“I think that we’ll have to share a double, considering our financial situation,” Kati said, as she and Joaley followed Marita up a flight of narrow stairs.
“My rooms are all doubles,” Marita responded. “Two single beds in each room. They can be pushed together for a couple, or a single occupant can have a room to himself or herself. But I expect that the two of you can manage perfectly well in one room; you’re not overly burdened with possessions.”
They had reached the upper level. The staircase opened into a wide hallway, and there were doors on both sides of it; Kati counted six, three of them closed, the others open. Marita reached for the handle of the nearest closed door.
“This is the bath and laundry room,” she said, leading the way in. “I had proper facilities installed here. The Vultairians like their old-fashioned bathing rooms and toilets, and to hang up their clothes to air-dry, but I wanted Federation plumbing since I rent to travellers, many of whom don’t appreciate discomfort, no matter how romantic. But all the rooms share these utilities; though there are two toilets and two showers, so things are not as skimpy as may looks at a glance.”
The room itself was large, and since the Federation plumbing was notable for its compactness, the washroom seemed palatial to Kati. But then, her experience of this type of facility was limited to the slave ship which had spirited her away from Earth, ages ago, the Torrones warship which she and Mikal had ridden to Lamania, and the Transient Quarters in The Second City. None of those had boasted roomy bathing areas.
“You okay with this?” she asked Joaley.
“It’s perfectly adequate,” Joaley replied with a shrug. “Better than I had dared to hope, in fact.”
Marita nodded with a smile, and led them back out into the hallway.
“The rooms are all the same price for two people,” she said, “and if you’re thinking of haggling, forget it. I don’t overcharge, but I stick to my price list. Probably the best of the available rooms is the end one, on the right. It’s a corner room and looks out on to the back garden from one window, and a quiet alleyway from the other. But if you prefer to look out on to the roof of the restaurant, the middle one on the left does that, and the right middle has a window overlooking the back garden only.”
The two women took a look at the two middle rooms on their way to the end. They were perfectly adequate rooms for two people, sparsely but neatly furnished with two single beds in each, dressers, a wardrobe, and a table and two chairs. The beds were neatly made, which solved any possible problem about linens. The floors, where they were free of furniture were covered with colourful rag rugs, giving an air of homey welcome. The view from the room Marita had termed “left middle” was forgettable. There was an expanse of red roof tiles, and beyond this the street by which Kati and Joaley had arrived at Marita’s establishment. The “right middle” had the better view; there was a riotous assortment of plants beneath its window. Fruit trees, vines, and berry bushes grew by the building, and further back an orderly vegetable garden filled the space to a brick wall which apparently separated this garden from its nearest neighbour.
Kati saw immediately why the proprietress had called the corner room the best of the available ones. It was the brightest; windows on the two different sides of the building ensured that. It was also, a little larger than either of the middle rooms, making it possible for the furnishings to be arranged to take advantage of the second window. There were also two extra chairs at the table, creating a corner in which entertaining visitors was a possibility.
“If you’re charging the same for this room as for each of the others,” Joaley said as soon as she had looked around the room, “this is the obvious choice. How much is your price?”
Marita cited a weekly amount which Kati knew from Cary’s information to be a very reasonable amount.
“Can we do it, O Keeper of the Purse Strings?” Joaley asked Kati who had walked over to check out the views.
The back window overlooked the lush garden with its riot of bounty, while the view from the side window was more sedate. The alley beside it was a pedestrian route between the street at the front of the building and the next one over. People were hurrying along it in both directions, although not in the numbers that there had been on the street.
“We can take it for a week to begin with,” Kati said, turning back to look at Joaley and their new landlady. “We’ll have to earn some money though, if we intend to keep it for longer than that. Our funds are doing a disappearing act, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, and that filthy-minded Trader Captain ripped us off, too,” Joaley added crossly. “The amount of labour we contributed, he could have paid us something, instead of showing us the hatch because I refused to warm his bed.
“We don’t work on our backs,” she added, determination in her voice.
“I didn’t think that you would,” Marita said with a chuckle. “If I had taken you for the sort that does, I’d have sent you over to Lamorgan’s Rooming House, where the women and their clients can come and go as they please.”
She pointed a finger at the guitar case which Kati was carrying.
“I would have guessed that you play whatever is in that, and maybe sing. Entertainers can always make a living in this town, although very few of them grow wealthy.”
“Woo-hoo! Just what we wanted to hear!” Joaley rubbed her hands together. “Kati with her guitar, me with the rikah—and singing, of course! Sounds like we’re all set, Kati!”
“T’would be nice,” Kati said as she counted out the week’s rent for the room into Marita’s hand.
There was very little left of the small stash of Vultairian currency that Maryse had been able to scrounge for them. She did have a handful of Federation credit chips stashed in one of her boots for emergencies, but Wilder women along the Space Lanes were unlikely to have access to such, unless they did work on their backs, so she was unwilling to even display one. To get more money, they had to earn it.
