Chapter One

    Trevor Campbell met the woman with chestnut eyes on the eve of a blue moon. He hadn't really thought about the lunar calendar when he'd planned the trip into the settlement but the coincidence and the subsequent crowds had only increased the chances of his selling his homemade wares more quickly and letting him find a few days of contract work for one of the bigger land owners or wagoneers.

    Of course, everyone knew about the mute woman who'd been found huddled at the base of the public pump in the old town square and were more than willing to talk about her, even to an outlier. Various tales said nude and silent, others claimed she was dressed outlandishly and hysterical. Most thought she was likely a traumatized victim of some brigand raid or a tongue-shocked refugee of some far-off disaster.

    Either way, she'd been taken in by Seder and nursed to physical health by his wife, who was either a saint or a fool. Every rumor reputed the stranger to be unusually comely and, though Seder had proposed to Bara only two blue moons earlier, common knowledge and his wife's burgeoning belly had put him on the prowl for a tasty dessert cake to keep close by.

    Marry for profitable connections. Ally for pleasurable ones.

    Seder. Proof for any forest boy that an outlier could move up the social ladder. Proof also, Trevor thought with a scowl, that city folk had more money than sense when it came to choosing sons-in-law.

    Blue moon. The day set aside for weddings and alliances to be contracted. Blue moon. The day Trevor's life, previously a series of coincidences, lucky happenstances, and accidental fortune, changed and he became part of a plan. The day he met the woman with chestnut eyes.

    The ceremony followed the form that it always had. The divorces were announced and the clay tablets broken. Some of the women wept but most smiled and glanced at men who would, no doubt, become their husbands at the next blue moon.

    The brides, wearing their dowries in gold chain or promissory braids of satin cord, listened for their names to be called by the contract master. Abbreviated versions of the marriage contracts were read aloud. Grooms sought out their ladies and knelt on the cobblestones with tokens of their sincerity. Occasionally a bride would reject the gift, sending the suitor scrambling for another, usually provided by his mother or father or by a friend who anticipated needing a similar favor in the future.

    Finally, as the families departed, the last group of women was shepherded to the ring of flowers, which were wear-worn by the feet of those more legitimately bound or unbound. Trevor recognized some of the girls as outliers whose fathers sought business contracts at the expense of their daughters' smooth white thighs and pretty faces. A treat for an old man's bed. A jolly romp for a scion. Butter on the baker's bread. A fresh furrow for a wealthy farmer. One legal step up from a trollop.

    Officially called abigails or live-besides, the women had contracts and prospects but little freedom in deciding their fates. 'Dessert cakes' was what most people called them. Some might go on to become wives, and some would return to the forests or farmlands slightly shop-worn but with attractive dowries. Others, preferring that work to the hard life of a farmwife, would end up contracted to taverns on their knees or backs trading favors for a meal, a bed, a small coin or, Trevor grinned in remembrance, a sliver of unscented harsh soap.

    One by one, the pink-cheeked girls went to her knees before the man offering the contract. Choice had little to do with it. Fathers or mothers urged the reluctant. A few were pushed or threatened but most, leaving one sort of servitude for another, went willingly enough - if not always eagerly.

    He stood with other outlier men, who jostled and joked, enjoying the spectacle and fantasizing aloud about having a pretty girl go to her knees before him. Dest, uncomfortable with the ribald comments, nudged him and whispered, "Let's go."

    Trevor would have complied but caught sight of the mystery woman being hustled forward, and said, "Just a bit longer. That's the stranger."

    Indeed, more spectators than usual had stayed on, waiting for this moment. Blue moon. Any indigent single women were compelled to make a contract for a protector unless offered the more dignified position of wife.

    Seder would have his dessert soon. Men, otherwise eligible to offer a contract, would hesitate to cross the powerful family that Seder had acquired through marriage.

    The contract master, gentle with the obviously reluctant and confused girl, drew her to the center of the daisy circle.

    "As is custom, you must make alliance this day," the man announced, more to the crowd than to the girl. No, not a girl, Trevor thought. She was older than she first appeared. Her expression, of vacant indifference, misled a casual looker-on. Her hair had no gray and gleamed like the coat of a freshly brushed chestnut horse. Her shapely arms crossed the full bosom, the fabric of the too-small dress stretched, and her hands clutched the edges of clean shawl that covered her shoulders. If the rumors of her nudity were true, then all she wore had been given to her. Why hadn't they given her a name, too? Trevor shook his head. They probably would have given her one that fit about as well as the faded dress.

    Long and slender, her fingers twitched and explored a hole in the knitted wrap as the contract was read. "Seder, of the Colier family, has been generous in his petition. Are you willing to accept?"

    She glanced toward Seder and cringed at his smug, swallowed-the-bird smile. She lowered her eyes and shook her head, refusing the contract. What else, Trevor wondered, besides Bara's nursing, had the mute one endured in the Colier household?

    The master tugged on her sleeve. "You must have an alliance. Has anyone else offered or," he said with a derisive snort, "tendered a proposal of marriage?"

    The woman raised her chin and sought to make eye contact but everyone avoided her gaze or laughed at her silent supplication.

    Not desperately but having nowhere else to appeal, she looked toward the rowdy bunch of outlier men. Her eyes matched her hair. Trevor had never seen anyone with eyes like hers. Outlander she might be, but not of the forest clans and not of the river folk on the other side. Without quite meaning to, he caught her glance and held it.

    The stranger shook off the master's grip and pointed at Trevor. Startled, Seder leapt to his feet to see which man had whisked away his piece of dessert cake. Feeling like a puppet, but happy to annoy a jumped up forest boy, Trevor nodded.

    The contract master sighed. "Marriage or alliance?" The chestnut haired woman crossed the cobblestones as gracefully as tinker-dancer and went to her knees before Trevor, making the decision for them both. "Alliance, then."

    Looking down on the burnished head, bowed in supplication, Trevor said, "For now. Until she speaks. Then we will negotiate in proper fashion." Again he looked down at her head, not a breath from his groin and wondered what her mouth would feel like and hoped that finding out wasn't the only reason he'd gotten involved.

    "What-the-fuck are you doing?" Dest hissed. Having the same question for himself, Trevor gestured for his friend to be quiet.

    Seder, not surrendering his claim, shouted, "I am owed something for her care during the months passed."

    The contract master, clearly unhappy at the turn of events and worried about the potential for violent conflict erupting at a usually happy event, said, "It is true."

    Trevor considered suggesting that premature sampling of this little dessert cake had been payment enough but resisted the comment. "Five bars of soap and my father's walking stick," he said, which was the sum total of his worth at the moment.

    He held up the stick, hand-carved and smooth-finished, and fished the package of soap from his haversack. Dest opened his mouth to protest but Trevor whispered, "Close it up or I will."

    For a heartbeat, it seemed that he'd have to offer more but a woman's voice called out, "Done." Seder turned toward his wife, his astonishment plain in his slack jaw and wild eyes. Bara, apparently, wasn't ready to share a plate.

    "Done," seconded the contract master, urging Trevor to disappear with a go-away motion of his hands and head.

This is the first chapter in another erotic sci-fi fantasy that I'm concocting. Let me know your opinion.