Chapter Nineteen After
THE PARADISE QUARTER was more than a scarlet-washed inn and a row of taverns—it was a warren of buildings at the edge of Alvaris.
Little alleys and passageways connected the grand central courtyard to kitchens, storerooms, servants’ quarters, apartments, and offices.
Namely, all things required to run a business and run it well.
But hardly suitable for the eyes of patrons and customers.
They were kept to the tiled floors and silk-curtained rooms, in chambers appointed for the evening’s pursuits.
And Cat knew better than to look for answers in places she would not find them.
With Fell safely left behind, she abandoned the courtyard and went back to the street.
Under the glow of the red lanterns, she turned a corner into a shadowed alley that ran alongside the Quarter.
There were fewer folk here, but she was not alone, forced to skirt by knots of people smoking, drinking, or devouring each other. None paid her much attention.
As with most city buildings, the kitchens were at the back, separated from the main structure in case of fire.
Light glowed in the windows and a chimney belched smoke, the smell of roast chicken and sweet peppers filling the air.
There was a great scuffle of activity at the open doors, where servants filtered in and out, carrying food through the small herb garden.
It was nothing for Cat to slip through herself, into a realm far from the courtyard.
Cooks and maids attended to their tasks, stirring pots of stew or chopping vegetables, while one unlucky woman sat in the corner skinning a rabbit. None seemed to notice Cat, who passed like a shadow into the servants’ quarters.
Her first obstacle came in the form of a reedy woman with a high bun of blonde hair, her face powdered white.
The makeup was not enough to hide her age, the bits of white clinging to the lines next to her eyes.
The red flowers in her hair seemed crushed, and Cat surmised she had just come from a job.
“There’s a mess needs cleaning in the main house,” the woman said to Cat in Esperese, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. Judging by her stilted accent, Cat could tell she spoke Meridian far better.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Cat offered, her own Meridian accent rougher and put upon. “I’m looking for work.”
The woman’s white face fell, her frown emphasized by a shock of red painted on her lips. Her eyes flicked over Cat from head to toe.
“I can’t say they’ll take you, dearie, but follow me. I’m Elisabeth, by the way. Us Meridian girls need to stick together,” she said warmly, scooping an arm around Cat’s shoulders. “Are you from Brycam? You sound like it.”
“Close,” Cat said, letting herself be led along the corridor. By her own bearings, she guessed Elisabeth was leading her back to the main house of the Quarter. “I was born in Ganbell. Then made my way to Archenport. And now here.”
At the mention of Archenport, the woman’s whisper-thin eyebrows shot into her hairline.
“I take it you’re not happy about the Meridian return, then?” she said with a meaningful look. “Or you would’ve stayed.”
Cat let her breath hitch, as if stifling a sob. “I would have if I could. But I am—I was—”
The other woman was quick to comfort her, rubbing her shoulder as they walked. “I see. You were one of the Duchesses’ girls?”
Cat gave a trembling nod.
“I’m sorry,” Elisabeth replied softly. “I heard she took everything and ran.”
Her sympathy was genuine, the arm around Cat’s shoulders warm and embracing. Cat felt a twinge of remorse for the lie. But not enough to stop.
“She did,” Cat said.
Music and smoke wafted through the air again as they entered the more public areas of the house, and Cat glimpsed the courtyard through a window. She tried to catch sight of a blue silk vest or a familiar head of black hair, but Jasper Fell was no longer at his perch.
Likely he escaped to a tavern, hoping to protect his ill-defined sense of dignity.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” Cat added, drawing closer to Elisabeth.
They ascended a staircase, passing a pair of lovers giggling their way back to the courtyard. Elisabeth was good enough to let them pass before dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Did you have a lad?” she breathed, her grip tightening on Cat. “Beneath the black flag?”
Beneath the black flag. Cat had always laughed at the phrase.
It seemed too noble for pirates, not to mention overwrought.
At least in her experience, the pirates of the Lyrian were straightforward men and women, who bothered little with etiquette or confusing codes of honor, let alone nonsense like titles.
Even the sailors who defected from the fleets or the few gentleman pirates abandoning lordships for the buccaneer’s life were not so strait-laced.
At least not for long. No matter their origin, pirates held to their shared ways.
They served their captains, their ships, their crews.
They fought and plundered, raiding ships of all flags, be they cross or sun or skull.
