by Sharon Green
“But they were wrong, of course, because I’m much better than just a stinking Middle,” Hat continued, swiping at his nose with one hand. “They gave me a coach ticket to get rid of me, to hide the fact that they’d made a mistake, but I’m no hayseed to be gotten rid of that easily. I’m staying right here in Gan Garee, where I can prove how wrong they were.”
Hat’s eyes were almost blazing now, but Lorand couldn’t think of anything to say. How do you tell your best friend that his dreams had died so he might as well forget them? It would hurt Hat less to have a knife plunged into his chest, but Lorand wouldn’t have been able to do that either. Maybe if he told Hat the true situation…
“I think I’d better tell you right now how lucky you really are,” Lorand began, incredibly relieved that he’d thought of a way to help Hat. “This isn’t anything like what we imagined it would be, and you’re lucky to be out from under. You see—”
“Lucky?” Hat barked, that ugly look back on his face. “You’re trying to tell me I’m lucky to have been cheated of what’s mine? Look at those clothes you’ve got on, and look at this house! I’ve been sleeping in alleyways, you fool, and I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning! Everybody in this city is a thief, stealing everything I had and then going after my blood! It wasn’t as if I expected those dice games to be fair, but I couldn’t have lost as much in them as they said! They cheated me when all I wanted was a good-enough stake to keep me alive until I proved the testing people were wrong! Even the silver I got from turning in the coach ticket is gone, so you’ve got to help me! I saw you in that carriage this morning and knew your driver from the neighborhood I’ve been sleeping in, and that’s how I found you. Now you’ve got to help me, you’ve got to!”
“Hat, take it easy,” Lorand tried to soothe, jumping into the tirade at the first opportunity. Hat was completely out of control, and the sight was painfully pitiable.
“Don’t tell me to take it easy!” Hat tried to shout, but the hoarseness his voice had become refused to let it happen. “I just want to hear you say you’ll help me! You owe it to me, Lor, you know you do. If you hadn’t been there when I went to take the test, they wouldn’t have stolen my place from me! I figured out that they must have a quota, only one High applicant accepted at a time, and they took you because you’re taller and better-looking. So you owe me plenty and you’d better start paying up!”
“What kind of help do you want, Hat?” Lorand asked, trying to stay quiet and reasonable. “Would you like to join us for dinner? I’m sure there’s enough for one more and I can help you clean up while—”
“Excuse me, Dom Coll, but that won’t be possible,” Warla interrupted in little more than a whisper. Both women were still there, wearing expressions of pity, but Warla forced herself to go on. “Lady Eltrina was painfully clear on what we can and cannot do, and feeding or sheltering someone who hasn’t been assigned here are two things we’re forbidden. I might be able to put together some bread and cheese to be taken away, but—”
“You can keep your stinking bread and cheese!” Hat tried to shout at her, making the poor little thing flinch back. “I’ll buy real food when he hands over all the silver he has left which is probably more than he started with. You hear me, Lor? You run and get that silver, and then you can start thinking of the words you’ll use when you tell your fancy friends that you’re giving up your place to me. It should have been me anyway, so they’ll find they’re getting a true bargain. Now—”
“Hat, stop it!” Lorand snapped, finally admitting that reason and patience would do nothing against Hat’s delusions. “I have no silver left at all, and the idea that I can give up my place to you is ridiculous. I know how disappointed you are that you didn’t pass the test, but telling yourself fairy tales won’t change anything. There isn’t any ‘quota’ and I didn’t steal your place. I know what Master Lugal told you before we left, so why are you doing this?”
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Hat said slowly, staring at him as though he were lower than grub slime. “You’re in with them, my best friend is hand in glove with the garbage who stole my place! Is that the deal you made with them, Lor? They’d give you new clothes and a great place to live, and you’d help them keep their mistake quiet? Have I finally gotten to the truth?”
