Chapter 21
ENG
It was surprisingly easy to arrange Monday’s date with the shrew, even with less than a day’s notice. Once more I found that where no human seemed to care about my lineage or title, once I mentioned I played hockey for the Tusks, opportunities abounded.
Feeling a twinge of guilt that I’d lied about actually “playing” on the team, I went to the arena late Sunday night, put on the despised knife-blade shoes, and stomped my way out to the ice.
No one was there except for the security guard I’d greeted at the door, which was my intention.
I didn’t even turn all the lights on, deciding to suffer this humiliation in the relative darkness in case the security guard was watching the cameras and not dozing at his desk.
And it was humiliating. A lifetime of military drills and traditional orc sports hadn’t prepared me for the balance needed to propel myself across this slippery surface on skates.
During games, I slammed the metal blades into the ice to provide stability, but tonight no one was watching and I truly wanted to see if I could manage the dance-like movements of the humans we’d played against.
Every five steps I found myself flailing and eventually landing on my ass.
For three hours I persisted, not giving up until I could slowly make my way from one side of the arena to the other using the smooth side-to-side motion I’d seen from the humans.
It took a surprising amount of strength and agility, and I found myself admiring the humans for yet another skill they’d clearly mastered.
This world had more to offer than just suitable candidates to be my bride.
In spite of long-held stereotypes, I’d found the humans to be clever, resourceful, and quite masterful at creating systems to make their tasks more efficient and profitable.
There was so much I could learn here, so many ways I could better our world back home once I became king.
And maybe even before I became king.
Sleep took me the moment my head hit the pillow, and I awoke six hours later rested, hungry, and sore from my many falls on the ice.
I showered, ate at the diner down the street, then returned to my hovel to clean and make sure it was presentable.
It might have been presumptuous for me to assume the shrew would end up here after our date, but this human female was just as eager for my body as I was for hers.
Our encounters so far usually began and ended with sex, so it was hardly a stretch to think our date would end with her riding my hand-axe.
I’d never cleaned a day in my life, but I’d seen servants at the castle, and I’d witnessed our citizens sweeping the dust from their homes into the streets. How difficult could it be?
Quite difficult if one did not have any cleaning implements or supplies.
Thankfully I had purchased stacks of bath towels and wash cloths since no one in the building seemed to be in charge of the residents’ laundry, and while the staff at the arena had been willing to wash, dry, and fold my clothing along with my uniforms for a nominal fee, they had informed me they would not be laundering my towels or sheets.
I had been throwing the towels away after each use and the sheets after a week, but found that they substituted for a broom and a mop quite nicely.
They were also ideal for wiping the dust from surfaces.
The hovel was not as sparkling as the castle servants would have made it, but I felt satisfied with my efforts once I’d thrown the garbage bags of used linens down the chute and surveyed the rooms.
Checking my phone for the time, I locked the hovel door and stopped by a coffee shop before calling for an Uber. The driver kept his vehicle idling by the curb while I took the stairs to the shrew’s minuscule abode, a coffee in each hand.
It was as if she’d been waiting by the door, or maybe had seen the vehicle pull up and me climb out of the back seat. I presented her with one of the cups—chai latte with almond milk, a shot of espresso, and a pump of vanilla, then walked by her side down to the waiting car.
“Where are we going?” Her brown eyes danced with excitement as she slid into the back seat and scooted over to the side.
“The Inner Harbor,” I told her as I climbed in and shut the door.
“Oh.”
There was a faint hint of disappointment before she smiled and took a sip of her drink.
Anxiety washed over me, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
The axe throwing had been a hit, as had the choice of dining establishment and other activities Saturday night.
One poor choice wouldn’t spell the end of whatever we were building here, and I could quickly pivot if I found out she was terrified of water or hated boats.
My mind raced through other alternatives, but I made a quick decision to stick with the original plan, and only abandon it if absolutely necessary.
“We’re taking a small sailing vessel onto the river.” I carefully watched her expression. “There is champagne and a selection of meat, cheese, bread, and fruits that the owner called charred cutlery.”
She bit back a smile. “Charcuterie. Although the idea of eating it with charred cutlery is intriguing. That sounds wonderful, and so does champagne, although I’m really enjoying the coffee you brought me.”
“And the sailing?” I asked, worried that we might be eating charred cutlery and drinking champagne on the dock.
The shrew gnawed on her lower lip. “I don’t know.
I’ve never been on a boat before. Can you believe it?
I live here in Maryland, with the Bay and all these huge rivers practically on my doorstep, plus my father and grandfather both have spent their entire working lives at the Port of Baltimore, and my mom’s parents are avid cruise-ship travelers in their retirement, but I’ve never been on so much as a rowboat. ”
That anxious feeling was back, consolidated in my stomach where it was churning breakfast and coffee into an acid-filled mess.
“Are you able to swim?”
She nodded. “Oh yes. If I go overboard, I’ll be cold, wet, and miserable, but I’ll live. It’s the chance of getting seasick I’m worried about. Or should I call it river sick? Either way, I might be heaving up that charcuterie over the edge of the bow, and that’s not sexy.”
Could she get seasick on a river? The Patapsco was large and choppy since it fed directly into the Chesapeake Bay, but was it rough enough to make her vomit in the water?
She was right that it wouldn’t be sexy, but we could always head back if she began to feel nauseous.
Instead of assuring her we’d return to land if needed, I blurted out something I’d read in one of the coffee shop’s magazines.
“I can hold your hair if you’re sick.”
The shrew burst out laughing. “That’s very sweet of you to offer. Is that something orcs typically do for each other?”
“No,” I admitted. “I read in Cosmopolitan that holding someone’s hair while they vomited was a sign of friendship and affection.”