They always took care of their own. And they valued two things above all—their coin and their freedom.
But while they lived beyond any crown or kingdom, there was a cost.
Cat knew it intimately, remembering the price so many paid upon the gallows.
And the price she paid to keep one man from the noose.
Elisabeth gave her another squeeze. “I’m sorry, dearie. What was his name?”
To that, Cat only shook her head, as if it were too painful to say. Truthfully, she did not want to add any more details to the lie and potentially tie herself up later.
“Well, what’s your name?” Elisabeth prodded.
As she had many times, Cat gave the false name she always reached for.
“Sara,” she said, though she could barely remember her dead maid’s face anymore. “I can work anywhere that’s needed. Laundry, kitchens. On my back—”
“Hush, we’ll get you right,” Elisabeth replied, resuming their climb up the stairs. “I’ll take you up to Key Keeper, and she will find you something. Even if it’s just a bed for the night.”
Cat bit her cheek to keep from smiling.
“What about you?” she said.
As she expected, Elisabeth responded eagerly.
“Ah, me. Not much to say, I suppose. I sailed when I was just a girl. Couldn’t find work in Brycam so I signed an indenture to serve a merchant family in Willemsport.
Spent three years trying to pay off the contract before I realized I would end the term poorer than I started.
” Her white face tightened. “I stowed away on a ship bound for Alvaris. Suppose I could have just waited for the war to turn like everyone else. Last I heard my merchant master went screaming across the ocean as soon as the fleet gave up the Lyrian.”
Cat felt a pang of sadness for Elisabeth.
Hers was not a unique story, nor difficult to parse out.
Poor, uneducated, with few options in Meridia: To be a servant, a poor man’s wife, or a beggar.
So, she fled for the Lyrian Sea, and whatever it could give her.
Like so many, she found herself crushed beneath a contract of indenture.
She probably couldn’t even read what she signed back in the docks of Brycam City and had no idea what she was getting into.
It was a common tale, especially among the pirates and prostitutes and all others who lived in the shadows of “proper society.” Cat only hoped this life was more agreeable to her.
If Elisabeth noticed Cat’s pity, she did not show it. The woman was light in her steps, leading them to another door on the landing.
Before she could push it open, Cat stopped her with a gentle touch.
“For your trouble,” she said, fishing a coin from the pouch at her waist. Her lie was small, but regret gnawed at her in a way she did not like. As with most feelings, Cat hoped money would squash it dead.
But Elisabeth was quick to flash a smile and wave a dismissive hand. “You seem like you need it more than I do, love.” Then she paused, again looking over Cat’s appearance. Her narrowed eyes traveled slowly, starting at Cat’s worn leather boots and moving upwards. “May I?”
Cat startled. “Yes—”
Fingers skated over the edge of Cat’s bodice and Elisabeth pulled, shifting the fabric down to sit lower and tighter across her chest. Before Cat could say another word, Elisabeth’s hands went to her hair next, twisting lose a few short pieces of chestnut curls to frame her eyes.
“There,” Elisabeth said, pushing open the door. “Now you may have a shot to impress Key Keeper.”
“Impress me with what, Beth?” a weary voice said from the adjoining room.
Hands clasped, Cat followed Elisabeth into the little office tucked away in the labyrinthine pleasure house.
She expected something like the Duchess’s salon, done up in silk with a sideboard of expensive liquor, but instead found little more than a closet with a window, and a wall of shelves bursting with ledgers.
Cat stifled a laugh, too closely reminded of her own inventory folios stacked in the closet of the Widow Rose.
Elisabeth went to the desk shoved in the corner, where an older woman sat squinting through thick glasses at another open ledger.
She had a careworn face and iron-gray hair tied back with an oxblood scarf.
But her full brows were still jet black and furrowing deeply.
Cat found herself reminded of Moseley, cleaning up after everyone else with an exasperated smile and a blunt remark.
“This is Sara,” Elisabeth said, pointing back to Cat, who folded herself into the corner. “You said you needed new girls, so here you are.”
The Key Keeper peered at Cat over the rim of her glasses. It was an apt name. Even sitting, the ring of iron keys at her waist jingled like the finest jewelry. Cat ventured the keys were worth their weight in gold.
“Girls, Beth,” the Key Keeper muttered. “Not spinsters.”