Kyra and the Swordstress Pt. 04

"Thank you for the heads up."

"You are most welcome. I may not be a wise man per se, but I am full of little wisdoms."

"You must think up a storm of little wisdoms in your moments of pleasant silence."

"Indeed."

"Thinking up any others? I could use some right about now."

Mordecai breathed in deeply and turned his gaze back out onto the ocean. His eyes grew wistful with a sort of melancholy unbecoming a merry man. Turning his gaze back to Kyra, he replied,

"No little wisdoms entertain my mind today, my dear Kyra."

"Then what is on your mind if I may be so bold?"

"My wife."

He said it not in the endearing way couples in love speak of each other, or even the tiresome way, but with a weight of aching loss.

"Oh...," she replied softly.

Understanding the question that was on Kyra's mind, Mordecai explained,

"My wife had succumbed to the Great Plague of Portoa."

"I'm so sorry."

Mordecai gave Kyra a smile that implored her not to pity him. But Kyra could not help but pity this man, who seldom seemed able to express the constant pain he carried to others. A pain masked by a perennial face of joviality.

"It is only a drop of tragedy in a sea of tragedy," he said with a shrug.

"To you, it wasn't," Kyra responded.

Mordecai nodded. He smiled weakly to acknowledge the bare truth and said, "the summer of the plague was not pleasant for anyone in Portoa. As you might very well know, Kyra of Portoa. He added, "Angelica mentioned that you were a swallow... the plague birthed many swallows."

"Whether it was the plague that made me a swallow, well, that remains to be a mystery. I have no memory of my parents, nor any evidence they ever existed, I mean, besides the fact that I'm here, alive and breathing."

"Still, to be a swallow, it is a hard hand you had been dealt."

Kyra shrugged. "I know of no other hand to compare my own to tell you whether it was hard. Still, I have no memories of parents to cherish. No love to have lost. If you were to ask me, to have loved and lost is a much harder thing to bear. Anyways, it's been nearly two decades since the plague: are you telling me you hadn't moved on? Have you not found another woman to love?"

"No one could replace her," he said. He spoke with such certainty that it seemed an undeniable truth, like a law of nature.

Kyra was about to contest him but stopped, realizing she didn't know Mordecai enough to proffer such a challenge. Instead, she said,

"So what was her name? What was she like? I mean, if you're ok talking about her."

Mordecai smiled and told the story with a wistful sheen in his eyes, speaking as if to recall a vivid and fanciful dream he sorely wished he could revisit.

"Her name was Guinevere. Or Ginny. I remember the day I first met her like it was yesterday. She was a debutante at the Opera Ball in Portoa, and I, well, I was not her escort that night. In fact, I was not even invited, as I was only a simple street merchant then, who - if you can believe it - had hardly a single silver piece to his name.

"I had snuck in with a friend, and we had found a nice hidden corner in the upper deck of the main hall, along with quite a fair share of pilfered wines as the debutantes and their escorts made their way onto the ballroom floor. Though she was only one young Lady in a field of ladies, all wearing identical dresses, all with the same uppity boy attached to their arms, she caught my attention immediately. She stood out like a gorgeous golden sunflower in a sea of poppies, and I was in awe. The Goddess of Love had struck me hard with her javelin, so I was hopelessly entranced. I became a concoction of immense joy and terrible sadness. Joy to know that such a woman exists in the world, and sadness to know that she would never be mine. I was nothing more than a street merchant after all, and she was a debutante at the most important ball of Portoa."

Kyra listened eagerly. She sat at the edge of her seat while Mordecai's eyes stayed on the unseen horizon as he continued his story.

