Elizabeth Moon - No Pain, No Gain

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No Pain, No Gain

Elizabeth Moon

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Meryl the shepherdess woke from nightmares in which she waded through glue on

grotesquely swollen legs. She opened her eyes to the smoky rafters of her mother's little hut,

and stretched luxuriously. Bad dreams make good days, Gran always said. Flinging back the

covers, she rolled out of bed and burst into screams. There they were, attached to her own wiry

body—the plump soft legs of her dream, and when she took a step, it felt as if she were wading

through glue. She didn't stop screaming until her mother slapped her smartly across the mouth.

Gran said it was the Evil Eye, and probably the fault of Jamis the cowherd's second wife, no

better than she should be, jealous because her girl had a mole on her nose, for which she had

blamed everyone but herself. Everyone knew that the Evil Eye didn't cause moles on the nose:

those came from poking and prying.

Meryl's new flabby legs ached abominably for days, but eventually she was able to keep up

with her flock without too much trouble. Gran had a quiet word with The Kind One, and the

cowherd's step-daughter broke out in disgusting pustules very like cowpox next market-day.

Meryl figured it was all over, but she still wished for her own legs back.

Dorcas Doublejoints, justly famed dancer at The Scarlet Veil, could do things with her

abdominal musculature which fascinated the most discerning clients, and resulted in a steady

growth in her bank account. She had trained since childhood, when her Aunt Semele had

noticed the anatomical marks of potential greatness. So now, in the lovely space between her

ribs and her pubic bone, all was perfectly harmonious, muscle and a delicately calculated

amount of "smoothing," and unblemished skin with one artfully placed mole—the only plastic

wizardry in which Dorcas had ever had to indulge, since by nature she had no marks there at

all.

She woke near noon, after an unpleasant dream she attributed to that new shipment of

wine… until she rolled on her side and felt… different. Where her slender supple belly had

been, capable of all those enticing ripples hither and yon, she now had… She prodded the soft,

bulging mass and essayed a ripple. Nothing happened. Dorcas thought of her burgeoning bank

balance—not nearly as much as she wanted to retire on—and groaned.

Then she wrapped herself in an uncharacteristic garment—opaque and voluminous—and

sought the advice of her plastic wizard.

Mirabel Stonefist had done her best to avoid it, but she'd been snagged by the Finance

Committee of the Ladies Aid & Armor Society. Instead of a pleasant morning in her

sister-in-law's garden, watching the younglings at play, she was spending her off-duty day at

the Ladies' Hall, peering at the unpromising figures on a parchment roll.

"And just after we ordered the new steps the court ladies wanted, they all quit coming,"

Blanche-the-Blade said. "I haven't seen hide nor hair of them for weeks—"

"They'll be back," Krystal said, buffing her fingernails on her fringed doeskin vest. "They

still want to look good, and without our help, they'll soon return to the shapes they had before."

The court ladies, in the fitness craze that followed the repeal of the tax on bronze bras, had

asked the women of the King's Guard how they stayed so trim. In anticipation of a profitable

side-line, the Ladies Aid & Armor Society had fitted up a couple of rooms at the Hall for

exercise classes. But unlike the younger girls, who seemed to like all the bouncing around, the

married women complained that sweating was unseemly.

"What annoys me," Blanche said, "is the way they moan and groan as if it's our fault that

they're not in shape. I personally don't care if every court lady is shaped like a sofa pillow and

about as firm—I never made fun of them—" She gave Mirabel a hard look. Mirabel, a few

years before, had been caught with pillows stuffed under her gown, mimicking the Most Noble

Gracious Lady Vermania, wife of the then Chancellor, in her attempt to line-dance at the

Harvest Ball. That story, when it got back to the Most Noble Gracious Lady and her husband,

had done nothing for the reputation of the Ladies Aid & Armor Society as a serious

organization.

"I was only nineteen at the time," Mirabel said. "And I've already done all the apologizing

I'm going to do." She unrolled another parchment. "Besides, that's not the point. The point

is—our fitness program is losing money. We're not going to have enough for the annual Iron Jill

retreat sacrifice unless we get some customers. And we're stuck with all those flower-painted

step-stools and those beastly mirrors which have to be polished…"

"Recruits' work," Blanche said.

"Yes, but not exactly military training. As for the ladies themselves—they looked pretty

good at the dance two days ago," Mirabel had been on what the Guard called "drunk duty" that

night, and had attributed certain ladies' newly slender limbs to her sisters' efforts in the Ladies

Aid and Armor Society Shape-up Classes.

"Who looked good?" asked Krystal. No one would trust Krystal for drunk duty at a royal

ball; she was entirely too likely to disappear down dark corridors with one of the drunks she

was supposed to sober up. She claimed her methods worked as well as the time-honored

bucket of water from the stable-yard well, but the sergeants didn't agree. Mirabel, like most of

the guards, thoroughly enjoyed sousing the high-born with a bucket of cold water.

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Elizabeth Moon - No Pain, No Gain

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