Chapter Twenty The Third Lesson #2
“I lied,” he snarled in her face. “I know everything about you and your miserable little life. I know what you found, I know what you did, I know what happened.”
Her pulse quickened. She had buried those memories deep inside, locked them up tight in a cage and suffocated them under mundane routine, but they came rushing back like a thunderstorm pelting a moon-temple rock garden into disarray.
Master Dothilos cared not, continuing, “You were there for only a fortnight. Startlingly short, especially considering how generously Madam Kovetti pays her staff. You must have kept your head down the first week. I doubt she would’ve let you know too much so soon.
But you were bright even then, and you must have caught on quickly that it was no ordinary brothel she ran. ”
Lythlet rose to leave, feeling herself getting sick, but Master Dothilos yanked her by the arm back into her seat.
“When did you find out?” His breath was hot on her face.
“The day I quit,” she gasped, trying to pull her arm free in vain.
“Your conscience could not support you working there any longer, could it?” he sneered.
“How could it?” she cried.
Madam Kovetti had always been coy with the details, giving her no more than plain numbers she had to record in the ledgers.
Her brothel catered to an exclusive clientele, exclusive enough that only senior bookkeepers were allowed to handle any transactions involving their names, while Lythlet dealt with petty cash and minor expenses.
The brothel had been so large it was easy for her to be sequestered away in the administration quarters.
“We keep this door locked at all times for the sake of my girls’ privacy,” Madam Kovetti had explained silkily, tapping the door bridging the administration quarters to the rest of the brothel. “They don’t enjoy being bothered in their free time.”
Not being one drawn to social situations herself, Lythlet hadn’t thought much of it. Until one day—
Try as she might to suppress them, snatches of memory came back to her in a vulgar pastiche: an early morn, the sky weakly lit in gray colors.
Herself the first to arrive in the administrative quarters, a tidily kept wing of the brothel filled with ledgers and drawers.
The door to the rest of the brothel left unlocked for the first time in her brief tenure, a bit of curiosity.
First: a small storage room filled with chests of drawers, within them vials of strange yellow liquid. She’d plucked one up, given it a good shake to investigate it, but returned it none the wiser.
Further down a corridor, then another, and another. A web of dark hallways, a staircase leading down—
Fragile bodies, fragile minds.
“What you saw must have disgusted you,” said the match-master presently.
“A den of children kept hostage and drugged out of their wits for the pleasure of adults. Girls even younger than you had been, boys whose voices would not deepen for years, lives sold into a trade that would break them irreparably.”
“It was not just what I saw,” she muttered.
The worst memory of them all rose to the surface: that of a closed door.
No more than a four-paneled plank of solid wood in front of her, with a shining golden knob waiting to be twisted.
She could see nothing of what was behind it—but she could hear everything.
Every revolting bit of it: the grotesque combination of one crying out in pleasure as another cried out in pain.
White-hot fury had ignited in her. She reached for the knob; it was locked.
She rattled it harder, shrieking at it, demanding the man inside open it.
Then she had taken to kicking the door, throwing her weight against it.
She wanted to break it down, pick up whatever fragments it’d shatter into and use them to bludgeon the man to death.
Then her collar was tugged up high against her throat, making it hard to breathe.
“Whoa-ho! You’re not supposed to be here!
” It was one of the brothel guards, a massive fellow who had always been friendly to her in their sparse interactions.
He dragged her back like she was feather-light, all the way to the administrative quarters.
Before shutting the door, he said in a sheepish voice, “Listen, I won’t tell Madam Kovetti you saw anything, and you don’t tell her I left this door unlocked.
We’ll keep our jobs, and she’ll be none the wiser. Are we square?”
Her mind was racing, rage making her tremble. But she was not a fool—she knew rushing headfirst back into the brothel would be fruitless. There were too many guards; she’d never be able to save all those children single-handedly. No, there was a better way.
“Square,” she had agreed, waiting for him to close the door to the brothel. A firm, sturdy click indicated the lock was in place. Then she’d grabbed her bags and gone out the other door, the one that led back to the rest of the city.
