MARTITA’S HOME IN THE SKY
It was a relatively new structure with windows that were not merely square holes in the walls, but had panes of warped, opaque glass, and its wood was still a roach-brown, not faded to gray like the majority of the shanties; yet it was equally as ramshackle, with a slumping roofed porch and a partial second floor that appeared to be in the process of sliding off. A man—a scalehunter judging by his profusion of green and gold tattoos—sprawled unconscious in a chair on the front porch, an advertisement for the effectiveness of the establishment’s spirits. Having experienced neither exhilaration nor inspiration during his walk, Rosacher entered the spacious common room and its atmosphere of gloom and fried onions, thinking a pint would help fuel his descent to Morningshade. Behind the bar (boards laid across a half-dozen barrels), a robust, round-faced woman of thirty or thereabouts, unprepossessing in aspect, her brown hair in long braids, dressed in cloth breeches (a style favored by Hangtown’s female population—skirts tended to catch on twigs and thorns) and a low-cut blouse, busied herself with polishing mugs. An elderly white-haired man with a scarred face and a man young enough to be his grandson played cards at a bench by the window. They eyed him indifferently and the woman came bustling over to Rosacher, who had taken a seat at the rear.
“We’ve a good blond ale from Port Chantay,” she said. “Otherwise it’s homebrew. Quite nice, it is, and very strong, if that’s your pleasure.”
Rosacher opted for the ale and cast an eye about the room. Basically unadorned, it had here and there a feminine touch: gillyflowers in a vase; a print showing Griaule against a mass of clouds; a framed needlepoint homily with letters so crooked that he was unable to read them. The woman returned with the ale, she hovered beside the table, and after he had paid her she continued to hover. He had a sip and said, “This will do,” thinking she wanted him to approve the ale, yet she remained standing by the table, beaming at him. Finally she said, “You don’t remember me, do you? Truly, there’s no reason you should. You didn’t take much notice of my face.” She winked broadly. “You were mainly interested in my backside.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Martita.” She tapped her ample bosom, dislodging a silver locket that had been half-concealed in her cleavage, the image of a dragon scratched on the casing as if by her own hand. “Martita Doans. I was a maid in your house. The night the assassin came, it were me what was sent to bandage you.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “We made love.”
The term “made love” befuddled him for a moment and, once he had sorted it out, feeling embarrassed, shamed, yet not wishing to admit to anything, he said weakly, “Of course. Uh, I…How’ve you been?”
“Lately I’ve been doing very well, thank you. But directly after I left your service, now that were a bit of rough road, what with me being in a family way and having no family to turn to.”
She took a seat opposite him and leaned forward, her milky breasts squashed against the tabletop, threatening to overflow their flimsy restraint. “I wanted to tell you, seeing how the babe was yours, but that Ludie hustled me out so fast I scarce had time to pack,” she said in a stage whisper. “And Mr. Honeyman said if I gave him any trouble, he’d let his men at me and sell tickets to whoever cared to watch. So there I were, out on the streets and big as a house. I couldn’t even sell meself.” She dropped back into a normal tone. “Griaule knows what would have happened had not Mister Doans—that’s my late husband, Nathan Doans—took me in.”
“I had no idea!” Rosacher said. “I mean I wouldn’t…”
“I didn’t figure you did. Mister Honeyman made it clear I wasn’t to pester you. He said that should I try to inform you of my situation, there’d be hell to pay. Still and all, I didn’t think kindly toward you those first months.”
The elderly card player called to her and Martita went to see what he wanted. Stunned by what he had learned, Rosacher drained his pint in two swallows. If what she told him was true, and he had no reason to doubt her, Ludie and Arthur had much to answer for. Not that he would have done much better than they for Martita. He likely would not have accepted paternity of the child, yet he would have at least seen to its care and feeding. It seemed he could feel a space inside himself that affection for a child would have occupied, and this sparked a deeper resentment. He would have to rein in Arthur and Ludie, rein them in sharply, perhaps even to the point of reconfiguring the business—they had been acting more-or-less independently in recent years, and probably not to his benefit. It might be time for a housecleaning. Neither of them were indispensable and it was evident he could no longer trust them.
Martita returned, bringing a second pint, and he asked, “The child? Is it a boy or a girl?”
Her face fell. “It were a boy. I couldn’t carry it to term.”
Speechless for a moment, he said, “I obviously can’t make things right, but you must let me help.”
“I don’t want for much. Mister Doans was a scalehunter, like most here. He did very well for himself. Found several loose scales of museum quality during his day.” She shook her head ruefully. “Two years back it were he died…and him still a young man. But that’s the way of it with scalehunters, ain’t it?” She nodded toward the card players. “Jarvis is the only one I know what’s lived past middle years. For all the good it does him. He’s a miserable sod. But like I was saying, Mister Doans left me the tavern and a tidy sum besides. I’ve a decent life now.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“You might stop in and have a pint now and again. Having you here tones up the place.” She blushed. “And it would please me.”
“Why would you want me around? First I force myself upon you and then…”
“Oh, don’t be thinking that! Maybe that was your view of things, but it weren’t mine. All the girls what worked in the house had an eye for you…and me most of all.”
“I see.”
“I could have done with a little romance, but you heard no complaints from me at the time and you’ll hear none now.”
Perplexed as much by his concern for her as by her forgiving attitude, he said, “If you want me to come around, I will…though I question whether either the moral or spiritual tenor of your establishment will be improved by my presence.”
She apparently didn’t understand his words and simpered to cover her confusion.
“Well.” She rubbed her hands together and beamed. “I need to start me cooking. Folks will be wanting their tucker.”
He would have liked to catch her hand and make some promise, swear an oath to right all wrongs done her, but shame and the fear of a weakness that shame might reveal locked him into a stoic posture, for he had come to think of himself as a hard man and now, recognizing he was not, understanding how drastically he had changed during the past six years, he thought he should try to preserve the impression, at least, of rigor. He lingered a while, keeping an eye on Martita as she moved between the stove, visible through a door at the back end of the bar, and the front room, hoping business would pick up and allow him to make an inconspicuous exit. A few more customers came in, but not enough to provide him with cover. He finished his second pint, gave her a casual wave and went out.
The cool air seemed to illumine him, bringing new and untried emotions to light. He hurried past Hangtown’s shallow, semi-permanent lake, filmed over by algae and scum, glazed with moonlight, realizing how isolated he had become. With Ludie leading a separate existence and Arthur spending every waking hour with the militia, his life had emptied out and, while he consorted with a variety of women and had no end of business acquaintances, he had not sought to replace these losses with relationships of an equivalent depth. In his solitude he’d had time to dwell on regrets and recriminations, and had developed a streak of self-pity; this in turn had created a sentimental side that he despised on principle, yet had come to depend on as a companion to his calculating and brutal nature, taking the place of lovers and friends. Whereas previously the sight of a mother nursing an infant or a small boy playing with a puppy would have barely registered on his consciousness, now these incidences seemed brightly human, striking him as emblematic of the world’s fragility and beauty, often causing his eyes to tear. Yet he knew better than to accept this change at face value and suspected that his reactions were linked to self-interest, perhaps to a renewed apprehension of mortality and a sense that his personal failures were unredeemable.