Portals of Infinity: Book One: Champion for Hire

by John Van Stry

  “Cause ye are young, good looking, successful, and ye don’t treat her like shit.”

  I thought about that. “Could you expand on that last point a bit further please?”

  “Sure. Ye buy her things, ye spend money on her, and I suspect ye give her money when her family needs it. Her folks are dirt poor, yet ye treat her like a person even though ye could buy and sell her whole family. Ye don’t rub your affairs with other women in her face and have gone as far as to make it clear that those others don’t matter.”

  “You don’t miss much, do you?” I said shaking my head.

  “Well, I’ve had me years of practice here behind this bar.”

  I looked around the place, as usual there were only a few people eating breakfast. Most got up before me, I tended to sleep until eight. Lazy I know.

  “So you gonna put a child in her?” He asked cleaning glasses for later tonight once again.

  “To be honest, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I’m just worried about her welfare when I’ll be gone.”

  “She’s a smart one, don’t ye worry. She’ll be fine.”

  “If she’s so smart, why was she selling her body in the bar? No offense.”

  “None taken,” he grinned, “But she landed ye didn’t she?”

  “A killing blow as Master Burdon would say,” I said nodding to acknowledge the point. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask me to marry her.”

  “A women round these parts would never ask a man for that. Besides, she places her station in life well below that of ye own.”

  “I need to find her something better to do then work the floor when I’m not here,” I sighed and stood, time to hit the baths.

  “True, especially once word gets round that she’s carrying your child. A good number of the men round here would rather not cross you.”

  I stopped and looked at him, “Why is that?”

  “Well you sell weapons, you get on well with both the first sergeant and the captain of the guards, and you seem to spend your free time either training to fight, or with Darlene. And you haven’t let her sleep with anyone but yourself since you got here.”

  I smiled, “You know, I think I like that.”

  “Possessiveness, oh she’s got ye but good!” He chuckled.

  I thought about it all day. By local standards, I was pretty well off. With the amount of silver and gold I could bring back here after my next trip, as well as a few trade items, I’d be rich. At the ripe old age of twenty-four, I could set myself up for life. I had a woman whom I doubted I’d ever do better than, she loved me and she was gorgeous. Sure things here weren’t as advanced as back home, but to be honest, so what? The people here were healthy, clean, and most of them even had all their teeth.

  Life here was simpler in the way’s I could appreciate. No long hours, no bosses yelling at me, no stupid rules and regulations by standards committees. No office politics, no being the junior guy, no traffic to commute in every day. No meetings to discuss what color to make something no one would ever see, no weird racial quota reports, no bizarre tax forms. No government breathing down my neck on everything I owned, or everything I drank, smoked, or whomever I slept with.

  No hassles.

  The law was a lot simpler, pay x dollars of taxes every year. Pay X fees to the city every month if you operated a business here. Don’t steal, be polite, and if you had to defend yourself, no one saw anything wrong with that.

  And people respected me here, I had friends in the guard, I was on good terms with most people, and was polite with those I wasn’t. And I had money.

  And I had Darlene. And in a few weeks I would be on the way to having a child. I knew her cycle, next week she usually stayed home. I looked around, I was on my way back from the baths, I hadn’t really been paying a lot of attention to what I was doing, thinking about all of this I’d pretty much just gone with my routine as always. This was a nice town, and it was full of nice people. If I was going to explore this world, then this would be a good place to call home, and it could really only be home if I had a place and a person to come home too. Six months ago the whole idea would have been alien to me, but now it just felt right.

  “Harold,” I said walking into the inn, “how long before you plan on retiring from this place?”

  He looked up at me surprised and scratched his balding head, “can’t rightly say as I know that answer. The missus and I ‘ave discussed it a few times over the last few years. Been going on forty years now that we’ve been running the place. Why ye be askin’ anyways?”

  “Maybe I want to buy it from you.” I said sitting down, the room was pretty well deserted now. Too late for breakfast too early for lunch.

  “Well, it’ll be a good few years yet before I’d be interested in doing that Will. Besides, you don’t strike me much as the inn runnin’ type.”

  “I was thinking more along having Darlene learning to run it. From you. That is if you think she’d be capable of running this place?”

  Harold pondered that a few. “Well yeah, I think she could handle it, she’s smart enough, isn’t afraid of workin’ either.”

  “So, how about this for a proposal then,” I smiled, “I buy a half stake in the inn, you teach Darlene how to run it, and she’ll live here. Eventually she takes it over and you and your missus can retire here and live out the rest of your days in the place. Or take the money I’ll give you to buy in and go someplace else if you want.”

  “And I take it that whenever ye’re in town of course ye will stay here with Darlene?”

  “Of course. Maybe eventually settle down myself to stay here with her and raise the kids. I suspect she’ll want more than just this one.”

  “They always do,” he chuckled. “To be honest, I hadn’t given much thought to what to do with the place. Me kids don’t want it, just not the inn type.”

  We talked and dickered a while after that, and again the next day. His wife liked Darlene and really liked the idea. They were getting old and running the place was getting harder for them. Darlene could take her time learning the business, and could raise the baby here; they’d raised several of their own here over the years.

