Convergence (60 page)

"Yes, I know," Lorand replied, following her gesture as she began to lead the way back to the library. "Dama Hafford mentioned the matter to Dom Ro, and he passed it on to Dom Mardimil and me in the bath house. We decided not to say anything to Dom Drowd and Dom Holter, because the speculation could well do them more harm than good."

"Please make
yourself
comfortable in that chair, and I'll pour the tea," she said with another smile and gesture after closing the door. "And I agree completely about not telling Dom Drowd, but not because of any worries over him. The man is positively poisonous, and doesn't deserve to have any of us
help
him."

"Rion—Dom Mardimil—feels the same way," Lorand admitted, taking the chair she'd pointed out. "I can't say I like the man myself, but that doesn't mean I'll enjoy seeing him dead or worse.
Which will happen if all our speculations turn out to be true.
"

"It's hard to see how they won't," she said, coming over with his tea before taking another cup to her own chair. "I really hope we turn out to be wrong, but either way we'll have to wait and see. But now you and I will have to find something else to talk about. I invited you in here to give us privacy when I told you about our guesswork, and it will look strange to any of the servants in Lady Eltrina's pay if we end the talk too soon."

"Is this what they mean by intrigue?" Lorand asked with faint amusement. "If it is, I don't like it nearly as much as I thought I would as a boy. But there
is
something we can talk about, if you don't mind my asking for some advice. And if you and Dama Hafford are as close as you seem to be."

"Aha!" she said with a grin, leaning forward in her chair. "I think I'm going to enjoy this topic a good deal more than the other one. I don't mind in the least giving any advice I can, Jowi and I are becoming fast friends, and please call me Tamrissa."

"With pleasure, Tamrissa," Lorand responded with a laugh that hopefully wasn't too self-conscious. "And I'm Lorand, or, if you prefer, Lor. And now I wish I knew where to begin. The subject is a delicate one, and not the sort of thing I'd ordinarily discuss with a lady. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I've made a mistake bringing it up in the first place. Maybe we could talk instead about—"

"Lorand, don't you dare!" she interrupted, looking as if she were close to tears. "No one has
ever
asked for my advice before, and if you don't give me a chance I'll—I'll—never forgive you. Do you want me to never forgive you?"

"No, I don't believe I could live under a burden like that," Lorand surrendered with a sigh, silently cursing his big mouth. If he hadn't blurted out the most pressing thing on his mind—! Well, done was done, so he'd better make the best of it.

"Good," Tamrissa said with her smile returned, settling back with her teacup. "Now tell me all about it."

"Let me see if I can find the proper way to put it," Lorand temporized, thinking frantically. How was he supposed to describe Jowi's profession to an innocent and sheltered young lady? But with that as the core of his problem, he
had
to describe it. Why couldn't he have just kept his mouth shut or simply discussed the weather?

"It's taking you a very long time to find the proper way to put it," Tamrissa ventured after what really was a long, awkward silence. "Couldn't you just put it—improperly?"

"I suppose I might as well," Lorand agreed with another sigh, all his thinking having given him very little. "Let me begin by saying that I hold Jowi in the highest regard, and I feel honored that she seems to return my feelings to a small degree. I've . . . even broached the subject of marriage— assuming we all get through this testing business in one piece—but that was something she
didn't
find interest in. Apparently her former profession . . . biased her against marriage, and has become something of a—stumbling block between us. You see, she was a—ah—that is, a—"

"A courtesan," Tamrissa supplied without a blink. "Yes, I know, she told me. What about it?"

"What about it?" Lorand echoed, unsure of whether to be relieved or shocked, and then he understood. "Oh, I see, you know the word, but don't know what it means. Now, how can I explain it without offending you . . . ?"

"Lorand, I'm not a child," she said with the slightest trace of annoyance in her tone. "I know what a courtesan is and
does
, and just like most young girls, I used to dream about being one. On some level I still consider the life unbelievably romantic, even if my late husband made the thought of associating with men more than just a little distasteful. But that's my problem rather than yours. What part of all that did you
need
advice about?"

"Romantic?" Lorand said, finding it almost impossible to get beyond that word through his shock. "It isn't romantic, it's . . . wrong. And what did you mean by that dreaming comment? Most young girls do
not
dream about becoming courtesans."

"I'd say I'm in a better position to know about that than you are," she returned, now looking at him oddly. "Unless, of course, you've actually asked thousands of young girls, and had a way of knowing you were answered truthfully. Did you?"

"Of course not," he said, trying to ignore the blush he felt on his face. "I just happen to know what I know, the same thing everyone in my neighborhood district knew. No decent girl would ever dream of becoming a courtesan."

"What has decency got to do with being a courtesan?" Tamrissa asked, beginning to look as confused as he felt. "A standard of decency is applied to things that would harm others, but what harm does a courtesan do? Her task is to provide pleasure, and the more popular she is, the more of it she provides. What's indecent about that?"