“I have musicians entertaining the patrons on the terrace at night,” Marita said. “There’s usually two or three groups working of an evening; they split the time among themselves and collect whatever coin the bar patrons are willing to give them. If you want to try your luck, you’re welcome to try tonight. It’s not a busy night of the week, but then, there are fewer groups wanting to play, too, so it’s not as bad as one might think.”
“We should do it, Joaley,” Kati replied right away. “It’s a place to start, and we do need to begin earning our keep.”
“Of course we’ll do it,” the red-head said with a big grin. “I’m looking forward to it!”
“That’s good,” Marita responded with a smile. “My daughter Mirry—she’s the one who served you—will introduce you to the other entertainers if you come down for supper at sundown. My contribution to the entertainment is feeding dinner to the players. It’s not much, but it keeps musicians coming back since they know that at the very least they’ll get to eat. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of you make out all right for a while, since I’ve never heard of either a guitar or a rikah, never mind know what they sound like. Novelty usually brings people in, and gets them to open their purse-strings.”
She left, citing paperwork that was waiting for her, and shut the room door behind her.
Kati and Joaley sat down at the table to stare at one another in bemusement.
“Whew!”
Joaley got up off her chair and threw herself on one of the beds.
“This is a pretty comfortable bed,” she said then and wrinkled her nose. “Although heaven only knows when we’ll get to sleep. Things certainly moved fast once they started rolling! We have a place to live—for a week at least—and it sounds like we’ll be able to earn a living, too. Did I imagine it, or did Marita actually imply that we might make some decent coin, for a short time at least, by playing in this very establishment?”
“Yep, that’s what it sounded like,” Kati agreed. “My impression was that she was
pleased to have new players; it makes sense, of course; if novelty brings more people into the bar, it’ll mean more business for her, too.”
“And the price is right for her, since the only outlay that she has to make is an evening meal for us,” Joaley mused. “Well let’s hope that Marita’s customers are generous with their coin. I guess we don’t know exactly when Rakil and Lank will be showing up, but I believe that the idea was to not follow us too closely. So we’ll have to make ends meet by ourselves for a while.”
“It’s an opportunity to set ourselves up,” said Kati. “We’re a couple of Wilder women who are on a world completely new to them, curious about everything. So full of questions that we can be a pain.”
Joaley jumped off the bed.
“On that note, let us go and poke around the neighbourhood. There’s still a half an afternoon left before sundown.” She nodded at the Vultairian light, shining through the garden window. “Marita didn’t say anything about keys and a lock. There must be some kind of security, though; we have to be able to leave our belongings in here unmolested.”
Kati stood up and walked over to the dresser which was between the garden window and the bed she expected to occupy—Joaley having claimed the other one. She had noticed an envelope on the top of it earlier and now she picked it up and tore it open. Sure enough, there were two old-fashioned, metal keys inside, both exactly the same, and a moment’s trial with the door lock confirmed that she had, indeed, found the room keys.
“Not exactly high tech,” Joaley said, after Kati had demonstrated the use of the keys and handed over one of them.
“No, but if our stuff is safe when we’re not here, that’s all I care about,” Kati said, shrugging. “Sometimes the simple solutions are better anyway. I don’t know what sort of an electronic system Marita has, but I’d just as soon not have my access to this room defined by it. I know just enough about the Oligarchs of this planet to mistrust them.”
“You don’t think that Marita would be in cahoots with them?” Joaley asked her.
“No, but we don’t know what the price of running a business may be—for a foreigner,” Kati pointed out.
Joaley stared at her for a moment and then nodded.
“I see,” she said as they stepped out and locked the door. “High alert it is.”
*****
They spent a couple of hours exploring the area of the Port City in which they had set up residence. It was a chaotic mishmash of narrow curving streets, busy with pedestrian traffic, and lined with small shops selling everything and anything imaginable. They bought nothing, however, but returned to Marita’s in plenty of time before sunset.
They took their instruments onto the terrace at sundown, and Mirry introduced them to the other entertainers who had come. There were only three, a Vultairian girl who played the local acoustic instrument, the rhyele, and sang ballads, and a duo of comics, young men who claimed that they had travelled the Space Lanes for years, refining their act in countless dives on various planets and space stations. They looked not much older than the Vultairian girl, so Kati and Joaley took their claims with a dose of salt.
The entertainers ate their supper with Mirry, at the table closest to the kitchen door. The food was delicious; Marita had an excellent cook.
“Yeah,” Mirry said in response to Kati’s comment. “Since Mom talked Sam into working here we have been having even members of the Four Hundred come in, and they’re pretty fussy. They don’t want to have to rub elbows with Ordinary Citizens and foreigners, and Mom’s not one to make special allowances for them. She gets away with it because the local Exalted put it down to her ‘alien quirkiness’; I’ve heard some of them tell one another that it’s kind of refreshing to deal with an off-worlder who doesn’t kow-tow. I guess coming here is kind of like going off-planet for them, minus the expense.”
“Is Sam an off-worlder, too?” Joaley asked.
“Yeah. He was looking for employment aboard a ship so as to get away from here, when Mom ran into him. He fell for Mom—that’s why she was able to get him into her kitchen—and decided that this world wasn’t quite so bad after all.
