The Redhaired Herring

Ground transportation is parallel to the stage of America and Europe by 1899. The lack of conveniences taken for granted on more advanced planets tends to keep offworld visitors away, but the lure of legal slave flesh sends its tentacles of temptation throughout the galaxy. Any world in the solar system has its different laws and customs, but the Slave Fairs are condoned only here.

Outside the station Diana and I walked past a witch reading bat's blood in a space cleared from the litter on the ground. A coach was supposed to have met me, displaying a certain ensign so I couldn't miss it, but there wasn't a flag in sight. Another spanner in the works, I thought. The horde disgorged from the train depleted the Hackney carriages and Hansom cabs in line outside fast, a single Hackney remained but at an extortionate price. A carriage charged even more than a Hansom and I preferred the privacy of a cab. In my moment of indecision a party of six descended like locusts on the Hackney. As it trundled down the road with us left behind Diana swore.

I felt like cursing too but kept a stiff upper lip.

"Settle down," I said out of the corner of my mouth, "or else you'll have Security on us like ugly on an ape."

She dragged the beret off her red head and raked her fingers through her hair. "I've got nothing to hide."

"Then have a care for others around you who might, my little murderess," I smirked.

Startled, Diana asked, "What did you call me?"

She surprised me by asking. Her resistance to the magic aborad the train led me to believe she remembered the entire episode. I felt an odd relief she had not.

I dismissed my comment as a jest.

She wrinkled her face at me, uncertain. "What will we do without transportation?"

I'd given the thought some consideration myself. "We are not without transportation. I don't see either of your legs in a cast. An evening stroll to get the knots out?" I suggested. And the loss of time associated with it.

Fortunately my plan didn't hinge upon precision split-second timing. Already I had accrued an out of the way stop to dump the girl. Walking the rest of the way to Sodom would consume an hour, barring complications enroute. We set off on foot, the dark distance lit at intervals by smudge pots on the roadside. A black and oily smoke twisted heavily off the orange flames. Dried mud crunched under the soles of my boots. Diana had worn sensible shoes for the trip or walking seven kilometers might be a problem for her. With the train station half a klick behind us she felt at liberty to complain.

"Dammit, if I step in one more rut," she groused. "Why didn't you commandeer the Hackney?"

"Were you standing behind me waving a hundred bob note?"

She snorted, "Robbers and highwaymen probably lurk along this road."

"Probably," I said nonchalantly. I trooped on in silence for a few minutes, unsure if I'd won or lost our verbal exchange. We had an outside chance the coach with a flag headed down the road toward us, merely running late, but I didn't let on to Diana. "I'll carry your valise if you'd like."

"I'll manage, thank you," she said in a neutral tone. "Who's that ahead of us."

I'd seen the two hooded figures on horseback emerge from the underbrush too. "Let me do the talking," I muttered.

The hooves of their mounts clop-clopped toward us. "Good evening, citizens," said the man in the lead. "Are you 'eading into Sodom?"

"We are, I hope those horses are for hire."

The other hooded man laughed an unfriendly laugh. He said, "Tell 'em these nags are government property, Carter."

"You folks 'eard what 'e said," replied Carter. In the poor light I couldn't make out his features or the man's behind him because of their hoods. "This is a toll toad."

"And let me guess, you two are tax men?"

Carter said over his shoulder to his friend: "We've a shrewd one 'ere, mate."

"I didn't see you stopping any of the carriages ahead of us," Diana blurted. Apparently the redheaded Duffy-Maguires are a spirited lot.

Carter swivled his attention towards her. "What's in the bag, sweet'eart?"

For a spitfire Diana ceased her chatter in a hurry.

I slid a hand into my pocket and the second horseman cocked the hammer of an ancient revolver. A genuine government agent would be armed with a new one.

"I assure you I am only reaching for funds with which to pay the tax, gentlemen." In my hand the well-used charm glittered in the near darkness. "Is this valuable enough to satisfy the toll?"

I encouraged them to have a closer look and they urged their horses over to me. Whereupon I urged them out of the saddle and Diana and I mounted in their place, I with the added weight of a revolver in my side pocket. We put Carter and company behind us and made good time into Sodom, in spite of the girl's dearth of equestrian abilities.

"I'm afraid of this enormous creature, Willie."

"Would you rather walk? I can turn them loose in that field."

