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Eight of Swords
Twenty Eighth Day of the Fourth Month 293 AC
While she had tried to go back to sleep after the ordeal, sweetful rest eluded Anya after the nightmare. It had been all too clear and every time she dared to close her eyes, the images flooded right back and had her open them again immediately. There was simply no way that she could stay in bed, no matter how exhausted she was. Despite it probably being well past midnight, she rose again and got ready for some very late work. Or very early. It was hard to tell with even the moon hiding behind the clouds and leaving the night sky a featureless black. Though at least she wouldn't have to aimlessly roam the streets until her head was clear again like some other days. Originally she had planned to do this right before her normal shift at dawn, but she might as well visit her right away. It was not only the lawmen who were at work between dusk and dawn.
Having a establishment that called itself the Red Lantern was, that much Anya had learned from sailors tales, pretty much a sign that a port was a proper port and not just a pier with some houses. It usually called itself a brothel and sat somewhere in between the disreputable whorehouses where you could consider the healers bill part of the cost of the visit and the high class businnesses with fancy names that had courtesans instead of whores and cost more per night then half the crew on a ship made in a year. Furthermore, it meant that there were enough prostitutes in the area that they needed to name their houses to avoid confusion. It boggled the mind that men spent so much time thinking about these things that they had such convulent theories about places where they could have some company for the night, but then again, they had similar scholarly wisdoms about ale-houses of every shape and form. Maybe they just spent so much time numbing their wits that their nether regions needed to form their own world-views to deal with constantly being in charge.
Aside from the deeper cultural meaning of the name itself, the Red Lantern was a brothel like so many others in the Deep. Close to the docks and thus it's main customers, the ale cheap and the women decently pretty, with just one exceptional thing making it stick out. Zola the Warrior Princess. Or, as Anya knew her, Laeri the former galley-slave. Getting to meet her was a lot more embarassing then she would ever admit to. Less because of the leery grin of the Red Lanterns owner when she asked for the company of another woman and more because of the paper-work that this visit would leave behind. The Lawmen had a small amount of coin a their disposal for 'information gathering', or bribery as anyone else would call it. However, Anyas boss insisted on not only keeping notes about who took out how much, but also details about the why. So any of her comrades who knew his letters or was within earshot of anyone else who could read would soon gossip about her visiting a whore on the kings dime.
There was little choice on this matter though. Flashing a lawmen badge near the docks without a bleeding body in the vincinity would send everyone scrambling to figure out how someone had figured out that they hadn't paid their taxes properly. And more importantly, which of the taxes she was here about. Just paying for a bit of time with 'Zola' made things just a lot easier and after coins had changed hands, she was led towards her room and ushered inside.
To the brothels credit, the room did look quite nice. A large four poster bed dominated it and the mix of flickering candles and linen drapes gave it something exotic. But the illusion shattered utterly when she saw 'Zola' sitting on a small bench in the corner of the room, her back turned to the door. Around here were strewn a few weapons that looked even in the little light as if they were to dull to kill a piglet with them and the warrior princes was busy ruining both a whetstone and another blade with very spirited and very inept attempts at the opposite. When Anya closed the door behind herself, the grinding stopped, the blade being released from it's torment for now and 'Zola' stood up.
She couldn't exactly say that Laeri was not a comely woman, but certainly not what one expected when thinking of her new profession. The woman towered easily over Anya and probably over most men too. Broad and robustly build. Well defined muscles coiling beneath skin a deep ebony. To a casual observer, she was the epitome of the warrior princess she was heralded as, though to the eye of someone actually versed in these matters, it was ridicolous. Her build was that of someone who got his muscles through hard work, not the often wiry frame of someone who not only needed strength, but also mobility to avoid being hit. The small-clothes made in imitation of scale-mail were surely meant to represent armor, though they barely covered her tits and crotch, yet nothing even remotely important. Then again, most smiths were men, so it could be argued that this mockery of armor actually covered all the parts it's creator thought worth protecting.
Before this farce could go on any longer, Anya waved over to two stool standing at a low table with a crude tea-set sitting on top. "It's alright. I just want to talk to you Laeri."
The woman gave a start at being called by that name, instantly slipping out of the role she had tried to play and nodding a bit dumbstruck. They both had sat down and she had poured a cup of tea for herself, Anya declining one of her own, before she got her thoughts back in order. "Where did you learn that name?"
