Chapter 2

"Excuse me," Marlin said as he tapped on the wooden shelf on the window of the Coach Master's tiny office.

The grizzled old man looked up with a frown and then frowned even more deeply when he saw the face of a stranger. "What can I do for you?" he asked gruffly.

"I'm looking for..." Marlin paused and looked down at the instructions in his hand. "The Sunset House?" he finally asked looking up hopefully.

"The widow Binder's boarding house," the Master grunted. "Up the street, turn right, past the hardware store and it's on the left. Got a sign out front if it hasn't blown down again."

"Thank you very much," Marlin said politely. "That should be easy enough to find."

"You're new around here," the Master stated with another grunt. "What's a city boy like you doing out here in the working world?"

"Just my job," Marlin replied happily. "I'm here to take a census of the shire."

"Census?" the oldster grunted and rubbed his chin. "Haven't seen a census taker out here in, oh, nigh on twenty years or so. Why's the Emperor need to take a census of us now? He ain't seemed to pay us much attention except to collect taxes till now."

"Beats the hell out of me," Marlin shrugged. "All I know is when my boss says frog I jump, if he says shit I ask what color. They don't tell peons like me anything. They just tell me to get my ass out here and start counting. Maybe they're setting up a big government assistance program and need an accurate count of how many disadvantaged subjects are going to be lifted out of their dreary lives into the light of the Empire's civilization."

"Right," the Master guffawed. "And I'm a three-balled billy-goat with his own harem of she-goats."

"Hey, I'm from the Empire and I'm here to help you," Marlin said with mock sincerity. The Master actually laughed.

"Sure you are, kid," he chuckled. "At least you have the right attitude. That'll serve you well around here. Well, welcome to Pigsford, the jewel in the crown of Lands-End Shire."

"Haven't seen much I'll admit," Marlin said with a shrug. "But what I have seems nice enough."

"What you've seen is pretty much what there is to see," the Master snorted. "But what we do have ain't so bad. Real quiet and easy most times. Not much after the bright lights and excitement of the big city for a young feller like you, though, I'll bet."

"The city has its good points," Marlin admitted. "But unless you're rich or a higher level imperial servant it's mostly dirt and grim with the biggest excitement coming from wondering if you'll get knifed on the way home. I'm not going to lie and say I'm not going to miss parts of it," especially the women, he thought to himself. "But I don't plan to sit around and wallow in self-pity while I'm here either. It can't be that bad or nobody would live here."

"Like I said, a good attitude," the Master nodded. "We have some of the best fishing in the empire hereabouts and hunting if you want to take a trip into the Wilds. You interested in either or those?"

"Haven't been until right now," Marlin shrugged. "But that's mostly because I've never done either. I'll let you know after I've done them."

"Well then I hope you get the time to get some in," the Master replied.

"Time I got," Marlin snorted. "Let's just say my assignment here was 'open-ended.' I may be here until I retire submitting reports that will probably go straight from the mail to the files without human eyes touching them in between. If I have a schedule other than the one I make for myself I haven't been told what it is."

"Nice work if you can get it," the Master commented.

"Yeah well, the pay is definitely on par with the effort required," Marlin sighed. "Well, I suppose I should be finding this boarding house before this Widow Binder locks the door for the night and I have to sleep on the porch."

"Shasa will let you in even if you are there a bit late and besides it's only supper time," the Master chuckled. "Tell her Tom down at the station sent you. That's me, if you haven't guessed. Tom Binder, Station Master, Post Master, Shire-rief and for my sins the mayor of Pigsford. Shasa's my sister, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you Mr. Mayor," Marlin said sticking his hand through the window. "If I had known I was speaking to the city's leading citizen I would have made the appropriate obeisance."

"Sure you would," Tom grinned as he took Marlin's hand. "I think I can see how you got posted out here. I'm thinking your attitude didn't exactly meet with imperial expectations."

"I have absolutely no idea what you could be talking about," Marlin answered evenly. "I always show deference to those in power in exactly the same proportion that they deserve, no matter how petty, stupid, pompous or elevated their blotted bureaucratic egos are."

"That's exactly what I'm guessing," Tom chuckled. "Well, I'm sure I'll see you around but now you had better scurry over to Shasa's; she'll let you in all right but she can get a bit testy if you wake her from her after-dinner nap." Marlin waved his goodbye and headed out onto the street following the directions he was given.

Shasa Binder turned out to be the sweetest little old lady Marlin had ever met and after a couple of days would have paid for the privilege of seeing the miracle of her actually being "testy."

"Now you just let me know if you need anything, Master Cranson," she would say at least twice a day. Marlin had already given up on having her call him by his given name. "And if you would like to have one of your lady friends over for dinner we'd be just tickled pink. You just let me know."

That was one thing that had surprised Marlin more than anything: the women ― girls to be more accurate. The word had spread faster than a bird could fly that there was a young, single, and most importantly, new man in the Shire. It seemed like every single, husband-hunting female from age fourteen to forty had suddenly found she had important business in Pigsford and as much as he enjoyed the company and attention of the fairer sex it was getting so he couldn't turn around on the town's main street without tripping over some fresh young thing or her mother, asking when he would be out to their farm for his counting and offering to show him around. Some offers were a lot more blatant, blatant enough to make even a farm animal blush.

