hair and bright blue eyes—they were obviously so, despite the odd illumination of the flares—and dressed in the uniform of a merchant seaman. As he lifted her to her feet with his left hand, he raised a long-barreled pistol in the other.
“Be quiet,” he said. “And get down.”
Moving away from the edge of the dock, Tessa watched the man calmly take aim upon the approaching boat and open fire. The man in the bow arced out of the boat, his forehead blown away. The rest of the crew drew weapons and began firing wildly. Turning, the man grabbed her arm again, firmly yet gently as before, and ran off down the docks toward the closest avenue. They turned a corner and rushed toward the lights of a tavern.
Before they could reach it, however, the remaining trio from the longboat rounded the corner. Her rescuer pushed her into a doorway and turned to face them, firing off another round from his large sidearm.
A second crewman fell, the one with the small-caliber pistol. Before the remaining pair could move, the merchant seaman broke into a run, hurling himself in between them. He dropped his sidearm in favor of his shortsword, which he unsheathed so smoothly and quickly that the two men did not have time to react to it.
Two quick flashes of the blade were all that were required. Varian stood for a moment between the fallen men, ensuring that neither needed further service from his weapon, then turned back to the doorway where Tessa huddled.
“We’ve got to leave this street,” he said. “Come.”
They hugged the shadows of a parallel avenue, and Tessa noticed that the man moved with a confidence which suggested intimate familiarity with the narrow alleys and shaded streets.
After three blocks, he stopped her. “You’re still soaking wet. You have a change of clothes?”
Tessa could only shake her head.
The man smiled. “All right then; if you’ll come with me, I have a friend who might be able to help us.”
An hour later, Tessa was sitting by a warm fireplace, dressed in the clean dry robes of a woman named Alcesa. She was very fat and freckled; her blue eyes were pinched into the folds of her face. She walked with an incredibly light touch about the room, attending to Tessa as if she were a returning daughter and seemed to sincerely care about her welfare. The man had taken her to Alcesa’s boarding house, a ramshackle row house on a back street near the docks, and the old woman greeted him with warmth and motherly affection.
“Now, how do you feel? Better, I’d hope.” Alcesa sat in a large rocker, sipping from a mug of hot tea.
Tessa nodded and sipped from her own mug. The room was full of earth colors, the lamps illuminating a secure, warmly appointed place. “Yes, thank you very much. You and . . .Varian.”
Alcesa smiled at the mention of the man’s name. “Yes, of course, Varian.”
“You’ve known him a long time?”
“Like a son. I first met him when he was still in his teen years. He was a cabin boy, then. Full of cum and vinegar, he was too. He started staying here whenever he put in at Eleusynnia. He’s what you might call the son I never had. . . .” Alcesa smiled, sipped her tea.
“Where’s he now? Will he be back soon? What’s he going to do with me?”
“So many questions! Are you in some kind of trouble, young Tessa? Midnight’s no time to be taking a swim in our harbor.”
“You answer mine with a question of your own.” Tessa paused, pulling her hair away from the side of her face. “He—Varian—he never even asked me anything. He just . . . took care of me.”
“There aren’t many men like Varian,” said Alcesa. “He’s a special one, all right.”
“I’m beginning to think so. . . .” Tessa stared off toward the door where the strange, but gentle, man had exited almost an hour ago. She wondered when he would return and what she would say to him. She wanted to tell this kind old woman what had happened to her, but she feared that it would sound so melodramatic, contrived perhaps. And yet it was true.
She sat staring at the fire, watching the ever-changing weave of the flames, and she became lost in her memories, in the pain and the indignity which had plagued her for most of her years. There was a part of her which wanted to believe that maybe it could be over now that this Varian Hamer, the legendary knight in white armor, had entered her life. But there was something deeper in her soul, a burning distrust and perhaps even a hatred of all of them. All men. It seemed that there was not one among them who was not driven, motivated, or at least influenced by that thing between his legs.
The door opened and she tensed in her chair, almost afraid to look toward the foyer, where he stood. He paused to hang up his cloak and unbuckle his weapons belt, hanging it over a chair in the hallway. He tried to smile as he entered the room.
“Where’ve you been?” asked Alcesa. “Our new guest has been worrying over you.”
“She should worry about herself. I’ve been out tracking down the ID’s of those bastards that were after you.”
“You could have simply asked me. I would have told you who they were.” Tessa’s voice cracked and she felt ashamed.
“And I might not have been able to believe you,” said Varian. “This way, I am convinced. By the way, you’ll not have to worry about anybody looking for you from The Silver Girl. . . .”
“Why not?” Tessa felt tense at the mere mention of the ship’s name.