  Looking over their records I could see they didn’t make a lot of money, but they did okay. Maybe a little bit better than okay even.

  “So, how much?” I sighed and looked over the table at Harold. It was Friday morning, we’d gone over all the details. He’d talked with his wife, though I still hadn’t brought it up with Darlene. I’d tell her once the deal was about done.

  “Ten gold.”

  “Ten gold? I could open my own place for ten gold and have money left over to serve free food for a year! Six.”

  “Oh come on, Will, even you know this place is worth more than six! It’s not just the building, it’s the reputation and the history, the customers. Eight!”

  “If I give you eight, then when you and the missus retire, there won’t be a buyout.” I warned.

  He nodded, “Sounds fair.”

  “Okay, eight then.” And we shook hands on it.

  “Now we just need to write up the contract, get the Lord to agree and put the money in the bank.”

  I nodded. I had been surprised to find out that they had contract law and the like, but maybe I shouldn’t really have been. Business was important and the Lord of Riverhead and the surrounding area would make sure that both sides understood the deal before approving it, so there would be no questions later. As for the bank, well I knew they’d been around in my past as well, so no surprises there.

  “Is the bank really that safe?” I asked curious.

  “Well, I don’ like having that kind of money lyin’ around, and yes I guess. If Black’s Bank goes, I’d be thinking there were problems a lot worse than me money to worry about. The King does business with them after all.”

  I nodded. I carried my money on me usually. Maybe I was being too trusting.

  “Ye’re going to have to put Darlene’s name on this cont
ract ye know,” he said fiddling with his pipe.

  I got the impression he had something to say I wasn’t going to like much, “Yes I know, what of it?”

  “Well, Will, I know ye’re doing all this really for her, because ye want her and ye kid to be taken care of, not be out on the street poor should anything happen to ye.”

  I nodded, when this whole idea came to me, I was mainly thinking of protecting my kid and keeping my girlfriend my girlfriend. “Well, that and to keep her busy, out of trouble. Any money I left behind would run out sooner or later.”

  “Aye, that’s true. But there’s one thing you haven’t thought of and while it may not be much of my business, if we’re going to be partners I think it best now that I bring it up to ye. Wouldn’t want ye to ever say I never warned ye.”

  I turned my head slightly and scowled. “Warned me about what?”

  “Well say something happens and ye end up gone a year or two rather then just a few months? Ye come back here and find some swindler has moved in on yer gal with all smooth words and actions, and she’s up and married him. Hate to see you lose it all because you didn’t see the obvious.”

  I bristled, “Darlene would never do that to me!”

  “Well, not if she thought you were alive, but ye are gonna leave her here with a child, and a lot of work that needs to be done, and no guarantees. Women get lonely, Will, and sometimes they need a little something to remind them that ye care. Ye’re about to spend a fortune on her. Stop resisting the obvious and marry the girl before ye go.”

  I froze and blinked and tried not to sputter. “But I don’t want to get married yet,” I said in a small voice.

  “Why not? Why aren’t ye just leaving her with a kiss and a belly full of yer offspring and a slim promise of the future?”

  “Well, I care about her.”

  “But?”

  I blushed a little, “But I’m still young and I still want to screw around. I don’t think I could be true to her. Hell, there are girls working out there I’m still going to want to sleep with when she’s on her cycle.”

  Harold laughed, “So? Ye know how many of the sailors on the river ships have a wife here and another back in Portsmouth?”

  I pondered that a moment, “So you’re telling me she won’t care if I cat around on her, or even if I had another wife stashed in another city?”

  He nodded and smiled, “Exactly that my boy. Remember I told ya about the three to one ratio? A lot of women would rather share than go without. I had a concubine myself for a goodly number of years and got two bastards on her that went on to do well for themselves. As a matter of fact I believe ye’ve even meet one of ‘em.”

  “Who?” I leaned back surprised.

  “Sergeant Chaucer,” Harold grinned.

  “Whoa.” I shook my head. “Things are definitely different here than where I was raised.”

  He nodded, “Darlene’s family is poor, dirt poor. Ye marry her and she’ll be yer wife ‘til the end of time. She could never hope to be more than a concubine for someone of yer means. Ye know ye love her; ye wouldn’t be doing all this iffen ye didn’t. Plus people do frown on men chasing after wed women. So ye’d not have to worry about someone poaching in yer bed if ya know what I mean.”

  I thought about that and nodded slowly. Life was getting complicated, but not really that much. But married. Just whoa.

  “Hon?” I asked.

  “Hmmm?” Darlene was nuzzling me, content.

  I told her about the deal with the inn first.

  “What?” She sat up and looked at me. “Are you serious? You want to buy me the inn?”

  I looked at her sitting there, naked, still a little sweaty from our lovemaking. Well child making actually.

  “I’m buying us a share in the inn. Eventually it will be ours. But I want to be sure that if anything should happen to me,” like I was to find a better deal and not come back, I thought to myself sarcastically, “I want to be sure you and our children won’t end up out on the street or starve.”

