Blaggard's Moon by George Bryan Polivka

the Ryland Shipping and Freight Company. And Jenta, well, many thought Jenta lucky to have found favor in the eyes of such a man as Wentworth Ryland.”
    Snorts and epithets rose. “Lucky?” and “ Wentworth ?” and then “Are you kiddin’?” and finally “He ain’t man enough!”
    Ham just tugged on his crooked pipe, let the smoke rise and the ire settle. “See, boys, that’s just it. That’s just the kind of woman she was. Men took to her, took to defending her, just as you’re doing now. Many wanted her for themselves. Many others just didn’t want the under-deserving to have her. She carried herself with an air of easy nobility, and when she looked at you, you felt the light of it in those blue eyes. Like not only was she noble, you could be noble too, just by standing close enough. But I’ll tell you, Jenta Flug was not born noble. No, that rumor was false. She was in truth born poor, raised poor, and by a mother who dreamed she’d become more.”
    â€œWait, who’s Flug? I thought you said her name was Stillmithers. If she married this Ryland, wouldn’t her name be Ryland?”
    â€œAye, yer messin’ it up. How many names she got?”
    â€œAh, it’s a wee bit hard to answer all these questions at once, and still let you nod off after only a few minutes time.” He sighed and stroked his beard. “But I’ll try. See, Jenta’s mother, name of Shayla Flug, had made what fine people in up-and-up society call a bad, bad mistake. She wasn’t more than sixteen when she’d latched on to a man above her station, a gentleman who was…kind to her. But he turned against her and turned her out, soon as he learned she was with child.”
    Whistles and low whoops stole through the forecastle.
    â€œHe swore the baby wasn’t his, and all believed him. The young man’s family promised to pay handsomely for her to keep it all quiet and secret and send the baby off to an orphanage, but she refused. And then her own family gave her the boot. And so that left Shayla Flug to fend for herself, a scarlet woman now, and a baby on the way.”
    â€œWhat’d she look like, Ham? The scarlet mother?”
    â€œWell, she had raven-dark hair and clear green eyes. Her skin was like the finest white porcelain, and her heart, they said, was the same. But who could blame her for turning cold, making her own way like she did in a world where she was scorned? She took the only honest job she could find, with a wealthy man who let her have one small room in his basement for raising her child. She became the lowest of household servants, no more than a washerwoman, her delicate fingers ever raw andcallused from scrubbing the master’s silk stockings and the mistress’s dainty underthings.”
    â€œDainty underthings,” one listener repeated. Men chuckled and glanced sideways at one another.
    â€œIt was a hard life for Shayla Flug. But she loved her little girl, and gave her the name of Jenta in the hope that one day, some way, she’d become a gentlewoman herself. And Jenta grew to be a beauty. Tall and comely, with blue eyes that pierced.”
    â€œAnd hair like a mug a’ beer!” a young voice noted.
    Ham winced. “Ah, the analogy is apt, even if the words fall somewhat short of perfection, Mr. Trum. But let’s rather again say that her hair was the color of a fine sherry, and leave it there.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œJenta, now, she was softhearted. And she learned something her mother had lost somewhere along the way. Jenta knew how to laugh. She would seem quiet and serene, politely listening, and then something would strike her, and her blue eyes would spark like a flint on powder, and she’d laugh, and her laugh would light the darkness. And the world would be drawn to her. And by the world, I mean the world of men.
    â€œBut Shayla protected her daughter