Tess of the Road

  Felix liked to sing a song that ran at the pace of roadbed-pounding. The rhyme scheme made it easy to improvise verses between thumps, even if one’s Ninysh was shaky:

  Sweet Jessia’s so fair (thump, thump)

  With golden flax for hair (thump)

  I’d give away a whole year’s pay

  To see her standing there (thump)

  Most verses continued in the same tedious vein. Tess’s verses, which began as quiet rhyming exercises muttered under her breath, were noted by Mico, who spread them to the rest of the lads, and soon the flavor of the entire song had gone a shade darker:

  This clod is like my heart (thump, thump)

  I smash it all apart (thump)

  I had one goal, to keep it whole

  But that’s beyond my art (thump)

  Felix, a little envious of Tess’s versifying, sometimes changed the last line to “But no one gives a fart,” which made everyone laugh and seemed to cheer him up.

  Tess was liked well enough, but weeks passed and Aster didn’t warm to her. The others shortened her name to ’Puco, “stupid,” but Aster called her Penoio, which meant (to put it bluntly) “penis.” Tess hadn’t known the word, but when she figured it out she felt rightfully insulted. She took the matter up with Felix one day as they waited in the shade of a poplar tree for their turn at the water wagon. “Why does Aster call me that?” she fumed.

  “Call you what?” said Felix pigheadedly.

  “You know,” said Tess, elbowing him.

  “On my mother’s grave, I do not,” said Felix, grinning in a way that showed he knew perfectly well but was determined to make her say it aloud.

  Just as Tess had been when Jeanne asked about her wedding night. She deserved this, but she’d show that Felix. “Penis!” she cried, far louder than she meant to. Everyone fell silent and looked at Tess, who’d gone alarmingly crimson. A ripple of appreciative laughter rolled down the line, and they went back to talking as if nothing had happened.

  Felix was laughing his ruddy head off. Tess glared at him. “Oh, you’re serious!” he said, throwing up his hands. “I don’t know. Why do you call yourself that?”

  “I don’t call myself that,” she said tersely.

  Felix sighed. “Tes’puco, who taught you Ninysh? Sometimes you speak like you suckled it at your mother’s teat, but other times you know nothing. Apparently I have to spell out what every five-year-old knows: here is your smart head.” He took off his hat and swatted Tess about the ears with it. “And there is your stupid head.” He mimed punching her in the crotch.

  She dodged, then hit him in the stomach.

  “Ow! I didn’t touch you!” he cried, and punched her in the bicep.

  “Are you lads having trouble standing in line?” said Big Arnando, looming behind them.

  “No,” they squeaked. Arnando walked on; Felix burst into giggles. Tess wasn’t so merry. She’d always assumed Kenneth called her Tes’puco because it started with Tess, but now she wasn’t sure. Had he known about this double meaning? Was this how he’d repaid her for making him stick his face in the fountain, or marry Jeanne, or twenty dozen other stupid ways she’d preyed on his compliant nature? It would be just like him to take revenge so subtly that she might’ve gone to her grave not realizing he’d done it.

  The next time Aster called her Penoio in the middle of a card game, though, she took a jaunty little bow. She’d named herself, after all. She might as well claim it. The lads burst out laughing, and even Aster had the smallest arc of an unaccustomed smile on his narrow lips.

  After cards, Tess sometimes sneaked off to call Pathka on the thnik. He was usually in some lightless tunnel that he couldn’t describe except through smell, but one evening he said, “Do you still have those scales from Big Thpooky?”

  “I do,” said Tess warily. “You’re not thinking of doing that ritual again? I thought you couldn’t do it alone.”

  She disliked the idea of him bleeding in the dark, far from help.

  “I’m not alone, if you must know,” Pathka said. “At least, I hope I won’t be, if I can persuade ko to help me.” There was a long pause. “I’ve found Kikiu.”

  “Oh?” said Tess cautiously, unsure whether to be alarmed or optimistic.

  “I sensed ko up a side passage in an old iron mine,” said Pathka. “Ko was there, making more…unnatural enhancements. Anyway, since you were so critical, you should know that we had a very civil conversation. And I was right: Kikiu wasn’t called. Not like I was.

