Chapter Six: The Madam Speaks
IT TOOK OVER a week and a half to get back to Ya Brothel, and as soon as he approached the steps, his aunties crowded around him and tended to him. As soon as he was taken inside and stuck into a bath, he started to cry. He didn’t stop until the second water change. He hiccuped as he tried to stabilise his frantic, broken breathing.
“How’s mother?” he asked Aunty Ogi. “I couldn’t get her a doctor--” he choked on his breath and the tears started to fall again. He leaned forward and leaned his forehead against Aunty Ogi’s shoulder as he cried. “Father doesn’t want us. I can’t do it on my own. How will I save mother?”
“Oh,” Aunty Ogi said, before she too started to cry. That sobered Nilhin up a bit as he shifted in the water so he could properly pat Aunty Ogi’s back to try and comfort her while she cried. On the other side of him, Aunty Dasan was also sobbing. “It’s just too horrible! You poor, poor boy!” Aunty Ogi was in no state to speak after such an outburst, so he turned to Aunty Dasan.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “How’s mother?” He was more desperate for an answer now, because if there was no answer, then he knew what had happened. Aunty Dasan didn’t say anything, clutching a little square of fabric to her chest as she sniffled and daintily patted her heavily lined eye. “She’s not--” Nilhin stopped himself, because there was no way he could say it without crying again. Aunty Dasan slowly nodded her head, and Nilhin nodded in response.
His mother was… gone. Forever. He didn’t get to see her go. He didn’t get to remind her that he loved her one last time. He… he had failed. He couldn’t even stay with his father like she wanted. The man she loved was a terrible person, and his mother-- Nilhin must have breathed funny, because all the air was just knocked out of his lungs. His mother. The only person he had ever loved in this world, and the only person who had ever loved him without expectation or condition. He was alone now.
There were his aunties, but he knew what they wanted. The madam wanted nothing else from him but his permanent servitude -- his soul. He had no one, not like he did when he had his mother. That dumb boy -- Nilhin’s half brother, the worthy son -- from Capvita was probably having a great time with his mother and father, and where was Nilhin? Back in the brothel, with no love to be found. In fact, without his mother, he knew he shouldn’t even be in the brothel. The madam was dangerous, and she was predatory, not unlike Nehe but clearly in a different way.
“The madam wants to see you as soon as you’re proper,” Aunty Dasan said. Nilhin nodded, and let the aunties help bathe him before Aunty Ogi helped him wash his hair. She braided it not like his mother did, to keep it out of the way, but in the same way their hair was braided. She was trying to make him appealing. Nilhin had been dressed in clean clothes, but he had been adorned in jewelry by his aunties who quickly shoved him into the madam’s office. He looked at the madam behind her desk, looking at the ledgers. Helping the madam with the ledgers and budget was how he had learned math so well, he had grown far more proficient than even the madam herself.
The madam was an older woman, who had once been a prostitute herself before she bought her own establishment and began to hire courtesans of her own to work for her. She smoked a long, ornate pipe carved like a fox and drank from the same flask at all times. There was a rumor it was an ancient tincture to help her stay alert, but Nilhin had smelled it and he knew it was just rice liquor, the expensive kind that the brothel didn’t actually serve to most of its guests.
“Madam,” he said, bowing his head. She tapped her long, painted nails against the desk.
“Sit down.” Her voice was raspy and rough. Nilhin sat down in front of her desk on a chair with a small cushion. It was meant to be uncomfortable. The madam didn’t really like people, especially not men. “You know that I have a warm place for you in my heart, boy. That’s why I’m offering you a contract to work here, where you’ll be taken care of.”
“I’m sorry, madam, but… I don’t want to be a prostitute,” he admitted.
“Why not?” she asked. “You’d make a fortune, and you could stay with all your aunties. I know how much you care for them, and they care for you. Out of all the bastards to come from my girls, you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to keep around. Even the girls aren’t as impressive as you.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, but my mother told me I need to go to one of the clans,” Nilhin said. “So, I’m going to do that. I just… I wanted to get my mother’s things first. Before I go.”
The madam looked at him, and then she set her pipe down.