“I’ve got some friends at the Port Authority. You’re listed as killed during a mishap at sea. Along with the fellows that were ‘escorting’ you in the longboat.” Varian smiled and sat down by the fire. “How about some coffee, Alcesa?”
The large woman, smiling, sprang to her feet. “For you, my Varian, anything!” and she laughed as she glided effortlessly into the kitchen.
In a moment she returned with a large glass stein filled with a rich black liquid. The steam eddied and rolled up from its surface as Varian put it to his lips and drank a large mouthful. “It’s a cold night. Cooler than I’d thought. You’re lucky I was walking down by the docks,” he said to Tessa.
“You do that often. Walk alone down there?”
“No, but tonight I was thinking about something. About an odd . . . ‘man’ I met before sailing out of Mentor. I haven’t been able to get the fellow’s words out of my head since I met him. Walking down by the water lets me think more clearly.”
Tessa did not speak for a few minutes and no one else did either. She watched the man as he sat in the large chair, drinking from the large stein. He was not a huge man, but he gave the impression of being larger than he was because of his whole bearing, his whole way of moving and talking. He was a leader, a thinker, a true anomaly in a world which seemed to have a distinct lack of either of the above. She let her thoughts wander into other areas that were vitally important to her and was thus caught off guard when he spoke to her.
“What’s the matter? What’re you thinking about?”
“Oh, I was wondering what was going to happen to me now. . . .” She hated herself for saying it. It made her sound so damned helpless, so much the woman-in-distress. Gods, she hated that image!
“Can you fight?”
“Fight?”
“Are you trained in any weapons?” Varian’s expression was serious. He was not the kind of man who enjoyed mockery.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Any sailing experience? Know how to rig a line?”
Tessa laughed. “No, of course not. Eyck is not a country known for its maritime endeavors.”
Varian shrugged. “It’s not known for much of anything.”
“Now you’re getting the picture. I’m not trained for much of anything. I was in school for a while, studying to be an interpreter. . . . I have this knack for languages, it seems; but my father . . . he took me out of school to work the farm after my mother died. I studied on my own, but I’m not really good enough to work in the field. At least I don’t think I am.”
“Languages, eh? That’s a fine skill to have, even if everybody does speak G’Rdellian.”
“Nesporance and Avestese are almost dialects of G’Rdellian, they’re so similar. I’m sure they’re all from the same root-language system. The same with Odoän, Scorpinnesk, and Shudris—all the same root language, I’m sure.”
Varian nodded. “I pick up a few words here and there, since I’m all over the place. It makes sense to me.” He paused for a moment, lighting his pipe. Then: “What about galley help. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Cooking? Of course, my father. . . .” She let the sentence die. Even the memory of the vile old man made her inwardly shudder. “Why do you ask such a thing?”
“You can’t go back where you came from. You have no marketable skills. You need help. Alcesa would be glad to keep you here as long as you like, and maybe you could eventually find work, or perhaps enroll in one of the universities. You are fortunate at least to be in one of the World’s finest cities. You know what they say of Eleusynnia: ‘Whatever a man might desire, it can be found in The City of Light.’”
“‘From the highest ideal to lowest perversion,’” said Tessa, finishing the quotation.
“Oh, you’ve heard that one?” Varian smiled. “Well, it’s true.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been thinking of staying in Eleusynnia, but I didn’t know Alcesa would put me up. I have no money, you know. I have nothing.”
Alcesa shrugged. Varian waved his hand. “I can pay your costs until you get on your feet. Or, you can come with me. . . .”
Tessa tensed in her chair. Varian could not help but notice. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing.” She looked away for a moment. “Why would I come with you?”
“You would come only if you truly wished to. I am bound next for Ques’ryad. It’s quite a city and you might want to see it and, later, a little bit more of the world before you decide where you want to be, what you want to do with yourself.”
Tessa searched this strange man’s eyes before answering. It was clear to her that he spoke sincerely. He was not given to deception and she could sense this. He was genuinely interested in her welfare. And, of course, she did owe him her life, whatever that was worth. . . .
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “How could I sail with you?”
“There’s never been a crew I’ve seen that would not welcome the company of a beautiful woman,” said Varian, smiling. “And don’t take that the wrong way. No harm would come to you. . . . I’d see to that.”
Alcesa laughed. “You can be sure of that, my lady. No one bothers Varian Hamer.”
Varian looked embarrassed, but said nothing to refute the old woman’s boast.
“I don’t know,” said Tessa. “I’d have to think about it. How long will you be in Eleusynnia?”
“We sail in two days.”
“I’ll decide by then. I promise you.”