“You’ll have to make up your mind, Dom,” Tamrissa put in, stepping closer to stand beside Lorand. “Either they made a mistake, or they had a quota. If you’re going to lie to yourself, you ought to keep the lies straight. But you know as well as we do that Dom Coll had nothing to do with your failure to pass the test. You managed that all on your own, and now I’d like you to leave my house the same way.”
“You’re all trying to confuse me, but it won’t work,” Hat said, shaking his head, and Lorand finally noticed that the man was more drunk than hung over. He would have removed the alcohol if he could have, but even Middle strength in their shared aspect was enough to let Hat keep himself from being touched in that way.
“No, trying to confuse me won’t work because I know the truth,” Hat continued, and then his expression—crumpled. “But you have to give me the silver, Lor, they said they’ll kill me if I don’t get it! They cheated me and robbed me, and now they’re threatening to kill me! If you don’t give it to me, there’s no place else to get it!”
“Maybe he doesn’t know any better than that, but I do,” Tamrissa put in again while Lorand stood wrapped in sudden guilt. Hat needed money, but he didn’t have any to give! “If you’re a certified Middle in Earth magic, you can get a job just by asking for it. There are always streets that need to be recobbled, lawns that need to have weeds Discouraged, pets and working animals that need to be coaxed and—”
“No!” Hat interrupted as sharply as his hoarseness allowed. “That’s scut work, and I refuse to do scut work! I’m a High, not some crummy Middle, so why should I lower myself? Lor will give me the silver, and then I’ll—”
“Hat, I don’t have it!” Lorand interrupted in turn, now more disgusted than pitying. “They made sure we don’t have money, so we have to do everything their way. Is that what you’re jealous of, not being in a position where other people have the say over your entire life? What happened to the common sense you used to have?”
“You won’t do it?” Hat said, obviously hearing nothing but what he wanted to. “You won’t part with some lousy silver even to save my life? Something told me it would be that way, but I refused to believe it until it happened. Now I have to believe it, but there’s something for you to believe as well: I’ll get even for this if it’s the last thing I ever do. Enjoy your silver and your clothes and your fancy house, because you won’t have them for as long as you think.”
“Hat, don’t do this,” Lorand began, but the other man was lurching toward the door and then out into the night. Warla closed the door gently behind him before hurrying away, and Tamrissa put a commiserating hand to his arm.
“In spite of everything you’re probably still worrying about him, but you shouldn’t,” she said in a gentle voice. “He lied about everything including his life being in danger, that I can assure you. We once had a servant who came by with the same story concerning a gambling debt, but my husband refused to give him an advance on his wages. I fully expected the man to be killed, but his creditors just had him beaten up. Not badly enough to keep him from working, but badly enough for him to hurt while he did. The point, I was told, was that dead men can’t pay up on what they owe.”
“I wonder if that applies to men who refuse to work,” Lorand said, sending her a brief smile of thanks. “But in any event I appreciated the help you tried to give. Maybe if he hadn’t been drunk, what you said might have done some good.”
“I doubt it,” Tamrissa replied, wrinkling her nose. “I can understand being horribly disappointed, but I can’t understand passing up a chance to make things even a little better. He found it easier to blame you for his troubles than to do something about them, which means he doesn�
��t deserve the least amount of sympathy. But at least we learned something: if you can’t pass the test, they don’t really let you die.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Lorand warned her, using the new topic to get the bad taste of his former friend out of his mouth. “He said he was told he was a Middle, which means he wasn’t a legitimate candidate for High. If actual potential Highs are also saved and sent home, we either ought to know of some, or this city should be crawling with them.”
“Well I don’t know any, and the city isn’t crawling with them,” she answered with a sigh. “That brings us back to where we were, but you may not know yet where that is. Jovvi and I have been discussing some things, and we’ve come up with certain guesses and decisions.”
