ROAD TO CORDIA by Jess Allison

to stand there. “Okay,” sighed the innkeeper as if he was making a big concession. “I aims to marry up with her, but ‘fore I do I’ll let ya get a lick a her. After dinner been served and ya finished carrying out the slops ya go on up to her room. I’ll give ya an hour, but no more. Now, that’s generous, ain’t it? Well, ain’t it?”
         T’eem nodded.
         “T’eem,” said Ja'Nil. “I don’t want to marry up with him.” The innkeeper turned on her and raised his hand. T’eem reached forward and caught the raised hand, holding it away from Ja'Nil’s face.
         “What the fook you think ya doing?” The innkeeper was outraged.
         “Don’t want her all beat up,” mumbled T’eem.
         “You just get them barrels moved or you ain’t getting no part of her.” The innkeeper turned and shoved Ja'Nil. “Get on into the inn. Ya wanta eat, ya gonna work.”
    * * *
                     She was put to work scrubbing out the dirty pots and kettles. “Keep an eye on her,” he ordered the cook. “I’m going to be marrying up with her tonight.”
         The cook just grunted, but made a point of keeping Ja'Nil well away from the door.
         She was not the only girl working in the inn’s kitchen. Jaz, a few years older than Ja’Nil, was kept busy sweeping the stone floor and scrubbing out the soot covered brick ovens. There was something horribly wrong with Jaz’s face. The top of her mouth was split right up to her nose. When she spoke, it was almost impossible to understand her. That was why it took several minutes before what she was saying sunk in.
         “Yas marry ups wit him, I gut ya.”
         “What did you say?”
         “Yas marry wit him, I kill ya,” hissed the girl.
         Ja'Nil stared at her in horror. What was wrong with the world? Suddenly there was danger everywhere she turned. Her hands started trembling. She wanted to burst into tears, lie down on the floor, kick, scream, and have a full-blown tantrum until someone put the world right.
         “Why do you want to kill me?” she asked in a voice that trembled. 
         “He gonna marry up wit me. He say he get me real healer. Fix me up fine.” The girl took a threatening step towards Ja'Nil, raising the handle of her broom threateningly. Dust, dirt, and cobwebs showered down on Ja'Nil.
         “I’m not going to marry him,” Ja'Nil assured her. “I don’t want to marry him.  I don’t want to marry anyone. I just want to go home.”
         “Me don’t care wheres ya go, just go.”
         “Jaz,” yelled the cook. “Get away from her. Do your work.” Jaz flinched as if she had been struck. “Yez, Yez,” she told the cook, but before she turned away she leaned into Ja'Nil, her eyes intensely crazy. Ja'Nil couldn’t bear to be so close to that deformed face. “Don’t yas forget,” the girl hissed at Ja'Nil, “I gonna guts ya.”
         The cook, a bulky woman who smelled of sweat and burned onions, thrust herself between Jaz and Ja'Nil. “Ya finished with them pots?” she asked Ja'Nil. “Here, eat this.” She put half a loaf of coarse bread and a glass of brownish liquid into Ja'Nil’s hands. “Gonna need your strength tonight.” Her smile was sly and knowing.
         The bread was smeared with some sort of grease instead of mare’s butter. Ja'Nil retreated to a stool in the corner where she could keep an eye on everyone. She gulped the bread and washed it down with the brownish colored water. Only, it wasn’t water. Whatever it was, it burned going down, hitting her stomach like a hot stone, making her gasp, cough and breathe through her mouth. “What was that?”
         The cook laughed, “Make things easier for ya tonight.”
         Easier?
         From where she sat, Ja'Nil could hear the roars of laughter and yells of drunken men in the main parlor where T’eem and another man passed out mugs of booze