“No.”
“No?” he repeated.
“No,” she said with a nod. “You can’t have your mother’s things, because they belong to me.”
“This one means no disrespect, madam, but my mother owned those things--”
“And I owned your mother, thus all her things are also mine,” the madam said. “It’s a courtesy I gave you a choice. Since you’ve chosen to leave, I can’t stop you. If you stay, you can have your mother’s room to conduct business as well as everything in it, but if not? They’re not yours, so you can’t have them.”
Nilhin couldn’t have his mother’s things unless he decided to sell himself to the madam practically for life. Nilhin stood up and looked down at where the madam gazed upon him, her arched, penciled eyebrow drawn high in inquiry, but her smirk was smug, like she had won something.
“One day,” Nilhin said, “I’ll be back to repay your sympathy, madam. Thank you for your time.”
Nilhin bowed and then left the office. He was immediately joined by Anuty Ogi and Aunty Dasan. He walked through the halls, not stopping for them because he planned to leave as soon as he could. He finally stopped in the foyer.
“I’m leaving,” he said, looking at his greatest aunties, the ones who had taken care of him the most out of all the prostitutes that worked with his mother.
“But your mother’s room,” Aunty Ogi started. He shook his head.
“The madam won’t let me have anything from there unless I work here, but I can’t.”
Aunty Ogi and Aunty Dasan shared a look and then they patted his back.
“Meet us outside in a moment, and we’ll see you on your way, precious boy,” Aunty Dasan said, caressing the side of his face before he nodded and headed outside. He walked down the porch steps and waited, leaning against the railing with all the comfort of someone who had been raised in the wooden house before him. Aunty Ogi and Aunty Dasan arrived moments later. Aunty Dasan squished his cheeks between her hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead, nose, and then his lips before she let him go, all innocent and sweet like family was supposed to be with one another.
“I’ll miss having you around, but you should be sure to visit and tell your aunties about how the world is outside Atah,” Aunty Dasan said.
“I’ll be back. I promise,” he said. She smiled, and nodded, wiping fresh tears from her eyes.
“Give your aunty a hug, Little Hin,” Aunty Ogi said, and she wrapped one arm around Nilhin before sliding the other into her dress. She pulled a little book from inside and slid it against Nilhin’s chest. Nilhin wrapped his arm around it. Aunty Ogi’s lips brushed against his ear. “I stole this from Nilbi’s room. She would want you to have it, but I couldn’t get more or the madam would suspect something.”
Aunty Ogi pulled away and kissed Nilhin’s cheeks and then his forehead.
“Get a new notebook so you can give us something to remember you by after your first visit. Nilbi may have raised you, but so did we, didn’t we, Dasan?” Aunty Ogi asked.
“Yes, we did. And we’ll always be here if you need us,” Aunty Dasan said. Nilhin clutched the book to his chest. He had used all the silver pieces his mother had given him to get back from Capvita, and he only had one necklace remaining, and his earrings. Now he had the few pieces or jewelry his aunties had put on him before he refused the contract, and he also had-- he flipped the book over, and saw his mother’s beautiful penmanship scrawled across the front-- one of his mother’s books of poetry.
“Thank you, aunties,” he said. Aunty Ogi nodded and stroked his cheeks with the back of her knuckles. “I’ll leave first, but when I come back, it won’t be empty handed.” He leaned forward to press a kiss to each of their cheeks. He held the book of poetry to his chest and started to walk away. He heard his aunties crying behind him. He wished that they wouldn’t smudge their makeup for him. He walked through the streets of Atah, just like he had when he was trying to find his father, only this time, he had no destination in mind.
What clan would take someone like Nilhin? Whose magic was temperamental at best, and nonfunctioning more often than not. There was one clan, however, that didn’t require great strength in magic, only great strength in battle -- a ferocity in spirit. Nilhin had the will and the drive to prove himself, and while it was nearly a two and a half months-long journey on foot, Nilhin would get there, and he would show that he has the spirit to survive by doing so. So, he began his journey to Krokstad, specifically into the city of Serfen to the fortress of Storkott.
Comments
Post a Comment