“Yes, I know,” Lorand replied, following her gesture as she began to lead the way back to the library. “Dama Hafford mentioned the matter to Dom Ro, and he passed it on to Dom Mardimil and me in the bath house. We decided not to say anything to Dom Drowd and Dom Holter, because the speculation could well do them more harm than good.”
“Please make yourself comfortable in that chair, and I’ll pour the tea,” she said with another smile and gesture after closing the door. “And I agree completely about not telling Dom Drowd, but not because of any worries over him. The man is positively poisonous, and doesn’t deserve to have any of us help him.”
“Rion—Dom Mardimil—feels the same way,” Lorand admitted, taking the chair she’d pointed out. “I can’t say I like the man myself, but that doesn’t mean I’ll enjoy seeing him dead or worse. Which will happen if all our speculations turn out to be true.”
“It’s hard to see how they won’t,” she said, coming over with his tea before taking another cup to her own chair. “I really hope we turn out to be wrong, but either way we’ll have to wait and see. But now you and I will have to find something else to talk about. I invited you in here to give us privacy when I told you about our guesswork, and it will look strange to any of the servants in Lady Eltrina’s pay if we end the talk too soon.”
“Is this what they mean by intrigue?” Lorand asked with faint amusement. “If it is, I don’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would as a boy. But there is something we can talk about, if you don’t mind my asking for some advice. And if you and Dama Hafford are as close as you seem to be.”
“Aha!” she said with a grin, leaning forward in her chair. “I think I’m going to enjoy this topic a good deal more than the other one. I don’t mind in the least giving any advice I can, Jovvi and I are becoming fast friends, and please call me Tamrissa.”
“With pleasure, Tamrissa,” Lorand responded with a laugh that hopefully wasn’t too self-conscious. “And I’m Lorand, or, if you prefer, Lor. And now I wish I knew where to begin. The subject is a delicate one, and not the sort of thing I’d ordinarily discuss with a lady. Now that I think about it, I’m sure I’ve made a mistake bringing it up in the first place. Maybe we could talk instead about—”
“Lorand, don’t you dare!” she interrupted, looking as if she were close to tears. “No one has ever asked for my advice before, and if you don’t give me a chance I’ll—I’ll—never forgive you. Do you want me to never forgive you?”
“No, I don’t believe I could live under a burden like that,” Lorand surrendered with a sigh, silently cursing his big mouth. If he hadn’t blurted out the most pressing thing on his mind—! Well, done was done, so he’d better make the best of it.
“Good,” Tamrissa said with her smile returned, settling back with her teacup. “Now tell me all about it.”
“Let me see if I can find the proper way to put it,” Lorand temporized, thinking frantically. How was he supposed to describe Jovvi’s profession to an innocent and sheltered young lady? But with that as the core of his problem, he had to describe it. Why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth shut or simply discussed the weather?
“It’s taking you a very long time to find the proper way to put it,” Tamrissa ventured after what really was a long, awkward silence. “Couldn’t you just put it—improperly?”
“I suppose I might as well,” Lorand agreed with another sigh, all his thinking having given him very little. “Let me begin by saying that I hold Jovvi in the highest regard, and I feel honored that she seems to return my feelings to a small degree. I’ve … even broached the subject of marriage—assuming we all get through this testing business in one piece—but that was something she didn’t find interest in. Apparently her former profession … biased her against marriage, and has become something of a—stumbling block between us. You see, she was a – ah—that is, a—”
“A courtesan,” Tamrissa supplied without a blink. “Yes, I know, she told me. What about it?”
“What about it?” Lorand echoed, unsure of whether to be relieved or shocked, and then he understood. “Oh, I see, you know the word, but don’t know what it means. Now, how can I explain it without offending you…?”
“Lorand, I’m not a child,” she said with the slightest trace of annoyance in her tone. “I know what a courtesan is and does, and just like most young girls, I used to dream about being one. On some level I still consider the life unbelievably romantic, even if my late husband made the thought of associating with men more than just a little distasteful. But that’s my problem rather than yours. What part of all that did you need advice about?”