For the next two days, Varian escorted her about the famed City of Light. There were festivals in various precincts, avenues filled with bazaars and musicians, contests and exhibits. There were museums and galleries, sporting events, and great pieces of architecture to be explored and admired. Varian spoke of the city’s great tradition for culture and enlightenment, and she noticed that he spoke with the tongue of an educated man, not the rough, coarsened argot of a common sailor. He was an enigma, this man. She had never known anyone even remotely like him. This she realized as the two days swept by her in a seeming instant. Her memories of the time were a montage of colors and images and sounds. The lyrical music of the orchestra in the Great Park, the pageantry and hue of the Sor Theater, where the morality plays of the First Age were still enacted with as much authenticity as possible, the setting sun playing its dying light about the white-sand shores of the beaches below the city, the gentle lapping surf of the G’Rdellian Sea. Tessa embraced all of these things and she fell in love with the magical city on the sea. It was difficult to imagine leaving such a place if one had a choice, but there was another part of her which saw the man who introduced her to the magic and the wonder. The thought of not seeing him bothered her as such a thought should not have ever bothered her. There was a large world to be seen and to be tasted and touched and smelled. She did not want to do it alone, for she had been alone for such a long, long time.
For Varian, a different set of feelings had rushed into his mind. He too had been alone for a long time, but not in the same sense as Tessa. Varian had chosen a life of solitude of his own free will. It was as though he needed the freedom from responsibility to others so that he could more truly learn about himself. True, he had sailed on every conceivable type of ship, to every known harbor on the Aridard, and true also had he been constantly surrounded by crews of rugged, competent men.
But in truth, too, Varian had been alone in the crowd.
Through all the years, he had never taken the time to get to know any of his mates. The only friend to Varian had been old Furioso, and that relationship seemed to have taken shape more out of inevitability than true desire. Varian and the old man had simply grown accustomed to each other’s company.
The women in Varian’s life had been nothing more than an endless passage of brief liaisons. Their faces and their bodies were faint blurs in his memory, and only a few of their names could he even remember. It was not that he had used women, not consciously at any rate, but more so that they used him. There had never been any mention of love (other than the sweaty, urgent, night-desires to “make” it) with any of the women. It was always as though both they and Varian knew that he would be booking passage on another ship quite soon, and that they might never see each other again.
When Varian took the time to think about such relationships, he had always been able to rationalize them thusly: He could not risk the time required to really know someone else; it was more important that he first spend his time getting to know himself.
But things with Tessa were . . . different? . . . yes, definitely. He spent two days with her in Eleusynnia. Two full and complete days. Every hour of every day. And every night. And yet there was not the familiar urgency, the swelling of bodily desire that seemed to cloud all rational thought. There was not the unspoken assent on both parties’ part to rush to a dark union and leave their souls somewhere behind.
No. With Tessa, he talked of many things. He asked her questions about herself. He told of his own life and inquired of hers. They shared one another—in mind as well as body—and Varian sensed that it was truly different. Perhaps, he first thought, he was growing “older,”as people often told him that he would. Perhaps he was finally feeling comfortable with the person who he had discovered he was? Or, perhaps it was something else entirely: that he sensed he was approaching a turning point in his life, a pivotal, crucial moment when all the things for which he had been unconsciously preparing himself were close at hand. . . .
Varian did not know, but he recalled old Furioso’s words about such things. The weapons master believed that everyone was in the World for a purpose, and that some of us came to their purpose early in life, and others late. But we all reached that point in our lives when things come to a sharp, brief, focus, and we know that it is Time. Time to change. To act.
Ever since Varian had spoken with Kartaphilos, he had sensed that things were changing in his life. He knew already that he could no longer be satisfied by simply being a sailor the rest of his days. There was more substance to the world than rolling chops and salty air. He knew that now.
And there was Tessa. Strangely beautiful. Innocent and naïve, and yet worldly-wise. Somehow, she was able to touch him as no woman had ever done before.
She was able to reach into him and set off the spark that had been lying dormant for so many years. With a look from her dark eyes, with a brush of her soft fingers on his cheek, with a word. These were the things which made Varian see her for what she might be . . . for him.
Varian saw these things as they passed the two days in the City of Light, and he dwelled upon them in the dark silence of the nights as she lay sleeping beside him. He made no claims to know what love might be, but something inside him was coming to life, and he suspected what it might be. There was something special about this woman, Tessa of Prend; he was certain of that. It was a specialness that he knew he had only briefly sampled. There were layers of her person that she hinted could be opened to him, and only him. And Varian was interested.
But when he thought more deeply, and honestly, about her, Varian knew that he was more than merely interested. He cared. About her and about what they might share together.
The two days passed swiftly, and Varian did not want it to end there. At the end of the two days, Tessa gave him her decision.
And he was very happy with it.