Everyone was working tonight except for Bev, who was too scared. Bev was pretending to be sick and was staying in her room all night. Kaldrosa almost panicked when she saw them. All of them looked fantastic. Every one of them had spent extra time on makeup and hair and clothes. By Porus’ spear. The Khalidorans would notice. They’d have to notice.
Her suitemate, Daydra, who’d saved her more than once by calling for bashers when she heard Kaldrosa scream her codeword, smiled at her. “Here goes nothing, huh?” Daydra said. Daydra looked like a new woman. Though barely seventeen, she’d been a successful prostitute before the invasion, and tonight wasn’t the first time that Kaldrosa saw why she had done so well. The woman glowed. She didn’t care if she died.
“You ready?” Kaldrosa asked, knowing it was a dumb question. Their floor was going to be opened to clients in just a few minutes.
“So ready I’ve told all my girlfriends at the other brothels.”
Kaldrosa froze. “Are you insane? You’ll get us all killed!”
“Didn’t you hear?” Daydra asked quietly, her face somber.
“Hear what?”
“The palies killed Jarl.”
The breath whooshed out of Kaldrosa. If she’d held onto any slim hope for the future, it had been because of Jarl. Jarl and his radiant face, his talk of expelling the Khalidorans and going legitimate, of building a hundred bridges across the Plith and eliminating all the laws that bound the Warren-born and the slaveborn and former slaves and the impoverished to the city’s west side. Jarl had spoken of a new order, and when he spoke, it sounded possible. She’d felt powerful in a way she never had before. She’d hoped.
And now Jarl was dead?
“Don’t cry,” Daydra said. “You’ll mess up your makeup. You’ll get all of us crying.”
“Are you sure?”
“The whole city’s talking about it,” Shel said.
“I saw Momma K’s face. It’s true,” Daydra said. “So you really think any lightskirt’s going to rat us out to them? After they killed Jarl?”
The last door on the landing opened and Bev came out wearing her bull dancer costume, ponytails wired up into twin horns, midriff bare, and short pants. The dancer’s knife at her belt didn’t look like the usual blunted blade. Bev was pale but resolute. “Jarl was always kind to me. And I’m not going to listen to that damned prayer of theirs one more time.”
“He was good to me, too,” another girl said, choking back tears.
“Don’t start,” Daydra said. “No tears! We’re gonna do this.”
“For Jarl,” another girl said.
“For Jarl,” the rest of the girls repeated.
A bell tinkled that told the girls their guests were coming.
“I told some other girls, too,” Shel said. “I hope that’s all right. As for me, I get Fat Ass. He killed my first suitemate.”
“I get Kherrick,” Jilean said. Under her makeup, her right eye was still a puffy yellow.
“Little Dick’s mine.”
“Neddard.”
“I don’t care who I get,” Kaldrosa said. She clenched her jaw so hard it hurt. “But I’m taking two. The first one’s for Tomman. The second’s for Jarl.”
The other girls looked at her.
“Two?” Daydra asked. “How are you gonna do two?”
“I’ll do what I have to. I’m getting two.”
“Fuck it,” Shel said. “Me too, but I’m taking Fat Ass first. Just in case.”
“I’m in,” Jilean said. “Now shut up. We’re on.”
The first man up the stairs was Captain Burl Laghar. Kaldrosa’s heart stopped beating. She hadn’t seen him since she’d moved in to the Craven Dragon to escape him. She stood frozen until he came to stand in front of her.
“Well, if it isn’t my little pirate bitch,” Burl said.
She couldn’t move. Her tongue was lead in her mouth.
Burl saw her fear and stuck his chest out. “See? I knew you were a whore before you did. I could tell you liked it the very first time I banged you in front of your husband. And here you are.” He smiled and was obviously disappointed that none of his sycophants were with him to laugh. “So,” he said finally. “You happy to see me?”
Inexplicably, the fear vanished. It was just gone. Kaldrosa smiled impishly.
“Happy?” she said, grabbing the front of his trousers. “Oh, you have no idea.” And she led him to her room. For Tomman. For Jarl.
That night, a gray-haired cripple climbed to the roof of the manse that had briefly belonged to Roth Ursuul but was now infested with hundreds of Rabbits. He balanced on his crutch in the moonlight and screamed into the night, “Come, Jarl! Come and see! Come and