"But as fate would have it, we would cross paths later that night. With such remorse, knowing I could not have a certain young lady, I left the ball early, leaving my friend there to dance the night away with all the young upper-society ladies. I was stumbling my way through the royal gardens, depressed beyond all reason that I would not ever meet my one true love, not ever see her up close, to feel her warmth, to hear her voice, and know the color of her eyes when I heard a noise at the same part of the palace wall that we had snuck through to get into the palace grounds. First, I thought it might have been the guards, perhaps looking for the riff raffs that had snuck in, so I hid nearby, hoping they would tire of sniffing about and move on. But the noises didn't stop. And then I heard a soft whimper and knew by that sound that there was no guard I was hearing, but a young lady who seemed distressed. Upon closer investigation, wouldn't you know it, it was none other than my lovely debutante, stuck in the storm grate as if fate had decided to stick her there for me. She had snuck out of the ball, as it turns out, attempting and failing at fleeing from the palace. A metal hoop in her dress had caught onto the broken grate. After rescuing her from her trap, I convinced her not to run off but to spend the evening with me. And what a happy evening that was. We strolled along the river until the river turned to sea, then sat on the rocks on the coast by the Great Lighthouse, and we shared everything, absolutely everything, under the moon: our fears, our wants, our dreams. I of my dreams of owning a silver shop, and her, oh... how lovely her dreams were! And how irreverent and unbecoming of her lot! She dreamt of grand adventures. Of going beyond the walls of Portoa and seeing all that Leinyere had to offer. I was so enchanted by her excitement of the world I couldn't help but fall deeper in love with her if that was even possible. We were so lost in our conversation that I hadn't even noticed the sun had risen. I hadn't noticed, that is, until I saw her face in the morning light. How stunning she was. Eyes like summer honey. Lips like autumn apples, and her smile, oh, how I would forgo all my riches to see that smile once more.

"Alas, our night together came to an end, and besides her beauty, the morning sun portended that I was still a lowly street merchant, and she was a noble lady beyond my station. So, it was to our separate ways we would go. She to her nobility, and I to my lowly trade. At our point of departure, we held each other's hands for a long moment as if letting go was too much of a burden to bear. But holding her hand put a fire in my soul. It put courage in my heart. An adamant epiphany in my mind. It was at that moment that I was so bold as to say, 'Guinevere, I am now nothing more than a Portoan street boy who sells little silver trinkets, but one day soon, I will be rich enough to ask your hand in marriage,' to which she replied, 'in whatever way I must do it, I will wait for you to ask it.'

"It took me many years, but I did it. I became the greatest silver merchant of Portoa. And I got my dream. I got her hand in marriage."

Mordecai paused. His lips went tight, and his jaw clenched as if the words became stuck in his throat. Kyra waited for him to continue with bated breath.

"But she never got her dream. She never got her grand adventure. I was so caught up with my business dealings I didn't have time to do much else than work, and she refused to travel the world if it meant I could not share that adventure with her. Of course, I promised her that one day soon, we would have our grand adventure, but something would always come up. Something always came up. 'Next year,' I promised her. But then the next year came, and I was busier than the year before, so I would promise again. 'Next year,' I'd say again. 'Next year.' Then the plague came, and there was not another year... On her death bed, she made me promise that I would go out and see the world and have grand adventures on her behalf."

Mordecai wiped his wettened eyes.

"Sorry," he said, then took a very long sip of wine.

"It's ok," Kyra replied softly.

"In any case," he said after letting out a heavy, shuddering breath. "I left Portoa after the plague for Galtin's Port. I couldn't bear the city any longer. I wanted dearly to forget the pain. But I couldn't forget. I had to give her what I had promised. That is why I'm on the Rose Narcissa. I want to honor her wish. I want to have her grand adventure. Only, well, I'm no adventurer, and this feels like such a paltry gesture."

Just then, hurried footsteps came around the corner. Kyra jumped to her feet but relaxed when she saw that it was Sybil.

Sybil bowed to Mordecai, greeting him with a polite, "Evening, my lord," to which Mordecai returned a polite nod. Then she turned to Kyra and said, "we need you on the dining deck, Kyra. Please." And she motioned for Kyra to come with her.

"Ok, right behind you," Kyra answered as she straightened her uniform. Before leaving, she turned to Mordecai and said, "Maybe it only feels paltry because there is not another you are sharing your adventure with. Ginny would have wanted you to have someone. At least, that's how it sounds to me."

"Now look who's full of little wisdoms," Mordecai said with a sniffle.

Kyra gave him a smile. She gave a small curtsy and replied, "apologies, but I must not linger any longer. There are inebriated nobles in dire need of more wine. By your leave, sir."

The scene she returned to was jarring, although not unexpected, considering how it had progressed when she left. Still, she couldn't help but gawk.

The dining tables had gone, and in their place were rows upon rows of large beds topped with plush pillows and luxurious, thick blankets, and atop the pillows and blankets were naked, moaning masses. The bacchanalia had fully emerged from its cocoon of proper etiquette into its orgy stage. The musicians were still playing their music, now a sensual slow tune, as if these people needed any coaxing.