I heard her curse vehemently under her breath and that ended that argument. When the glow of Sodom's lights burned ahead the fake beard began itching again, I'd meant to remove it once out of sight of the train station. Diana watched me peel it off my face and fling it into the weeds.

She looked at my face closely. "Well, look at you, ten years younger."

I thanked her, flattered.

"The beard didn't do a lot for you."

"It wasn't meant to, it was a disguise."

"Are you hiding from somebody?"

"Routine precaution," I said, rubbing at my jaw. "Security knows my face on sight."

She said, "It's too nice a face to hide behind whiskers."

"Thanks, but get on with yourself, I'm twice your bloody age."

"I like older men. How old are you?"

"74."

She had a nice laugh. "That would make me 37, Willie. Tell me the truth."

I told her, "I'm 35, if you must know." Actually 39. Why had I lied about my birthdate?

"See, you're not half my age! I'm 20."

"I'd thought you younger," I admitted, feeling guilty I had misrepresented myself to her. It hadn't been the first time.

She asked, "Where will we go once we get to the city?"

"To my lodgings. Do you have a reservation?"

"I thought I'd make arrangements once I got here. I wasn't planning on staying long."

"We can check if a room's available where I'm lodged," I said for her reaction.

"Sounds good, if it's not too much money."

"If worse comes to worst you can freshen up in my room then we'll find you another hotel."

She mumbled what sounded like an assent.

"I've an appointment to keep a little later." I continued just to keep the conversation going, "What are your plans your first night in Sodom City?"

"A spot of supper for certain. Afterwards, I dunno, probably call it an early night."

Gleaning nothing from her desultory and mundane responses I let the topic go. I only wanted her in my room without a fuss, safely out of my way. When we got to the Crooked Candle Inn where my room on the third floor awaited I gave the horses to the liveryman along with five bob. Before we got to the inn I thought about abandoning them but I might need transportation unexpectedly with the variety of kinks suddenly attached to my plan.

An elderly man at the desk informed Diana he had no more rooms. I already knew and had no trouble convincing her to come upstairs with me. My lodgings consisted of a chair and dresser, a big featherbed smothered with quilts and, being a corner room, two windows. I asked Diana what she thought.

"For Sodom City this is very quaint, I must say."

"We're still in the lower middle-class outskirts, downtown is all rotunda domes and decadent sin."

She stuck her tongue out at me, "Sounds right up your alley."

"How would you know? We just met."

She set her valise on the chair and wrapped her arms around me like a wife, not a concubine anxious to make her assignation, breasts pressed heavily against me. I plucked the beret off her hair and sailed it onto the dresser, rested my chin on her head. Before I got the wrong idea, and she'd been giving me wrong ideas lately, she whispered, "Thank you for saving my life."

"When did I do that?" I wanted to know.

"Are you suffering with blackouts? From those highwaymen, of course."

"They'd've only taken your suitcase."

"Would they have taken my dignity?"

"You're a big girl, Diana, that goes without saying. This is Sodom City, after all, not a nice place for young girls traveling by themselves. Lucky you chanced upon me."

"How did you get them to give us their horses?"

This was drawing out too long for me and she just signaled my cue, might as well get on with it. I fished the charm out of my pocket. "With this. What do you think?" I held it up for her to inspect. "You saw it before on the train."

Diana took the charm out of my hand, examined it at length and passed it back. "Expensive, nice. But how did it seduce them out of their mounts?"

I tried to appear as unfazed as she. I'd been suggesting like mad she get a full night's sleep---and bloody fuck-all happened. The girl handed the dangerous and enchanted amulet back to me as if it were as menacing as a gumball. "It's magic, or it was, " I stammered. "Maybe I drained the power on the highwaymen." Yet I doubted that theory very much, it ought to still be able to hypnotize an army platoon.

Was Diana Duffy-Maguire immune to the charm? I combed my mind for ideas on how to secure her until daybreak. I couldn't well knock her on the head and leave her here just as I couldn't have her turning Sodom City upside down searching for Sharak-Fauz. Letting her tag along with me was out of the question too, I hoped to catch up with him tonight. Bringing someone bent on sticking a knife through him would wreck everything as well as being plain bad form.

While I was thinking she said, "I'm famished. Introduce me to an economical place to eat with good food."

