Tess worked all day and slept like the dead. It was, perhaps, the most fulfilling existence she’d ever led. When she’d been with the crew for almost six weeks, though, something happened to spoil her idyll.
A colorful two-horse cart crossed the horizon into view, sending a raucous cheer through the pothole crew. “What is it?” Tess asked Felix, but he just grabbed Mico and danced a little jig. Tess saw nothing too remarkable about the conveyance: it had four wheels, a roof and door, a crooked tin chimney poking up. One horse wore a straw hat; the other looked down his sloping nose at this.
The wagon trundled closer, and its bright paint job proved to be a mural of whorls, butterflies, and plants not found in nature, like a scene from a dream. Letters among the mayhem spelled DARLING DULSIA. Dulsia herself had the reins firmly in hand, and she had two outriders, bruisers with swords, ahead and behind.
The cart rolled to a stop before the torn-up roadbed, to cheers and hats thrown in the air. Felix ran for Gen, who emerged from her tent, shading her eyes from the noonday glare.
“Who’s Darling Dulsia again?” asked Tess of no one in particular, as if she’d been told once already.
“The itinerant priest,” said one wiseacre, winking at her.
“My wife,” said another, “but she’s too much for me alone.”
“I can help you out, brother,” said one of the stonecutters, clapping him on the shoulder.
There was a great deal of laughter at this. Tess gauged the flavor of the laughter and disliked it. Nor did she quite approve of the plump little lady driving the cart. Dulsia wore gaudy jewels and a flouncy skirt, not practical for driving at all; her hair was curled elaborately and her face made up. Tess’s hands tightened around her tamper and her eyes narrowed.
Dulsia waved at the men and cried, “Did you tear up the road to stop me from rolling past? Oh, darlings, I would have stopped for you in any case. Gen keeps the finest crews.”
“We love you, Dudu!” someone shouted.
Dulsia tossed her auburn curls. “And I love you, lordlings,” she said. “With the boss’s permission, of course.”
“Please,” said Gen dryly. “Put them out of their misery.”
There was uproarious laughter at this. Tess felt sick. Any doubts she might’ve entertained as to the profession of this woman evaporated. She was exactly what she seemed to be: a harlot. A lady of the night. The word Tess had punched Jacomo for.
Damaelle, the crew called her—“small, dear lady.” It was politer than any Goreddi epithet, and certainly not the usual word in Ninysh.
Tess had glimpsed such creatures in Lavondaville, where they were required to wear black and yellow and skulk in crannies after dark. Their existence seemed to pollute the very air; the streetlamps flickered with shame. Tess had always scrupulously pretended not to see them.
It was hard to look away from Dulsia, though. She was short, adorable, and round, like a pumpkin on legs, and so lively she seemed to glow. Tess couldn’t guess her age. Dulsia leaped from her wagon and glad-handed her way among the men, letting them kiss her dimpled cheeks. One—a new fellow—tried to take greater liberties and was immediately hauled aside by Dulsia’s muscular outriders, her brothers.
Gen shook Dulsia’s hand, to Tess’s shock. Then again, Gen was always shocking, so maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised. “How long can you tarry?” the boss was asking. “Are you headed toward some appointment?”
“No rush,” said Dulsia, smiling. Her teeth were endearingly crooked. “I’m due at a patron’s on the equinox, but that’s three weeks away. I could spend a few days, if anyone can afford me.” She eyed the fellows behind her. Several waved, not bashfully.
“As you see, damaelle,” said Gen, “they’ve been saving up, just in case.”
Tess could listen to no more of such talk. She returned to her task, pounding roadbed. Nobody else was working except Arnando, who eyed her quizzically. She avoided his gaze, pinched her lips together, and hefted the heavy tamper stone.
Her crewmates spoke of nothing else at dinner: who’d saved up, who (lamentably) had to send money home like a responsible person, who’d enjoyed Dulsia’s favors before and could give lascivious descriptions of the delights in store. Tess kept her eyes on her stew, hoping no one would speak to her. Her boorish friends, alas, couldn’t tell to leave her alone. Felix threw an arm around her hunched shoulders. “Do you have enough saved up, Tes’puco? Not unless Gen pays you better than the rest of us.”
“Gen has a thing for him. He goes to her tent some evenings. Who knows how he gets paid?” said Mico, making a suggestive gesture.
“Shut up,” said Tess through her teeth. Hadn’t she warned Gen that people would talk?
“Give ’Puco some credit for taste,” said Felix. “He likes them younger, and not so bovine. I bet he’s got three girlfriends back in Goredd—one blonde, one brunette, one redhead, all with breasts like—”
“Stop talking,” cried Tess, grabbing the front of Felix’s shirt and shaking him until his teeth chattered. She let go abruptly, shocked at herself.
“What are you, some kind of prude?” said Felix, straightening his shirt.
Mico laughed. “He’s a virgin. Not a whisker on him. I bet he can’t even—”
“Of course he can!” cried Felix, coming all unwanted to Tess’s defense. “If he never has, it’s only that he hasn’t had the opportunity.”
And that was how the “Let’s Get Tes’puco Laid” fund got started, everybody chipping in to finance the loss of Tess’s presumed virginity. She prayed no one would contribute to such a ridiculous project, but apparently the more ridiculous the project, the more fervently Felix felt he needed to evangelize it. Bizarre stories circulated about the size of Tess’s manhood and the deprivations of her childhood that had led her to be, at the ripe old age of seventeen, still disgracefully envirginated.
The consensus was that Tes’puco had been raised by the Order of St. Vitt. Tess might have found this amusingly accurate if it weren’t an argument for sending her to the traveling harlot.
Boss Gen had strict rules about who could patronize Dulsia. She made the men bathe; if they’d been violent or ill-tempered or had gotten on her last nerve, she blacklisted them. If she overheard anyone being crass or disrespectful, she’d mime writing a sonnet, slowly and ominously. They all seemed to understand what that meant, and shuddered at the sight.
Tess complained to Gen about the “Let’s Get Tes’puco Laid” fund, but the boss found her predicament distressingly hilarious. “You have two choices, my dear,” said Gen, not looking up from her paperwork. “Either put your foot down and tell them you won’t go—”
“Or?” said Tess, arms folded.
“Or go,” said Gen, rolling her eyes, “and stop complaining that your lack of action had consequences. Honestly. This isn’t alchemy.”
It might as well have been. Tess protested, but no one would listen. “You’ve got cold feet,” said Felix. “Dulsia will warm those up for you. You’ll see.”
Dulsia camped nearby for three evenings. Only on the final morning, when she was nearly packed and ready to go, did the lads finally scrape enough money together (in fact, they were slightly short because some idiot donated a button and some other idiot pretended to believe it was a half crown). Dulsia stood at the door of her caravan and cocked an eyebrow at poor Tes’puco’s story of tragic inexperience—as narrated by Mico, who added a wicked stepmother, an order of self-flagellating monks, a rooster, and a bull. Tess’s face grew redder and redder, which Dulsia seemed to find more interesting than the story. When the narration finally ceased, Dulsia weighed the small sack of coins in her hand and said, “Why not? But this is the last one; I have to move along, lordlings.”