  “But maybe you had a point. Maybe we could dream of Anathuthia together if we perform the kemthikemthlutl,” said Pathka. “I want you to understand that I’m making a good-faith effort to be nest to my hatchling. Since you were so critical.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” said Tess, unsure whether any of this would work. Still, it was surely a good sign that he was trying. She did as he asked and left the scales in the field, under the wary eye of the moon.

  In the morning they were gone.

  * * *

  Tess worked all day and slept like the dead. It was, perhaps, the most fulfilling existence she’d ever led. When she’d been with the crew for almost six weeks, though, something happened to spoil her idyll.

  A colorful two-horse cart crossed the horizon into view, sending a raucous cheer through the pothole crew. “What is it?” Tess asked Felix, but he just grabbed Mico and danced a little jig. Tess saw nothing too remarkable about the conveyance: it had four wheels, a roof and door, a crooked tin chimney poking up. One horse wore a straw hat; the other looked down his sloping nose at this.

  The wagon trundled closer, and its bright paint job proved to be a mural of whorls, butterflies, and plants not found in nature, like a scene from a dream. Letters among the mayhem spelled DARLING DULSIA. Dulsia herself had the reins firmly in hand, and she had two outriders, bruisers with swords, ahead and behind.

  The cart rolled to a stop before the torn-up roadbed, to cheers and hats thrown in the air. Felix ran for Gen, who emerged from her tent, shading her eyes from the noonday glare.

  “Who’s Darling Dulsia again?” asked Tess of no one in particular, as if she’d been told once already.

  “The itinerant priest,” said one wiseacre, winking at her.

  “My wife,” said another, “but she’s too much for me alone.”

  “I can help you out, brother,” said one of the stonecutters, clapping him on the shoulder.

  There was a great deal of laughter at this. Tess gauged the flavor of the laughter and disliked it. Nor did she quite approve of the plump little lady driving the cart. Dulsia wore gaudy jewels and a flouncy skirt, not practical for driving at all; her hair was curled elaborately and her face made up. Tess’s hands tightened around her tamper and her eyes narrowed.

  Dulsia waved at the men and cried, “Did you tear up the road to stop me from rolling past? Oh, darlings, I would have stopped for you in any case. Gen keeps the finest crews.”

  “We love you, Dudu!” someone shouted.

  Dulsia tossed her auburn curls. “And I love you, lordlings,” she said. “With the boss’s permission, of course.”

  “Please,” said Gen dryly. “Put them out of their misery.”

  There was uproarious laughter at this. Tess felt sick. Any doubts she might’ve entertained as to the profession of this woman evaporated. She was exactly what she seemed to be: a harlot. A lady of the night. The word Tess had punched Jacomo for.

  Damaelle, the crew called her—“small, dear lady.” It was politer than any Goreddi epithet, and certainly not the usual word in Ninysh.

  Tess had glimpsed such creatures in Lavondaville, where they were required to wear black and yellow and skulk in crannies after dark. Their existence seemed to pollute the very air; the streetlamps flickered with shame. Tess had always scrupulously pre
tended not to see them.

  It was hard to look away from Dulsia, though. She was short, adorable, and round, like a pumpkin on legs, and so lively she seemed to glow. Tess couldn’t guess her age. Dulsia leaped from her wagon and glad-handed her way among the men, letting them kiss her dimpled cheeks. One—a new fellow—tried to take greater liberties and was immediately hauled aside by Dulsia’s muscular outriders, her brothers.

  Gen shook Dulsia’s hand, to Tess’s shock. Then again, Gen was always shocking, so maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised. “How long can you tarry?” the boss was asking. “Are you headed toward some appointment?”

  “No rush,” said Dulsia, smiling. Her teeth were endearingly crooked. “I’m due at a patron’s on the equinox, but that’s three weeks away. I could spend a few days, if anyone can afford me.” She eyed the fellows behind her. Several waved, not bashfully.

  “As you see, damaelle,” said Gen, “they’ve been saving up, just in case.”

