D-Nine: Protectors of the Crown

Chapter 11

The next morning, I awoke to the worst case of indigestion I have ever had. My stomach was clamped in knots; my abdomen apparently wanted to crawl its way through my skin, and my legs had cramped until they buzzed like a hive full of bees. And that was before I had even gotten out of bed.
I rolled onto my side and sat up-then immediately had to lie back down as a roiling wave of nausea crashed over me. I groaned and clutched at the blankets until I could manage to sit without tossing my supper ... although, come to think of it, that might have made me feel better.
"I am never," I said aloud, "in my life, ever eating hors d'oeuvres at a party again. Haven't these people ever heard of food quality control? Oh, no, of course they haven't. They're ignorant Dark Ages savages."
It was then that I realized I might be in somewhat of a foul mood. Well, I deserved it, the way I was feeling.
I hauled myself out of bed and went to the wardrobe. I had stripped down to my shift to sleep-not the most fun thing in the world to do without a maid. Before the party, Ronchet had brought one especially to help me into the dress, but evidently thought I'd have no trouble getting out on my own.
Either that or he wanted to help me, I thought darkly, and then tried to scrub my brain clean. Most of the time, I was pretty sure Ronchet thought of me as one of the guys, but I couldn't quite forget the gallantry of the soldiers back at the palace. At least they'd had the excuse of thinking I was a princess-but that hadn't made it any easier to forget that I was, outwardly, a pretty, petite blonde teenage girl.
I pulled on one of Ronchet's sister's petticoats and dresses, a much easier proposition than the party dress. Then I shoved my feet into boots, and stomped downstairs.
"Leftover stew for breakfast," Ronchet told me, motioning at the iron pot over the fire. "I have to go out for a while, but I should be back this afternoon."
"Fine," I said. I stumped over to the pot and looked in. We had been eating the same stew for as long as I had been at Ronchet's house. My stomach did acrobatics when I smelled the stew, but I thought maybe eating would settle it.
I took down a bowl and ladled in some stew. If the hors d'oeuvres had smelled that bad last night, I never would have eaten them.
Even so, I sat dutifully at the table and shoved some in my mouth. It tasted like it smelled and did nothing to settle my stomach-but it didn't make it worse, either.
"I'll leave you to it," Ronchet said, swinging to his feet.
I grunted at him and didn't watch him go. Then I sat there, picking at my stew as the sun rose, feeling increasingly sorry for myself.
On reflection, it occurred to me that if my problem was digestive, I'd be better off purging my system than filling my body with stodgy stew.
This was ... not the pleasantest of notions. Ronchet's toilet facilities were even more primitive than the ones at the palace-by which I mean that in the palace, at least, someone else had had the job of emptying the chamber pots.
With a sigh, I pushed my bowl away and stood. Beneath me, the chair squelched slightly.
I froze and slowly, slowly looked down.
No.
No, no, no.
Oh, come on; I was a doctor. I had been expecting it, but-
No. I wasn't really a girl. I wasn't supposed to have to deal with this sort of thing.
That explained the cramps, at least.
The seat of the chair was dark with blood. A quick examination of my backside revealed that yes, yes, I had managed to bleed through shift, petticoat, and dress in the hour I'd been sitting there.
I fetched a napkin from the cupboard and wiped off the chair as well as I could before returning to the room, closing the door, and, with great trepidation, peeling off the dress.
The dress was dark enough that a good soaking might-and I say might-have been able to fix it. The shift was mostly on my torso. The petticoat-the petticoat was a complete loss.
I admit it; I panicked. Princess Sarabeth must have dealt with this sort of thing on a regular basis and women all over the world had been dealing with it for time immemorial ... but I was the first guy in the history of guys who had ever had to deal first hand with a period. It took me longer than I like to admit to figure out that I could use the remains of the shift as a sort of diaper-good heavens, I was going to have to wash the thing-and simply dig out a new dress and petticoat from the sister's increasingly sparse-looking wardrobe.
At last, feeling nauseated and distinctly unclean, I emerged from my bedroom. I carried the sodden remains of my petticoat in a bundle, with the blood hidden inside. There was nowhere to dispose of the garment in Ronchet's house, even if I'd wanted to risk him finding it-which I most certainly did not. There were times when explaining how blood got all over me didn't bother me in the least-if I had been in surgery or attacked on the street. This was not one of them. If I had my way, Ronchet would never, ever find out about the petticoat.
The problem, then, was where to stash the blasted thing.
At first, I considered simply dumping it out the window or tucking it down a side alley somewhere. The lack of sanitation in this town was so extreme that I rather doubted anyone would mind. The possibility of someone seeing me and asking what I was doing was too embarrassing to consider.
That left only one possibility: destroy it without leaving the house.
The lack of plumbing made it, of course, impossible to flush the thing down-even if I'd wanted to shred it with my bare hands, and get them filthy all over again in the process. No, fire was the way to go.
