Chapter 64: Widowing

I recall that we were on the third floor of one of the better Philadelphia taverns and that I had just finished serving a buxom wench so thoroughly that she lay half off the bed, begging for surcease, her shift bunched at her neck, head almost touching the stained floorboards, dugs fully exposed and sagging up toward her chin, hairy quim gushing gobs of fluids, when I heard noises from the next room of a different kind of passion.

There were vile curses, scuffling, sharp blows or slaps, and a woman's cries for pity, her pleas for forgiveness. The beating and the wailing went on until I felt I could not ignore it, put away my tired shaft, buttoned up my britches, clamped on my heavy belt, pulled on my boots and stomped into the hall wondering how much ale I had taken on and whether or not this was actually the wise course of action.

"Please, please, no more," was the woman's cry when I kicked open the door and confronted the pair. The man, tall and well dressed with a flared coat and high boots, had the woman by the wrist and was cuffing her, quite roughly I thought. Her hair almost covered her face and her nose was bleeding. She was in shift and stays but certainly did not look anything like the tavern wenches who usually spent a short time in these rooms rogering guests or sucking cocks. Indeed she seemed altogether a fine young lady in serious distress. So I put on my knightly face and yelled, "Stop!" with my hand on the hilt of my blade.

The man turned to me, red-faced, furious, pulled his short sword, waved it about and cried, "This is my wife, sir, and I can do with her what I damn well please." I had heard that before.

I stood angered and astonished, admiring the woman's heaving chest and sleek body, her rounded hips and tapered thighs, watching the man make small circles with the end of his shining blade, hesitating.

"Indeed," I said, "and do you intend to do it so loudly, sirrah. You have disturbed me at my leisure and frighted the young woman I was horsing. I hardly got my two shillings' worth."

Blood began to ooze from the corner of the woman's mouth, and I noted that her long hair was in complete disarray and then she let her shift fall from her shoulder to reveal most of one startlingly upright and prominent and dark-nippled breast. She had a fine body, marred by bright red marks. The man straightened his stylish wig and pushed the woman toward the bed.

"I suggest you leave, rustic," he said to me. "Quickly." This sword still threatened but with less spirit behind it, now pointed at my feet rather than my nose.

"And the lady?" I asked, taking my eyes from his sword whose point quickly rose and stood now barely a yard from my chest.

"Help me," she sobbed. "Please."

"How dramatic, you stupid bitch," said the man, glancing back at the huddled woman who was raking her hair from her face. He swung his free hand and struck her high on the forehead leaving the imprint of his ring.

I took his momentary distraction as an opportunity, stepped forward and grasped his wrist, twisting hard. He grunted and dropped the blade. I hit him low in the belly with a firm blow that blew out his wind and buckled his knees, leaving him bug-eyed and gasping. I turned his sword arm up into the middle of his back, tore his light purse from his belt, threw it to the woman and hurried him from the room, kicking the door closed.

In the hall, I drew my huge bayonet, showed it too him, pricked his chin and urged him to leave the premises at once. He almost tumbled down the stairs, looked back at me with hatred once, and stalked out of sight, mumbling threats. I heard his feet going on down and returned to the room where the woman now lay, face down, on the bed, all slim body, bruised flesh and womanly buttocks, her back shaking.

I sat beside her, put my hand on her and she trembled.

"It's all right," I said, "He's gone."

She sat up and wiped at her eyes with her knuckles and then her mouth with her palm, looking at the crimson result. Despite the red marks on her face and shoulders and her dishabille, she was a lovely young matron and obviously very frightened. "He'll be back," she moaned, hoisting up her fallen shift strap and covering her pointed boob.

I put my arm about her and held her gently. She put her head on my chest and sobbed. I patted her back and enjoyed the feel on her body. "What happened?" I asked as I rubbed her thigh and felt myself aroused.

"He's been gambling again," she said. "Again and again. Always gambling."

"Is he truly your husband?"

She nodded and took a deep breath. Her dress and petticoat had evidently been torn from her and lay in tatters on the floor and the side of the bed. She still wore her stockings and elegant, silver-buckled shoes and a fine shift that was deeply lace trimmed. She also smelled very good, as good as she felt. Her deep brown hair was clean and shining

"You don't understand," she said, sniffing. "I thank you, but you don't understand. He lost me, my services at least. He said I had to lie with a man, a British officer who had beaten him at cards. Ten pounds, he said; he wagered me against ten pounds, for an hour it was." She looked up at me, tears welling in her blue-gray eyes. "Said I was bad luck, that I had to do it."

A very high price for a piece of ass, my busy mind thought. I had never paid more than a crown and that for a whole night of roistering. Women had been bought and sold for much less than ten quid in that debauched society so I did not express surprise, but she was obviously distraught as well as furious. She had a right to be.

"Where do you live?" I asked, pushing her hair from her lovely face, touching her bruised cheek, but she just shook her head.

"I can't go home. He'll be there. He'll beat me again. We've only been wed a month, and..."

The door behind me popped open, smashed back against the wall and two infantry officers bumped each other coming through the doorway with the lady's husband, smiling evilly, right behind them, looking peacock proud. They slicked out their swords in a flamboyant manner, glanced at the woman, and one approached, a bit wary.

"That your wife?" the eager lieutenant asked over his shoulder.

"Indeed," said the man I had disarmed and thrown out. "The sorry bitch."

"Smashing," he said, flicking his long blade toward her, "well worth a tenner I suspect. Now," he said, turning his attention to me and poking at my chest with his sword, "what are you doing with this gentleman's wife?"

