Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Memoirs of a Mercenary ❯ Chapter 7

Although I could forage, and I had been given plenty of provisions, I knew it wouldn't last forever. I walked due south until I came to a road on the 9th day. It went west-east, so I went west. Eventually it met another road, in the middle of a large town. I was tempted to take the southern fork and leave, but I had no idea how far the next town was. I had to get more provisions. How exactly I was going to do that was a question that began to trouble me as soon as I walked into a place that smelled of food and drink. As I stood in the middle of the room, judging what to do, I watched men hand small disks of metal to other people who gave them food in turn. I asked one of the workers why, who merely shook his head, uncomprehending.

 

They spoke a different language.

 

Thankfully, though, he pointed to a man who was wiping down a countertop with an already filthy rag. I walked to him, but was at a loss for words.

 

He looked up, taking me in. It was my sword that his eyes lingered on, and his eyes furrowed deeply.

 

“You woman. That sword… forbidded for women, yes?” He spoke my language, albeit poorly.

 

“It is complicated.” I said simply. “I need provisions. How far is the next town?”

 

He shook his head, laughing. “You give gold?” he asked, guessing rightly that I had none. In my village, trade was with goods and bartering, we had no kind of money. I shook my head.

 

“Shells?” he asked.

 

“No… why would I need these things?”

 

He shook his head again in the same manner, muttering something in his own language. “We work…hard… make this food. You give back, so we make more.”

 

I frowned.

 

One of the men sitting at the bar sighed deeply and turned towards us. I guessed him to be a warrior, and a wizened one at that; he had several deep gashes on his face.

 

“They can't just hand out food,” he said, his grammar good but his voice thickly accented. “They have to make a living, too. They have to buy the ingredients from someone else. The … things you give them goes to buying that.” He shrugged. “And making their lives comfortable.”

 

I did not ask, how he knew my language. I was so naive I thought it strange that everyone else did not know it.

 

The warrior sized me up as well, but did not ask about my sword. “Do you know how to cook, clean, women's work?”

 

My heart sunk in my stomach. I did not leave my village to be trapped in the prison of such things again.

 

“I do not like it, but yes.”

 

The warrior grinned. “He might let you work for the food. Maybe. I'll ask.”

 

I was so disgusted with the prospect that I didn't even think about thanking him. The man at the bar thought about it a moment, staring at me. He nodded then, but I put up my hands. The warrior shoved them down, though.

 

“Listen, girl. Your damn lucky he's letting you do this. Of course,” he drew back, a lewd gaze wandering over my figure. “There are other ways for you to earn money. You are fetching pretty. There are two kinds of women's work; in the kitchen and in the bedroom. Or wherever they pay you to do it.”

 

I blushed to the roots of my hair, an untried virgin to mortal men. I turned to the bartender and thanked him profusely, the warrior laughing loudly.

 

So it was that I began working at what I later learned was a tavern. I learned the language fast, as it was necessary. It was strange to me, including sounds I had never made in my life, and leaving out others altogether. Once it was learned I didn't know their style of cooking, I was put to the even less pleasant tasks in the kitchen: serving and cleaning. The worst of it was, every day I only just broke even for the food I ate, and the corner of the kitchen I slept in. I was never going to earn provisions for a journey, and knew not where else to take employment. So I stayed, and learned the language, knowing it was my only way to get out.