by Carol A Park
It was like another piece of herself being stripped away. This time, it would be literally.
And did she have grand plans to marry and start a family now? Why did it matter?
It shouldn’t. This was what she wanted, after all. She needed it not to matter.
“Very well,” Elidor said. “You may begin immediately.” He left the room, without so much as a glance at Ivana.
Once again, Lavena turned to face her. To Ivana’s surprise, her eyes had softened with the departure of Elidor. “I am not a cruel mistress,” she said. “This is merely a means to an end for all of us—a means to make our way in this world. Let me tell you what to expect.” She gestured toward one of the chairs at the dining room table, and Ivana sat. Lavena continued to pace back and forth in front of her. “Today, during our first session, we will merely have a frank conversation. I need to know what foundation we will be working with. In subsequent sessions, I will take you through my normal training for new hires.
“Contrary to what you may assume, most of the initial training focuses on transaction rather than technique: how to extract the greatest fee from the client.” Lavena stopped her pacing for a moment to glance Ivana’s way. “I believe you will find this—the art of manipulation—to be the most useful for your goals. Technique is not unimportant, but learning to be what you are expected to be, do what you are expected to do, and say what you are expected to say, so as to put the client at ease, will serve your purposes in particular.”
Ivana almost snorted. Be what I am expected to be. She already knew how to do that. But the way Da Lavena described it, it almost sounded like it was her whores who were the ones who were in control—unbeknownst to their clients.
“We will also spend a brief amount of time on safety. Those who frequent my house know my guidelines for treatment of my girls, and therefore this is not usually a problem. However, we welcome new clients, and every once in a while we run into a rotten one. I train all of my girls to be able to extract themselves from situations that they sense are turning sour. You will be no exception, and once again, you may find this useful in applications beyond this training.”
In spite of her own misgivings, Ivana was beginning to understand how this training might serve her—and Elidor’s—purposes.
“Then, yes,” Lavena continued, “we will spend some time on technique, especially in areas where you may be lacking experience. Rather quickly, we will move to practice, because as with most things, that is where the real learning will occur. I will select appropriate clients for you, and as far as they know, you are a new worker.” The tap-tap of her shoes stopped again, and she gave Ivana a sharp glance. “And you will obey my rules and treat the training seriously, or it will end, no matter how well I am being paid for it. I will not have the reputation of my establishment sullied.”
Ivana lowered her eyes. If Lavena terminated her training early, Ivana was certain there would be consequences. “Yes, Da,” she murmured, then hesitated.
“You have a question?”
“Do many of your new, ah, workers, already come to you with significant experience?”
“Some, but not all. Don’t concern yourself with your level of experience. I’ve trained everyone from the sexual neophyte to the one who thought she knew it all—frankly, the worst kind. You will get there.”
Ivana said nothing. She had enough experience to last her a lifetime.
“On that matter, let us begin.” Lavena found another chair, pulled it over to face Ivana’s, and then sat. “This is not the time for false modesty or prudishness.” Lavena paused and her eyes caught and held Ivana’s. “Leave nothing out.”
Unwanted
“…the bleeding…”
The words Ivana could make out from the other room as she drifted in and out of a half-conscious state were not encouraging. She was so tired. She was too tired to even cry out in pain with the contractions anymore. The pain seemed to go on, and on. Hours and hours…
A wet cloth was placed on her head, and she roused herself enough to see her mother’s haggard, anxious face above her. “Ana? Stay with us, sweetie. The midwife says we’re almost there.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.
“Shh. Yes, you can.” She offered her a smile. “I did it, twice, and so can you.”
But something was different. Something was wrong. The baby was coming too early. Even she knew that. Barely a month had passed since her father—
She turned her face away as unbidden tears rose. She couldn’t think about that right now. She had to prepare herself for yet more pain. She had to be rational. Though everything within her screamed otherwise, she knew enough to know that the chances of the babe surviving for long were slim this early, unless she had miscalculated.
She clung to that hope.
Her mother left her side to hold another hushed conference with the midwife, and Ivana focused on their faces.
Yes, something was definitely wrong, and not only with the early birth.
She wanted to vomit, but she couldn’t even manage the strength to empty retch. There was nothing left in her stomach by now. They had finally made her lie down for a bit because she was too weak to continue crouching.
She was dizzy. Maybe she was going to die. It happened sometimes. Childbirth could be dangerous. Why, just last year, the baker’s wife in town had died while giving birth to their third daughter.
“Am I going to die?” she whispered. Was she afraid or relieved at the idea? A just reward, it seemed, in her pain-hazed state.
The midwife and her mother exchanged glances. After paying for a proper burial for her father and a month of rent to Kadmon to stay in their house, they had used some of what was left of Airell’s blood money to pay for a midwife to attend her when she started having problems a week ago. Pain when there shouldn’t have been. Bleeding.
There wasn’t much left of the money. What would they do when it was gone? They had enough savings for maybe another month of living expenses.