  Tess could listen to no more of such talk. She returned to her task, pounding roadbed. Nobody else was working except Arnando, who eyed her quizzically. She avoided his gaze, pinched her lips together, and hefted the heavy tamper stone.

  Her crewmates spoke of nothing else at dinner: who’d saved up, who (lamentably) had to send money home like a responsible person, who’d enjoyed Dulsia’s favors before and could give lascivious descriptions of the delights in store. Tess kept her eyes on her stew, hoping no one would speak to her. Her boorish friends, alas, couldn’t tell to leave her alone. Felix threw an arm around her hunched shoulders. “Do you have enough saved up, Tes’puco? Not unless Gen pays you better than the rest of us.”

  “Gen has a thing for him. He goes to her tent some evenings. Who knows how he gets paid?” said Mico, making a suggestive gesture.

  “Shut up,” said Tess through her teeth. Hadn’t she warned Gen that people would talk?

  “Give ’Puco some credit for taste,” said Felix. “He likes them younger, and not so bovine. I bet he’s got three girlfriends back in Goredd—one blonde, one brunette, one redhead, all with breasts like—”

  “Stop talking,” cried Tess, grabbing the front of Felix’s shirt and shaking him until his teeth chattered. She let go abruptly, shocked at herself.

  “What are you, some kind of prude?” said Felix, straightening his shirt.

  Mico laughed. “He’s a virgin. Not a whisker on him. I bet he can’t even—”

  “Of course he can!” cried Felix, coming all unwanted to Tess’s defense. “If he never has, it’s only that he hasn’t had the opportunity.”

  And that was how the “Let’s Get Tes’puco Laid” fund got started, everybody chipping in to finance the loss of Tess’s presumed virginity. She prayed no one would contribute to such a ridiculous project, but apparently the more ridiculous the project, the more fervently Felix felt he needed to evangelize it. Bizarre stories circulated about the size of Tess’s manhood and the deprivations of her childhood that had led her to be, at the ripe old age of seventeen, still disgracefully envirginated.

  The consensus was that Tes’puco had been raised by the Order of St. Vitt. Tess might have found this amusingly accurate if it weren’t an argument for sending her to the traveling harlot.

  Boss Gen had strict rules about who could patronize Dulsia. She made the men bathe; if they’d been violent or ill-tempered or had gotten on her last nerve, she blacklisted them. If she overheard anyone being crass or disrespectful, she’d mime writing a sonnet, slowly and ominously. They all seemed to understand what that meant, and shuddered at the sight.

  Tess complained to Gen about the “Let’s Get Tes’puco Laid” fund, but the boss found her predicament distressingly hilarious. “You have two choices, my dear,” said Gen, not looking up from her paperwork. “Either put your foot down and tell them you won’t go—”

  “Or?” said Tess, arms folded.

  “Or go,” said Gen, rolling her eyes, “and stop complaining that your lack of action had consequences. Honestly. This isn’t alchemy.”

  It might as well have been. Tess protested, but no one would listen. “You’ve got cold feet,” said Felix. “Dulsia will warm those up for you. You’ll see.”

  Dulsia camped nearby for three evenings. Only on the final morning, when she was nearly packed and ready to go, did the lads finally scrape enough money together (in fact, they were slightly short because some idiot donated a button and some other idiot pretended to believe it was a half crown). Dulsia stood at the door of her caravan and cocked an eyebrow at poor Tes’puco’s story of tragic inexperience—as narrated by Mico, who added a wicked stepmother, an order of self-flagellating monks, a rooster, and a bull. Tess’s face grew redder and redder, which Dulsia seemed to find more interesting than the story. When the narration finally ceased, Dulsia weighed the small sack of coins in her hand and said, “Why not? But this is the last one; I have to move along, lordlings.”

  Everyone feigned weeping. Dulsia took Tess’s icy hand and led her up the caravan steps.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Dulsia, closing the door and bustling past Tess into the tiny, colorful room. “Gen told me what you are. In fact, she bet me that you would ‘take the coward’s way out,’ meaning you’d come in rather than tell her lads where to stick it.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling. “But I don’t think it was cowardly at all. I think you’re being rather brave.”

