by Mark Eller
She also knew his habits well. He did have a tendency to skip out on Sunday services. As a rule, he did not have much religious conviction. The whole deal with the Lord and the Lady struck Aaron as paganism. The little teaching he had received from Sunday morning holovision in his birth world had taught him about a different God, a God and Son who was a Savior. The Lady and Her Lord bore little resemblance to what he had learned. By his lights, they were figments and wishful dreams, nothing more. He had dutifully gone to the Lord's service every Sunday while he lived in Last Chance because ignoring the local religion altogether would have made him a pariah in the town. Here in N'Ark, religious observation was not considered to be of such paramount importance.
Aaron held the newspaper in his gesturing hand. Billy's mother was right on another matter, too. Aaron really did like to read about daily events. The newspaper seemed to be the only print he could manage to work his way through anymore.
He walked back to his table and shoved the wadded up papers, with their convoluted lines and tiny figures, around until a semi-clear spot formed on the tabletop. Several of the wadded oversized sheets wound up on the floor. Aaron left them there. Miss Frainwind would clean it up later, once he got around to telling her the place needed cleaning, but he had to be careful. Miss Frainwind liked to show him exactly how handy it would be to keep her around full time. Because she was naturally shy, her campaign to capture his attention was quiet and not too effective, but she didn't expect it to be. It was common knowledge in the building that female company never spent the night in Aaron Turner's rooms. According to Billy Severn, Aaron's neighbors thought he was a strange man even if he was fairly nice overall.
Once again, the newspaper was filled with mostly eye-catching stories that had nothing to do with life in N'Ark. There was a rash of piracy in the Eastern Ocean, one headline read. Deeper reading revealed that there had been only one real report of a ship being attacked. The rest of the story consisted of sensationalist speculation. Four ships had failed to reach port in the last year. Could they have been victims of the pirates?
Maybe, Aaron thought. On the other hand, earlier articles had mentioned that there were always several disappearances every year. This last year had actually been rather light in missing ships, and two reported hurricanes had turned into no more than rather savage storms by the time they reached the Isabellan coastline. Possibly Aaron was being foolish, but he thought the trouble with recent shipping was due more to weather than pirates. Of course, the main problem with his theory was that it was mundane and boring and wouldn't sell papers.
Several articles dealt with international politics, a subject Aaron usually paid attention to only when Chin was mentioned. Chin was not mentioned this time. One small article referred to events that could no longer be termed international. It said the Thirty Clans once again protested the terms of the peace treaty. The author didn't hold much sympathy for their complaints. She said that since the Clan had lost the war they had started, they might as well get used to being second-class subjects of a growing Isabellan Federation.
Little else in the paper was of interest to him. He read of a few muggings, one murder, and an execution. Isabella did not believe in appeals and extended prison time. The hanged woman had been convicted of a double murder only a month earlier. The paper said her last speech was an insistence of her innocence. Fifteen character witnesses protested the execution while the families of the victims cheered it on.
An article about the Turner Houses caught his eye. The director of the N'Ark division said upcoming changes would take the Houses further toward self-sufficiency than ever before. If his future plans worked out, there would be plenty of spare funds to open two or three more Houses in the near future.
Aaron was pleased. Apparently Amanda had hired the right person for the job.
When he turned the page, an insert fell free. Aaron picked it up and saw that it advertised the Mystery.
His eyes widened.
Damn! He had forgotten he had a date!
He took one quick sniff of his pits and decided he was not going on a date smelling like this. The mechanical clock on the wall noted the time as just past noon, so he had less than two hours to get himself together.
He really needed a bath. The closest public bathhouse was only four blocks away. It was one mostly reserved for the wealthy and elite due to the exorbitant prices they charged. Aaron had heard the place was irritating and pushy and a thorn in the sides of N'Ark's moralists. At the moment, none of that mattered. It was also the only public bath he could get to on short notice because he had not bothered to store away the locations of his usual ones in that permanent file inside his brain where he kept images of safe transfer points. Public baths tended to be in public areas, and public areas were poor places to magically appear and disappear on a regular basis. Somebody was bound to notice if he made a habit of it, so when he smelled bad he walked to the bathhouse he preferred.
It took Aaron ten minutes to discover he didn't own one piece of clean clothing. He dragged some reasonably clean clothes from the pile spread across his bedroom floor, threw them on, and exited out his door. After turning his lock, he took a moment to slip a note and his spare key beneath Miss Frainwind's door. Before nightfall, his apartment would be tidy and clean.
The streets were quiet. Foot traffic was light. The parkways were cluttered with abandoned carriages and weed-chewing horses. Aaron sidled between a badly parked buggy and a building wall. The buggy horse, a little gray with a bad case of temper, looked at him with suspicious eyes.
"Easy," Aaron said. "Just need to get past."
The horse nodded and sneezed. Slobber spewed over Aaron's sleeve.
"Thanks," he told the horse in his sternest voice. "See if I ever bring you oats for breakfast."
The animal gazed at him, daring Aaron to come within reach. For some reason Aaron did not understand, horses hated him.