The pain intensified again.
With her mother on one side and her poor sister on the other to help her stay upright, Ivana finally delivered the child into the midwife’s hands.
Even though she was exhausted and dizzy, all she could think about was seeing the baby as her mother and sister had helped her back into the bed.
It wasn’t crying. Why wasn’t it crying? Weren’t babies supposed to cry after they were born? “Where is he?” she asked, frantic.
“She,” the midwife said, and she handed her the babe wrapped in a blanket. Tears were in the midwife’s eyes. “I’m sorry, child. I had hoped… But it’s clear that it was too soon. I’ll be surprised if she lives out the hour. If you could have lasted another two or three weeks, there might have been some hope.” She shook her head. “We need to deal with your situation right now.”
She didn’t even ask what her situation was. She just looked down at the tiny body in her arms. If she could have lasted another few weeks. If only she could have… If only she… Her fault again, somehow, perhaps something she’d done.
What was worse, it had all been for naught. She could have taken the apothecary’s damn medicine, saved her reputation, saved her father.
Her thoughts were becoming sluggish and scattered. Possibly, she might have even saved herself.
Why hadn’t she just taken it? To retaliate against a man who didn’t even care? The principle of the matter?
She was too much like her father.
She touched the cheek of the child—purple, wrinkled, and covered in a white film, but her daughter—and then her miniscule hand, which had escaped the blanket. A wave of grief washed over her, and then another wave of dizziness before… She lost consciousness.
A week passed. Ivana sat on the couch, staring off into space, numb. Her mother had insisted she get out of bed. The danger to herself had passed, and now she needed to move around.
They had taken away her daughter, who had died severa
l hours after Ivana had delivered her, and buried her next to her father the next day. She could have taken the apothecary’s poison and none of this would have happened.
After everything, it hadn’t even mattered.
Her mother handed her a steaming mug, urging her to drink. Ivana didn’t know how her mother did it. How did she go on, as if everything were normal?
But she saw the grief and exhaustion and pain in her mother’s eyes.
It was the only way she could cope. And Ivana had driven her to this shell of a life.
A knock sounded on the door, and Izel, who had withdrawn even further from Ivana, rose to answer it.
A messenger handed Izel a sealed letter, then hurried away, no doubt eager to get back inside somewhere warm.
Izel closed the door and handed the note to their mother wordlessly.
She took it, looked at the seal, and then opened it. Her eyes roved over the message, once, twice, and then a third time, and then she set the note down on the table with a trembling hand.
“What is it, Mama?” Izel asked.
“Lord Kadmon,” she said, her voice tight, “offers his condolences. He also informs us that he has found a new tutor for his children and thus we will regrettably need to find new living accommodations within the week.”
They had known they wouldn’t be able to stay there forever—but so soon?
They would lose their father and husband, a child, and now the only home Ivana and Izel had ever known within the course of a month.
They were monsters, the nobles, demonspawn, every last one of them, each in their own way. How had Ivana ever aspired to be a part of their ranks?
“Well,” her mother said, breaking the silence. “No matter. I used to scribe, and I can do it again. We’ll find something comfortable in town until we can get back on our feet, yes?” She clapped her hands, as though this were a merry jaunt through the woods. “If we only have a week, we’d best start packing.”
Chapter Twelve
Ivana had never set foot in a brothel in her life. She had never deliberately passed by one. To her knowledge, she had never even spoken to a whore.
Yet here she lay, surrounded by them.
She had come to learn that Lavena’s “consort house” was superior in quality to a common brothel in the slums. They serviced only the upper-class and nobility—or those who could pay like them—and her women received a flat percentage of the profits for each appointment in addition to any personal tips a client might leave.
It all amounted to the same thing, as far as Ivana was concerned.
Consorts. Ha.
She was curled up in a ball on her bed in the large room the women shared, facing the wall with her back to the rest of the room and trying to pretend she didn’t hear their quiet snickers or feel their eyes on her.
After three weeks of discussion and instruction, Da Lavena had finally brought her here and introduced her to the four women who were in her employ. The creative story was that Ivana was a new worker at a colleague’s house who was having trouble acclimating; Lavena had therefore offered to train her and then send her back.
The others seemed to accept the story. Perhaps this wasn’t the first time this had actually happened, or perhaps they didn’t care.
Either way, none of them seemed pleased to have her there.
She wasn’t particularly pleased to be there, either, but it was preferable to death, she supposed.
She tried to tell herself that she didn’t care what a group of whores thought about her, but in reality the situation reminded her far too much of the way many of the other girls about her age had treated her on Lord Kadmon’s estate, or in her hometown. The barely polite greetings. The sniggers when she wasn’t looking. She was too smart, too quiet, too proper, too good, and, later, too ample in the chest—all of which combined to produce the general opinion that she was too stuck-up.
Ivana wished Lavena hadn’t felt the need to have her stay at the brothel. Not only did she not have access to her blade, but she preferred the solitude of her own small, dark room to the whispers and glances of these women.
