Conrad Starguard - The Crosstime Enginee Part 18

"OK. Same deal, but I think your building is worth more than theirs. Say, 3,000p.?"

"Agreed, my lord!"

"Six hundred pence for yourself, yearly, and a twelfth of the surplus, with two hundred pence to your wife?"

"With honor, my lord!"

"Good. We'll swear you in right now."

"But the sun is not up."

"True ... But there is a full moon and that is more appropriate for an innkeeper. Agreed?"

So, under the moon, with a sleepy chamber maid and the night guard as witnesses, I swore in Tadeusz and his wife. I picked up another pot of wine and we went back to the table. The first order of business was to settle up my present bill, which I did. Then I gave Tadeusz 3,400p.

"Our first rule is that since I own the place, I shall lodge here free. Keep one room open for my own use."

"The second change is the name of the inn. 'The Battle Axe' is entirely too stern. People go to inns because they need to enjoy themselves. We need a light, amusing name. We'll call it the 'Pink Dragon'. I have a wood carver across the street; he'll make a new sign."

"Then, this room is too empty and cavernous. People like crowds. I want some curtains to divide the room in half, another set to divide the front half in half, and a third set so that only the front eighth is exposed. You are to open a set of curtains only when the s.p.a.ce before it is so crowded that people are b.u.mping into each other. Understood?"

"Yes, my lord."

"All your present people are to be retained. No firing except for dishonesty."

"Ali. There is the matter of certain salaries being in arrears."

"None of that under socialism. They must be paid. Figure up the amount tomorrow. Oh, yes.

We'll need an accounting system. I'll send somebody to keep the books for here and the foundry.

You'll think it's a nuisance, but I insist on it. What else? Your pricing! This business of having to haggle over everything has to go. We'll have to work out a reasonable set of prices for everything.

Then we post those prices, and they are the same for everybody. No exceptions."

"But what if one is conspicuously wealthy and--"

"No exceptions, not up or down. Then, entertainment. From supper until late, I want some music in here. A single musician at a time will do, and hire them for only a week at a time. See what people like. And waitresses; we'll need half a dozen of them. They must be well paid, since we want the best. Say, four pence a week with another eight pence set aside for their dowries. We'll have a turnover problem. We want the six best-looking maidens available. They must be pretty."

"What! You would turn my inn into a brothel?"

"To the contrary. They must all be virgins and stay that way. See to it yourself."

"My wife would object."

"Then have your wife see to it. Part of her job will be to see to their morality. They must live here at the inn, in some of your back rooms. Customers may look but not touch. See that they are properly barricaded." "Look?"

"Yes. They'll need some special costumes." With a fingertip and wine, I sketched out what I had in mind on the worn wooden table. "We'll have to get the woodcarver and a leather worker to do the high heeled shoes. I can show somebody local how to do the stockings, but later they can come from Okoitz." "You want them dressed as rabbits?"

"The people will like it. Then there is the matter of advertising. It seems that I have considerable notoriety in Cieszyn, or at least my name does. I've been busy at the bra.s.s works, and I haven't met very many people here. But in a week or two, once we get this set up, I want you to hire some old women. They are to wander around and tell about how Sir Conrad Stargard, the killer of the Black Eagle, left the ladies of the castle to move into a notorious inn where beautiful women are scantily clothed. That should get some action going." "It will get good Christians at my door with pikes and torches!" "Good. Let them in. Sell them some beer. If they are really organized, let the leaders verify the virginity of the waitresses. No problem." "Uh ... all this is going to cost money, my lord."

"Right. Here is two thousand pence to cover it. Keep a careful reckoning. Well, it grows late. I bid you good night." I took the half pot of wine to my room. The full moon was halfway to setting.

G.o.d, it was late. The next day I overslept dinner and caught a late, cold breakfast in the kitchen.

My head hurt, and I had these horrible thoughts about what I had done. People were cold, people were hungry, the Mongols were coming, and I was wasting valuable resources starting a thirteenth- century bunny club. Oh G.o.d, my head hurt.