The baths were located in a low, long building that had been constructed a couple hundred years earlier. Its front was done in pale and muted colors that highlighted its marble steps and carved granite lintel. Several attendants, dressed in high heels and tiny clothing, gave him pointedly rude looks when he entered.
The snootiness dropped two levels when he tossed them a gold coin. The smile quotient gained equally. Suddenly, he had a woman standing on each side. A hand rested on both his shoulders and an arm looped around each of his. Their perfume was subtle and floral and somewhat dizzying.
"Sir, you have several choices," said the tall woman on his right. "There are the mixed public rooms where men and women bathe together. We have two semi-private rooms where our clients are bathed and massaged by an attendant of either sex." She gave his arm a subtle squeeze. "We also have our single-sex public rooms where the baths are totally exclusive to either males or females."
"I'll take the males-only room," Aaron said.
"As the sir desires. The room is presently empty. Is there anything else we can do for you?"
Glancing down at his clothes, Aaron grimaced. "I want a new set of clothes. Preferably something casual since I have a date with a young lady of limited means in less than ninety minutes." Shaking his arm free, he reached into his pocket to pull out a five gold. "That should cover the cost of the clothing and reimburse you for your time. I'll hand out my old clothes to help determine my size."
She nodded. "We can do that for you. There is an off-the-rack store just half a block down the street."
"Thank you. Now if you would please direct me to the right room."
"Certainly," the first attendant said. "If you will please follow me." She started out at a leisurely pace. High heels and a deliberately exaggerated walk made her hips sway with enticing promise. Her bare legs were long and smooth, and the expanse of her bare lower back drew his eye. "Have you been here before Mister--?"
"Aaron Turner" he answered, "and no, this is my first time."
She led him to the males-only bathing room. It was
small, much smaller, he was willing to bet, than any of the other rooms. Like the rest of the world, N'Ark had a short supply of men. Of those few rich enough to afford the luxury of these baths, the majority would opt for one of the other rooms.
After shooing her out, he undressed. When he was ready to hop into the pool, he took a moment to crack open the door and shove his clothing through. She took them, and Aaron closed the door again. Hurrying footsteps faded away.
Aaron oozed into the pool, letting the heat sink into his bones. Closing his eyes, he slowly sank completely under the water for a few moments before coming up for air.
He rose out of the pool and quickly used the ready soap to lather himself up from his toes to his hair. Smiling at his boyishness, and glad nobody else could see, he cannonballed into the center of the pool to rinse off. He sank to the bottom where surging currents and countless bubbles scrubbed the soap and dirt from his body.
The door opened and a woman of at least forty years entered. She gave him a glance and started undressing.
"Um, these rooms are private."
"I know." Without saying another word she finished stripping while Aaron kept his eyes averted. Ignoring his unease, she made her way into the pool. Because the pool was small, she stood no more than three feet from him. Aaron fought down a gulp and moved to the side furthest from her. That put them four and a half feet apart. Almost.
"This is something we do not have on the plains," she said in a heavily accented voice. "There is not much I approve of in your civilization, but I will miss these baths when I go back to the clans." She looked around until her eyes fastened on the soap Aaron still held. "Pass that to me, please? As long as I am in here, I might as well clean myself."
Aaron stepped forward and handed her the soap. "This is supposed to be a males-only room. I'd appreciate it if you left."
She held up the soap. "You give me a mixed message. You ask me to leave, and yet you gave me the means to bathe myself." She ducked her head under the water and lifted it again. Water dripped out of her short hair and fell back into the pool. Her high-boned face was thick and wind-roughened. Thick creases lined the corners of her mouth and water pooled in the three deep lines etched across her forehead.
With a quick movement, she pulled herself out of the pool, sat on the ledge, and began soaping down. Aaron tried to turn his gaze away from her nakedness, but could not. Fascination pulled his eyes back.
Her skin was horrible, crisscrossed with scars and pocks, a ruin of raised ridges and unnatural valleys. A large chunk of tissue was missing from the bottom of her undersized right breast, leaving behind thick scars and a hole that would never refill. Another circular scar marred the front of her thigh, and there were other scars. Too many scars.
The woman was slow in her soaping, making a deliberate display of herself as she rose to her feet and turned. The back of her thigh had a hollowed scar where muscle had been torn away. More scars decorated her back. Some, Aaron knew, were the results of rituals. Others were the results of war. A sick feeling in his gut told him what had caused the worst ones.
Chills ran through him. "I know you. We met the other day, and I saw you once before that."
"Tremon." She turned slowly so he could get a good look. Soap dripped off her damaged body. Her deep eyes fastened knowingly on him. "Do you like what you see?"
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it's horrible."
Her smile was sad. "And yet I have all my limbs. I see through both eyes, and my thoughts run clear. Not all my people can say this. Many have suffered much worse than I." Moving forward, she lowered herself back into the bubbling water, ducked beneath the surface, and rose again, standing next to Aaron. She rested her hand on his bare shoulder. An angry red scar twisted around her forearm.
"We had a war," she said. "We did not want much. We wanted our lands. We wanted your people to stay on your side of the mountains so we could live our lives unmolested. Your people came through the pass, more every year. Some were good. Most saw us as savages and beasts. Always they took land. Some died. Others came. We could do nothing because we were nomads, and we were divided."
