Portals of Infinity: Book One: Champion for Hire

by John Van Stry

“Yes?”

  “Time to wake up, sir!”

  I sat up, I recognized the voice, it was the same girl who had brought the basin.

  “Thank you, I’ll be right down.”

  I got dressed and went downstairs. My new friend smiled at me and waved me over to a seat in a booth. Then she brought me my dinner and some ale to drink. To be honest I was flattered by her attention, we talked a little and I complimented her and teased her a little, flirting with her.

  As I ate, I looked around the room, it was maybe half full, and there were now four barmaids working it. I did see Harold’s wife come out of the kitchen a couple of times, she was an older woman, about what I’d expect really. I also realized that I was probably the youngest customer in the entire place. Most of the people eating were obviously merchants, and from the manner of dress, I’d say quite a few of them weren’t from around here at all. Of course the food was rather good, so I’m sure that probably helped draw people in as well.

  As the night wore on, I chatted more and more with Darlene, and eventually asked her when she would be free for the night. I’d noticed one of the barmaids had already gone off with a patron, and that another two barmaids had shown up as well.

  “Oh I can leave now if you’d like, Will,” she smiled.

  “Oh, I’d like very much,” I smiled back and took her up to my room.

  I probably should have been worried about catching something, but she was young, highly attractive, willing, and I was incredibly horny. I hadn’t been on a date in months, much less in bed with a woman. I left the curtains open, because there was enough light from the moon that I wanted to see her naked.

  I was not disappointed either. She was as beautiful without clothes as she was with them, maybe more so. I held her, I kissed her, and I made love to her. I took my time and did all those things that my last girlfriend had loved so much, and obviously Darlene loved it too. When we finally ran down, I snuggled her up close against me and fell asleep. At that point if she’d stolen my purse and found my hidden stash and taken all the bows, I still would have considered it a fair trade. Sometimes a man just needs a woman, and boy did I need her.

  I awoke an hour later and she was sitting on the edge of the bed. I guess she had just woken up herself because she was still nude. After a while I noticed she was holding my purse in one hand and just staring at it.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked sitting up behind her and wrapping my arms around her.

  “I... I don’t want ta’ be a whore,” she whispered.

  “Who said you’re a whore?” I whispered back nuzzling her behind the ear.

  “We come up here, spend time with the customers, and they give us some money for our time.”

  I thought about that. Yeah, she was a prostitute, but honestly at that point I could not have cared less.

  “Have you been doing this long?”

  “No, just a month or so.”

  “So why the sudden change of heart?”

  “Because ye aren’t like them. They’re all older men. Businessmen with wives and families, just out to have a good time. They don’t care much about me. Ye treated me like my last boyfriend used to.”

  I silently thanked a previous girlfriend for all those lessons she’d given me before we’d broken up.

  “How much do they usually pay you?” I asked.

  “Two coppers, maybe three,” she sobbed suddenly.

  I gently took the bag out of her hand and pulled out a silver piece. “Here,” I said putting it in her hand, “I’d never give a prostitute that much money. So I guess that makes you my girlfriend, okay?” I kissed the back of her neck. “Now come back to sleep. We can talk about it in the morning.”

  “I... I really should go home. My parents don’t like me to stay out late.”

  I pulled her against me and laid down pulling the blankets up with my other hand. “Please stay, Darlene.”

  She nodded and snuggled back against me. “I really shouldn’t take ye money,” she said, her sobs gone already.

  “Sleep on it,” I whispered and just watched her there in the dark until she fell asleep. Yeah, maybe she was playing me; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been played by a woman. But I’d just given her a dime for sleeping with me. So who was playing whom?

  The morning came and she was still there. She was very happy, she was very sweet, and I had a wonderful morning before she left.

  “I’ll see you again tonight, right?” I asked as I kissed her at the door.

  “Of course.”

  I got dressed then and headed downstairs looking as disheveled as I felt, I was sure. But I know I had a smile on my face.

  “Good morning, good sir!” Harold greeted me as I sat at the bar. He put a bowl of something in front of me and I started shoveling it in without even looking.

  “I daresay you put a rather nice smile on Darlene’s face!” He laughed.

  I noticed the room was empty except for one other customer on the other side of the room.

  “Yeah. So what’s the deal with the barmaids? Are they all for sale?”

  “More or less,” he said picking up a glass and cleaning it. I noticed he had quite a few there that he was cleaning. That tickled something in the back of my mind.

  “We don’t pay them much, a copper a week and whatever meals they work through they get fed. But if they want to go off to sleep with a customer, and that customer wants to pay them for it, that’s their business. I just make sure we hire only young and attractive women to work here. That’s why we have so many barmaids later in the evening and so many male customers of means.”

  “Umm, so you’re telling me this is a brothel?” I asked confused.

  He laughed, “Oh no! There aren’t any of those here, that’s an outlander idea,” and he grinned at me making a point I guess. “Darlene’s parents know what she does here, they aren’t parading around about it, but they know in my bar she’ll only meet men of means, and be protected from any bad ones. People don’t look down on it, Will. I’m sure ye’ve seen the trouble men can get into when there isn’t a woman in their life right?”