"Not what you intended," I said, smiling up at him with my arm still about the lady's shoulders. Her mouth was gaping open. She shook and breathed deeply, raising her plush breasts to the very rim of her shift. I saw his eyes wander, his britches bulge and his lip curl.

"I suggest you leave," he said, stepping closer, reaching for the woman with his left hand. The other two men stayed near the door, alert and watching, the husband still wearing his sickly smile, a large pistol in his hand, the other officer with his sword pointed down, licking his lips, his cod piece also beginning to swell.

"He was thrashing the lady," I said, lifting her narrow shift strap back to her rounded shoulder again and giving her a smile I hoped would encourage her.

"Out!" said the young officer, stamping his foot as if on a dueling floor and circling the tip of his long blade toward my eyes.

I grabbed a pillow from behind her and tossed it high above him; he looked up as I thought he would, and I pushed the woman back and stepped inside his blade, feeling it slide along my ribs and tear my shirt. I grabbed him at the neck and ran him straight back at the door in two long steps. His fellow officer reacted by raising his blade, and I drove his friend upon it, dodging back as the point came through the frightened man's chest. I dropped him, drew my bayonet and slashed as the horrified subaltern's face, cutting his cheek and mouth open as he tried to pull his blade free and the husband turned to flee the room. I pushed the bleeding man aside and charged into the hall as the woman's husband reached the stairs. He fumbled with his big pistol, raised it, tangled in his coat tails and fired just as I drove my wide blade into his chest. I felt the muzzle blast sear my ear. I pulled my knife loose, and he fell with a solid thump, limber as a puppet and gushing blood to cascade down the stairs.

I left the dead man in the hallway and turned quickly, bent and poised on my toes, ready to defend or attack. The hall was empty except for the slattern I had been enjoying now peering from a doorway, eyes very wide open. The sound of the shot had been muffled somehow or she was the only one very curious on the third floor. I waved her back as I returned to the room. One redcoat lay writhing on the floor with a straight sword still through him, a surely mortal wound, while the other was on all fours, pouring blood out on the carpet from his ruined face. I kicked him in the ear and then cut his throat as he rolled over, making him a second, gaping mouth and ending his fatal misery. Then I fetched the husband's body back from the top of the steps, dragging him by one foot.

I had not been a very noisy fight, but it was certainly bloody. My britches were dappled with it and my arms, as well as much of the floor, were covered with it. I left a trail of gore in the hallway. There were even a few spots of blood on the woman's white shift as she sat frozen in place, her hand to her mouth, horrified. The fight had lasted perhaps half a minute, but I felt drained and sexually stimulated, an odd combination.

"Is he dead?" she asked softly.

I nodded and dumped her husband's body into the room, relieved the man with the sword through him of his heavy purse, took some of the coins, dumped the rest on the floor and the threw the purse in a corner where the husband's sword lay. Then I turned to the woman.

"Sorry," I said, "didn't see I had a choice except to give you to them so they could do what they wanted."

She nodded, unable to take her eyes from the officer with the sword sticking through him. His legs were still trembling and his hands still gripped the blade that stuck a good foot out of his arched body. His eyes were open and his lips skinned back from his teeth but he made no sounds.

"Want me to finish him?" I asked, drawing my blade again. The thing was covered with blood, and I wiped it on the britches of the dying lieutenant.

"No, no," she whispered. "What shall I do?"

"Go home," I said. "Learn to be a widow. There's many about these days."

"Yes, I was that already, but," and she waved at her almost bare chest, an admirable chest it was, too with high, firm, freckled boobies with startlingly hard nipples big as my thumb tips.

"I'll find you a dress," I said, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. We tried to avoid the blood, stepped over the bodies and left the room, locking it behind us with the key that had been on the inside of the door. I pulled the woman to my room and was happy to find it empty even if the bed looked as if someone had staged a boxing match on it. "Sit," I said, giving her back her trembling hand, "only be a minute."

"Don't leave," she sobbed, holding my wrist.

I knelt beside her and looked into her frightened eyes.

"They're dead?"

I nodded.

"Was it my fault?" she asked.

I smiled and said no. "They begged to die," I said, feeling my arousal and resisting the impulse, the urge to flee rising like my randy member.

She released me, put her hands between her knees and bowed her shaggy head. She was still sitting like that when I returned with a dress I had bought from the wench I had recently horsed. I paid her a crown for a gown not worth a shilling, but I was rich with dead men's coin and not eager to argue.

The woman tied on the skirt, pulled on the homespun top, laced up her bodice and then smiled at me, pushing back her light brown hair into some semblance of order. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but I became aware of a sticky trickle at my waist. The hair at the side of my head was frizzled and my ear stung.

"You look fine," I said, "can probably get you a job down below if you want."

"Doubt it," she said coolly. "We have a rig out back, a chair."

"What name?" I asked, and she told me. It was a well-know local name, an old and moneyed one, now stained by Toryism as many were.

She followed me down the servants' stairs and out the back door. The stable boy produced the rig quickly, I helped her to the seat and then mounted and clucked to the strong-looking horse. She held my arm and then said, "You're bleeding." While I negotiated the narrow alleyways, she pulled up my shirt and touched my side, just below the ribs.

"There's a long slice here, just oozing blood," she said, looking up at me as I tried to see the wound without success.

"Guess your husband nicked me," I said. "No, it was that fool lieutenant." I recalled the feel of the cool steel sliding along my side.

"It's not too bad, but it ought to be sewed up."

"Can you do it?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said, holding her hair from her face. "Turn here."