"It is my job to know these things." With that announcement, she lifted her lapel to show the copper badge that was her sign of office, savoring the incredolous look on ther other womans face with an impish grin. It was nice to fool around in the clothed sense of the word now and then, especially after how her night had gone so far, but sadly she also had to act somewhat professional. "You were listed among the slaves freed out of the posession of Dyraek Pasarys, the captain of the ship you worked on. It was part of the files we had on his trial."
Laeri just sighed at that and took a deep sip from her tea, staring out of the half-glimpsed window towards the sea. "I take it the rumors are true then?"
There was not much guessing which one she meant. News spread fast among the docks of any city, doubly so the news about the death of aquitted slaver. "Yes. He is dead and I'm here to learn more about him to find the reason for the murder."
"That's good to hear." Neither was this response terribly surprising, given that a few of his former slaves had spoken out for Dyraek, leading to his acquittal, but Anya still waited attentively to hear the full tale of the woman before her. "He is... was not a bad man. He always treated us like people, not cattle. The work was demanding, but he kept us well fed, hale and healthy as good as he could. When you need someone to row a galley for you in Lys, you buy a few slaves, that's just how it is there."
"I've seen no marks of whips on your back. I take it that wasn't a healers work?" It was strange for Anya to actually meet one of those slaves who had been content with their lot. They were few and far in between among menial laborers like farmhands, miners or rowers, but they did exist.
A slight chuckle was all the answer she got at first, Laeri apparently being amused by a memory she did not wish to share. She spoke a moment later, the look of fond remambrance still present. "He always said that a whip makes people row faster for a short while and plot his demise for a very long while. That was a bad deal as far as he was concerned. Lys would be a better place if just more people could think ahead even just that tiny bit." With a hearty sip that meshed far better with her warrior princess role then all the other acts she had put up, the small clay vessel came to rest on the table again. "I was born in Lys. Never knew my parents and my skin is the only thing that hints at who they were. When they told me that nobody would want the maidenhood of a hag build like a draft-horse, I was terrified of what would become of me. Dyraek was the best thing that could have happened for me and I was grateful that I could work for him instead of anybody else. But I think you know how these things go just as well as I do."
Anya puzzled over the words a moment, then noticed that the whore, and here she felt the need to apply that term for the first time since meeting her, was gazing back and forth between her red hair and her brown skin. Apparently, she looked like a successfull breeding project of some sick bastard from one of the cesspits the Essosi called their cities. That one was honestly new. Her offense must have shown on her face, for Laeri quickly raised her hands in a warding gesture, though she waved her off. "It's okay. There have been comments about my looks since I was born, though that theory never came up among Westerosi commoners."
Laeri still looked mortified at having insulted a lawwoman, no matter how unintended it was. This wouldn't do. Anya still had a few questions for the former galley-slave. So she pressed on with the tale, hoping to bridge the awkward silence. "My parents hailed from the Vale. Pale folk with dark hair like most there. When my mother had a little girl with red thufts of hair and olive skin, the rumours began to fly. They were sure she had a dalliance with some mysterious stranger, with his identity being assumed to be from anywhere between the North and Dorne. My father took it in good humor though and trusted her words that she never had laid with another them him, so he told everyone that he had sired such a great daughter that nobody believed that he alone could have done it."
Both woman laughed at that bit of old silliness, repeated by a daughter that had then be far too young and impressionable to forget such boasting and yet sneaky and curious enough to have heard it in the first place. Despite her best efforts though, Anyas smile stayed a hollow figment. The few fond memories of her parents were always tinged with the certainity that they were dead, yet that she could to this day not remember the details of what had happened to them. Most of he days, she could bear the sadness of those recollections, but when the nightmares flared, especially those which included them, it seemed as if only miserys could come from remembering them at all.
But at least she had achieved her goal by sharing this with Laeri and now she just needed to get her talking again. "Why this Zola the Warrior Princess act though? You never held a blade in your life. I can tell, because you couldn't sharpen a kitchen knife, let a lone a sword."
Now it was the prostitutes turn to look offended, though the way she exaggareted the motion of laying her hand over her heart and the poor simily of outrage on her face belayed it as playing around. "A woman has to use her strengths. Quite literally in my case. I'm not a dainty little flower for the hard sailors to ravage, but there is a surprising number of them who would prefer a more
challenging task." With the last words she jiggled her chest for a bit and, in an act that looked pretty incongruous in the combination, flexed her muscles. "I think most men are still little boys in their hearts and little boys dream of being explorers and conquerors. They come here and pay good coin for a short time of having sweet lies whispered in their ears, so why should not one of them be that of a proud and fierce Summer Island warrioress that turns the tables on the ravaging, if they so desire?"