  “Can’t argue with that,” I said and finished the bowl. “Oh, I could really use a hot bath right about now.”

  “The bath house is down the street that way,” he said pointing. “And if ye don’t mind me saying so,” he laughed, “yes, ye could.”

  I blinked and stopped at that. Public bath houses? I remembered how sweet Darlene had smelled, and how clean she was. How clean pretty much everyone was around here. Except for those I’d seen in the bar back in Last One, who were obviously laborers, people were clean here. Also remarkably healthy looking. That was what was in the back of my head as I’d watched him cleaning. In our medieval past, or rather my home’s medieval past, it hadn’t been clean, and most people hadn’t been healthy.

  “Public baths?” I asked him. “How much do they cost?”

  “Just tell ‘em ye a guest of my inn. I pay a fee for my guests to go there.”

  “Thanks!” I said and went off in search of the baths.

  It didn’t take me long to find them, they were down the street and they were huge.

  “Can I help ye sir?” I young woman asked me.

  “Yes, I’m a guest of the White Swann and I’d like to take a bath.

  “Ah yes, first time here in Hillshire?”

  I nodded, “Obvious I know.”

  She smiled, “Well there’s a room in there where you can put your clothes, and an attendant will give you a towel. Tubs are either scrubbing tubs, where you will find soap, or rinsing and soaking tubs where you won’t see any soap. The tubs are sorted by heat. The further you get from the south wall, the cooler the tubs will be.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” And then walked into the biggest shock in my life.

  The attendant who was handing out the bags to put your clothes in, which you stripped in front of, was a woman. I noticed none of the men in the room seemed to care, so I just gritted
my teeth and bared it.

  Bared it all I guessed.

  She handed me a chain with a tag on it so I could reclaim my stuff and gave me a wink. I tried not to blush, but I’m sure I failed, and I went in search of a ‘scrubbing’ pool.

  The next shock I got was that the bathing, all of it, was communal. Men and women of all ages were sharing tubs, and no one seemed to care in the slightest that everyone was going around naked. They weren’t even wrapping the towels around them to pretend at any modesty. About the only thing I did notice was that some people would go to first one tub to scrub, then another, before heading off to a rinsing tub. When I got behind one of the ones doing that, I quickly figured it out, they smelled really bad and needed some extra cleaning.

  Figuring that I was pretty stinky myself I did the same thing. Going from first one tub, then to a second.

  “Ah, Will! Hi!” I blinked and turned, it was Darlene, stark naked, with soap clinging to her body in ways that I knew would soon embarrass me. Until I saw the much older man and woman with her, that wilted those passions faster than any amount of ice could have achieved.

  “Hi, Darlene,” I smiled and shook hands, but she leaned forward and gave me a kiss. The war going on in my body would have given psychologists a field day. That kiss started driving me on again.

  “So, is this the young man who kept you out until morning?” The man asked.

  And that started wilting me again.

  “Will, this is my mother and my father. Ma, Pa, this is Will.”

  “Hi!” I said and shook hands, dazed.

  “Come on, let’s go rinse!” She said and claiming my hand dragged me off into one of the pools where we rinsed and made small talk. For my part I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts together. Here was this rather beautiful young woman who I’d just had wonderful sex with, in a pool of warm water nice and naked and full of smiles. And not afraid to hug me either.

  Of course also here were not only a hundred other people of both sexes and all sizes equally naked, but her father and mother, whom I’m sure, knew that I had spent last night having sex with their daughter. Her mother seemed to like me, her father seem to hold me in the same contempt that all fathers held their daughter’s boyfriends.

  The entire lack of a nudity taboo, as well apparently as the usual sexual taboo, was a bigger culture shock than the lack of indoor plumbing.

  She walked with me back to where my clothes were, gave me a little kiss then ran off to join her parents.

  “Girlfriend o’ yours?” The female attendant asked smiling at me.

  “Yup,” I nodded.

  “Lucky girl,” she said smirking and looking down at my crotch.

  I looked down and I guess my libido had finally won out over my fears. I looked back up at the attendant and smiled, “Yes, she is.”

  I went back to the inn and waited for the sergeant to show. He did, just before lunch with his old bow, and the money. I looked over the old bow and was seriously impressed. I was starting, slowly, to understand archery and bows, and it was truly a nice piece of work. I was sure to get a lot of cash for this one back home.

  “Pleasure doing business with ye,” Sergeant Chaucer said.

  “Just as long as you’re happy. By the way, you wouldn’t know any really good instructors for sword fighting would you?”

  “You need to learn?” He asked looking surprised.

  “Yes. I know how to fight without a weapon, but I learned recently that isn’t enough when two men tried to kill me for my wares. If a guard hadn’t shown up, I’d be dead.”

  He nodded, “Surprised you don’t know already.”

  I sighed, “Where I grew up, most people settled their problems with their fists, as a farmer’s son, who had the time or money for swords?” I looked up at him and he nodded, I was finding that sticking to my fictional history was getting easier and easier with time.

