Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [20]
“Why’d you quit?”
“I tangled with a royal Sethi pirate hunter a few hours before a storm. We gave almost as good as we got, but the storm drove us onto the rocks of the Smugglers’ Archipelago. Since then, I’ve just done whatever.” Kaldrosa didn’t mention that “whatever” included getting married and working for Khalidor.
“Show me your tits.”
Kaldrosa untied her laces and wriggled out of her top.
“I’ll be damned,” Daydra said. “Very good. I think you’ll do fine.”
“But you’re all so beautiful,” Kaldrosa said. Stupid as it was to protest, she couldn’t believe her luck was turning.
Daydra smiled. “Beautiful we’ve got. Every one of Momma K’s girls has to be pretty, and you are. What you’ve got is exotic. Look at you. Clan rings. Olive skin. Even your tits are tanned!”
Kaldrosa was suddenly thankful that she’d been so stubborn on her ship that she’d gone topless to make the Khalidoran soldiers stare. It had given her a fierce sunburn, but her skin had darkened and the color hadn’t faded yet.
“I don’t know how you’ve managed a tan,” Daydra said, “but you’ll have to keep it up, and talk like a pirate. If you want to work for Momma K, you’re going to be the Sethi pirate girl. You have a husband or a lover?”
Kaldrosa hesitated. “Husband,” she admitted. “The last beating nearly killed him.”
“If you do this, you’ll never get him back. A man can forgive a woman who leaves whoring for him, but he’ll never forgive one who goes whoring for him.”
“It’s worth it,” Kaldrosa said. “To save his life, it’s worth it.”
“One more thing. ’Cause sooner or later you’ll ask. We don’t know why the palies do it. Every country’s got twists who like hurting rent girls, but this is different. Some will take their pleasure first and only hurt you afterward, like they’re embarrassed. Some won’t hurt you at all, but they’ll brag afterward that they did and pay Momma K’s fines without complaining. But they’ll always say those same words. You’ve heard them?”
Kaldrosa nodded. “Khali vas, something or other?”
“It’s Old Khalidoran, a spell or a prayer or something. Don’t think about it. Don’t make excuses for them. They’re animals. We’ll protect you as well as we can and the money’s good, but you’ll have to face them every day. Can you do that?”
Words stuck in Kaldrosa’s throat, so she nodded again.
“Then go to Master Piccun and tell him you want three pirate girl costumes. Make him finish taking your measurements before he bangs you.”
Kaldrosa’s eyebrows shot up.
“Unless you have a problem with that.”
* * *
“You don’t think we’ll have any trouble, do you?” Elene asked. They were lying down in the wagon, spending one last night under the stars after three weeks on the road. Tomorrow they would enter Caernarvon and their new life.
“I left all my troubles in Cenaria. Well, except for the two that tagged along with me,” Kylar said.
“Hey!” Uly said. Despite being as scary-smart as her real mother, Momma K, she was still eleven and easily baited.
“Tagged along?” Elene asked, propping herself up on an elbow. “As I recall, this is my wagon.” That much was true. Jarl had given them the wagon, and Momma K had loaded it with herbs Kylar could use to start an herbiary. Perhaps in a nod to Elene’s sensibilities, most of them were even legal. “If anyone tagged along, it was you.”
“Me?” Kylar asked.
“You were making such a pathetic spectacle that I was embarrassed for you. I just wanted to