by Rob J. Hayes
“So you in, Vel’urn?” Sally asked bringing her out of her reverie. She looked up to find Lei giving the deck an enthusiastic shuffle and nodded her assent.
A few moments later she had a hand of cards and a few moments after that she found herself a couple of lats worse off. Lei proceeded to rob her of a fair portion of her remaining money in a way that convinced her he was somehow cheating but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how.
Thanquil would know. He’d be robbing Lei right back. It was true too; Thanquil had always been infuriatingly vague about how he’d learned to steal but there was more than a little thief in the Arbiter and, despite his maddening silence on the matter, it was one of the things Jez liked about him.
Eventually the barge captain called out their arrival and the cargo boat bumped against one of the small wooden jetties that protruded into the waterway. Jez was the first ashore, already having lost more than enough lats.
Their destination appeared to be a small strip of wooden raft that had once been used for public events; maybe announcements or executions, proclamations or auctions but as the city of Soromo had grown it left small areas like these, too small for any useful establishment and usually not very well travelled, behind to become run down relics of a time when the capital was a smaller place. Areas such as these were well known to Soromo’s seedy underbelly and were well used by the criminal class. It gave Jezzet a moment’s pause to wonder just what they were transporting but then the truth was she didn’t really care so long as she was paid. It wouldn’t be the first, nor the last illegal job she took part in.
The buyer was already waiting for them with a crew of his own. He was clearly merchant class though he couldn’t look more different from Jez’s employer. This one was thin where her employer was fat, angular where he was soft and had a hook nose with an ornate pair of glass spectacles perching atop it. His clothing, however, could not have been more similar. He wore a thick woollen dress buttoned first left, then right over the top and thin hat that ran like a crest from his forehead to his crown. He looked like a man who wielded numbers as a warrior wields a sword. He sneered at Jez as she stepped onto the platform and she returned the disrespect in kind.
The buyer’s crew were not so disrespectful, after all, Jezzet Vel’urn had a reputation in Soromo and it was one that most of their kind knew of and knew not to mess with.
Sally was next off the barge and commanded almost as much respect as Jez though for a different reason. It wasn’t that Sal wasn’t formidable but by his sheer size most folk in the Dragon Empire were awed by him. They tended to be a smaller people; stout but short. Some of them even made Jez feel tall.
Lei and Jaeryn stepped off the barge together, Lei as silent as the grave and Jaeryn all smiles and open-armed greetings. The leader of the other crew responded in kind, it seemed to Jez the two knew each other but there was no way to be certain.
After Jaeryn felt certain there was no trap or signs of double cross he gave a sharp whistle by putting two fingers in his mouth and blowing hard. A moment later Jezzet’s employer stepped out from the hold and waddled to the side of the barge. Sal moved to help the mountain of fat from the boat to the platform but even the giant Five Kingdomer wasn’t enough to stop the fat merchant from puffing and wheezing as he leapt across the little gap Jez rolled her eyes at the spectacle and Lei gave her a confidante’s grin.
“Arai,” Gok said with a bow to the other merchant that set his chins to wobbling.
“Arai,” the thin merchant replied with an identical bow.
Jezzet turned her attention to the other crew, she had long since learned there was no point in listening to the merchants of Soromo, they spoke in a language apart from the rest of the world and known only to each other. All haggling and deal brokering was spoken in such and therefore excluding all others.
The other crew was made up of ten men in all and not a single woman though that was not overtly surprising. In the more rural areas of the Dragon Empire Thanquil assured Jez that women took a more active role in society but in the cities and especially in Soromo women seemed almost like ornaments to hang on men’s arms. It both angered, disgusted and confused Jezzet. The Dragon Empire was ruled exclusively by women and had been since its founding; an unbroken line of Empresses dating back further than Jez could be bothered to think about.
Perhaps that’s why the current Empress is so damned fascinated by you, Jez. You’re the only woman in this whole bloody empire, other than her, that doesn’t just lie down and spread their legs on command.