Sybil came to Kyra and handed her wine bottles.

"Find guests to deliver these to," she said and was off again.

Kyra walked around the beds gingerly and glanced wide-eyed from bed to bed as if she were looking at exotic animals in menagerie displays.

All sorts of sexual acts were being committed on these beds by people of all shapes and sizes. It seemed irrelevant who was providing the pleasure, or how it was being received, only that the pleasure was maximally provided and received.

She caught the eye of a man in the middle of thrusting his cock harshly into another man's rear. She raised one of the wine bottles and jiggled it at him to see if he was interested in a drink. He frowned at her and shook his head, thrusting harder. The man he speared cried out in pain. Kyra moved on. On the next bed, she found a gaggle of leonine anocot women ravaging a naked supine human woman with their rasping tongues. She again offered the wine. Hands reached out from the writhing, furry mass to grab the bottles. "Thank you, love," said a purring voice. She went back to the galley to grab more bottles and quickly offloaded the wine to a man who had just offloaded his sex into the mouths of two knelt concubines. The following bottle went to a rotund woman using a thin man's face as a sitting stool.

The golden sunrise started the slow end to the erotic procession. The guests and their concubines, those not already passed out or still finishing off the last of their sexual deeds, began to stumble back into their cabins below deck. Lady Bellona had long disappeared.

The winds picked up, and the sails above them luffed vibrantly as the ship swung upon a new course. Bells rang out, indicating a turnover of the crew. The evening watch sailors climbed down from the tall riggings while the morning watch scrambled up to take their places. The morning stewards came to take over serving the guests and the concubines while the evening crew, barked at by Rikan, cleaned the mess from the night. Kyra had been on her feet since sunset, so her back ached, her thighs burned, and the soles of her feet throbbed. She limped to a chair in the galley to rest her poor feet but quickly discovered that this was the wrong time to do so. As soon as she put her butt into the seat, Rikan barked,

"Kyra, stand up!"

Kyra glanced up to find him standing right over her, arms crossed. She jumped up to her feet and nearly plopped right back down because of the blood rushing from her head.

"What could possibly make you think you can just take a seat? See anyone sitting? Do you think you're better than everyone else?"

Kyra shook her head. "N-no, sir. It's just, my feet hurt tremendously and -"

"And nothing. Everyone carries their weight. Don't let me catch you lazing on the job again."

Despite the sunlight directly in his eyes, he held his glare on Kyra.

Kyra nodded. "Yes, sir. It won't happen again, sir."

"Good. Now carry on."

Sybil found her again. She was pushing a trolley cart full of fruit and pastries.

"I'm to deliver these to the rose garden. There's another cart against the wall. Please take it and follow me."

Grateful to escape the galley (and Rikan), she took the cart and followed Sybil.

The trip down the long passageway to the rose garden near the ship's bow was quiet as most guests and their concubines had retired to their cabins, and the watch had already turned over. Kyra used the quiet walk to put her buzzing beehive of a mind in order. So foreign the lascivious night that it was hardly comprehensible to her. It felt like one of those dreams that made no sense as if the fundamental laws of nature were shifting like ocean swells. Foreign it was because, up until this point, she had been taught to expect differently. Her life as a swallow had taught her to treat the nobility with as much wariness as with capricious demigods. Then, while at the Academy, she was taught to treat them with regard befitting immaculate paragons of high civility. Tonight, she saw not capricious demigods nor paragons of civility but something different entirely. What she saw was a baseness derogatory to her understanding of the nature of human striving. It was so dissonant to everything her life had so conditioned her to believe that it made her mind swirl like a maelstrom. Like she just had eaten the wrong type of mushroom. Mordecai was the only rock that anchored her to some semblance of a normal reality. He, of all the nobles on this ship - as he wasn't grossly imbibing his entire conscious faculty on excessive volumes of wine and food and ravenous sex - seemed to be the only one who had any bit of humanity in his soul. He was the only one that felt real in this amorphous fantasy.

