She was the wife of a tailor, one of the myriad of small
traders who had settled in the new ports of the South Hallam Islands, providing
to the needs of the ships that visited the islands, the new colonial
government, and the growing population of other settlers. The wife was not a
settler though, but a native of the islands, dark skinned and slender, with
long green eyes. The match was one of love, a mixing of blood frowned upon by
the better (or at least more affluent) classes of settlers, but common enough
in the poorer parts of the ports, and in time produced a daughter who was
greatly loved.
This story is not, however, a happy one, for the tailor had a
problem unknown to his wife or her people, in that in the procuring of his
living had left him in debt to one of the moneylending syndicates that ruled the
ports of the Easter Sea more firmly than any navy, and that this debt had been
well managed (at least from the point of view of the lenders), so that no
matter how hard he worked and how much he repaid, the tailor had never found
the means to escape his debt, instead finding himself deeper in its grip each
year, as managing debts in such a way is just good business for a moneylender.
So it was that one day, not long after the child was weaned,
that the moneylenders came and claimed the wife in part payment for the debt.
In truth, a woman who has born a child is worth less than one who has not, but
until she is with child the potential to claim that the marriage has not been consummated
makes it hard to claim a wife as payment for her husband’s debts, and once she
is with child, in her womb or at her breast, such a claimant would be obliged
to take the child as well as the mother, and (the market for babes-in-arms being
rather smaller than is generally supposed) raise it at his own expense. Once a
child is weaned though, it is generally thought that the wife can be taken
safely leaving the husband to bear the cost of raising the child, at least
until such time that, if the debt is well managed, the child can also be claimed.
So it was that the wife was taken from the islands of her
people to the great port city of Tarrowmere, and there sold into the most
intimate form of bondage.
Here she proved to be of great value to her new master, for
she accepted she must pay for her husband’s unknown crime, and meekly acquiesced
to the indignities and outrages poured upon her, without the drugs, drink or
beatings needed to control so many of his other women. Her new owner told his
clients that this was the custom of her people (of who he knew nothing) adding
to her exotic appeal and the price he got for her services.
But had anyone taken the time to look into those long green
eyes (which they did not) then they would have seen she complied because her
heart was broken, and along with it her will, and that she no longer cared
about the fate of her body.
She survived for three years in that place, a long time for a
woman in her situation, before meeting her demise at the hands of a drunken
whaler, who attacked her so badly with a broken bottle that she could not be
saved, and bled to death within hours (which, given the ways in which women can
die in such places, could be seen as a quick and merciful end).
The whaler was duly caught, and could have been hung for his
crime, but the master of the house took a more
pragmatic view, demanding payment for the woman rather than vengeance on
her killer, and, since the whaler had no obvious assets (being prone to
spending his earnings on carousing), another moneylender was found, who could
pay the bill on his behalf, whalers being just as good an investment as tailors
to those who know how to manage such matters.
Thus the matter was settled, and considered to be closed. The
wife was dead, the brothel-keeper paid, and the tailor and the whaler trapped
by their debts. Though one day, perhaps, the story would reach the wife’s people,
who are dark and usually slender and sometimes have green eyes, but not for the
most part prone to meekly accepting their fates, and certainly not outrages
upon their womenfolk. And if this story does one day reach them, then they too
would recon it as a debt to be repaid, though they are unlikely to be convinced
that such a debt can be paid in coin of any kind.
