The dame pinned the shoulder of the silky dress. "How does that feel?"
"It feels very nice," Tessreen breathed out as if she were enjoying a massage. This whole situation was a bit outside of her experience, but she was coping well enough. "Can I get some more of this?" This was directed at another woman nearby who happily refilled her champagne flute and murmured a courtesy. The woman had never tasted such luxuriousness in her life.
Circumstances since coming to Firsthome had sent Enis and his wife in different directions, the man to a sweaty locker room with attached sleeping dormitory and the woman into this tastefully decorated dressing room, complete with a wardrobe and attending maids. However, for the past few years, circumstances in Waykeep had been gradually pulling the couple apart already. It had always been Tessreen who was attending her harried and tired husband after a day of dealing with the issues of leading Waykeep and she had begun to resent this. Here on the other side of a channel and in the midst of Saradyo's daughters, she was enjoying a cultural spotlight she had never experienced previously.
As we enter this situation and observe how seemly easy it was for Tessreen to fall blissfully into the lacy coils of the Convocation, I must let you know some of her inner mind. She had know for many years that her husband's responsibilities as the village leader threw her into a support role whether she liked it or not. Her joyous prowess at the Pass in slaughtering invaders had to give way to nursing the wounded and making certain the Waykeep women's needs were not detracting to their warrior men. Her Amazonian predispositions had to be suppressed over and over again and she was increasingly chaffing at her relative servility. Her physical and emotional atrophy as a warrior seemed to coincide with Kevyn and his company's abandonment of the Covenant and Waykeep, where she often felt she should have joined those who walked away and sought different fortunes. So, I hope you readers see that the seeming ease of Tess' decision here in this perfumed and coitered situation was only one last step in a long journey of abandonment from husband and the Covenant that required more sacrifice than she found herself willing to give.
After getting her new muscle man appropriately stabled with the other thoroughbreds, The Duchess of Sport-fighting reapplied her preferred scent to mask the musk-odor and re-joined the precincts of softer women. "That gown looks amazing on you, Tess. You look every bit the part of a fine Lady, though we will need to let that musculature of yours fade a bit."
The newly dressed Tess swung around like she was countering a sword. "Where? I'm not even sure what you mean by musculature." Her arms rippled as much as Enis' would as he triggered his pass-spear.
Lady Candyce giggled softly at the obvious display as the dressing dames took cautious steps back from their work. "You might unintentionally hurt someone dancing about like a bear, my dear." She shoo-ed the dames away. "It still looks a bit like a wildcat chased out of the hills with that unkempt hair and no face-paint." She was a bit loathe to admit that her guest's natural coloring was quite fetching regardless. "Sit down and I will work out those tangles."
The act of arranging body and hair was a nursing function in Waykeep, bathing bruised bodies and sometimes arranging torn and broken limbs for a proper viewing by family and friends when a warrior was killed. It was never a pleasant job for Tess, though other women in the village seemed to attend to injury and death with an almost worshipful resolve. Such situations could spread rumors that the headman's wife was not of the proper constitution for her role and that Enis should put Tess aside in favor of any one of a number of better-suited women to serve as the "mother" of the pass. Though the talk used to impel Tessreen to try harder to meet expectations, lately, she had just become withdrawn and bitter toward her village sisters and increasingly to her husband, who didn't choose to defend her against accusations.
There is something about the act of brushing hair between two women that creates a restful intimacy and a tranquil warmth. Tessreen closed her eyes in joy at the new sensation and opened her mind to the soft suggestions Candyce was planting in her somewhat less-evolved mind. Her future of beauty contests arranged and easily won, fine houses and households to possess as her own, soft beds with a variety of companionship designed to bring her pleasure.
"That reminds me," Tessreen breathed out softly and much more casually than a wife should, "Whatever became of Enis?"
Candyce lifted a sculptured brow and gave an impish smile. "He was settling in quite happily when I last saw him. Already establishing his place among the men." She decided cautiously to leave out the fact the man already caused death in her stable, not knowing that such a revelation would not have flustered the woman Tess had been. Much like the reduction of muscles, the new woman would also soon settle into a Lady's soft dominion. "My house knows how to answer a man's needs."
Tess breathed a long sigh without a hint of issue with her husband's new circumstances. She let her mind wander. "This is all so new to me," was all she could bring herself to say.
Little noticed by the woman being brushed, a dame slipped into the room and whispered into the Duchess's ear. There was a brief nod, but the almost hypnotic brushing continued uninterrupted. "Your room for the night has been prepared and there is a fine nightgown already set out for you." This was almost purred and Tessreen didn't seem to react one way or another to the news. Candyce leaned in and whispered into the woman's ear. "I have a fine young man in mind for your bed tonight - I often sneaked him into my dorm room while I was at school - very docile, very supple to whatever I desired." This all slipped between the bushing strokes without startling the headman's now-entranced wife's slacking sense of Waykeep propriety.
Gently, Candyce wanted to test if her hook was fully set. "I could have Enis bathed and brought to you, if you wish, but my young consort is near to hand and looking forward to serving you..."
There was a tense fraction of a moment where the decision could have gone either way, toward old loyalties and the mission and Covenant that brought Tessreen here or wandering deeper into this new, pampered world of the Convocation. Apparently, it only required a fraction of thought and one last step into a new world. "The young man sounds nice," Tess yawned.
It was difficult to tell how, in the midst of constantly relaxing hair-brushing, the pinned gown was removed and the rather skimpy nightgown replaced it. Tessreen was gently taken to her bedroom without fanfare by her introductory consort and the door was quietly shut to our view.
With that Lady-like decision made and apparently consummated, neither we nor Enis nor this story will ever see Tessreen again.