Chapter 12. Arriving in Alcatia

The final approach to Alcatia had me glued to the rail again whenever I could, at least until, still nearly a day out,  a junior representative of the Northern Province Governor's office arrived with instructions on how to brief me for coming to Court.

I won't bore you with the details, many of which I didn't even understand at the time, but apparently, Kriven's promise of good treatment for Fail was being met, and I, along with any one else from Fail, had acquired some sort of special allied barbarian status or something, which meant I could get certain special treatment from the Governor's office while in Alcatia.  They read a long list of things, like emergency lodging, meals, and free post for messages back home, discounted rates on carriage rentals, and a whole lot of other goodies I didn't care all that much about.

But in my case, what it mostly boiled down to was that I was to report to the Northern Province Governor's office, and that the governors staff would house me and provide me with "authentic native attire" for my audience with the King.  Jona was pleased with this, and seemed to know the aide, so I guess it was all for the good.

Alcatia's harbor was enormous, filled with ships and people, and Jona and the governor's aide, whose name was Lester, shuffled me off the ship and into a carriage where I was whisked past the hubub of the busy port, through the crowded trade streets and taken up to the Castle complex.  Jona departed then, although he promised me he'd see me soon, and Lester took me into the Governor's office, whereupon I was again  shuffled off to a blonde haired woman named Freda, who sniffed at me and took me by the hand, muttering in a Northern accent about how badly I needed a bath.

Freda was actually a nice sort and her no-nonsense manner didn't bother me at all, nor, at first, did the prospect of one of those neat southern style baths.  Unfortunately, my experience this time was quite different than the last.  We entered the main bathhouse, where probably a dozen women were talking and cleaning themselves in a huge pool, but Freda led me to the side, grabbed a young dark haired girl by the shoulder and told her I needed attending to.  The girl looked stricken, like she was terrified of me, and I thought she even ran away, but she returned a few moments later with another dark haired little companion and the two of them shuffled me off to the "deep end" of the bath, where the two of them set to work on me, introducing themselves as Trixie and Tracy.

To be fair, they did a good job.  I really was pretty dirty and there's a lot of me to clean.  But the amount of fussing I endured, not to mention poking, prodding and caressing from the two girls was really annoying.  I  soon  found myself being forced to pose in one strange position after another both in an out of the water, while the girls first cleaned parts of me I'd never realized warranted their own scrubbing, then rinsed, then dried, and then oiled me.  Yes, you heard me.  They oiled my body from head to toe in a scented oil, and then washed it all off again in the pool, only to start again.

Aside from being tedious, I suppose this sort of attention might not sound so bad, and I did indeed eventually learn to appreciate Alcatian bath girls, but you must remember, I was very young then, about the same age as the girls.  But they didn't want to make friends. Instead, they went about their duties oddly, expressing their curiosity and wonder about my anatomy to each other freely, until I finally couldn't take it anymore and told them there was nothing different about my body than their own.

It was definitely not the right thing to say to hurry them up, because Tracy then took it upon herself to examine me more closely and expound on each of the  differences she found.  Nowadays, I assure you, I'd never put up with that, but I didn't want to make a scene and, to tell the truth, was still somewhat used to ridicule from normal sized girls.

Thankfully, they weren't all that mean about it, but they also didn't pull any punches as they pointed out that  I had muscles larger than most men, and harder even then any they'd ever felt.  They weren't uncomplimentary, exactly, and in fact, at times, like when Trixie was scrubbing under my left breast and needed an extra hand to manage, even seemed a little in awe, but it was still strange and unnerving. The musings of normal sized women about how masculine I seemed irked me, and even their compliments on my more feminine attributes made me uncomfortable when accompanied by caressing. 

Honestly, I think Trixie in particular enjoyed her work all too much, but I was too young and shy to call her on it, let alone give her the sort of response the little vixen was hoping for. 

After the bath, Freda came in and to my relief, allowed me to braid my own hair, although she insisted I do it  in a way I'd never liked, because Alcatians expected Northern women to wear their hair that way.  The long dual braids were twice as much work and reminded me of a girl I'd not much cared for back in Fail.  Freda brought me a sort of a dress, a white tunic thing to wear while they put the finishing touches on my native costume, and led me back to what she told me was my room before instructing me to wait.