Now she was laughing so hard I feared she might pass out. “You read Cosmopolitan? I saw you as more of a GQ kind of guy. Or Lifestyles of Rich and Famous Orcs.”
There was a Lifestyles of Rich and Famous Orcs magazine? Why did I not know about that? More importantly, why had they not interviewed me for an article? I should be on the front page of that publication every single month.
“Cosmopolitan is the only magazine at the coffee shop by my hovel—aside from something called Field and Stream, that is. I have no desire to make the effort to kill my own food when others will do that for me. Besides, shooting a deer is for lazy beta-type human males. We orcs would chase it down and stab it. That is the way of alpha males.”
Even the driver was looking in the rearview mirror at this point, concern etched in his face.
The shrew gasped for air, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. “Beta-type males? Cosmopolitan? Oh God, Eng. You’re killing me here.”
I had thought the contents of the magazine might help me better understand human females, and be of assistance in my pursuit of a prospective wife. Little did I know it would be a source of hilarity to the shrew. And little did I know how making her laugh would warm me to the tips of my toes.
We arrived to see a sun-burnished, reed-thin man with an equally thin beard that reached nearly to his stomach by the pier. He tipped his cap at us, revealing a bald pate that was only a few shades less red than his face.
“You Mr. Eng and guest? I’m Marlin, owner of the Fins and Family.” His voice was like wagon wheels on gravel, and the hand he reached out toward me had enough callouses to make a warrior proud.
“Yes. I am Eng, of Clan Waragur, prince and the heir to the Kingdom of Waragur.” The human male stared at me blankly so I added: “I am a hockey player for the Baltimore Tusks.”
That brought a grin to his sun-weathered face. “Then let’s get sailing! I’ve got the charred cutlery and champagne ready. Once we’re out on the river, I’ll pop the cork and start this party.”
I sent the shrew a narrow-eyed glance at her snort of laughter. I knew I hadn’t misheard the man when he’d said we would have charred cutlery. Had this female been misleading me with her charcuterie correction? I wouldn’t put it past the saucy minx.
Marlin led us down the pier to a boat that was as advertised—thirty feet with polished wood trim, a large mast rising to the sky, and the name Fins and Family painted in bold black a foot above the waterline.
I held out my hand to assist the shrew to board, then hopped on myself, smiling at the familiar feel of movement under my feet.
It had been over two decades since I had been on board a boat.
That one had been much larger, and I’d come home a week later to furious parents, even though I’d let them know the exact details of my voyage in the letter I’d left behind.
It was always better to ask forgiveness than permission where I was concerned, but after that adventure I’d learned that even asking forgiveness didn’t make the transgression any less painful.
After stern lectures about duty and responsibility, I’d been overloaded with dull committee meetings where I had no authority and my only task was to sit quietly and appear to be attentively listening.
That and the cold silence from my mother and father had taught me a valuable lesson.
But the crisp salt-tinged breeze off the water blew those memories away and all I felt was joy.
“So far so good,” the shrew said as she cautiously made her way to the front of the boat and back. “We’ll see how the stomach feels after we get moving.”
Marlin looked a bit concerned at that, but he quickly seemed to weigh the likelihood of cleaning vomit off his deck versus a healthy tip and opted for the tip.
Pulling the ropes free from their moorings and starting a noisy engine at the aft of the vessel, he guided us out of the harbor and into the river proper.
This was a date, but I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the engine.
“Back home we have a magical device purchased from the fae to guide boats in and out of the docks,” I told the shrew.
“Many harbors need to ferry goods to land on smaller boats since the waters are not deep enough for the ships to dock, but my great-grandfather paid merfolk to deepen our harbor. Both that and the towing-magic cost quite a lot to maintain. Perhaps this would be a better system.”
“You’d be trading one evil for another,” she cautioned.
“If you haven’t noticed, those motors are noise as all hell, and they smell.
Plus you still have to pay for fuel and repair.
Then there’s the environmental concerns that I’m assuming you don’t face with magical systems. Oh, and the outboard ones like this get stolen pretty regularly, even with locks and harbor security. ”
I stared at her, aghast. “The threat of beheading doesn’t deter such theft?”
“Are you joking?” She was clearly appalled at my reply. “You kill thieves? That’s…that’s horrible. The punishment in no way fits the crime.”
“What punishment do humans receive for stealing?” I asked.
“Jail time. Community service and fines for thefts of smaller value.”
“We do treat juveniles less harshly as they no doubt had poor examples for parents, but a beheading does deter almost all of our crime.” I didn’t know why I was so desperate to justify our legal system to this female.
I found myself feeling a bit ashamed at what we’d always classified as a death-penalty crime.
Generations ago when our kingdom had first been formed, we’d been forged together by the need to present a powerful front against the fae.
All the different tribes so close in proximity with their varied cultures and laws had caused a lot of friction.
We’d developed these consequences for unlawful behavior to ensure the peace between orc tribes that were just as likely to kill each other as to defend the borders against the fae.
It had been necessary, and it had served us since those days of old.
But did it still serve us? Stealing a magical device that allowed a cargo ship to safely dock was a far more serious crime than running away with an axe from a blacksmith, yet the punishment had remained the same.
The shrew had an opinion on the matter, and it was clearly not in favor of my kingdom. “So you chop off the right hand of the juveniles? Condemn them to lifetime of slavery in the mines?”
That stung me out of my reflective mood. “I have read about your justice system here, and your jail time is not so different than a lifetime of slavery in the mines.”
She jerked back as if I’d struck her, and I immediately regretted my harsh words. Then she shook her head and gave me a wry grin.
“Touché. I absolutely agree although sometimes I tend to forget about the issues we also struggle against. Our worlds are not so different, Eng.”
I didn’t completely understand what she’d said, but I was coming to believe that the humans and orcs had more in common than we I’d originally thought.