Perhaps she was already more like Elidor than she thought.
“They’ll warm up eventually,” a voice said.
Ivana turned over and sat up. One of the women—a dark-skinned Venetian—was sitting on her own bed, the closest to Ivana’s.
“Your pardon?” Ivana asked, startled.
The woman flipped her thick braid over her shoulder. “They’re just jealous. They’re always like this with new workers.”
Ivana couldn’t help but give a short laugh. “Jealous? Of me?”
The woman chuckled. “Sure. They don’t know yet how the clientele might react, especially since we don’t have any other Fereharians among us. You’re unknown. You could steal some of their regulars, deliberately or not.”
Ivana blinked. “But why…” That remark had spawned so many follow-up questions, she didn’t even know how to finish.
The woman flashed her a brief smile. “The better you know a client, the easier it is to know what they want, and thus get better paid.”
“I-I see.” Don’t stutter. Ivana flipped her own hair over her shoulder and tried to feign more confidence. “You’re talking to me.”
“I’ve been around for ages. My clients aren’t going anywhere.” She shrugged. “And I know what it’s like to be new.” She paused. “My name’s Cozama. So what’s your story?”
Ivana stared at her.
“You know.” Cozama shrugged. “You didn’t grow up aiming to be a whore, did you?”
Ivana had never thought of it that way. “I was orphaned,” she said. “And had nowhere else to go.” Close enough to the truth.
Cozama nodded. “Happens that way a lot.” She jerked her head toward a pale-skinned Fuilynian woman. “Fianna over there was raised by her grandmother, and she sends the money home so her grandma can afford her rent and medicine, and probably her lupque. The woman talking to her, Maeveen, she, well, she came from a real bad place.
“Then there’s Mabina. She was orphaned real young. Worst kind of pimp dragged her out of a workhouse when she was eight and put her to work.”
Ivana shuddered. Eight? Burning skies.
Cozama nodded. “Lavena rescued her a few years back.”
Rescued? Ivana hadn’t spoken, but the look on her face must have spoken for her.
“Look, first thing you have to learn, working here: you’re lucky. You’re real lucky. Most of us know the other options. Lavena treats us right. She makes sure the clients are respectable. She doesn’t tolerate abuse. She runs them through all the tests for disease before they lay a finger on us.” She paused. “It’s not always like that, maybe not even usually like that. Ask Mabina. She’ll tell you.” Cozama winced. “Don’t ask Maeveen. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Ivana swallowed. “And you?”
“I’ve got a daughter at home; she lives with my sister. Bastard who got her on me left after I had her, and we didn’t have much as it was.” Cozama made a face, as if she had talked about eating her least favorite food. “Good riddance. Anyway, I send the money home like Fianna. I’m lucky. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t had a sister to help.”
“Why not live with your sister?” Ivana asked before she could stop herself.
Cozama gave her a side glance. “You had it nice before you were orphaned, didn’t you?”
Ivana’s face burned. “I guess I did.”
“Point is, no one here cares who you are or where you’re from. They want to know if you’re a threat to our group.” Cozama looked her up and down. “I don’t think you are.”
“I’m no threat,” Ivana said softly. “I don’t even want to be here.”
“That’s what Lavena said. Had trouble?”
“I thought I could do it.”
Cozama leaned forward. “Women like us, we’re doing what we can to survive. Some of us, we didn’t have an option, som
e of us, it’s a better option than something else.” She waved her hand at the only window in the room. “You can take your chances out there or in a workhouse, but you’ll probably end up in worse straights.” Her braid had snaked back over her shoulder, and she tossed it back again. “You remember that. You tell yourself that—over, and over. You’re doing what you gotta do, and we’ve got it pretty good. There isn’t anything more to it than that.”
She leaned back. “Anyway, Lavena’s the best,” Cozama said. “If anyone can get you through the first couple months, she can. After that, it gets easier. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it back at your house by then.”
Ivana nodded, and Cozama threw a glance at the clock. “It’s that time of night,” she said. “Several of us have regular appointments.” She winked at Ivana, rose, and left the room.
The other three women in the room eyed Ivana, and she gave them a tentative smile.
None smiled back, so she turned over on her bed and faced the wall again.
Cozama was right. The other women did eventually accept her. First one, and then another, and then finally all of them loosened up. Maeveen, the one who had “had it bad,” was quieter than the rest. But even she warmed up, in her way.
They talked more freely around her. They stopped casting her side glances. They did her hair and makeup, offered tips and encouragement as she continued her lessons with Lavena, and gossiped about things their clients had said or done while she was around and Lavena wasn’t. Occasionally, this last warranted some snickering, but only at the clients’ expense.
And the most uncomfortable thing she had had to do so far was discreetly—though with the permission of the client—observe a few of the interactions some of the other women had with their clients—those who stayed at the house for their appointments—and discuss her impressions with Lavena afterward.
She had a feeling her turn was coming soon.