  Tess, dazed, sagged into an armchair draped with green and purple scarves. The room took up only half the caravan; the rest was behind a locked door. The walls were painted with oddly suggestive flowers, the ceiling hung with fancy lanterns. There was a feather bed with a tidy quilt upon it; cupboards, from which Dulsia took a teapot and cups; and a tiny table where she set them. A little iron stove muttered to itself in the corner. The kettle had just reached a boil.

  “I thought you could use some tea,” said Dulsia, winking conspiratorially.

  Tess took the proffered cup, hot in her cold hands. Her fear was dissipating—indeed, the damaelle up close could have terrified no one, so plump and cuddly was she—but still Tess jittered as the dregs of panic drained out. The cup clinked against her teeth.

  Dulsia divided the money into five piles on the bedspread. She clucked her tongue at the button and stuck it down her bodice. “For me and my brothers,” she said conversationally, putting three stacks of coins into a wooden box beneath the bed. “One for the future.” This went into a metal strongbox in the cupboard. “And one for my comrades-in-bed, the red ladies of Segosh, who aren’t as free as me.” This last went into a leather bag, behind the locked door.

  “Now,” said Dulsia, returning to the bed with a flounce, like a young girl. “We can have tea at the lads’ expense, but I’d prefer to have earned my money. I assume, gauging by your wariness, that you’d quite balk at my usual services for ladies, but I can answer practical questions if you like, or massage your poor, hunching shoulders. I see you carry your troubles there.”

  Tess knew she should scorn such a disreputable person—bad enough to be drinking her tea—and yet her back and neck ached terribly, now that Dulsia mentioned it. Tess was surprised to find herself tempted.

  Her mother and brothers had said she’d end up a harlot, and Tess had known—everybody knew—that it was a fate worse than death. And yet here was this woman, who seemed…she seemed fine. She seemed kind, and Tess knew from experience that kindness was hard to manage if you were filled to the brim with bitterness.

  Dulsia shouldn’t exist. Tess had questions; the only way to ask was to stay a bit longer. “You may rub my back, but don’t touch the rest of me,” said Tess, holding up a warning finger.

  “Never,” said Dulsia firmly. “Unless you ask it.”

  Tess lay on the bed with her jerkin off (though not her shirt). Dulsia’s strong fingers moved the hills of Tess’s shoulder blades, exalted the valley of
her spine, made the crooked straight. Sometimes it hurt, and Tess cried out; Dulsia paused until Tess bade her continue.

  “All your sorrows are bound here. I can feel them,” said Dulsia sagely, proceeding with a gentler touch. “Don’t be surprised if you weep. I’m warning you in advance.”

  Tess finally worked up the courage to ask: “How did you end up a…a whore?”

  Dulsia’s hands grew heavier; she didn’t like that word, or didn’t like remembering. “When our father died, he left us this cart, a horse, and nothing else,” she said. “My brothers thought to join the army, or sign on as private guards. They meant to sell their bodies, and possibly their lives, and we would be separated. I couldn’t bear it. So I said, what if you were my guards, and I was the one who sold her body, and nobody died?

  “It seemed simple, but nothing ever is.” Dulsia kneaded like a cat. “I’d naively stepped off a cliff, expecting to walk on air. I went to Segosh, hoping to apprentice—like any baker or ribbon maker—and was nearly entrapped. The ladies there are contract-bound to unscrupulous bosses. The law won’t protect them; they fear for their lives. I was lucky to get away.”

  Tess remembered the money Dulsia had put away. She must be buying out contracts, freeing her sisters in town. Tess wriggled a hand into the pouch at her hip, grabbed the first large coin she found, and handed it over. The damaelle stared, as if she didn’t know what it was for.

  “For the red ladies,” said Tess. “To make up for that button.”

  Dulsia smiled then—all dimples—and put the coin down her bodice. “Thank you,” she said, resuming work on Tess’s neck. “I know how fortunate I’ve been. We’ve found some modicum of independence on the road; I’m not suffering, like my sisters.”

  “But isn’t the work…terrible?” said Tess into the pillow. “Doesn’t it take a toll on you?”