"Two mutually exclusive terms in Sodom," I chuckled. Her appetite caused an idea to occur to me, not a nice one but it might work. "I know a tavern within walking distance. They serve hot food all night, a simple bill of fare."

"Is it kind on the pocketbook?"

"Do you mean is it cheap? What does it matter? My treat."

"Do I have time to change?"

I said she did.

"Turn your back."

"May I look out a window instead of at the wallpaper?"

She granted me permission. The window I picked overlooked a courtyard swathed in black, not much of a view. When I turned back around Diana was swathed in black, tight coveralls with all sorts of zippers and rings for fastening stuff, combat boots and a wide web belt from which depended a scabbard. I guessed she intended to spit Sharak-Fauz with the knife on her hip. Perching her beret on her head she announced she was ready.

"Ready for what?" I asked. "We're getting something to eat not marching off to war. You're dressed like a commando geared up for guerrilla warfare."

"Sodom City has a reputation as the worst cesspool in the solar system, not the armpit of the galaxy, but the very crotch! You said as much yourself! I'm a single girl. Okay? Don't tease me."

"I was about to ask where your helmet was but I won't," I said to her with a half-smile. "Are you any good with that knife?"

"See the crummy painting of the bowl of fruit on the wall?" she said, fired up. "Keep your eye on the green apple."

Twirling completely around she snapped back into position with the long heavy blade in her fingertips. She let fly with an overhand throw. The knife streaked across the room, thunked into the picture, the quivering handle shuddering to a standstill.

"Dammit!" she said with a short hop of frustration, clenching both fists. "Missed the apple, but I got the banana. Am I any good?"

The banana was a quarter of an inch from the edge of the apple. "Uh-huh," I said. Too damned good.

I retrieved the knife embedded in the wall for her. It had sunk deep. The weapon had a nice balanced feel in my hand, she could take a man out at twenty paces had she half a mind. On the way to the tavern I told her it would be bad manners to cut her food with it. She didn't smile so I left off teasing her. We quit my room without the question of where she would stay cropping up.

After traversing a few streets we came upon people and lots of them, the overspill from the Slave Fairs in north Sodom.

The lavish opening night is rivaled only with the more lavish finale on closing night. The ceremonial gong is rung and for the next nine days the ban on the sale of females into slavery is lifted. Slavery is legal year round but only once annually are slave sales allowed. The seven frenetic days between open and close of the auctions are exorbitantly festive for buyers and remunerative for sellers. Those wishing to rotate their stock or acquire new pets have license to do so. Parades, masquerade balls and galas fill the days and nights, along with uninhibited public lovemaking.

A brunette woman in a top hat and black stockings, high heels and not another stitch staggered from the crowd. She crossed the sidewalk to put her arms around my shoulders for balance. The tips of her nipples rubbed against me. With the fumes of strong drink on her breath she giggled as she pulled a pair of panties through an epulat on the shoulder of my longcoat. She leaned into me, whispered in my ear and kissed me before capering off with a jiggle of buttocks.

"Do you know her?" asked Diana.

"No, but she wants to know me."

"I'll say. Why'd she leave you her panties?"

"Old custom. They're akin to the favors the ladies would tie on the lances of the Knights of the Round Table as they rode off to war or to joust in a tournament."

"The ladies in King Arthur's Court did not give their panties away. Those were scarves and handkerchiefs."

"They meant the same thing."

"That who-the-panties-belong-to wants to fuck you?"

I said without sniffing, "I wouldn't've put it in exactly those words but, basically, yes."

"What did she whisper to you?"

"Where and when to meet her, if I want."

We began walking again, the panties fluttered in the wind at my shoulder. My companion asked, "You're not going to leave those there, are you?"

"Why not? They were a gift."

"From a harlot," she cackled, "and you wear it like a badge of honour." She snatched the undies from my epulat, tossed them on the ground.

"Hey!" I said in mock protest, "That might be the only favor I get all night."

She clasped my arm and said playfully, "Stick with me, Willie. Maybe you'll get surprised."

I ignored her boldness. "Do I have to refuse the next pair?"

"If you know what's good for you. What girl wants to be seen with a man who looks like a bloody walking lingerie shoppe?"

I implored, "We're just acquaintances going out for dinner."

"People don't know that and even if they did, it's me you're being seen with!"

"Who am I to argue with such irrefutable logic?"

