Maribel Vargas, owner of "Elixir d'Armagnac" inn

Maribel VARGAS

Name: Maria Belen Vargas Heredia
Aliases: Maribel, Belle

Age: 22 - born on 16-th of June 1697
Gender: Female

Occupation: keeper of the inn “Elixir d’Armagnac”

Current Location: Basse Terre, Tortuga

Character PB: Sarita Montiel

General appearance: She has raven black hair, long up to the waist, styling it in various ways. Sometimes she has a sort of bun fixed with a net and traditional Spanish combs, or she might have plain tresses, rolled around her head somehow or let hanging on her shoulders. Anyway, she seldom lets it loose. A flower might be caught in her combs sometimes. She learnt from one of the tavern girls to wash her hair with nut tea, in order to get reddish shades, but these don't last much. Her eyes are charcoal black. She has pierced ears, with long earrings. She doesn’t wear any make up.

Clothing: – The dresses she wears are modest, usually made by herself, quite loose, with elbow length sleeves, accented with lace. She doesn’t wear hampering corsets and she doesn’t flaunt really low necklines, even if she likes being somehow in fashion. The bodices might be of various colours. She has two Spanish style dresses too, brought by the smugglers from the Spanish Main, which she wears only when the tavern is full and she likes putting a dancing show, remembering the jotas and sevillanas from home.

Personality: Social and extroverted, Maribel enjoys large crowds, flirting, being admired and the center of attention. She has always been proud of who she was, accepting both her heritages and she has always loved being different.

Men can see a spirited and graceful young woman, who teases, jokes and gets her way. She can charm her way out of the stickiest of situations when needed. Since her life had experienced so radical turns and twists, Maribel likes to be in control of herself. She keeps away from liquor, as she had seen young lives destroyed by alcohol, and her Math skills are put to use making sure the tavern gets a profit, as she is rather business-oriented, a trait inherited from her father.

On the negative side, Maribel has a temper and a sharp tongue when somebody has crossed her, but her friends know her as loyal and reliable, always ready to please, to help, and her acquaintances are in a wide range of fields, so she always knows somebody who might be of help to one of her friends for a right price.

Her greatest sadness is that she cannot have children, and this is why she adopts kittens, street urchins, "damsels" in distress...

Strengths:
+ She has a native talent for foreign languages. Besides her native Spanish, she learnt quickly French from the pirates of “Goeland” and then some English, good for business. She also speaks a little her mother’s language, Rromani, but not too much.
+ She can sing and dance equally well, being also good at storytelling.
+ She learnt from her mother to read cards, and she does it sometimes for herself and for the other girls around. She also learnt some of the secrets of healing plants

Weaknesses:
- She tends to speak her mind when angry, hurting the other party and making enemies. She also threatens the ones who offend her with gypsy curses, but nobody knows that it is unlikely she would really cast them.
- She is impatient and she can rarely stand to wait for something for much time
- She has a wild heart longing for love – a charming man can seduce her into doing anything for him.

Birth place: Cartagena , Spain

Family:
Father – Antonio Vargas, former merchant, then tavern keeper (deceased)
Mother – Maria Salome Heredia, married Vargas (deceased)
Siblings:
Antonia, 18 months younger
Juan Batista, almost four years younger (deceased)
Salome, seven years younger (deceased)
Jose, ten years younger (deceased)

History:
Maribel is the eldest child of a man from a family of wealthy merchants from Madrid, who fell in love with a gypsy girl during a business voyage to Granada. Unlike other rich youngsters, he decided he wanted to marry her, facing therefore both his parents’ wrath, who disowned him, and her family’s. However, the gypsies proved to be more understanding than the rich merchant, and they finally accepted their in-law. His business spirit was appreciated, his advice helping them gain some money, and with some unsaid associates, after a few months of marriage bliss he was helped to open a small tavern in Cartagena, a little port at the Mediterranean Sea. The family’s children were born there.

The tavern business went well, it had customers, brought also by Maria Salome’s songs and dances… Gypsies, fishermen and sailors came often to the tavern, and the children liked to hear their stories about other cities or adventures.

