King Capra’s eyes shone with such wide-eyed innocence that Jessica was robbed of words. His wife, the queen, looked utterly unfazed. Jessica, for her part, was already imagining gauzy silk bikinis and golden collars and anklets.
“U-Uhm… Ah— Are you sure there isn’t a chief alchemist position open? Maybe a pharmacist? Paid intern would also be acceptable,” Jessica said.
“Any alchemical matters are outsourced to the alchemist’s guild and the duties of a pharmacist are undertaken by our head physician, Master Galloway.”
The white-haired man at Jessica’s side took a deep bow.
“As for ‘intern,’ I am afraid I do not speak Elvish. What objections do you have to becoming a concubine, may I ask? And please, speak freely.”
Speaking freely was easier said than done. Jessica’s face and ears burned brighter the more she tried to come up with something to say.
“I-I— I’ve never— It’s just that, um…”
Queen Samara cleared her throat. “Jessica, why don’t you and I speak for a moment in private? I can help clarify some things.”
The queen untangled herself from her languid pose across the throne and gestured for Jessica to follow her over to a door at the side of the hall. This door led to a sitting room filled with all manner of light and dainty furnishings and decorations and french doors out to a balcony.
“This is the women’s sitting room. It’s lovely during the spring and autumn,” Queen Samara said, drawing a fan from the bosom of her dress and cracking it open. “Not so much during the summer, I am afraid.”
“I’ll add condenser coils to my long-term list,” Jessica said.
The queen responded to the Elvish with a polite smile of morphine-induced apathy and motioned for her to sit. Jessica complied.
“Now, to put your reservations to rest…”
Jessica stiffened.
“My dear Capra has absolutely no clue whatsoever about what a concubine is or does.”
Jessica snorted and then covered her mouth out of fear of insulting her royal benefactor. Fortunately, the queen seemed to be taking everything with seamless serenity.
“So I won’t be asked to…”
Queen Samara shook her head. “If I hadn’t bore him two children I wouldn’t think he knew what that was. No, you won’t be asked to do what you’re imagining.”
“So why the hell is he asking me to become a concubine!?”
“Because Emperor Magnus has them,” Queen Samara said with a sigh as she rolled her head back and forth. “My dear Cappy has always wanted concubines of his own. He asks for one as a gift every year for Frosttide and I keep telling him no. I suppose you could say this is my half of the exchange for this marvelous drug.”
Jessica furrowed her brows. “What am I expected to do then?”
“Oh, just whatever. Making more of your drugs, of course, but we may also have you look after our children from time to time. Perhaps clean up a bit. Massage my feet. Who knows?” the Queen said as she draped her forearm over her forehead.
“But I came from another world! Wouldn’t it be a better use of my knowledge and talent to help improve things around your kingdom? I know how to fix nitrogen into the soil and improve crop yields, I can make high-carbon steels and streamline your industrial processes. I can show you how to make rebar and—”
Queen Samara let out a loud yawn and wiggled down into her couch. “I think we’re good on steel.”
“You’re good on steel?”
“We have enough already. Plus, it’s not even as useful as mithril or tapentrite.”
“W-What about the crop yields though?”
“What about them? They’re fine,” Queen Samara said. “We’ve never run out of food.”
Jessica blinked. “There’s never been a famine?”
“Oh we have famines, yes. But we don’t run out of food.”
“How do you have famines without running out of food?”
Samara shrugged. “The peasants run out of food. I’ve never had a problem with it.”
“But with improved crop yields we could prevent famines altogether!” Jessica said.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
A look of confused concern punctured the queen’s serenity. “Why do we need to prevent famines? They’re harmless.”
“Not to the peasants!”
Queen Samara looked right and left and then right again.
“Jessica, I’m not a peasant. What are you on about?”
Jessica rubbed her palms over her eyes. She had failed to consider the possibility that no one would want to improve things. In hindsight it felt obvious. Her lab group, the chemistry department, the university administration, and the wider job market all functioned the exact same. Why prevent famines? That was a peasant problem.
“Okay. What is a problem and how can I use my knowledge to fix it?” Jessica asked.
Queen Samara grinned. “I could certainly use more morphine.”
It didn’t feel great, but Jessica decided she would accept the position of chaste concubine in the hopes she could stumble into a more powerful position. She emerged from the sitting room with two thumbs up and the fakest smile she’d ever worn.
The king ordered a feast in Jessica’s honor and she was forced to accept when the invitations were extended to all of Barleyfield. Considering the hamlet had saved her from being burned alive, she couldn’t deny them a feast.
The meal itself was a blur. Jessica vaguely recalled speaking with John and his family, Galloway the head physician, and a few others she’d already forgotten. Injured and tired, she was ready to go to bed after nibbling on some bread. At this point she realized she didn’t know where her bed was.
