I said, “So, you have some kind of history or bond, is that it?”
“You asking if he mounts me?” She cackled, spitting out shells. “No, none of that. No mounting going on.”
That wasn’t quite where I was going with that. “How is it you came to share each other’s company?”
“Same as any two people, I guess. One day, we were strangers. The next, we weren’t.”
I could see I’d need to be exceptionally specific. “Where did you meet?”
“Captain Noose was right-you got more questions than a leper got sores. Met in a whorehouse.”
I coughed and tried to hide my shock.
She laughed again. “You got a lot of red in the face for not being the one there. Wasn’t you whoring or being whored, was it? Or maybe that’s it, maybe you was wondering which it was I was doing there? Maybe that’s what coloring you up like an apple, eh? Well, I’ll tell you straight, I wasn’t fucking of my own volition, and that’s as factful a thing as ever’s been said. Clear it up some?” Seeing my hot cheeks, she added, “All bookmasters as delicate as you, or you that glass-fragile all on your lonesome? Or maybe you’re just struck dumb because you’re wondering how a beauty like me came to be a whore, that it?” She cawed a rough laugh and continued, “Like I said, wasn’t no choice of mine. Didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Lloi, I think today’s the day you go whore.’” Another few seeds in, another few shells out. “Sold off before my thirteenth summer.” She said all of this with the complete nonchalance of someone talking about porridge. “That’s right. My tribe gave me a trim first,” she wiggled her nubs, “something nice to remember them by, then they sold me to the first slave company that come by. Turns out, these slavers were on the coin for a silk station, edge of the Green Sea. So that was that. Until it wasn’t.”
“Why… why would they do such a thing?”
“Expect they didn’t want nobody thinking it was on accident. A missing hand, well, that could be just about anything, couldn’t it? Crushed under a wagon wheel, eaten by a ripper, a souvenir of battle. Lots of ways to go getting a hand lopped off. But the fingers, all of them but the little bit by the meaty part of the hand proper? Well, hard to mistake that for much else but a real deliberate chopping, one by one. Not many accidents happen that particular.”
I’m sure I blanched before clarifying, “Why did they mutilate you at all, I mean?”
“On account of what I was, of course. No mistaking that for much else, neither. Some tribes, they send my kind through the Godveil.” Lloi shivered a bit, though I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or done for my benefit. “Ought to count myself lucky they just cut me up some and turned me whore. Silk house would’ve done me in, time enough, weren’t for the captain coming along, but the Veil… well, that would’ve done it straight away, sure as wind is windy. Seen it happen. No kind of way to go at all.”
She looked at me blankly, gauging my reaction, then continued, “Guessing they do something different to my kind where you from, eh? Can’t guess it’s six shades of nicer, though. Might even be worse, though can’t imagine how. Still, people got a whole lot of creativity when it comes to maiming and killing.”
She pulled the drawstring on the pouch shut, tucked it into a sturdier leather pouch hanging from her belt and looked ready to close the conversation off. But she was right about one thing-I did have questions, and I wanted to hear more, so I tried a different tack. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. I certainly have nothing in my experience that compares. But we’re not all that different, for that.”
Her hands fell into her lap and she leaned against a barrel, looking me up and down in that quiet, disconcerting way she had. “Do tell.”
“Well,” I tried to frame the words carefully to avoid being disingenuous, “I might not have been a nomad, or a girl, or mutilated and sold off exactly, but I do know what it’s like to have no family to speak of.”
She nodded slowly, still seeming less than convinced. “You do, do you?”
I debated backing away from the statement all together, leaving the conversation where it was. I wasn’t sure how revealing I really wanted to be-but if that’s what it took to keep her talking, I supposed it was worth it. “My mother worked at an inn, a lot like the Three Casks, but it was on a road. I was born there, grew up there. I never knew who my father was, and my mother refused to discuss him at all. Even bringing up his name earned me a wooden spoon across the backside, so I learned to avoid the topic.
“When I was young, not eight nor nine, a man showed up at The Noisy Jackal-that was the name of the inn, and he-”
“Good name.”
I stopped and looked at her.
“For a tavern. Good name. Better than the Three Casks. No kind of character at all in a name like that. Might as well call it The Three Boards, or The Three Drunks, be done with it. Come to think of it, though, that wouldn’t be half bad. The Three Drunks, I was meaning. Says there’s some kind of story behind the name, which there ought to be. Otherwise no sense naming a thing at all.”
I waited until I was sure she was done and tried again. “Yes. Well. This man appeared, and-”
“Was it your da?”
“Oddly enough, I was just about to tell you who it was.”
She smiled. “Course you were. Go on.”
“No, he wasn’t my father. But he was his retainer.”
“What’s that, then?”
I felt we were nearing an impasse. “What’s what?”
“Retainer, you said, was it? What’s that?”
I nearly rolled my eyes before remembering that Anjurian wasn’t her first language and she’d had no formal schooling besides. “His man. My father’s man. Like Vendurro and Glesswik are the captain’s men. His retainers.”
She started to nod, accepting that, and then stopped, eyes widening. “Your da was a Syldoon?”
“No. I was giving an example. Explaining the term. Retainer.”
Lloi looked puzzled. “So, not a Syldoon, but a soldier then. Your da was a soldier.”
I tried hard to keep the frustration off my face. “No. Likely a merchant or a noble. Any man with some wealth or power can have a retainer. A retainer is like a servant, or someone in a man’s service anyway.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say as much, then? Got to go confusing things with terms that don’t mean nothing in particular.”
I opted not to debate the point, and was nearly going to drop the topic altogether, when she rolled her hand in a circle. “Go on then. Tell me about your da’s man who come calling. Only do it without confusing things no more.”
I smiled despite myself. “Fair enough. I’m not sure how he found me. Maybe my father had known of me for some time, though if he had, I’m not sure why he waited so long to send a ret-… his man. Either way, the man was there at my father’s behest to-”
Lloi’s eyes started to narrow but I rode past any objections or queries. “My father sent him to offer my mother a bargain. For some coin, the man was going to take me away and set me up in a university. I didn’t really understand what was happening at all. But my mother didn’t exactly agonize over the decision, so it all moved very quickly. She accepted the terms and money, however much it was, made me gather my things, gave me one stiff hug, and sent me off with the man.
“I was confused. I thought maybe he was my father, but he explained in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t. He loaded me and my meager belongings onto a cart and led me away from the Jackal.”