When Maribel was fourteen, her mother and two youngest siblings died of an epidemic fever. Her father couldn’t stand anymore living in that town which kept the image of his beloved wife, so a few months later he decided to sell the tavern and buy passage on a boat to the Colonies, together with his remaining three children, in order to start their life anew in a new territory.

The ship was attacked by French pirates, most men were killed and most of the young women were sold to brothels in the first port they anchored, but the master gunner of “Goeland” kept Maribel for himself, and he was seducing enough to charm the fifteen years old girl into loving him. Unlike some others, the captain didn’t mind that some of his men kept women aboard, as long as this didn’t distract them from their tasks – and Maribel knew to make herself useful, mainly in the galley, but also with mending sails and other small tasks.

So she spent the next three years with Hervé Guénan, on the pirate ship, but the love bliss ended in a pool of blood when he was killed during a naval fight. The captain explained her curtly that either she chooses another man, or she would be disembarked. She chose the second option, but only after a serious negotiation with the captain, where she demonstrated both her understanding of the pirate laws and the business spirit inherited from her father. In conclusion, she got disembarked in Tortuga, she received the share due to the master gunner’s widow and, as it wasn’t enough for her plans for the future, the captain contributed a sum too in order to buy a small tavern, clean it and decorate it to her taste. It received the name “Elixir d’Armagnac,” as the captain of “Goeland” was Gascon, it got flourishing due to Maribel’s business skills and to what she had learnt from her father about running a tavern, and she dreams that one day she will have enough money to buy back the captain’s share in her business. (And one day her dream became true by learning that captain Grezaud will never return, the ship sunk with no survivors).

Weapon Skills: She has a pistol in the drawer, just in case

Theme song: Entre dos amores by Ana Belen

...and another version of her, a prostitute in 1865 USA...

MARIA BELEN (MARIBEL) VARGAS

19, SARITA MONTIEL, SALOON GIRL, FEMALE

APPEARANCE

Maribel is of medium height, curvy, with dark eyes and dark hair, long up to the waist, styling it in various ways. Sometimes she has a sort of bun fixed with a net and traditional Spanish combs, or she might have plain tresses, rolled around her head somehow or let hanging on her shoulders. Anyway, she seldom lets it loose. As a prostitute, she learnt to wash her hair with nut tea, in order to get reddish shades, but these don't last much.

She has pierced ears, with long earrings. She likes less make-up than other girls in her trade, and her clothing is less skimpy than others’, even if the necklines are low-cut. Revealing enough, but still letting to the imagination, is her style.

PERSONALITY

Social and extroverted, Maribel enjoys large crowds, flirting, being admired and the center of attention. She has always been proud of who she was, accepting both her heritages and she has always loved being different.

Men can see a spirited and graceful young woman who knows how to lure them and to please them. She can charm her way out of the stickiest of situations when needed. On the negative side, Maribel has a temper and a sharp tongue when somebody has crossed her, but her friends know her as loyal and reliable, always ready to please, to help, and her acquaintances are in a wide range of fields, so she always knows somebody who might be of help to one of her friends for a right price.

Since her life had experienced so radical turns and twists, Maribel likes to be in control of herself. Yes, she has to be a prostitute - at least for a while, as she thinks, hoping for a better future – but she learnt from the women around her both what to do and what not to do. She keeps away from liquor, as she had seen young lives destroyed by alcohol, and her Math skills are put to use making sure she won't acquire debt. Otherwise, she couldn't leave this town and saloon some day, as she wishes...

Strengths:
+ She has a native talent for foreign languages. Besides her native Spanish, she learnt quickly English, even if she speaks it with a strong Spanish accent. She also speaks a little her mother’s language, Rromani, but not too much.
+ She can sing and dance equally well, being also good at storytelling.
+ She learnt from her mother to read cards, and she does it sometimes for herself and for the other girls around. She also learnt some of the secrets of healing plants.

Weaknesses:
- She tends to speak her mind when angry, hurting the other party and making enemies. She also threatens the ones who offend her with gypsy curses, but nobody knows that it is unlikely she would really cast them.
- She is impatient and she can rarely stand to wait for something for much time
- She has a wild heart longing for love – a charming man can seduce her into doing anything for him.
- Her total lack of fighting skills may make her a victim of a violent man, thing which happens to many women in her trade.