“Romantic?” Lorand said, finding it almost impossible to get beyond that word through his shock. “It isn’t romantic, it’s … wrong. And what did you mean by that dreaming comment? Most young girls do not dream about becoming courtesans.”
“I’d say I’m in a better position to know about that than you are,” she returned, now looking at him oddly. “Unless, of course, you’ve actually asked thousands of young girls, and had a way of knowing you were answered truthfully. Did you?”
“Of course not,” he said, trying to ignore the blush he felt on his face. “I just happen to know what I know, the same thing everyone in my neighborhood district knew. No decent girlwould ever dream of becoming a courtesan.”
“What has decency got to do with being a courtesan?” Tamrissa asked, beginning to look as confused as he felt. “A standard of decency is applied to things that would harm others, but what harm does a courtesan do? Her task is to provide pleasure, and the more popular she is the more of it she provides. What’s indecent about that?”
“It … just isn’t right,” Lorand insisted, trying again to put his point of view into words. “A courtesan’s main purpose is to … lure men into coming to her, into wanting to be with her rather than with his family. How do you think such a man’s wife feels? Isn’t she being harmed?”
“Personally, I would have danced with glee if my husband had ignored me in favor of a courtesan, and then I would have felt terribly sorry for the poor girl.” Tamrissa’s words were on the dry side, but there was no doubt she meant them. “But that’s just me, so let’s examine the silliness you just offered from a more objective stance. Are you saying men are so weak-willed and pliable that they would leave women they loved to spend time with the first courtesan who crooked a finger at them? Would you do that?”
“No, of course not,” Lorand conceded, feeling his frown. “But I happen to be a man of principle. Some men are not, which brings their wives endless grief.”
“Are you saying now that courtesans are responsible for those men being scoundrels?” Tamrissa asked, her head to one side. “I’ve learned that scoundrels don’t simply change because there’s no easy opportunity for them to take advantage of. In the absence of courtesans, they go prowling among unsuspecting single women and the wives of their friends. You’ve found it otherwise?”
Lorand immediately thought of the rakes in Widdertown, and the long lists of conquests they were always boasting about. The lack of courtesans in the area hadn’t stopped any of them…
“And then there’s that matter of love,” Tamrissa went on, having grown thoughtful. “It’s d
ifficult for me to picture what that must be like, to be so close to someone else that they matter more than anything else in the entire world, including yourself. I read that once, a long time ago, and still don’t really understand it. But even more, I don’t understand why someone who feels like that would find a courtesan at all attractive. The only possibility I can think of is that they don’t feel like that at all, and only claim to.”
Once again Lorand’s memories of home returned, this time centering around community picnics and gatherings. How many of the husbands had stood around staring at and daydreaming about all the prettier girls and women? How many of the wives had stood whispering and laughing together while inspecting the most handsome young men? But all those married people had claimed to be very happy and very much in love…
“And then there are the women who, like your friend who visited earlier, enjoy blaming others for their own shortcomings. One of the men in my husband’s circle of acquaintances was married to a woman who never had a kind thing to say about or to him, not to mention sweet or loving things. Nothing he ever did pleased or satisfied her, and it was actually painful to be around them at a party. And yet when he began to see a courtesan on a regular basis, she was shocked and outraged. What right did she have to feel like that, when she was the one who drove him away?”
“Possibly she was disappointed that he failed to live up to the vows he’d taken,” Lorand suggested, unable to meet the direct gaze she now regarded him with. “If you commit yourself to something, you’re honor bound to stay with it no matter how difficult it becomes.”
“I think we’re discussing peoples’ lives, not building a house,” she objected gently, the words softer than her stare. “And sometimes other people or the circumstance of the time commit you to things without consulting your preferences. Staying in an unbearable situation doesn’t make you honorable, it makes you a masochist. And what about people who hide what they’re really like until they have you trapped? Why do you have to be honorable when they lied about what you were getting into? And—”