“I guess no one told you,” Galloway said, cheeks glowing red with wine. He pulled out a brass key and handed it to her. “You’ve been given a vacant apartment.”
“Would I be correct in assuming this room was vacated recently?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m afraid it hasn’t been emptied out yet, but that isn’t my department. I make medicine, not clean rooms.”
Galloway directed her to the northern wing of the central keep. His directions, slurred with wine, were more complex than reality. It turned out the room was a straight shot up a spiral staircase to the fourth story and down the end of the only hallway. She found the correct one by a brass placard which still read ‘Hayek’.
She stared at the name for the moment, reconciling the embossed metal with the man who tried to have her burned.
“I’d spit on you, but your name plate is too nice,” she said to the placard.
Jessica felt like a burglar as she stepped into the tidy room. Dainty, lace-trimmed sheets and silken pillows covered the made-up bed while baby-blue gauze curtains floated in front of an open window. Adorning the walls were paintings of meadows and mountains. The only clutter was a stack of books on the bedside table with titles like, ‘A Marriage of Convenience’ and ‘Can Orc Girls and Fae Men Get Along?’ and ‘Hardcore Faerie Bondage Anthology VII.’
Though not normally one to care about gender roles, Jessica had to admit there was something strangely feminine about Sir Hayek’s room. He was a would-be murderer and a brute, but she supposed everyone, no matter how vile, had their own private interests. Apparently Hayek’s involved lacy sheets and smutty romance.
Curiosity overwhelmed fatigue and she decided to explore the room. Opening an armoire, she was greeted by dresses, jackets, and petticoats. Beneath them was a line of neatly-sorted heels and boots and in a drawer of the cabinet she found stockings and lacy underwear that would have been a tight fit for the large knight. She glanced again at the cover of ‘Hardcore Faerie Bondage Anthology VII.’
“Man… were you secretly a freak, Hayek?”
Though the image was amusing, she was already forming a more plausible theory which was confirmed when she found a letter in the desk addressed to Melisande Hayek.
Jessica stared at the envelope. It felt wrong to open a dead person’s things, but she yearned to know more about the woman whose apartment she was commandeering. She agonized over it for a solid minute before deciding that, if she was in Melisande’s position, she would want someone to know who she was before her stuff was thrown in the garbage.
She unsealed the envelope.
Dearest Melisande,
Since you asked in your previous letter about the apparel of the women adventurers I will do my best to describe their fashions. You must forgive me that textiles, unlike hastiludes, is not a field of affairs I know much about. Accordingly, you will find my language impoverished compared to your own. Nonetheless, let it be known that Milton Hayek has never and WILL never refuse a request from his adorable little sister on the grounds of inconvenience.
Firstly, as I described to you, there were two woman adventurers and their parties who came to complete this quest. Because male adventurers overwhelmingly outnumber their female counterparts, any quest which draws more than one such womanly party is quite a showing indeed. It was precisely for this reason I mentioned them to you in our last correspondence, as I know you are as fascinated by adventurers as I.
The two women (though really, they are hardly more than girls) could not be more dissimilar. The first is short and of slight stature and her hair is blonde and done up in two high tails in the way you are so charmed by. You will be delighted to know she has declined to adopt our local fashions of dress and has kept the outfit she came to our world in. It includes a scandalously short petticoat with a red tartan pattern, a white blouse, and a green jacket in a manly fashion. Her boots are tall, black, and heeled so that her short height is not immediately noticeable. Perpetually at her side are three of the most uncouth and unserious dandies I have ever had the displeasure of working with. It is my hope for you, Meli, that you never develop a taste for these frivolous, adventurer-chasing men.
The other adventurer is quite strange. She is tall, auburn-haired, long of limb, and possessing of a gaunt face which appears sometimes soft and other times hard. Her behavior is as competitive and man-like as her dress, favoring as she does the coat and leggings of a sporting male aristocrat complete with dueling rapier. If this were not queer enough for a woman, her adventuring party consists of other young women like herself and she dotes upon these girls and shows them affections as a male adventurer might. I am not sure what to make of this.
I hope these accounts, however brief, sate your interest in adventurers if only for a moment. It would be hypocritical of me to tell you not to be interested, though I continue to insist you abandon your interest in joining an adventurer’s party. I do not deny the adventuring life is glamorous, but the hazards which befall women who accompany adventurers would leave me eternally fearful for your life.
No matter how sick you grow of me saying so, I cannot in good conscience allow my sister to join their ranks.
Thinking fondly of you,
Your Ever-Reliable Older Brother,
Milt
>End of Disc 1
>Insert Disc 2