“You’ll be introduced to him soon enough if you two hang around for a while. He’s actually a nice fellow, if a slave-driver in the kitchen; but, he gets results as you can taste, and even the lowly apprentices accept that.”
After supper Mirry had a discussion with the entertainers about how they should divide the time available among the three sets of performers.
“I’d suggest that Mathilde with her rhyele go first,” she said. “I know that the take is usually better later in the evening, but people are more willing to listen to ballads earlier in the evening, before they’ve had much to drink.”
Mathilde smiled at Mirry, unperturbed.
“Don’t think that I’ll be upset, Mirry,” she said. “I’m perfectly aware that my music is more suitable for the early hours, and there are enough patrons coming through this place that I know I’ll gather together a few coins, even on a quiet night. I’m not greedy; I just want to make a living singing my songs.”
“Good,” Mirry stated. “You’ve played here before, so you know the routine. You’ll be starting in an hour or so, then.
“Now, I think the comedy boys should be the next ones to go on. You’ll want to fill that time when people are still sober enough to easily follow the jokes, but have had enough to drink to be willing to be a bit raucous and enjoy a good gag. You follow me?”
“Oh, we follow you,” one of the young men said with an infectious grin. “Sounds like you know the business, Miss. The late night crowds sometimes can’t follow the jokes, that’s true, and the early drinkers need warming up before they’re willing to turn their attention away from their gabfests.”
“All right then. Mathilde will cede the stage to you after a couple of hours, and then, after you have had it for two, you vacate it for Kati and Joaley who will be doing sing-alongs, among other kinds of pieces. That should keep the late crowd happy, and if they’re happy, they’ll be tossing money into the ladies’ bowl, which will make them happy.”
“Just so long as the crowd doesn’t go nuts,” the comic who had spoken added with a shake of his head. “You have bouncers, I hope. The natives of this world can get, shall we say, argumentative, and your final set is a couple of women. We want them safe.”
Mirry laughed.
“My Mom’s been in this business a long time,” she told the young man. “She’s got a couple of heavy-worlders ready to bash heads together if that becomes necessary. Mostly it doesn’t; all Mutt and Batt have to do is walk around and flex their muscles to keep the excitable in line.”
“Ah, good.” The boy smiled cheerfully at Mirry. “Don’t want to tell you—or your Mom—your business. But I figured it might not hurt to have that straight.”
“I guess that we’ll see how important Mutt and Batt are before the night’s out,” Joaley said to Kati when the two of them went back upstairs to use the facilities and to dress for their performance, while Mathilde settled in to warm up the crowd.
They returned quickly to catch Mathilde’s set. They were curious about the crowd, and its response to the performers. Kati thought that watching the acts preceding theirs would help them to choose the songs for their set. Although, they would likely have to use their whole repertoire just to make it through two hours, even if she did some talking between the songs. She and Joaley had been working hard to learn each others’ music, but, so far, they had not had all that much time together. However, they had the songs that the crew of Captain Jakob’s ship had taught them, too; a number of them were much like rollicking sea-shanties, and suitable sing-alongs for a tipsy bar crowd.
*****
Mathilde had a beautiful voice and she played her rhyele with practiced ease. Many of the patrons were still dining at this time, and Mathilde’s music, thanks to the fact that her voice carried quite well, created a pleasant atmosphere for the eaters. Quite a few of the
ones who were not staying past the supper hour slipped by the singer’s bowl on their way out, dropping a contribution into it. Others, who were clearly planning to stay and party, also added to her take when it was time for her to vacate the stage.
“These customers are very civilized,” commented Darce, the comedian, as he and his partner, Wen, got up from the table which they had shared with Joaley and Kati. “I’m glad we’re here. I think that if we succeed in making the patrons laugh, we’ll pick up a decent amount of coin ourselves.”
Mathilde had a pleased smile on her face when she came to join Kati and Joaley, her rhyele tucked into its sack and the coin bowl emptied into her money bag. She asked if they would watch her instrument sack while she slipped into the women’s washroom; she, too, was curious about the performers with whom she was sharing the spotlight this night.
“Off you go,” Joaley told her, taking the sack with its contents from Mathilde and laying it down on the table beside her rikah bag. “We’ll guard it as we guard our own instruments.”
*****
When Mathilde returned, Darce and Wen had already climbed onto the triangular stage which occupied one corner of the terrace. They had introduced themselves to the audience and had begun their patter.
“Hey, folks, have you heard the one about the kid in the flit whose reactions weren’t quite fast enough?”
Wen looked around the audience expectantly. A few anticipatory titters could be heard around the room, but no-one spoke.
“No?” His eyebrows were as high as they could go. “Well, he made a mess on Main Street, I’m told. Luckily for him, his tabard was mostly bright red to begin with. Must have been a Warrion, don’t you folks think?”
The Terrace had gone silent. Warrion was the name of the local Exalted Family in charge of the City. Kati found herself tensing up, worrying for the boy comedian. Joaley, beside her, looked uncomfortable, too.
“What you trying to say, Wen?” Darce asked into the silence. “Are you claiming that this kid plowed down a bunch of pedestrians on Main Street? I never heard that!”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 11