in turn, ‘And what were you, before your father made you a slave on his ship?’
‘I was a priest of Sa. At least, I was in training to be one.’
She lifted one eyebrow. ‘Really? I’d rather be a whore.’
Her words ended their conversation irrevocably. There was nothing he could say in reply. He did not feel offended. She had pointed up the vast gulf between them in a way that denied they could communicate at all, let alone offend one another. She went back to her sewing, her head bent over her work. Her face was carefully expressionless. Wintrow felt he had lost a chance. Moments ago, it had seemed that she had opened a door to him. Now the barrier was back, solid as ever. Why should he care, he asked himself, for the depth of his disappointment surprised him? Because she was a back door to influencing Kennit, because he might need her goodwill someday, the sly part of himself suggested. Wintrow pushed the thought aside. Because she, too, is a creation of Sa, he told himself firmly. I should reach out to befriend her for herself, not for any influence she has with Kennit. Nor because she is unlike any woman I have ever known at all and I cannot resist the puzzle of her.
He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to sweep aside all social artifice. When he spoke, his words were sincere. ‘Please. Can we try again? I’d like to be friends.’
Etta looked up in surprise. Then her expression changed to a humourless smile. ‘In case I can save your life later? By intervening with Kennit?’
‘No!’ he protested.
‘That’s good. Because I have no influence over Kennit that way.’ Her voice dropped a note. ‘What there is between Kennit and me, I would not use that way.’
Wintrow sensed an opening. ‘I would not ask you to. I just…it would be nice to talk to someone. Just to talk. So much has befallen me recently. My friends are all dead, my father despises me, the slaves I helped do not seem to recall what I did for them, I suspect Sa’Adar would like to do away with me…’ His voice trailed away as he realized how self-pitying he sounded. He took a breath, but what came out next sounded even whinier. ‘I’m more alone than I’ve ever been. And I have no idea of what will become of me next.’
‘Who ever does?’ Etta asked him heartlessly.
‘I used to,’ he said quietly. His thoughts turned inward as he spoke. ‘When I was at the monastery, life seemed to stretch out before me like a shining road. I knew I would continue my studies. I knew I excelled at my chosen work. I genuinely loved my life. I had no desire to change any of it. Then I was summoned home, my grandfather died, and my father forced me to serve aboard the ship. Since then, I have had no say in my life. Every time I tried to take control of it, I only bent it in a stranger direction.’
She bit off her thread. ‘Sounds normal to me.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘I do not know. Perhaps it is, for other folk. I only know it was not what I was accustomed to, nor what I expected. I keep trying to think of a way to get back to where I was and restore my life to what it is supposed to be, but –’
‘You can’t go back,’ she told him bluntly. Her voice was neither kind nor unkind. ‘That part of your life is over. Set it aside as something you have finished. Complete or no, it is done with you. No being gets to decide what his life is “supposed to be”.’ She lifted her eyes and her gaze stabbed him. ‘Be a man. Discover where you are now, and go on from there, making the best of things. Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by. You may not die from such foolishness, but you might as well be dead for all the good your life will do you or anyone else.’ Wintrow was stunned. Heartless as her words were, they brimmed with wisdom. Almost reflexively, he sank into meditation breathing, as if this were a teaching direct from Sa’s scrolls. He explored her idea, following it to its logical conclusions.
Yes, these thoughts were of Sa, and worthy. Accept. Begin anew. Find humility again. Pre-judging his life, that was what he had been doing. Always his greatest flaw, Berandol had warned him. There was opportunity for good here, if he would just reach out towards it. Why had he been bent on returning to his monastery, as if Sa could only be found there? What had he just said to Etta? That the more he tried to take control of his life, the further he bent it. It was no wonder. He had been setting himself in opposition to Sa’s will for him.
He suddenly grasped how the slaves must have felt when the shackles were loosed from their ankles and wrists. Her words had freed him. He could let go of his self-imposed goals. He would lift up his eyes and look around him and see where Sa’s way beckoned him most clearly.
‘Stop staring at me like that.’ There was both command and an edged uneasiness in Etta’s voice. Wintrow immediately dropped his eyes.
‘I was not…I mean, I did not intend to stare. Your words simply woke in me such thoughts…Etta. Where were you taught such things?’
‘Such things as what?’ There was definite suspicion in her voice now.
‘Such things as accepting life and making the best of it…’ Spoken aloud, it seemed such a simple concept. Moments ago, those words had rung for him like great bells of truth. It was right, what they said: Enlightenment was merely the truth at the correct time.
‘In a brothel.’
Even that revelation opened his mind to light. ‘Then Sa is truly there, as well, in all his wisdom and glory.’
She smiled and it almost reached her eyes. ‘To judge from the number of men who grunt out her name as they finish, I would say Sa is definitely there.’
Wintrow looked aside from her. The image was uncomfortably vivid. ‘It must be a hard way to make your living,’ he blurted out.
‘Do you think so?’ She laughed aloud, a brittle sound. ‘That’s a surprise to me, to hear you say that. But you are still just a boy. Most men tell us they wish they could earn their bread on their backs. They think we have it easy, dealing in “pleasure” all day.’
Wintrow considered it for a moment. ‘I think it would be very hard, to be that intimate and vulnerable to a man one had no true feelings for.’
For just an instant, her eyes went pensive and dark. ‘After a time, all feelings go away,’ she said in an almost childish voice. ‘It’s a relief when they do. Things get so much easier. Then it is no worse than any other dirty job. Unless you get a man who hurts you. Still, one can get hurt working anywhere: farmers are gored by their oxen, orchard workers fall from trees, fishermen lose fingers or drown…’
Her voice trailed away. Her eyes went back to her stitching. Wintrow kept silent. After a time, a pale smile came to the edges of her mouth. ‘Kennit brought my feelings back. I hated him for it. That was the first thing he taught me to feel again: hate. I knew it was a dangerous thing. It is dangerous for a whore to feel anything. Knowing that he had made me feel emotions again just made me hate him even more.’
Why, Wintrow wondered, but he did not say the word aloud. He did not need to.
‘He came into the bagnio one day and looked around.’ Her voice was distant in reminiscence. ‘He was dressed very fine, and was very clean. A dark green broadcloth jacket with ivory buttons, and a spill of white lace down his chest and at his cuffs…He had never come to Bettel’s bagnio before, but I knew who he was. Even then, most of Divvytown knew who Kennit was. He did not come to the brothel like most men did, with a friend or two, or his whole crew. He did not come drunk and boasting. He came alone, sober and purposeful. He looked at us, really looked at us, and then he chose me. “She’ll do,” he told Bettel. Then he ordered the room he wanted and the meal. He paid Bettel, right then, in front of everyone. Then he stepped up to me as if we were already alone. He leaned close to me. I thought he was going to kiss me. Some of the men do that. Instead, he sniffed the air near me. Then he ordered me to go wash myself. Oh, I was humiliated. You would not think a whore can feel humiliation, but we can. Nevertheless, I did what I was told. Then I went upstairs and did as I was told, but no more than that. I was in a