After threading through the mob we came to the edge of the crowd and continued on. Our destination took us through some unpopulated streets. We strode warily down dark lanes with too few lampposts. To save time and footsteps we cut through an alleyway. Down any alley in Sodom City you might find the headquarters of the Caste of the Stranglers or one of the churches of the flagellants or a cutpurse kneeling over a victim eating the heart.

We stumbled upon none of these however a trio of footpads detached themselves from the shadows in the middle of the alley. Diana went for her knife but I placed a hand on hers to stop her.

"Gentlemen," I pleaded, "My daughter and I have been beset by brigands once this evening. Is there no honour amongst us thieves?"

The three gaunt men approaching us hesitated. One of them rasped, "What do yer mean?"

Out of a pocket I withdrew a thieves Guild badge, dangling it by its chain from my forefinger. "We are caste brothers and as such I'm requesting you gentlemen withdraw."

Laughter rippled through them. The spokesman prattled, "Ye may be a brother and ye may have been robbed blind but yer still got the li'l missy there."

"How about sharin' the wealth, guild brother?" said another one.

The man hazarded a step toward Diana and his mouth suffered an untimely collision with my fist. He teetered back, hand across his lower face, blood seeping between his fingers. Swearing, he dove at me in a fury. Diana's knife thunked into his chest the way it had the painting in the room. The footpad halted in his tracks, gasping in disbelief at the speed with which he'd been undone. When the other two saw him collapse onto his back with a big knife sticking out of his heart they dispersed smartly and fled.

Diana braced herself with a combat boot on the dead man's body and withdrew her blade. After wiping the blood on the rags the man wore for clothes she put it away. No one would miss or report a dead robber from the alleys of Sodom City. "Let's get out of here," she said, "I'm starving."

She hurried toward the end of the alleyway. I lagged behind her, stunned at the way she'd just killed a man and strolled on. I ran to catch up with her. The mouth of the alley opened onto a block of businesses, the tavern I sought right across the street. When we entered she appeared unshaken. We found a vacant table in a corner and sat. A working class atmosphere, rustic interior and hum of conversation enveloped us. The downstairs area had twin rows of rough-hewn beams supporting the second floor. No fire burned in the central smoke-blackened fireplace of brick, a warm wind blew outside. The heady aromas of malt beer and food cooking mingled in the room.

Diana remarked, "Smells good in here, Willie."

I said, "The incident in the alley seems not to have spoiled your appetite."

"Not one bit," she retorted, "I'm not the babe in the woods you think I am, Willie."

"Obviously not." Back at the room she'd acted terrified of being in Sodom. "Was that the first man you've ever killed?"

"Was he dead?" she asked, disinterested.

"I'd say so."

"Then he was." She changed the subject. "You have a Guild badge. Are you really a thief?"

I am a lot of things, few of which I wanted to confide in her; didn't blame her for not wanting to do the same. "No, I'm not in the thieves' Guild, anybody can buy a badge."

"Or steal one." She grinned.

"You've got a badge," I reminded her, "even if it was your grandmother's." Too bad about how Sharak-Fauz had done the old girl.

"You said you came from a family of purloiners, a long line."

"Not my exact words. I get your point about being a thief by way of family. Or being in possession of a Guild badge."

"Like my grandmother being a magician doesn't automatically make me one?"

"Something along those lines," I conceded.

"Fine. You're not a thief and I'm not a magician."

I'd already asked once while performing sex magick on Diana aboard the train, but I asked again: "Are you from the assassin's Guild?"

"What gives you that idea?"

"Your reaction in the alley was so spontaneous I'd swear you had training, and plenty of it." If the girl got Sharak-Fauz in her sights he was a dead man.

"I won't hesitate to use my knife protecting myself. That man would've taken me against my will had I not stopped him."

"Typical of what any woman can expect visiting Sodom City. I'd've stopped him before laid a hand on you."

Diana arched her eyebrows, "Thanks for taking a swing at him in my defense. You think a dead footpad will bring coppers swarming as a result?"

"Not during the Slave Fairs, put it out of your mind. They've bigger fish to fry."

"Fish sounds good," she mused, dismissing the subject.

As she spoke a serving girl appeared at our table and knelt, naked except for a silk loincloth and slave chains.

"Fish is not on the bill," she said to Diana. "The only food the tavern is serving tonight is stew."