The heavy rose garden perfume hit her before arriving. The garden was encapsulated in a large crystalline dome, through which the cascading morning sunrays bathed the garden plants in a golden haze. There were roses here of a dazzling array of colors. Red, white, pink, and blue, and some even sparkled like diamonds (perhaps they were actually made of diamonds). Roses crawled up columns like floral vines. They hung from lofty arches and sprouted from the dark green hedges that lined a path leading to a rotunda where an extravagant marble fountain stood. Like everything else Kyra had encountered on this ship, the rose garden had her awestruck.

"To the fountain," Sybil said. "Where Lady Bellona waits to break her fast."

Kyra stopped in her tracks.

"Wait. We're going to see Lady Bellona?"

"Yes. Of course."

Then, seeing the anxious look on Kyra's face, Sybil went to her, held her hands, and said, "You have nothing more to do than to bring this food to her."

Kyra breathed out. She had hoped never to interact with Lady Bellona again for the rest of the voyage to Talishpur.

"Ok, let's do this," she said.

Sybil squeezed her hands and gave her a small nod for reassurance. Then they went.

Kyra made herself small as she pushed the cart into the rotunda behind Sybil. Lady Bellona sat at a table by the fountain accompanied by a group of well-dressed noblemen and women. Stewards were attending to them. One of the noblemen was in the process of telling a lively tale, to which Lady Bellona clutched her chest as she laughed.

Sybil brought her cart alongside the breakfast table. Kyra did the same, then went to leave in a hurry. But Lady Bellona noticed her.

"Wait there, stewardess."

Kyra froze. There was nothing she wanted less than to turn to face them.

"Come, let me see you. What was your name again?"

'You know my name bitch', flashed through Kyra's mind like a crack of lightning.

As much as she yearned to say it loudly, she instead forced a smile as she turned to face Lady Bellona and her entourage. Lady Bellona's thin lips curled pleasingly to see Kyra's face.

"It's Kyra. My Lady."

"Oh yes. Kyra. I remember you."

Then Lady Bellona turned to the others and added, "Our lovely new stewardess. She joined us just in Galtin's Port."

Welcome, young Kyra," responded a tall man in a feathered cap and green satin tunic. "In case you haven't heard, I advise you to stay clear of Lord Hebert's cabin. His hands tend to stray to places they shouldn't."

He slapped the shoulder of another, shorter bald man (Lord Hebert in question, Kyra presumed). A petite woman sitting beside him, with a slender swan neck and short silver hair, responded, "indeed, my husband has a peculiar taste for the lower class... and so do I, as it turns out. So if I were you, I would certainly heed Count Balthus's words unless of course, you don't mind spicing up your onerous days a bit."

With a wink and a desirous biting of her lower lip, she added, "You might find us to be... charitable when it comes to spices."

Lord Hebert chortled. He added, "Indeed. Come to our cabin for a bit of tidying up after breakfast, and we can show you just how charitable we can be. I am feeling quite generous this morning."

Kyra went from one foot to the other unsurely, and her face reddened. She glanced at Sybil, hoping for a rescue from this discomfiting conversation, but Sybil simply stood there with a stoic plainness on her face, her gaze blankly held to her feet.

Lady Bellona chimed in. "Now, now. You will do well to let the poor girl do her job. Besides, I take it as a personal affront that you are not fully satisfied with my concubines."

Lord Hebert replied, "take no affront, my dear Lady. Your concubines are as exquisite as Varnian roast pheasant. But sometimes, we prefer the homey taste of a simple mutton stew."

A round of laughter from the table. Kyra remained silent. Following Sybil's example, she put her gaze on her feet, though her heart raged in her chest, and her hands quivered with a desire to strangle something. The anger swam so wildly in her mind stars appeared in her eyes.

"Well then, tut-tut, move along, you two," Lady Bellona said with a dismissing flourish of her hand. "Move along now before you make Lord Hebert too insufferable to bear."

Sybil curtsied, then quietly stepped away. Kyra fell in behind her without curtsying.

"Stop right there, stewardess," Lady Bellona snapped coldly.

Kyra turned slowly to face her.

"Yes, my Lady?"

"It is basic courtesy to bend the knee to your superior when you depart their company."

Kyra's anger tightened up into a ball in her throat. She clenched then unclenched her fists. Swallowed her ball of anger, gave a tepid smile, and curtsied as Sybil had done. Lady Bellona gave a slight nod of approval. Kyra turned again and chased after Sybil.

"Our shift is at an end," Sybil said as they left the rose garden. "We will now have our meal, then ready ourselves for sleep."