  She threw herself at me and hugged me and kissed me and was crying happily, “Oh Will, that is the kindest thing, the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever done for me. I love you.”

  I smiled and hugged her close. My ego was definitely soaking it up.

  “Oh, one other thing,” I whispered and licked her ear.

  “What? Anything!” She laughed.

  “Let’s get married.”

  I’ve heard it said that at certain times in their lives all women can make a rather high pitched squealing noise. Once my hearing returned I could swear that I heard dogs barking all over town.

  Signing the papers went okay. Paying the money wasn’t a problem either. I even opened a bank account and put a decent chunk of what I had left in it. I had to pay a dowry for Darlene, her dad asked for one silver which I gathered was asking a lot in their social circle. I suspected he even figured I’d haggle him down, but who wants to haggle on the price of someone they cared for? So I smiled and gave him ten. I would have given him a couple of gold but I was afraid he’d have a heart attack. I just couldn’t put a price on Darlene.

  The wedding was a simple affair. We went and saw the priest at the temple. The official god, or rather goddess, of Hillshire was called Aryanna, and Darlene and her family were rather devout it turned out.

  “I see you are not a follower of our goddess,” the priest said to me as we entered the sacristy. I looked around, the Temple grounds were impressive outside, and the main chapel was huge. This smaller room was actually quite cozy.

  “No, sorry. To be honest this is the first I’ve heard of her since I came to Hillshire.”

  “Well, it is customary to make a donation to the temple for a blessing on a new marriage.”

  I nodded, I remember back home that was customary in the church I’d grown up in as well.

  “What is the customary amount?” I asked.

  “Well I know that Darlene’s family is not one of means, though I have heard her parents say that they believe you are. The question you must ask yourself is what do you think your wife is worth to you?”

  I looked at him, I’d run afoul of more than one greasy televangelist growing up, I’d even lost a friend to a cult. I wasn’t the most trusting of religions, preachers, or their beliefs. “I don’t know anything about your goddess, I don’t know if she exists or not, or if she helps her followers or not. But if you prove to me that she’ll watch over my wife and children I’ll give you every damn coin I have on me.”

  “Including the ones you have hidden?” I heard a very feminine voice whisper in my ear and a feeling like ice run down my spine.

  “Wha?” I looked around and it was just me and the priest, the others were on the other side of the room.

  “Something wrong, my son?” He said looking distinctly puzzled.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what, my son?”

  I flashed on my experiences playing Dungeons and Dragons back in college. “Either you are better than I know, and I’m being played really really well. Or I think I just got my bluff called.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you, my son.”

  “Let’s just say I hope, no strike that, let’s say that I pray Aryanna takes care of my wife and children.” And I emptied my pockets, all of them.

  “Um, I do say, Sir, that, that is considerably more than I had in mind.”

  “Yes well, you’re not the one who just made an ass out of himself in front of a goddess, now are you?” I said, leaving him with a rather perplexed look on his face and holding a small fortune. I was just glad I’d put more than half my money in the bank or I’d be broke.

  By the time the ceremony got started, I had stopped feeling like a fool, and had chalked the whole thing up to wedding jitters. I felt like I was on a runaway train, a lot of things had happened in the last few days. I mean I was getting married! It’s not like I was a confirmed bachelor, but a woman’s man I was not. Marriage was so
mething I’d only speculated on for the future, when I could afford it, when I’d gotten over my qualms about approaching beautiful women and asking them out.

  I shook my head to clear my senses; it still felt like a dream at times. At least the whole ceremony wasn’t very long. An exchange of vows and promises, none of which I noticed said anything about me being monogamous. I guess Harold had been honest with me there. At the end of the whole thing, the priest put his hands on our heads and went into a rather impressive, if lengthy blessing. I guess nearly five gold’s worth of coin made an impression.

  Then things got weird again. I can only describe it as a warm glow spread through my entire body, every ache and pain I had went away, a feeling of peace and contentedness better than the best sex spread through my body, and all my fillings popped out.

  I coughed into my hand and pocketed the mess before anyone noticed. But everything felt fine. And where I had one rather nasty filling that had always bothered me, I now felt nothing but smooth enamel.

  We stood and the Priest smiled at Darlene, “You will have a healthy son,” which made her give that squeal again, making the Priest wince, “I’ll never get used to that,” he muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

  Then he turned to me and looked at me rather strangely, “You’re not from around here, are you.”

  “I told you I’m an outlander.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said in a lower voice, “and you know that. However the goddess has accepted you, so it matters not.”

  I nodded a little weakly and gave Darlene a kiss and we headed back to the inn. We had a small party, which Harold had arranged as a wedding gift. There were actually several rooms in the back of the inn, which were private; they’d originally served as rooms for family when they had raised their children. Now Darlene and I moved into one of the larger ones.

  “Hon, do people ever get really sick around here?” I asked her later that night thinking about what had happened at the temple.

  “Occasionally. But if they do, the priests usually cure them.”

  This morning I would have figured they used medical means, suddenly I knew better.