Lineage of Zeal, Book One: Rosemary

Chapter One: Spice and Vanity

They couldn't possibly be talking about her.

Rosemary sat on a shoddy stool at a wooden bar with its fair share of dents and gouges, complacent with her rosewater, listening with increasing distaste to the vagrants reveling loudly at a table behind her. They described, with the uproarious joviality of men long lost to the barrel, a woman who was beginning to sound more and more like her with every lecherous word. They commented, accented with sharp nudges and thunderous peals of laughter, on how much they'd like a handful or two of that full chest, or how they wouldn't mind being tangled up with her in her billowing, blood-red robe. They bragged about how they'd wrap their arms around that shapely waist and run their fingers through that long, luxurious, rose-red hair.

There was no more denying it at that point. They were, beyond any plausible doubt, referring to her.

"Ewan," Rosemary said to the man preoccupied with a rag and a mug on the other side, "another rosewater."

"Another?" Ewan replied, placing the mug on a shelf under the counter before leaning in toward his customer and cocking a brow. "This'll be, what, your fifth today? Don't you think-?"

"Ewan," she said flatly. Her red eyes narrowed, and the tavernkeep lowered his in response. "Another rosewater."

"Yes, yes, of course." Ewan sighed, turning away from Rosemary to the shelves of assorted bottles of spirits behind him. Two rows up and three bottles to the right of where he stood sat a tall, clear bottle containing a faintly pink liquid and a full-stemmed rose. Ewan uncorked the bottle and emptied half of it into a large flagon intended for the mass-consumption of piss-weak spirits. "Just trying to look out for my favorite patron is all. Besides, this rosewater stuff you fancy isn't exactly easy to come by."

"Rosewater, eh?" interjected an alcohol-laden voice over the woman's shoulder. Rosemary recognized it to be the loudest and most obnoxious voice from the gaggle of drunkards describing her in a most crude manner moments ago. "That there's a man's drink milady, nevermindin' the color. Why don't you try something more befittin' a girl like yourself like, say, a spiced cider?"

The man shooed Ewan off for a tankard of cider after the tavernkeep deposited Rosemary's rosewater. Once Ewan left, the man dared to lean in closer to her robe-shrouded form, close enough that not only did she have to smell his tainted breath, but feel its hotness on her cheek. She moved not an inch as he stuck one arm under her robe and wrapped it around her waist, and the sound of encouraging hoots and hollers from his peers rang through the tavern's two floors as her molester reached for her rosewater.

Her reaction was to snatch away the rosewater, drink it down in one continuous gulp, slam the empty flagon back down on the bar with a neck-popping twist of her head. She continued staring forward as though the man, now riled and astonished, was not still holding fast to her.

More catcalls came from the man's cohorts. One squeaky voice called for her name! her name! and Rosemary's chin fell lower. Red bangs shifted, obscuring her face.

The man leaned in closer, close enough that his stubbly cheek brushed her own faintly blushed one. "Quite a mouth you got there, milady, and a body to match," he whispered. "Drank my rosewater in one go, you did. Drank a whole flagon, too, and rosewater's a damn powerful spirit. Bet there's a fire in your belly yet, eh?"

Rosemary loosed a small burp, and the man pulled back. His arm, however, remained secure around her midsection, where it patted her twice and gave a quick rub.

"Stubborn, ain't ya," her assailant said, his words sliding off his tongue with alcohol as their lubricant. "But now you're gonna have to repay me. Why don't you tell me your name so I know what to call you when I move that fire from your gut to your thighs."