Zip’s eyes had narrowed, his mouth had twitched. He’d stroked his stubbled chin and gazed ruminatively at the treasures she’d found. Then finally he looked up from under his black sweatband and said, “That’s what you want, I’ll see what I can do. But leave these with me, or somebody might take them from you and you’ll have nothing to trade but what you started with.”
She’d been suddenly uncomfortable under his stare, a different look than he’d had on him before- It seemed to go right through her clothes and she thought, terrified for an instant so that she’d begun to shake, he was going to ask her to demonstrate her expertise, such charms as could qualify a girl for Myrtis’s, the finest house in all of Sanctuary’s red-light district.
If he had asked, all chance of Shawme’s escape to luxury and bright tomorrows would have been dashed on the spot, for Shawme had no idea what a man like Zip would want from a woman, let alone a professional woman.
In point of fact, Shawme had no idea what to do with a man, except run from them and throw whatever you could at them if they got too close. If you didn’t do that and they grabbed you, the next thing you knew you were battered, bleeding and pregnant.
But it wasn’t that way for the uptown women of the Aphrodisia House, and ever since she’d found that out, Shawme had wanted to go there.
So when Zip’s voice deepened, she was terrified. If he found out she knew nothing about the job she’d demanded in exchange for the treasures she had, he’d never help her. And if she ever was to let Zip do what men did to women, she’d have to know what she was doing. Or else he’d laugh.
Men always laughed at virgins.
Shawme’s virginity was still a problem now, after a week at Myrtis’s. She’d meant to tell Myrtis, when the time was right. But the time had never been right. Zip had gotten her the interview, and sent her uptown with an escort. She hadn’t returned to Ratfall again, not for the whole two weeks since then.
She’d been taught to bathe herself, to deal with her moon flow, to make herself soft and beautiful, to keep from getting pregnant. But she’d been taught nothing of how to rid herself of the awful curse of virginity.
Or of how to please a man.
All the other girls-older girls, poised girls, wise girls with gold rings in their ears and gemstones in their noses-assumed she knew her trade. They were arch and competitive, and their gossip had teeth. If they found out, she’d be driven from here, back down to Ratfall. Like in her dream.
But no one had found out, and Shawme was going to go downstairs this evening, for the first time. Tonight, she would be among those in the great salon, posturing and fanning themselves, luring men upstairs.
Tonight, Shawme would become the woman she was pretending to be.
She’d lied about her age, said she was eighteen, when she was years younger. But no one had noticed. All the other girls were too busy counting conquests. Who came to see you mattered most here. Who came more than once, who became your regular, who your regular knew and what kind of gifts he brought you. It was a different world.
And she was on its threshold. Her heart calmed, she stretched in her bed, watching the sunset slink into dusk, the colors no more beautiful than the garments the girls downstairs wore. Myrtis had given her the smallest room, the plainest clothes, the lowest percentage, but only because Shawme was the new girl.
“Except for Zip, you wouldn’t have this bed at all,” Myrtis had told her, not unkindly. “We’ve got a waiting list down to the White Foal Bridge. You’ll have to make your way here, make friends, develop regulars. Then you’ll have your own money, and we’ll settle up what I’ve advanced you against a piece of your gross.”
Shawme hadn’t even known what a “piece of your gross” was, until she’d gotten up yesterday early and snuck out of the house to meet Merricat at Promise Park.
Merricat was Shawme’s only uptown friend, a girl apprenticing at the Mageguild because of her shadowy, powerful aunt up north. The two girls had met on the beach one day, and been fast friends ever since.
When they’d met, Merricat had been crying as she beachcombed, and Shawme had drawn her knife, ready to protect the other girl if she could. Merricat’s tears, it turned out, were tears of unrequited love for Randal, the powerful mage who served the Stepsons.
So they’d had something in common, both girls unnoticed by the men of their dreams. Merricat had confided all about Randal, and Shawme had told of her hopeless love for Zip.
Then together they’d concocted this scheme, that was supposed to make Zip notice Shawme, come to the Aphrodisia House some day and sweep her off her feet. “After,” Merricat had said wisely, with a nod of her prim little chin, “you have mastered the womanly arts better than anyone else. To make Randal love me, I must become a wondrous adept.”
Merricat had given Shawme a spell to hide her virginity yesterday, given it with a frown: “I’m not very good at this-yet,” she’d cautioned. “So be careful.”
Merricat was shorter, rounder, and fairer than Shawme, with a plump face and button eyes and all the softness of good breeding. Yesterday when they met, Merricat had had her peregrine, Dika, with her, the gift her aunt had sent to qualify Merricat for Mageguild apprenticeship in the first place.
“I trust you!’ Shawme had replied, rubbing her tanned arms because suddenly she didn’t.
“Trust Dika, it’s his doing. Lightning and thunder, I hope it works.” Merricat was suddenly solemn. She leaned forward on the park bench:
“And you’ll tell me, promise. What it’s like. Who it is … everything. Or I’ll curse you. You wouldn’t want that.”
As long as Dika didn’t curse her too, it probably wouldn’t hurt worse than growing up in Ratfall, Shawme thought. Out loud she said, “Of course, a soon as … it … happens, I’ll put the lantern in my window. But won’t you know, by magical means?”
Merricat lived in constant fear of being found wanting, of failing in her apprenticeship. “I should know,” she said, her full lower lip beginning to tremble, “but I probably won’t. I’m not good enough, Shawme,” she said, a whine edging her tone. “I’ll never-”
“Shush, bitch,” said Shawme sharply, and then regretted the gutter talk up here where words meant different things. Shawme took Memcat’s fine, soft hand and squeezed it hard before letting go. “You’re better than you think. Dika knows it. He’s not flying away.”
Merricat reached up, onto her shoulder to stroke the peregrine who perched there. The bird cocked its head at Shawme and opened and closed its beak once as if in agreement.
“He’s right, Merricat. Got to go before I miss breakfast.”
“And I miss bedcheck. Good luck with Zip.”
“Good luck with Randal.”
So the two friends had parted, Shawme armed with a root of dried mandrake on a thong that was supposed to keep her secret safe from discovery.
Keep it safe, tonight. Tonight she would lie abed with her first man. She rubbed her tawny arms, stroking the fine sun-paled hair on them. She hoped he would be beautiful, bold and not too old. She wanted him to be just like Zip, with a full head of hair and a lithe young body, with high cheekbones and the fire of revolution in his eyes . – –
But he could as easily be a fat, greasy-lipped merchant from the Street of Weavers, or a drover from Caravan Square. There were no gods left alive in the part of Ratfall that had spawned Shawme from the chance meeting of an Ilsig matron and a soldier who, from Shawme’s blue eyes, was probably Rankan.
No gods to pray to, but prayers aplenty. Shawme closed her eyes and chanted. “Red light, love light, first light I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the boy I love tonight.”
Quick as a spooked cat, she opened her eyes and there, out the window, she saw the first lights flare along the town’s skyline. Against the torpid blue of early evening, they seemed like an omen. Zip would come, she was sure of it. Come to make sure that Shawme had a customer on her first night at Myrtis’s. Come to make a woman of her.
Sliding out from under her coverlet, she clutched the mandrake root around her neck on its thong. Thanks be to Merricat’s magic, everything would be all right . . . she could just decide whether to wear her blue dress, or her red one.