Anya coughed a bit at the last part, hoping that the dim light covered the slight heat that had risen in her cheeks. For someone working in this profession for such a short while, Laeri sure had learned quickly how to get under other peoples skin. She was genuinely likeable and while she made a poor warrior, she did have her own rough charm all the same. "Well, what about Dyraek? Did you meet him again after coming here?"
She nodded curtly while pouring herself another tea, Anya taking of her own too this time. "Yes. When he was acquitted, they seized part of his cargo to pay for reimburse the king for the money handed out to get us on our feet. Quite a few of us gave a few coins to Dyraek once he was free, since we didn't want to see him impoverished over his misfortune. It was not nearly enough to pay for the repairs on his ship, but he was smiling for the first time since coming here for the gesture and that was something at least. I think I'm not the only one who kept in touch with him. I've even found someone who was willing to pay a decent sum for the rest of his cargo among my cliens. Some Tyroshi merchant who was urgently looking for good quality cloth for some kind of gift to Sorcerers Deep and the king."
"A gift for the city?" Given what she had heard about the magisters actions since the fall of Tyrosh, this sounded a lot like some hair-brained bribery attempts. Rumours were that those were quite common, though mostly aimed at the Companions instead of the king directly, as he was allegedly not a man that could be swayed by a bit of frippery.
Laeri just shrugged, the matters of bribig kings clearly nothing she was concerned with. "Yes. Some kind of gesture of kindness to the people who had ended slavery in Tyrosh. I don't truly believe it either, despite the man being quite charming, but Dyraek got at least a bit of the coin he needed from it and that's what mattered to me."
Thinking back on the state she found the late captain in, that made sense. He apparently had even sold off his own wardrobe to get funds for his ship. Though the shipwrights claimed he had paid the full sum in advance, so something was decidedly not adding up here. Anya had checked with the Iron Bank and a few of the bigger private money lenders and no one had given Dyraek a loan, since it was pretty obvious that he would most likely default on it. Where had that coin come from then? It didn't seem as if Laeri hid anything from her, but there was definitely something going on in the background. Large sums of gold coming into being from thin air and the recipient turning up dead a short while later were definitely events that related to each other.
For now though, she had a different thing to try. Something she had kept for last, since it might end the discussion right here and now. Carefully, she took the card she had found out of the ship out of her pocket and showed it to Laeri, whose look became crestfallen as she figured out what the dark stains on it were. "I found this with Dyraek. I think it was left there by whoever murdered him."
Without a word, Laeri rose up and went to a drawer next to the bed, taking out something and returning to her stool. Part of Anya wanted to stop her, fearing that she might get a weapon, but another was sure that the woman was too kind at heart to try and harm her. And indeed, what she had gotten was not a dagger, but another card. This one had eight swords in the center, laid out in a circle and with the tips pointing towards the center. "I know these cards. It's some kind of game from Slavers Bay that is catching on here lately. A few people give away the cards as a token for a favor or as something for the holder to identify himself with."
Anya stretched out her hand to take the card, which was of the same high quality and obviously expensive make then the one she already had. Probably even from the same set. "Where did you get this one?"
Draining her second cup of tea, Laeri was quiet for a bit, seeming to struggle with a choice before she spoke again. "A customer of mine gave it to me. He was quite enarmored with the night and insisted that he owed me not just some silver, but a small favor for it. He said that if I ever grew tired of working her, I should take this card and go to the Red Parlor, where I'm supposed to ask for a man named Jorah."
"And I take it you don't know who this Jorah is supposed to be?" It was risky. This reeked like a trap. But what kind of trap would lure a common prostitute with such an expensive card?
"No. I guess it is just a sign anyway and that there isn't anyone named Jorah there. The Red Parlor is near the bazaar in the center of the city if you want to try your luck. I'm quite happy with my lot here and I think I can find other work on my own if that ever changes." There was more that she wished to say, that was easy to read on Laeri's face and in her eyes. Owner he might have been, she grieved for Dyraek.
As Anya had risen, she made a shallow bow towards the other woman. "Thank you. I will find out why he died, that I promise you."
AN: These Omakes with Anya are becoming way, way longer then I intend them to every single time.
