money can buy, and all you want are vegetables.”
“And some bread and water, please.” Krysta shook her head with resignation. “As you wish.” She gave the order to the serving girl, asking for some steamed vegetables for Sorak and braised z’tal for herself. Their goblets were filled, hers with mead and Sorak’s with chilled water, and a basket of fresh-baked bread was brought to them, still warm from the ovens.
“So,” she asked after toasting him with her goblet, “what was it like, being the only male in a convent full of women?”
“I felt like an outsider, at first,” Sorak replied, “but the sisters soon came to accept me.”
“The sisters,” Krysta said with a knowing smile. “How quaint. Is that really how you thought of them?”
That is how they refer to one another,” he replied. “And it is more than merely a polite form of address. We were all like family. I shall miss them.”
“You mean you do not plan on going back?” Sorak shook his head. “I know I would always be welcome there, but no. Though I have lived with them, and trained with them, and grown up in the Way, I am not villichi. The time has come for me to find my own way in the world, and I do not think I shall return.”
“So then you do not think of yourself as one of them?” asked Krysta.
“No,” he said. “I do not belong there. For that matter, I do not know if I belong anywhere. The halflings could never accept me because I am part elf, and the elves could never accept me because I am part halfling. I do not even know if there is another such as I.”
“It must feel very lonely,” Krysta said, her foot touching his under the table. He drew his foot away.
“I know something of what it feels like not to be accepted,” she continued. “Though, of course, there are many half-elves in the city, as there are half-dwarves and half-giants. You may have noticed that most of the people working here are half-breeds. I hire them first because there are many places in the city where they could not be hired, and the work that they can find, scarce as work is in Tyr these days, pays the lowliest of wages. Outside the city, there would be little they could do. Work on a farm, perhaps, or become herdsmen. Many become bandits, for they have no other choice. No tribe would accept them, and they become hard and embittered.”
“But you seem to have done well for yourself,” said Sorak.
“Yes,” said Krysta. “Much like you, I recall little of my childhood. I was sold into slavery and grew up working in the arena, picking up body parts and spreading sand to cover up spilled blood. Between the games, I worked in the kitchens, where I first learned about preparing food. In time, I became a gladiator myself and trained with the others.”
“That was how you met Rikus?” Sorak asked.
“Yes. He had a partner who took an interest in me. She saw in me a younger version of herself, and so both she and Rikus became my protectors. Otherwise, things could have been much worse. Gladiators are a hard and ruthless lot, and a pretty, young half-elf girl would have been used harshly if she had no one to look after her. One day, I was purchased by a noble, who used his influence with Kalak’s templars to buy me as a plaything for himself. He was an old man, and his appetites were not so great. It was not difficult to please him, and it was easier by far than life in the arena, which was hard and brutal and often very short. I stayed with him for several years and learned much about the ways of the nobility. I learned how they lived, and what they liked, and how they preferred to spend their idle time, of which they had a surfeit.”
She crossed her legs under the table and, in doing so, her foot came briefly into contact with Sorak’s leg. She went on as if she hadn’t noticed.
“One night, while I was in bed with my master, the exertion proved too much for him, and he collapsed upon me. I thought that he had swooned, but when I rolled him off me, I discovered he was dead. It was late, and the servants in the mansion were all asleep. I took what money I could find in his