Moving closer, she placed her hands on Aaron's shoulders. Her eyes locked onto his.
"Our shaman told us a messiah would come. She said he would be a shallow man, a man of quick passions and evil intent. She said he would unite us like we have never been united before." She shook her head. "Birsae ak Mondar was correct. Haarod Beech came among us, and he had power."
She drew in a deep breath. "He had power. He made promises, and he set us to a war our shaman said we would lose." Her mouth quirked. "Once again she was correct."
"If you knew you couldn't win, why did you fight the war?"
"Because our shaman said we would gain by losing. She said we would win recognition that we are a people. She said we would change, but would remain whole. That has not happened yet. I am fighting with your leaders to gain us the rights of our land. If I lose, we will be shoved onto reservations and denied this thing called civilization." Her eyes took on a sudden meaning.
"Our shaman also predicted this would be," Tremon continued. "She told us we would lose the war, and we would almost lose ourselves. She said our destroyer would then become our savior."
Her look became pointed. "Aaron Turner, it was you who destroyed us. It was you who gave the magic stones to our enemies; you who handed them the noisemakers that killed across great distances. Twice those weapons reached out to me. Each time they took part of my body away." Her free hand made a gesture. Though the water hid the evidence, Aaron knew she referred to the scars on her thigh and chest. Those marks were left by .375 caliber bullets. He had given those weapons to the Isabellan Guard, and with them the Guard had maimed this strong woman.
"You have destroyed my people, Aaron Turner. You ripped the life from our messiah. Thousands of my people are dead because of what you have done. I ask for payment. I ask that you admit your part in this, that you embrace your duty, that you save my people." She cupped his chin in her hand. "You are our destroyer. Birsae ak Mondar promised us you would also be our savior."
Releasing her grip, she pulled herself from the pool to stand over him, wet and naked and horrible and magnificent. He caught her eyes, hard eyes that accused and asked but refused to plead. With a sharp shake of her head, she broke their connection, walked around the pool, and gathered her clothing off a hook. She pulled the door open, and left--still bare--still horrible, still dignified.
Aaron stared at the open doorway while guilt rampaged through him. She was right. One reason the War of the Thirty Clans had been so short was because of the weapons and Talent Stones he had placed in the hands of a few Isabellan Guards. He had known it was a mistake at the time. He had known it was wrong, but Sarah had insisted, and so Aaron had folded his weak will into her stronger one. Isabella would have won the war eventually, but not so decisively or so harshly.
It was his fault. It really was his fault.
The attendant who had taken his old clothes poked her head through the door. She hesitated for a moment, shrugged, and stepped into the room. She held clothing.
"These should fit. They look presentable and even have your name on them. See." She turned a tag toward Aaron. The writing was so small he couldn't see it from this distance. "It says Turner Wear." She gave him a smile he did not return. "Never mind. I'll leave so you can dress in private."
She closed the door behind her.
Almost mechanically, Aaron rose from the water, lifted a towel, and dried off. He slipped on his new clothing, then opened the door and left, only shaking out of his self-imposed stupor when he reached the street.
He had a lot to think about later. For now, he had a date with a woman he had already hurt once. Because he did not want to embarrass her again, he had to put this Clan thing from his mind for the next several hours. He had to fix his attention on Miss Saundra Clarice, but that would be a hard thing to do.
Chapter 8
He met Saundra Clarice coming down his apartment's stairway as he raced up. The ugly twist on Saundra's face smoothed when she spotted him.
"Sorry," Aaron panted. "I woke up late and absolutely refused to see you unless I was clean."
"Oh?" Saundra placed one hand on her right hip and gave him a pointed stare. Her voice was sharp. "Are you sure you want to stick with that story? When I knocked on your door a few moments ago, a woman answered. I do seem to recall you saying you don't live with your wife."
"I don't. I do have a cleaning lady, though. I'm really sorry I'm late."
After studying him for a moment, Saundra nodded and removed her hand from her hip. "I'll let that story go for now." She held her hand towards him. The smile that suddenly spread across her face was transforming, lightening, and softening. The change in her stance shifted her message from 'I'm pissed' to 'I'm yours.' She quirked an eyebrow. "Well?"
Feeling shy, Aaron slid his fingers over hers. His hand was soft against her calluses. His fingers were slim to the muscular thickness of hers, but her hand was warm. Her grip was firm and gentle. A small electric tingle ran through his wrist and into his arm. A smile began to take shape on his face. Watching him, her lips were curved, inviting, parted, and full. Aaron longed to lean forward and kiss the corner of her mouth, but nervous indecision gripped him too long. Her lips closed, and the warmth in her eyes faded just the slightest bit. Giving his hand a tiny squeeze, she gestured with a small tilt of her chin.
"We had best be going."
"I suppose we had," Aaron agreed, pulling his longing back inside and packing it away. He wanted to kick himself for his lack of mental self-control. Conversely, he wanted to kick himself for not being as impulsive as he would have liked. He wasn't sure how she would react to a kiss this early in their date, but it was something he badly wanted.