Thinking drunkenly with my gonads instead of my frontal lobes, I had screwed up again. I tried to leave the inn quietly, hoping to avoid the innkeeper, but no such luck.

"Sir Conrad! At last you are up; I was growing worried! I have followed your orders; already the word is out that I search for the six most beautiful maidens in Cieszyn! I have explained our need to the wood-carver, and he will be available tomorrow. But he wishes, of course, to discuss the matter with you." "Uh ... Yes ... I'll talk with him. You realize that for various reasons our advertising and my relations.h.i.+p with my liege lord-it would be best if my name is not connected with all of this."

"But we must say, in rumors, that you stay here, my lord." Tadeusz really liked having a lord protector.

"Of course. But don't tell anyone that I have any owners.h.i.+p in the place. Swear the witnesses to secrecy."

"As you wish, my lord."

"Hey, the rumor campaign won't work if they know that I own the Pink Dragon." "As you wish.

I have talked with a seamstress. She will have no difficulties with most of the costumes-think; it will be like a continual carnival!-but she wants help with the stockings."

I didn't accomplish much at the foundry that afternoon, and when I got back for supper, the inn was packed. Word had gotten out that the most beautiful maidens in the city would be there. Fully a hundred young males showed up to see what was happening, along with some thirty young hopefuls. I was embarra.s.sed, and the innkeeper expected me to do the choosing.

Stalling for time, I said, "Are you sure that all of them are virgins? Have your wife check it." I ate a meal and drank a pot of wine at the small table that had been reserved for me. I had in mind that his wife should simply ask them, but she felt obligated to actually check for an intact hymen.

She pa.s.sed fourteen of them. How many left because they were embarra.s.sed, I don't know.

Apparently, room and board was good wages for a maid. Twelve pence a week on top of that was fabulous.

"And now will you choose the six, my lord?"

Well, one of them was attractive, up to Krystyana's standards. The rest of them were hopeless ducklings, and I felt sorry for them. "No. Let the crowd choose one of them. You talk to them.

Have them choose the best five, then the best two, and then a final vote." It seemed the fairest way, and it didn't get me involved.

"But only one?"

"Just do it all again for five more days. Remember what I said about entertainment? Well, this is entertainment."

They took in four hundred pence that night, and afterwards the crowds got bigger.

A week later, as I ate dinner, I got a visit from a local priest, a Father Thomas. I offered him wine, but he refused and immediately got down to business. "I am worried about your actions, my son, and about your soul."

"But why, Father?"

"You have been responsible for the hiring of young women-virtuous, Christian women from good families--and parading them half naked in a brothel." "A brothel? By no means, Father! They are waitresses at a good inn, which is the farthest thing from a brothel. They live most virtuous lives, on threat of dismissal! There is no convent that protects its nuns better than we protect our waitresses."

"Aside from the morality of it-and both the innkeeper and I are moral men-aside from it, I say, running a common stews would be bad for business. There are a lot of them in your parish, and they aren't very profitable." "That others sin is well known. They are not the subject of this conversation." "But why don't you try to do something about the real fleshpots? Why come to an honest inn?"

"The fleshpots, as you appropriately call them, are sanctioned by their own guild and to a certain extent by the law, if not by the Church. What you are doing is new and is best nipped in the bud."

"Father, we do nothing more than serve food and drink. The waitresses are pretty, but that's the way G.o.d made them, and 1, for one, appreciate His good work. We do offer lodging, but we do not offer bed partners." "You dress them in a manner that encourages lechery." "We dress them in an attractive manner that fully covers their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and privy members. Any man wanting to see more may simply go to the public baths, Father." "The baths have their own guilds and sanctions. The Church will close them down in time. You evade my charge Of lechery."

"Father, it is normal for men to appreciate the beauty of women. If looking at pretty girls is a sin, then every normal male in Poland is doomed to h.e.l.l!" "Please go and inspect the waitresses' rooms.

Talk to the girls. Prove to yourself that we are moral."

"I fully intend to make such an inspection," he said, and left. I was just finis.h.i.+ng my meal, was.h.i.+ng down my cheese with beer, when the priest returned.