The more I contemplated burning the thing, the more I liked the idea. Ronchet constantly left a low level fire in the hearth, with a stack of wood beside it. I'd have to be careful-I didn't fancy the notion of accidentally recreating the Great Fire of London with a petticoat-but I should be able to manage it before Ronchet got back.
It was the work of a minute to stir up the fire, add more fuel, and stuff my petticoat at the hot centre. That didn't improve its smell any, but I watched it burn until I was certain that Ronchet wouldn't be able to recognize it.
Unfortunately, unlike my petticoat, I couldn't stick my hands in the fire to sanitize them.
I found the bucket of water Ronchet kept in the kitchen. I wasn't about to stick my hands in it-not if there was any possibility of it being used for stew-so I poured a little over my hands, scrubbed them with what passed for soap in this place, and rinsed them. I dried my hands on a yellowing linen napkin I'd found in a cupboard, then stuffed the napkin into my bodice, for later use.
About half the water was gone by that point, and I was far from satisfied. I had to eat with these hands, after all. What I really wanted was bleach or rubbing alcohol.
Well, rubbing alcohol wasn't available, but alcohol certainly was-and if the nearby tavern was anything like I expected, the stuff it served wouldn't be too unlike rubbing alcohol. There was at least a chance it'd clean off the extra smell.
I poked the fire again to make sure it wouldn't go burning anything it wasn't supposed to, and left the house. I vaguely remembered seeing a tavern at the end of the street and, sure enough, soon came upon the Spotted Owl. It was not the most reputable-looking establishment, but with my rapier by my side, I was pretty sure I could fend for myself.
I went in, ordered ale, and went to sit in the corner. As I was contemplating ways of pouring the ale on the napkin, and thence onto my hands, I became aware of being watched.
I glanced around. At the table opposite mine were two men, both in their forties. They didn't have anything to do with me, so I went back to the ale conundrum. Just as I was coming to the conclusion that spilling the ale on the table by "accident" would be my best bet, the men got up and sat down at my table.
I leaned away; they smelled terrible. Hardly surprising; both of them were absolutely filthy, with greasy hair and brown teeth-where they had teeth at all. If I had seen them back home, I would have thought them homeless. Here, I had seen all too many like them.
"Hi," I said.
"We saw you sitting here all by yourself," said the first of the men, whose hair stood up in a greasy spray of brown and grey. "We thought you looked lonely."
"We're here drinking away our sorrows," said the second man, whose shirt was open to display his matted black chest hair. "Our wives threw us out."
"They keep forgetting to save up on money," said Greasy. "What do they expect us to do about it?"
"Um-" I began.
"Not that you'd ever be like that," said Matted. "I mean, look at you. You're beautiful."
I stared at him. "Right," I said, in the sort of tone which meant go away. "Thanks."
"Are you a dancer?" Matted asked.
"No."
"You look like a dancer. You could be one of those ladies, you know, who goes up on stage. You definitely have the figure for it."
"I don't dance," I said stiffly, too baffled by their behaviour to do more.
"Oh, you don't have to know how," Greasy said, leaning forward. The stench coming from his mouth wasn't wholly his breath, I realized; I could smell his teeth rotting also. "It's about moving and having a beautiful face and body. And you have a very beautiful ... figure."
"I'm not interested," I said repressively. I fingered the pommel of my rapier. What I really needed was a dirk-something I could use unobtrusively.
"You'd make a really good dancer, though," Matted persisted. "You could lead the show, I bet."
"Right," I said. "I have to get home." I stood swiftly, deliberately spilling the ale over my hands-and over their laps. "If you follow me, I will gut you. Understand?"
"Sure, sweetheart," Greasy said, leering at me. "Want to yell a bit more, first? It makes your chest jiggle."
I snarled at him and punched him across the face. I had to lean across the table to do it, and both Greasy and Matted's eyes went directly to my neckline.
"Thanks for that," Greasy said, not minding the punch in the least. "You smell nice, by the way. Like a real woman."
I spat in his drink before I spun on one heel and stalked away.
"We were right," Matted told Greasy as they watched me go. "She does dance well. Look at her flounce away."
"I'm looking," Greasy said.
Back in my own body, I would have gone back and punched him again, properly this time. But the smallness and delicacy of my new body seemed to have, at long last, driven itself into my mind.
This did nothing to improve my temper.
I stomped all the way to Ronchet's house. He was there when I arrived, sitting in the kitchen and sipping a drink just like he was the king of the world.
"Good afternoon," he said.
"Men are pigs," I spat back.
"I-what?"
"Well, not all men," I amended, suddenly baffled about whom I was defending. "But the pigs are."
"I ... see. What brought this on?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" I screamed at him. "Ugh! I wish the world would blow up!"
He sat there, looking baffled. I yanked the damp linen out of my bodice and hurled it at him. It fell ineffectually to the floor, four feet short.
"Ugh!" I repeated and, to my shame and bafflement, sank to the floor, sobbing. "I hate being a girl! And a teenager! The first time was bad enough!"
"There, there," Ronchet said, and fled.

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