“Now when you left the brothel, you didn’t simply return home, did you?” said the match-master in the present. “No, you went straight to the watchmen. You reported what you knew. What you found. What a good citizen you are, my dear.”
How does Master Dothilos know so much? The Eza must have spies in the ranks of the watchmen for him to know all this.
But her bewilderment fell lifeless to the wayside at his next words: “And then what happened?”
Blood drained, her face left a pallor as memories coursed through.
“What happened?” he pressed, a sneer on his face.
“You gave the watchmen everything they needed to investigate the brothel and put an end to that woman’s business.
You delivered straight into their hands all the evidence they could hope for to rescue those poor boys and girls, to stave off the trade of future younglings. What happened?”
She withdrew into silence, but he tightened his painful grip on her arm. She knew from experience she would discover bruises there the next day.
“What happened?” he repeated through clenched teeth.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing happened.”
“Nothing!” The match-master finally released her arm.
“The watchmen did nothing. Business went on as usual. Madam Kovetti still runs the brothel to this day! You even went to the watchmen again a few days later in utter confusion as to why nothing had been done. And what happened? You got the beating of your lifetime and then they threw you out! That is what you get for all your mercy. That is how you’re rewarded for the duty you felt toward those children.
That is the justice of our world—one great big lie! ”
“But I had to try. If you were me, would you have sat back idly and let her continue unhindered?”
“I assure you, I despise Madam Kovetti and what she does. I’ll celebrate the day she dies, and I’ll only attend her funeral if it’s open-casket so I can spit at her corpse,” he spoke with a venom that was utterly genuine.
“But the fact remains that no matter how much you disapprove of their actions, you cannot cross the line. You will never be rewarded for your good intentions, not the way those heroes you wasted your childhood reading about always were. You certainly weren’t: the whole debacle depressed you to the point it wrecked your appetite, you starved yourself for days until you fainted, and then Desil had to carry you to the health ward—and there he signed his life and yours into a fool’s debt to that loan shark!
By sticking your nose into places it didn’t belong, you ruined your own life.
And I am not talking about your starvation nor Desil’s debt. ”
She stared at him questioningly.
“Did you not wonder why Madam Kovetti was never investigated?”
“Because the watchmen are failures at their duty to protect our society.”
He laughed. “You’re not wrong, but you miss the fact that perhaps even their hands were tied. Madam Kovetti is a woman protected by those with power, those profiting greatly from her continued business. She may be despicable, but she knows how to pay her dues on time.”
Lythlet paused. “You mean she was protected by the Eza?”
He nodded grimly. “Madam Kovetti is one of the most profitable earners in the Eza’s stable. She ranks high over most in his eyes.”
Lythlet buried her face in her hands.
He continued, a coy tone behind his words, “Once you recovered, you were then under the employ of a pair of swindlers for long months. I don’t think you’re one to condone scamming the slow-witted and the elderly. May I ask why you continued to serve under them?”
“I could find no other work,” she answered warily, wondering what he was getting at. “No one else would hire me, no matter how long I searched. Desil and I were so hard up for coin to pay off Tucoras, I had no choice.”
“Do you think that was a coincidence?”
She froze. She had suspected her foul luck in the past was unusual, the fact that nearly every single one of her employers had been violent, scheming lowlifes oddly coincidental—but what was he implying?
Master Dothilos sighed. “That’s what happens when you meddle in the business of a powerful woman with powerful connections.
You’re lucky Madam Kovetti decided to only punish your employment opportunities rather than end your life outright.
I suppose she didn’t think you were a threat worth stamping out entirely.
After all, all you had done was report her to people with no actual power to stop her.
So, you were blacklisted by most and condemned to working for the lowest of the low, any scumbag with a reputation for treating their staff poorly and violently, until she stopped caring enough to punish you any longer.
It was only this year you began working at the inn, right?
The only boss you’ve ever had who hasn’t beaten you over petty matters? ”
Lythlet sat there, winded. Had she truly suffered for years for doing what was right? Something that hadn’t even amounted to any justice in the end?