One of the members of the other crew winked at her and waggled his tongue between his fat, worm-like lips. Jezzet snorted and spat and the man adopted a mean look that almost had Jez creasing up with laughter.
The haggling went on for what seemed to Jez like an eternity. Rich men arguing about who’s richer like the numbers have purpose. Who’s stronger; the person with a coin or the person with a sword?
Jez sighed and settled into an evening of a guard’s most laborious of pastimes: waiting. After near an hour of constant chatter back and forth the two merchants finally struck a deal and each produced a small grey slate from their robes where they proceeded to scratch the terms of their deal and sign it before exchanging slates.
The thin merchant and his crew of ten piled onto the boat Jez had arrived on and the captain pushed them back into the waterway. Within minutes they were a slowly receding outline floating away as the light faded. Gok then led his own crew to the boat the other merchant had arrived in, a large skiff able to sit twenty. The fat man climbed aboard and took a seat at the front, waiting for his hired crew to follow him and take up the oars.
“Think we get paid extra for the rowing?” Jezzet asked with a wink. Gok ignored her, as was his way, but the others laughed as they set to the oars and pushed away from the clandestine meeting spot.
Jezzet
“Once, just once,” Sally said as he crossed his legs and tried to edge his knees under the table, “I’d like there to be some sort of action. Feels like a couple of ages since anyone kicked up any sort of trouble.” His big knees bumped the side of the little table and he gave up, instead turning sideways and relaxing back onto his elbows.
Jez knelt down in the traditional Dragon Empire style and slotted her own knees easily underneath the table. She had been to taverns all over the known world but nowhere did drinking holes quite so differently as Soromo. Instead of the common room seen most places Soromo’s taverns were large collections of rooms separated from each other by thin screens of wood and paper. Customers were given their own rooms and rarely, if ever, saw another customer. Perhaps because of this is it was almost unheard of for tavern brawls in Soromo to take place. Each room contained a table perching roughly a foot off the floor and a number of chairs which in truth were little more than gaudily-coloured mats with wooden backs. It was considered an insult to the establishment to sit at the table without first placing both weapons, shoes, gloves and hats at the entrance to the room. It was also considered an insult for the establishment for a woman to sit at the table but then not many places argued with Jezzet over that insult twice.
It was Jaeryn’s own personal tradition to take his crew to one of Soromo’s taverns after every completed job. As the boss he pulled in a substantially larger cut than his crew mates and was more than happy, much to Jez’s approval, to treat his crew to a meal and a couple of drinks out of that cut. Rarely had she met a boss so generous or amiable as Jaeryn.
This particular tavern was named Yaname and Jezzet neither knew, nor cared what it meant but it was one she had not frequented before with, or without the little guard crew and she already knew what was undoubtedly to come.
The waitress entered the little screened room and stopped in her tracks. Jezzet looked up at her. Like all the serving girls in Soromo she wore a large woollen dress that engulfed her, hiding her figure save for her head, hands and slippered feet. Her face was covered by a plain white, ceramic, featureless
mask with two slits for her eyes and an even thinner but longer slit for her mouth. By some trick of the light neither the serving girl’s lips, nor eyes could be seen beneath the mask and it was something that was done by design.
If neither her figure nor her features can be seen by the men she’s serving they won’t even think of her as a woman, nor as a person. Truly what a wonderful city this is.
The serving girl’s hair, almost as black as Jezzet’s own, hung down to her shoulders and served to frame the mask; it shook a little as she babbled something in a language Jez didn’t know before turning and rushing from the room. Yet another injustice done to the women of Soromo was that they were forbidden from learning the common tongue, at least not those of common birth, and therefore could not communicate with outsiders.
Lei chuckled and took out a smoking pipe, packed it with dried leaf and lit it from the single candle in the centre of the table. Jaeryn spread his hands wide with a resigned smile and reached into his jacket for a din, a wooden chip that served as money in the Dragon Empire and was worth more than the common lat.
