Tales of Ethshar

And while we were walking there I got a good look at two things.

One was the front room. It was amazing. Silk and velvet everywhere, and beads, and colored glass, all in reds and pinks and yellows.

And the other was the man I was talking to. Mother, he was taller than Father! And much broader. I’d never seen anyone close to that size before! He had lovely long black hair, and these long fingers, and that wonderful mustache. He was wearing a black velvet tunic worked with gold, and a black kilt, and he moved like a giant cat, Mother, it was just gorgeous.

Anyway, we went into this little room, which was very small, and pretty ordinary, with a little table and a couple of chairs, and we sat down, and he looked at me, didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t help asking, “Why aren’t you in the Guard?”

He smiled at me. “You must be new around here,” he said. “Think about it. A guardsman — or guardswoman — has to be big and strong enough to stop a fight, preferably before it starts. You’ve probably seen a guardsman stop trouble just by standing up and frowning, or by walking in the door and shouting — guards hardly ever have to draw their swords.”

“I’ve done it myself,” I admitted.

“Well,” he said, “this is Soldiertown. Most of the customers here are guardsmen. If they start trouble, Rudhira wants to have someone around who can stop guardsmen the way guardsmen stop ordinary tavern brawls. So she hired me.”

He wasn’t bragging, Mother. He turned up a palm, you know what I mean. He was just stating a fact.

“But wouldn’t you rather be in the Guard?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I had gone mad, then laughed.

“Rudhira pays better,” he said. “And there are extras.”

“Oh,” I said, and then I realized what the extras probably were, and I blushed and said, “Oh,” again.

“Some houses use magicians to handle trouble,” he said conversationally. “After all, we all need to have the magicians in sometimes to make sure nobody catches anything, and some of the girls want magic to be sure they don’t get pregnant, so why not use them to keep things peaceful? But if a customer’s drunk enough he might not notice a magician right away, and magic takes time, and can go wrong — and besides, I cost more than a guardsman, but not as much as a wizard! So Rudhira keeps my brother and me around, and we make sure everything stays quiet and friendly and no one gets rough.” He leaned back, and asked, “So why are you here?”

So I explained about how all my barracksmates would disappear every sixnight, and how tired I was of being left with nothing to do, and I asked why they all came here, instead of finding themselves women... I mean, finding women who aren’t professionals.

“Oh, it’s all part of showing off to each other that they’re real men,” Tabar said. “They all come here because they can do it together, and show how loyal they all are to each other. The more stuff they do together, the more they trust each other when there’s trouble.”

I had to think about that for awhile, but eventually I decided he was right. If one of the men went off with his own woman, he wouldn’t be as much a part of the company.

But of course, that meant that I wasn’t as much a part of the company.

I’d sort of noticed that, as I guess I told you, but I thought it was just because I was new, and not from the city, and of course partly because I was the only woman. I tried to fit in, and I did everything that everyone else did back at the barracks, all the jokes and games and arm-wrestling and so on, and mostly it was okay, but I could feel that I wasn’t really accepted yet, and I thought it was just going to be a matter of time — but when Tabar explained that I realized that it wasn’t just that. The expeditions down to Whore Street were part of fitting in, and I wasn’t doing it.

I couldn’t, unless I wanted to go to someplace like Beautiful Phera’s, which I didn’t, and besides, none of my company went to places like that — they all liked women, or at least pretended to when they went to Whore Street, and the specialty places charged extra.

Even before I asked Tabar about it, I knew that didn’t really make any difference that I couldn’t.

Anyway, I got talking to Tabar about it all, and we talked and talked, and by the time I headed back to the barracks it was just about midnight.

And the next sixnight, when the men were getting ready to go, I had an idea. I said, “Hey, wait for me!” and I went along with them.

Some of them were kind of nervous about it; I could see that in the way they looked at me, and they weren’t as noisy as usual. One man — you don’t know him, but his name’s Kelder Arl’s son — asked where I thought I was going, and I said, “Rudhira’s.” And everyone laughed.

“You like women?” someone asked, and someone else said, “Or are you trying to pick up a few extra silvers?” And I didn’t get mad or anything, I just laughed and said no.

I didn’t get mad because I knew Tabar would be there.

As soon as we set foot in the door I called, “Tabar!” And there he was, and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me, and this big grin spread all over his face.

“Shennar,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

“The boys and I are just here for our regular fun,” I said, and everyone laughed, and we had a fine time. I talked to some of the girls, and joked with the men, and then when the men went upstairs Tabar and I went back to his room...

He’s wonderful, Mother. If you ever come down to visit you’ll have to meet him.

Love,

Shennar

* * *

Dear Mother,

What’s wrong with a whorehouse bouncer? It’s honest work.

Mother, I’m not a delicate little flower. I’m a hundred and eighty pounds of bone and muscle. And Tabar is two hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle. I like him.

And seeing him has really helped. I’m fitting in better than ever. I love my job, Mother, and going to Whore Street every sixnight is helping me with it.

Besides, I like Tabar a lot, Mother. And it’s not as if it costs me anything, the way it does everyone else. Tabar and I joke sometimes about which of us should be charging.

The only thing is...

Well, it looks as if Tabar and I will be married, at least for awhile. We hadn’t really planned on it, but it’s happened. The lieutenant says I can get leave when I need it, and I’ve been saving up what the men use as brothel money so I won’t starve while I’m on leave, but I’m not sure how it’s going to go over with the rest of the company having a baby around here.

I think they’ll get used to it. But it’s driving the armorer crazy enlarging my breastplate every sixnight or so!

Love,

Shennar

About “Weaving Spells”

Readers seem to be fascinated by the Transporting Tapestries I introduced in With A Single Spell, so it seemed reasonable to write a story about how they’re made, and an anthology invitation came along at just the right time — an anthology Marion Zimmer Bradley was editing that had no specific theme beyond fantasy. So I wrote this.