Ring of Fire III(44)

The second officer had not been exciting at all. A fat colonel in late middle-age, whose wife had died and whose career had stalled out. But he’d been a decent enough man, and she’d been desperate. Then, a year later, the colonel’s heart had failed. He’d left no provision for her in his will, despite his promises. Everything had gone to his own children.

Back on the streets again. She’d worked those just long enough to find another officer. Another lieutenant. Also, alas, another unfortunate. In this case, not a casualty of bullet and sword but a casualty of the still deadlier combination of getting stinking drunk and climbing onto a horse.

Then, finally, a stroke of luck. Not much, but some. A captain this time, in his mid-thirties and in good enough health that she could expect some considerable years with him. As a concubine, to be sure, not a wife. The hopes Ursula had once had of eventually getting married and raising a family had died of neglect and malnutrition, somewhere along the way. But the captain was faithful enough that she didn’t really fear he’d desert her for another woman or give her some sort of horrid disease.

He was something of a mean bastard, though, with a hot temper. He beat her from time to time. Life was far from perfect.

Worse than the beatings was the temper itself. The day came when he mistook the ease of beating a concubine with beating another officer. Unlike the concubine, the officer had a sword—and, as it turned out, was considerably more proficient in its use than the man who’d struck him.

They buried the captain’s arm in the same coffin that held the rest of his body. The cut had taken it right off, after which he’d bled to death.

Luckily for Ursula—well, it had seemed lucky at the time—Colonel von Troiberz had attended the funeral and took it upon himself to comfort the not-exactly-a-widow after the ceremony concluded.

That had been three years ago. Her life had been a slow but steady slide downhill ever since.

The colonel did not beat her. That was his one virtue. So far as Ursula could determine, his only virtue.

Otherwise, von Troiberz was an unpleasant man in every particular. He had no sense of humor, no capacity for joy. He smiled maybe once a week. Laughed, perhaps once a month.

He had no capacity for any sort of pleasure, for that matter, except ones deriving from spite and greed.

Petty spite and petty greed. The man lacked style and verve even in his vices and sins.

Mostly, von Troiberz was a sullen man, riddled with resentments and envies. He drank constantly. And then spent his few sober hours coming up with schemes that might save him from the consequences of other schemes he’d come up with while drunk. She knew perfectly well the reason he’d spent the last three days dragging her around this miserable countryside in January was because he was desperately trying to cover up one of his thefts.

The drinking also made him incapable in bed but that was not a problem, so far as Ursula was concerned. On the now-rare occasions when the colonel did choose to engage in sexual activity, the result was brief and would have left her completely unsatisfied except that she began the coupling with no such expectations anyway. Somewhere along the way, her hopes that sex would at least be enjoyable had also died a natural death. The causes, again, being neglect and malnutrition.

The biggest problem was that Colonel von Troiberz stank, most of the time—and Ursula had begun this life in the first place because she hated bad smells.

He bathed once a year, at most, not counting the occasions he fell into a creek or stumbled into a pond while inebriated. But that didn’t help because such bodies of water were usually smelly in their own right, not to mention the result of the time he’d fallen into a latrine.

He was flatulent. He had bad breath.

No, terrible breath. Even the food he preferred was nasty-smelling. His favorite meat was pickled pork, his favorite vegetables were onions, and his favorite herb was garlic.

His favorite drink was cheap korn made from rye taken with cheap beer. When he could afford it, he drank cheap schnapps made from apples. When he was short of money, he settled for cheap wine. All of it smelled bad to Ursula. Being fair to the colonel, all liquor smelled bad to her, even the expensive kind. She herself did not drink liquor except for an occasional glass of wine on celebratory occasions, and then only because it was expected of her.

He had no favorite flower. What was far worse was that he disliked flowers altogether—he claimed they made him sneeze and made him itch—and so he forbade her from putting any in their rooms. Even though she loved flowers and had ever since she was a child.

Lying in the bed staring at the ceiling, Ursula started to weep. No loud sobbing—the last thing she wanted to do was wake up von Troiberz—just tears, oozing slowly from her eyes. Eventually she would wipe them off, but not for a while. She was too tired. She was always too tired now. She could barely summon the energy to cook and do the laundry.