“Every time,” Jez said with a sigh and a shake of her head.
Jaeryn nodded. “Costs about as much just to let you drink in these places as it does to feed you all for a night.”
“Don’t pay then,” Jez replied casually. “I’ll teach them not to be so disrespectful.”
Jaeryn snorted. “You’d bring the damned guard down upon us. Might be alright for you given how taken the empress is with you but us… we’d be executed for disturbing the peace.”
Jezzet nodded, public executions were not uncommon in Soromo for all manner of crimes and disturbing the peace was certainly one of them. Barbaric as blanket capital punishment was it did tend to bring crime levels down. Or just forces the criminal class to work smarter and be more discreet.
A tall man wearing robes that identified him as the owner walked through the door and pointed at Jezzet. “Out,” he ordered with bulging eyes.
Jez turned her head and gave the owner a dark smile that made him step back in fright but Jaeryn was already up and placating the foolish man. A few calming words and a din later and the owner grunted his approval at Jezzet staying. She applauded him as he left the room but he ignored her.
A few minutes later the serving girl reappeared. Some people might have thought it a different girl but Jezzet could tell it was the same one. She noticed it in the way the woman walked, and the minute head twitches Jez’s way. The women of Soromo always found her fascinating and given the way that they were treated she wasn’t at all surprised.
They ordered some food and something to drink and the all the while the serving girl said nothing, only bobbing her head enthusiastically. Jezzet watched her and shook her head. “The way you people treat women is disgusting,” she said accusingly at Jaeryn and Lei.
Lei smiled and shrugged but Jaeryn laughed. “Me people or my people? I myself allow my wife all the comforts and rights she deserves. Unfortunately she refuses to allow herself those same rights I wish to give her.” Jezzet snorted but Jaeryn forged on. “It’s true. An unfortunate consequence of the culture we live in is our women truly believe they are less than the men.”
“They are,” Lei said speaking for the first time that day and, judging by experience, probably his only time that day.
Jez stared a burning hole through Lei but he simply shrugged and ignored her.
“I personally,” Jaeryn continued, “do not believe this to be a fair derision. The way we relegate women to menial duties only, the objectification exhibited by most men including my silent friend here. All wrong, in my mind at least, but then what am I to do? I am a simple man of simple means. I work to support my family. I am no revolutionary.”
“Why not?” Jez pushed. “Take a stand, make a difference if you truly believe what you just spewed up.”
Jaeryn laughed and shook his head. “Simple man. Besides I’ll wager you’re doing more than I ever could just by being you in this fair city of ours.”
Jez snorted. She felt like spitting but doing so in Soromo was considered rude especially when indoors.
“Oh you don’t believe me? But it’s true. You spread dissension by your very act of being, Jezzet Vel’urn. The women envy your freedom and your strength while the men they realise they want something more than the meek shadows that are sold to them as wives.
“The day you and your Arbiter arrived you had the whole city in an uproar.”
“He tends to do that wherever he goes,” Jezzet said.
“Not him, you. Some of the high-born, men from clans Seisei, Rolyn and Reika petitioned the empress to have you killed. When she refused they begged her to banish you. When she refused again they argued. She had each man’s first born son executed to show them she would brook no more argument.”
How very merciful. The empress is as bad as her people. Jez thought about it for a moment. Actually she’s worse.
“Even now there are people who are afraid of the way you influence her at court,” Jaeryn continued. “You are a bottled storm, Jezzet Vel’urn. Wherever you tread turbulence and change follow. Be careful, there are elements in this city that will stop at nothing to see you gone.”
Jez grinned. “Let them try, I’ll personally show them that storm.”
Jaeryn shook his head, his face dropping. “They will not come at you directly; they won’t risk the empress’ wrath.”
“You seem to know a lot about this, Jae,” Jezzet said.