  “Oh I understand farm work. Got off me own uncle’s farm as soon as I was ol’ enough to join the guard.”

  He gave me the name of a couple of people he thought were good instructors and then left.

  # # # #

  Over the next four months, things progressed fairly well. Darlene was sleeping in my bed every night and staying until the morning, the only times she wasn’t there was when it was that ‘time of the month,’ on those nights her ‘co-workers’ were more than eager to fill in, it was believed I was rather wealthy I guess. I, of course, let them fill in rather happily and if Darlene cared, she never made any comments about it. Of course, I was paying them for sex, unlike Darlene who was at this point most definitely my girlfriend.

  I was worried at first about accidental pregnancies, as well as STD’s, though from what I gathered from talking to her and the others, that her staying home during those times of the month were more a case of her personal aesthetics than anything else and STD’s seemed to be unknown. Apparently, the concept of birth control medicines was very well understood and they were readily available. That led to the discovery that the apothecaries here were quite advanced and knowledgeable, something I knew was not the case in my own world’s past. I had even bought the equivalent of aspirin myself for sore muscles after my training sessions. This was just another of the many things I was finding that were different around me. But yet we still spoke the same language. I was having trouble parsing that one out; especially as the written language was different. At least the alphabet was! Progress with reading and writing was rather slow.

  As for my sword training, well the training was tough. I was taking daily lessons, not a cheap proposition really, and while progress was slow at times, I was making progress.

  Of my original funds, I was still on my first roll of dimes, not even half way through it, plus I had a little of the copper from earlier left. I’d sold six more of the bows, each at a gold and five silver, so I had a nice amount of money there. I had three bows left now plus my personal one, which I was also practicing with daily. At this point I think I had a fair bit of proficiency with it. At a hundred yards I could usually hit what I was aiming at, even if it was moving. At fifty yards, I was deadly.

  I also took the time to learn a little about the city, the geography of the country, and a little history. Hillshire was the most powerful country in the region, or at least that’s what everyone here believed. Other than the marauding Ale’arocks, there hadn’t been a war in forty years. I honestly wanted to go exploring, see the city of Portsmouth, and travel to the capitol, Kingstown. But I wanted to do a little more trading first, and a bit more learning about swords. My instructor felt that a few more months and I’d be not only able to defend myself, but to do so without embarrassing him.

  “Will?” Darlene was cuddled up against me, it was late, we’d been making love, which I had to admit was one of my favorite pastimes.

  “Hmm?” I asked drowsy and feeling content.

  “When will you be leaving?”

  “Two months about, when the snow melts.”

  “I wish I could go with you,” she whispered.

  We’d had this discussion before. I knew if I took her back to my world she’d probably freak out. Assuming I could take her back there. Also while I was pretty sure I could defend myself, I wasn’t sure I could defend her as well as me.

  Plus, well to be honest, I wasn’t looking for anything serious, well not more serious than what we were currently doing. Though occasionally the thought did cross my mind, she was very lovely and she was extremely sweet. Without a doubt the best girlfriend I’d ever had.

  “I should be back before summer.” I said, changing tact.

  “But what will I do without you?” She rolled over and faced me. There was a candle lit in the room, I preferred some light on moonless overcast nights like tonight. I loved to look at her, because quite honestly, I was still pretty damned flattered that she was sleeping with me.

  “I’ll leave you with some money, you’ll be fine,” I said wrapping a leg around hers.

&nbs
p; “I want something of you left behind, in case, in case you don’t come back.”

  “Oh I’ll be back,” I smiled lazily and kissed her. “Even if I didn’t have you, I have business here. So don’t worry okay?”

  “I still want something of you,” she whispered and smiled.

  I kissed her nose, “What?”

  She reached her hand down and touched me someplace private and whispered, “I want your child.”

  The last woman who said she wanted my child I broke up with by the next date. After all, I was young, a kid really, and damned near broke. But I looked at Darlene, who was about six years younger than me and just smiled.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Good morning, Will!” Harold greeted me as I came down for breakfast. Darlene had already left; she had chores to do at home apparently. I never asked what they were, but this morning I really needed the time alone.

  “Morning, Harold,” I said and sat down taking the bowl of porridge he handed me.

  “Something wrong?”

  I sighed, “Yes and no. Darlene wants my child.”

  “Well good news then!” He laughed.

  I looked up at him, “Isn’t there a stigma over unmarried women having children here?”

  He shook his head, “Not really. I don’t know if ye’ve noticed Will, but there are at least three women for every man in Riverhead. Most of the kingdom actually from what I’ve been told. The men do the fighting, and it seems that every time in history the numbers gotten more even, a large war comes along. Not that I’m complaining mind ye.”

  “Noted.”

  “So what’d be the problem then?”

  I shrugged, “I just don’t want any child of mine to go wanting.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say ye don’t want her to go wanting.”

  I grinned at him, “She does grow on you, you know. Or at least she has on me. I still have no idea what she sees in me.”

  Harold seemed to think that was rather funny, “The father of her babies,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes and looked up at the ceiling, “Yeah but why me?”