"Sir Conrad, I admit that the situation is much as you described it. If anything, the girls complain of the restrictions placed on them." "The price of morality, Father." I made a mental note to see just how serious their complaints were. "While you are here, there is another matter that I would like to discuss. One of our waitresses has become fond of a local boy. I have talked with him. His intentions are honorable and his character good. Since she is employed by the inn, it seems fitting that the inn should pay her wedding expenses. Would it be possible for you to perform the ceremony?" "Why, I suppose that this is quite possible. In fact, I would be delighted."

"Wonderful! I expect that most of our waitresses will soon be married. Virtuous and attractive young ladies don't stay single for long. Perhaps we should discuss group rates." In the next hour, I made an ally of Father Thomas. As he left, I said, "Father, how did you know that I owned the inn?"

"The Church has its own sources of information, my son." It was early afternoon, and only one waitress was on duty. Troubled about the waitresses' complaints to the priest, I went back to the girls' dorm, what had been "the ducal suite," even though the duke never slept there. Actually, almost- no one had ever slept there since it was priced beyond the means of the usual guest. It made sense to convert it. If it was more magnificent than necessary, well, young girls like that sort of nonsense. I had arranged inexpensive group rates at a local bathhouse-early afternoons only-for the inn's staff, at the inn's expense. Our people were encouraged to take a daily bath, and the waitresses were required to. When I called on the girls, the five of them were in various stages of undress, with a preponderance of full nudity. They let me in without bothering to dress. Perhaps their status as untouchables, along with their recent adolescent discovery that men noticed them and that they liked it, was the cause of this display.

I didn't like it. On the one hand, I could hardly break my own rules with regard to their virginity, and, well, a really decent man simply doesn't take a virgin in a casual way. I think that half the world's frigid women are the results of a klutzy male on their first night. Properly done, it takes patience and warmth and a great deal of love. Back in the twentieth century, I'd had two virgins.

They'd both left me as wonderful lovers. I was rather proud of my workmans.h.i.+p. But just then I was h.o.r.n.y as h.e.l.l. I had been three weeks without, and the last thing I needed was five pairs of budding nipples staring at me. "Put some clothes on, d.a.m.n it! You'd think we were running a brothel here!" I shouted.

They scurried to cover themselves with towels and blankets. "We were just back from the baths," one of them said. "We were hot."

"Yeah, sure. Fourteen years old and hotter than h.e.l.l. Now, what are these complaints you've been making about your jobs?"

"Complaints, Sir Conrad? We have no complaints. The pay is wonderful, and the work, I mean, it's like being at a party," the short redhead said. "Then why were you complaining to the priest who was here today?" "Oh, that," said a well-endowed blonde, managing to drop her blanket below her belly b.u.t.ton. "We were just doing what Mrs. Wrolawski told us to do." "Cover your b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Now, what exactly did the innkeeper's wife tell you to do?" "She said that if we didn't act as pure as nuns in a convent, the Church would shut down the inn and we'd each be lacking our twelve silver pence per week." "She also threatened to send us to a nunnery if we weren't convincing," the redhead added.

So Mrs. Wrolawski had eavesdropped on my conversation with the priest and had set things up.

Well-a-day. All's well that ends well. "Okay. But put some clothes on, d.a.m.n it!"

Most of the waitresses found suitable husbands within six months. The inn paid the wedding expenses, and there was always a "new hiring" the day after. This happened at least once a month and often once a week. For most of our customers, it was their first experience with voting. In my own mind, I could never sort out the morality of it a.

I had no difficulty with the morality of a situation that occurred much later that evening. The inn had closed for the night, but I was up in my room, drinking and doodling with some ideas about a gear-cutting machine. I do much of my best thinking late at night over a bottle. Oh, in the sober light of dawn I throw out three-quarters of it, but the quarter that is left is often very creative.

My room was directly above that used by Tadeusz and his wife. The cooks lived out, the waitresses were fourteen-year-old girls, and it happened that at the time there were no overnight guests. The only men in the inn were Tadeusz, the guard, and myself when the innkeeper's wife screamed. I was shocked sober in an instant.