HISTORY

Father: – Antonio Vargas, former merchant, then innkeeper
Mother: – Maria Salome Heredia, married Vargas
Siblings:
- Antonia, 18 months younger
- Juan Batista, almost four years younger
- Salome, seven years younger

When the son of a wealthy merchant from Madrid, Antonio Vargas, went in his father’s place to Granada, to conclude some business, he participated at the festival of Saint John, dances included, and fell in love with a beautiful girl who danced wonderfully. He made a few more voyages to Granada, under the excuse of the business his father sought, spending the most time possible with Maria Salome, until he decided he wanted to marry her, irrespective how poor she was.

They had to face both his parents’ wrath, who disowned him, and her family’s, because they had never heard among their people a gitana to marry a gaché, a Spaniard, it was against any laws! They got married, but they had to put the ocean between them and both sets of angry relatives, seeking their fortune in Mexico, where Antonio Vargas had some business connections.

There, his business spirit and the money they had with them helped them open a small inn in a town in the North, not too far from the border with the United States. The family’s children were born there. Maribel was the first born. One year and a half later, another daughter followed, Antonia, and after two years more, a son, Juan Batista, then one more daughter.

The inn business went well, it had customers, brought also by Maria Salome’s songs and dances… People from both sides of the border came often to the tavern, locals and travelers of all kind, and the children liked to hear their stories about other cities or adventures. The children learnt to sing and dance from their mother. Unlike the local customs, even the girls were sent to the parish school, to learn to read, write and calculate, because their father wanted them to know how a tavern is ran, thinking to marry them with sons of inn-keepers or tavern-keepers.

When Maribel was 15, the war with the French started. Emperor Maximilian’s army invaded, and, given the secret agreements between President Juarez and his counterpart, President Lincoln, some troops of American volunteers came to help the Mexicans against the French. In this context a handsome American sergeant, named Vincent Fay, got stationed in the inn together with his troops. He liked the girl, who was dancing together with her sisters, while Juan Batista was playing the guitar, but he was not as honourable as Maribel’s father had been.

He charmed her and convinced her to run away with him. It wasn’t too difficult, as he was her first love. She would have followed him anywhere, not only to his home, somewhere up North, where she was promised a wedding and a happy life. Which young girl in love wouldn’t have believed her hero? Only that somewhere in upper Missouri, on the way back to his home, the love bliss ended in a pool of blood when he was killed in a tavern brawl, leaving her penniless and barely able to speak some English.

Maribel’s first intention was to remain there and work as a tavern maid, because this was what she had learnt to do in her parents’ tavern, and where else to go? She was good with calculating the bills, she had been the eldest and she had helped around since she was nine. However, nobody had warned her that in most American saloons, being a barmaid meant also being a prostitute. The good times in her father’s inn, when she was respected as Antonio’s daughter and nobody asked more from her than delivering promptly, with a smile, what was ordered, and a dance on festive evenings, together with her mother and sister, were over – accordingly, she had to learn a painful lesson.

After having been taught - violently, as she had rebelled at first, what submission to men's desires really meant, Maribel had to learn to become a rather skilled seductress. She was known as Belle, exactly how Vincent used to calling her, and the natural grace and beauty of the sixteen years old newcomer attracted enough customers. Her artistic talents were also cultivated by the tavern keeper, who knew that she could draw more men in the saloon if the merry-making included also songs and dances.

This was how an outlaw fell in love with her, and he promised her to help her get away from the abusive tavern keeper, who had beaten her and the other girls when they didn’t earn enough money for him. But as the gang had a leader to obey, and he was not the one, the leader came with a better idea than having a woman to carry with them in the wilderness: yes, he was free to seduce her, to kidnap her from the said tavern where the keeper said she had accumulated debts and she was not free to leave, but she had to be persuaded to continue her profession somewhere else where the outlaws would consider profitable, with the active mission of spying for them. She was to gather any useful information for the gang…

So she was brought to Temperance, to the “Gold Nugget” saloon, and she is there for nearly one year. Her love for the said outlaw had started to fade after hearing some rumours about him, confirmed from several travelers, but she is still passing intelligence to the gang and she hadn’t shown yet what she had learnt about him.