He shook his head. “Just a man with his eyes open. As I’ve already said, I just want to feed my family, I’ve no intention of joining a revolution.”
“And I’ve no intention of starting one,” Jez countered and for a while both stared at the other.
“I think this place could learn a thing or two from the Five Kingdoms,” Sally said as he took the sour-wine bottle from the serving girl. “Back in my hometown of Kitswald the women are even tougher than the men. They look after the kids and the house, make the town decisions, even take up arms with the men when it’s needed.
“I remember one time my father came back near gutted by a wild boar. He killed the beastie good and proper but it damn near stuck one of its tusks through his belly. He dragged the thing home and collapsed on the ground just outside our cottage. My mother found him, cleaned him up and tended to his wounds, skinned the boar and cooked it and then spent the next few weeks doing his job as well as hers all the while stopping me and my sisters from killing each other.” Sally grinned. “They were good times.”
Never really knew your mother, Jez, or your father. They had tried to sell her to a pleasure house at the age of nine years. Only the timely intervention by one of the brothel’s regular patrons had saved Jez from the life of a whore. Lucky for me that patron turned out to be a Blademaster.
For a long time after her parents had sold her Jez was furious at them. She was young but not too young to understand what they had tried to do and what she had been saved from. Back then she hadn’t realised what was to come but her master, Yuri Vel’urn soon made it clear. On her first night as his new apprentice Jezzet had lost her virginity. He was not rough but then he wasn’t gentle either, at nine years old it was a terrifying experience for her and that night she cried herself to sleep. Cried yourself to sleep the first month, if I remember right, Jez.
The next morning Yuri started Jez out with small tasks designed to test her, make sure she had what it took to be a Blademaster. Physical ability could be earned through hard work, skill could be taught, although Yuri always preached Blademasters were born not chosen, but there was a particular mind set required to complete the training and he tested Jezzet to make sure she had it.
At first he set her menial tasks and far too many than she could realistically complete in one day. The tasks were designed to drive her to exhaustion both physically and mentally and then push her past those barriers. The master needed to know his apprentice had the drive to keep going beyond her limit
s. More than once Jezzet had returned to their home too tired to think or feel, sometimes she was literally asleep on her feet and she knew for a fact Yuri had occasionally used her body for his own pleasure after she had passed out from the day’s grind.
After he was certain his apprentice wouldn’t give up or complain about the workload Yuri tested her ability to learn. He gave her tomes of history to read, dull, dry literature that had her yawning so often she thought it would be easier simply to keep her mouth open. At night, after he had had his fun Yuri would quiz her on what she had learned, making sure to focus on the details. There was the physical learning too; he would show Jez a dance just once then leave for the day, she never knew where. When he returned he would order her to recite the dance perfectly.
Those were the easy tasks, the ones she never got wrong. After just three months of testing her Yuri Vel’urn decided Jezzet might just have what it took to be his apprentice. Her training followed and it pushed her to the edge of death more times than she could count. There was even that one time he actually killed you, Jez.
“Mind if I join you?” Came a voice from the doorway behind Jezzet. It was a voice she wished she didn’t recognise.
“I do mind,” said Jaeryn, his voice devoid of its usual smile. “This happens to be a private gathering, friend.”
You should probably say something before he gets himself killed. “Hello, Drake,” she said without turning to look at the pirate captain. She did however take great pleasure in watching the colour drain from Jaeryn’s face.
“Y-you’re Drake Morrass?” asked Jaeryn.
“I am,” replied Drake. Jez could tell he was smiling even without looking. “And you’re Jaeryn Ito.”
Jez wouldn’t have said it was possible but Jaeryn somehow managed to pale even further. “You know my name?”
“I know everyone’s name. Evening, Jezzet.”
Jez waved a hand over her shoulder in greeting and reached for a meat dumpling, popping it into her mouth without ceremony and chewing loudly.