"Guard!" Tadeusz shouted.

"Shout all you want. Your aging guard has been detained," a sinister, gravelly voice said.

There were more shouts, accusations, and then screams as I flew for the doorway, down the hall, and down the steps. I was wearing the embroidered outfit given me by Count Lambert, and my glove-leather boots made my approach fairly quiet, at least compared with the commotion coming from the innkeeper's room. A beefy stranger was guarding the doorway. He had a long misericord, and I belatedly realized that I had left my sword belt in my room. I am not a master of the martial arts, but I had taken the standard military courses in unarmed combat. The important thing is to hit hard and fast. Hesitation can get you killed.

The thug came at me with a clumsy overhand swing. I blocked his dagger with my left forearm and kneed him hard in the groin. He bent over, presenting the back of his head to my clenched fists and his face to my knee. I took advantage of this opportunity; his nose and teeth gave way with a crunching sound. He fell heavily to the floor, still gripping his knife. I don't like people who pull knives on me in dark hallways, so I stamped hard on his knife hand. Too hard. The bones smashed, and splinters of knuckle bones were driven through the thin soles of my boot, lacerating my foot.

Pain shot up my leg.

I picked up the misericord and limped into the room, ducking my head to get through the doorway. "What the h.e.l.l goes on here?" I inquired. Two Mafia types were in the room beside the Wrolawskis. The leader of the pair grinned evilly and said, "Just a bit of guild business, stranger.

Get out and you'll live longer."

Tadeusz was bleeding from the nose and mouth. His wife's dress was torn, exposing bruised, aging b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"They're from the wh.o.r.emasters guild!" Tadeusz said, contempt and fear in his voice.

"If your business was honest, you'd come in the daytime," I said. "Now I'm telling you! Get out fast and you'll live."

The leader signaled to his subordinate, and the man came at me with a wide-bladed dagger. He used the same stupid overhand attack as his a.s.sociate in the hallway.

The misericord is a long, narrow, thrusting weapon designed to pierce chain mail. I blocked the thug's attack as before, but this time at the expense of a slash in the embroidery on my cuff.

Gripping him by the shoulder with my left hand, I aimed a gutting thrust at the man's stomach. He pulled his body back, and my knife continued upward, catching him between the chin and neck.

The thin blade went entirely through his brain, and a few centimeters of it stuck out from the top of his head.

Over the man's shoulder, I saw the leader hauling back to throw a knife at me. With my hands still on the shoulder and the grip of the knife, I yanked the body upward as a s.h.i.+eld. The dead man was much lighter than I had expected, or perhaps the fury of combat increased my strength, but in all events I bashed the thug's head into a low roof beam. The misericord stuck in the wood, and the corpse hung there, the leader's knife in its back.

The leader came at me with his fists, but his sort of hoodlum lives more by fear than by fighting ability. Equally weaponless, I hit him twice, hard, in the stomach.

"Sir Conrad!" Tadeusz shouted.

Suddenly the Mafia type froze, rigid. I was too furious to stop; grabbing him by the shoulder, I chopped viciously with the edge of my right hand, once on each side of the neck, breaking both collar bones.

"Sir Conrad?" the man gasped, his arms hanging unnaturally low.

"Yeah." I was breathing hard.

"The n.o.ble knight that killed Sir Rheinburg with a single blow?"

"Among others." I was returning to normal.

"I knew him, sir."

"You look the type."

"We had heard rumors that you were a.s.sociated with this inn, but the wh.o.r.emasters guild felt-"

"Well, you felt wrong." The noise had awakened the waitresses, and they were cl.u.s.tered wide-eyed around the doorway. One had a blanket wrapped around her, but the rest were naked.

"Those girls are servants, not wh.o.r.es," I said. "We have nothing to do with the wh.o.r.emasters guild."

"Yes, sir. That is obviously true, sir."

"So?" I said.

"I may live, sir? I may leave?"

I had to think for a minute. "Yeah. You can live. But you d.a.m.n well owe us for damages."