He was diplomatically vague in his response to all offers but you can be sure he filed away the more aggressive ones in his mind for future reference. Even a self-confessed horndog like Marlin wasn't dumb enough to start tapping the local talent right after stumbling into town. Given his recent experience, he was leery of playing mattress tag with a woman he knew almost nothing about. He first wanted to know who her father was, or brothers; marital status ― he wisely avoided fucking around with married women or ones with steady boyfriends especially since the boys around those parts seemed to come in two general sizes, big and huge. He had observed over the years that a man interested in a woman, even if the interest was only from his side, tended to get a bit perturbed by a stranger "poaching" in his territory.

Marlin wanted to know what in the hell he was getting into before he started sampling the local cuisine. Besides, the local ladies might be a little less tolerant of his buffet-style dating techniques and the last thing he wanted was to get tied down to only one woman no matter how pretty or big-titted she was. As much as he liked sex he wasn't going to let his cock get him into a position of having his ass kicked or even worse, married.

"You just let me know," Shasa would say patting him on the arm and then almost always would come up on her toes to whisper in his ear, "and if you want an over-night guest, well, we'll just look the other way."

The relative openness to premarital sex did kind of surprise him. He was ashamed to admit even to himself that he had expected a more puritanical attitude from his rustic cousins concerning the sport. True, the skirts were a little longer here in the country, not many of them shorter than mid-thigh and the women tended to wear the same sturdy, dull brown work pants the menfolk did almost as often as they wore a dress, but it wasn't like they covered themselves in grain sacks. Other than the more robust nature of the clothing, most of the women in Lands End Shire would have passed as unremarkable in any working-class neighborhood in the capital.

"Watch your feet, young feller," Tom warned him one day as they sat on the steps of the coach station one afternoon playing a board game Marlin had never seen before. Deceptively easy to learn, it was devilishly hard to play and consequently the old man continually beat his ass up one side and down the other but honestly Marlin couldn't care less; he enjoyed the conversation. Old Tom was not only one of the leaders in Pigsford; he was also one of the foremost gossips. If there was any safe snatch to snitch in the area, here was the place to find out about it.

Besides it helped him avoid his principal duty which he dreaded. He could honestly tell a truth-teller that he was looking for the Talented by sitting at the Coach Station/Post Office. Everybody seemed to come by there at one time or another. He knew that soon he would actually have to go out into the countryside and start beating the bushes, but that was for later.

"Watch my feet?" Marlin asked staring at the board trying to figure a way out of another untenable situation he found himself in.

"That's right," Tom chuckled. "One of them little bitches you got sniffing around you is going to stick her foot out, trip you up and be under you before you hit the ground."

"Well, that's not all that bad, now is it?" Marlin looked up with a grin and then looked down at the board and sighed.

"Nope, least wise not until you put a baby in her belly and daddy comes looking for you to make an honest woman of his virgin daughter." Then he snorted, "Like you could find a virgin around here with an imperial search warrant."

"That's not exactly what I had in mind," Marlin admitted. "But I wouldn't mind a little company now and then. I take it it's not frowned upon too much."

"Hell no! Frankly we've been surprised you haven't bedded a half dozen or so by now," Tom laughed. "Some people been wondering if maybe you're one of them funny fellows who doesn't enjoy female company."

"Oh I enjoy the ladies just fine, exclusively. I'm just trying to be careful is all," Marlin stated. "I'm just not ready to be tied down to any particular one right now, if ever."

"Or two or three," Tom cackled. "Put a bun in a couple of them and you may end up with two for the price of one."

"More than one wife?" Marlin looked up incredulously. "Ah, I'm as a bit of a loss for words. Where I'm from, its pretty much one to a customer and honestly, right now that seems like one too many as far as I'm concerned."

"Knew I liked your attitude there, boy," Tom said. "Don't happen real regular but often enough; there ain't a law against it. Kind of needful sometimes, in fact. Most of the boys around here get bored and take off for the city or get volunteered for the Emperor's levees. Ain't a lot of them come back, you know." The propensity for the Emperor to play war with his army and its conscripted levees was just a fact of life. The minimum term for service in the army was fifteen years, five shorter than Marlin's, but the chances of serving the full enlistment were one hell of a lot less.

"Lots of widows and young single girls," Tom continued. "Feel sorry for them I do, not that I feel sorry enough to marry one again myself you hear, but it ain't easy for them. Not sure what most of them feel about it but there's plenty that don't seem to have a problem sharing a husband. Jest wanted to let you know that if you decided to spread your joy around a bit and think getting two or three in the family way is going to get you out of the knot, it won't."

"Getting pregnant wasn't a reason for getting married back in the capital," Marlin mused as he tipped one of his few remaining pieces on the board on its side in resignation. "The contraceptives are free and even if it does happen, the Emperor takes care of his citizens when they need it."

"Same here, for the most part," Tom shrugged. "But out here land is passed down by inheritance and marriage is one of the few legal ways to enforce it. We can't buy or sell the land even if we're supposed to own it. Being or having a bastard ain't such a big thing but you can't inherit unless there's a marriage. Stupid law but it does make us a kind of marriage-minded folk. I'm guessing you city people don't have the same sort of problem."

"Too true," Marlin admitted. "There are probably less than a hundred families that actually own land in the capital and most of them are in the royal family. Everybody just rents from them. Just ought to let you know the shrewd intelligence you've been hiding under that country-bumpkin façade is starting to show through. You wouldn't want the city slicker to guess you know a bit more about the wide world than you want to let on, now would you?"