"It . . . just isn't right," Lorand insisted, trying again to put his point of view into words. "A courtesan's main purpose is to . . . lure men into coming to her, into wanting to be with
her
rather than with his family. How do you think such a man's wife feels? Isn't
she
being harmed?"

"Personally, I would have danced with glee if my husband had ignored me in favor of a courtesan, and then I would have felt terribly sorry for the poor girl." Tamrissa's words were on the dry side, but there was no doubt she meant them. "But that's just me, so let's examine the silliness you just offered from a more objective stance. Are you saying men are so weak-willed and pliable that they would leave women they loved to spend time with the first courtesan who crooked a finger at them? Would
you
do that?"

"No, of course not," Lorand conceded, feeling his frown. "But I happen to be a man of principle. Some men are not, which brings their wives endless grief."

"Are you saying now that courtesans are responsible for those men being scoundrels?" Tamrissa
asked,
her head to one side. "I've learned that scoundrels don't simply change because there's no easy opportunity for them to take advantage of. In the absence of courtesans, they go prowling among unsuspecting single women and the wives of their friends. You've found it otherwise?"

Lorand immediately thought of the rakes in Widdertown, and the long lists of conquests they were always boasting about. The lack of courtesans in the area hadn't stopped any of
them. . . .

"And then there's that matter of love," Tamrissa went on, having grown thoughtful. "It's difficult for me to picture what that must be like, to be so close to someone else that they matter more than anything else in the entire world, including
yourself
. I read that once, a long time ago, and still don't really understand it. But even more, I don't understand why someone who feels like that would find a courtesan at all attractive. The only possibility I can think of is that they don't feel like that at all, and only claim to."

Once again Lorand's memories of home returned, this time centering
around
community picnics and gatherings. How many of the husbands had stood around staring at and daydreaming about all the prettier girls and women? How many of the wives had stood whispering and laughing together while inspecting the most handsome young men? But all those married people had claimed to be very happy and very much in love. . . .

"And then there are the women who, like your friend who visited earlier, enjoy blaming others for their own shortcomings. One of the men in my husband's circle of acquaintances was married to a woman who never had a kind thing to say about or to him, not to mention sweet or loving things. Nothing he ever did pleased or satisfied her, and it was actually painful to be around them at a party. And yet when he began to see a courtesan on a regular basis, she was shocked and outraged. What right did she have to feel like that, when she was the one who drove him away?"

"Possibly she was disappointed that he failed to live up to the vows he'd taken," Lorand suggested, unable to meet the direct gaze she now regarded him with. "If you commit yourself to something, you're honor bound to stay with it no matter how difficult it becomes."

"I think we're discussing peoples' lives, not building a house," she objected gently, the words softer than her stare. "And sometimes other people or the
circumstance of the time commit
you to things without consulting your preferences. Staying in an unbearable situation doesn't make you honorable, it makes you a masochist. And what about people who hide what they're really like until they have you trapped? Why do you have to be honorable when they lied about what you were getting into? And—"

"Please, enough," Lorand interrupted, holding up a hand. "Your points are well taken, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole idea of courtesans is . . . immoral. Just because everyone else might be doing wrong, that doesn't make what they do right."

"Weren't you ever taught that morality is a purely local thing?" she now asked, studying him with a curiosity that suggested he was some odd and foreign artifact. "Our school made a point of teaching us that, because so many different parts of the empire are represented in this city. They explained that if any group in a small place wants or
doesn't
want a particular thing, they announce it as moral or immoral. Very few people have the nerve to stand up and speak against something 'moral' or for something 'immoral,' so the group gets its way without having to come forward with reasonable or logical arguments for or against the thing. Isn't that what your people did, calling courtesans bad and immoral without listing any real reasons for believing that?"

Lorand almost stated the reasons he'd been given, but then he remembered they'd already discussed and dismissed them. Scoundrels would be scoundrels with or without courtesans, no man turns his back on true love, and some women drive their husbands to other arms than theirs. It was something else entirely bothering
Lorand,
and he was finally forced to admit it.

"All right, it isn't some nebulous objection about her profession," he blurted, saying it fast before he lost his nerve. "It's the fact that she shared herself with other men, and intends to keep on doing it. How am I supposed to live with
that?
I really love her, and I don't want to share her with anyone. If that's being selfish then I'm selfish, and I don't
want
to get past the feeling. It's too important to me, too . . ."

"Personal," Tamrissa finished with a sigh when his words simply trailed off. "Again, I don't have any idea how that feels, but I'd like to understand it. Do you mean that if Jowi had been married and widowed seven or eight times, you'd still feel the same? I met a woman once who was betrothed to six brothers, one after the other, and none of them lived more than a year. There was something in their blood that was killing them off one after the other, but the two merchant families were determined to have an alliance. There were ten brothers all together, and the last I heard, number seven was lasting longer than any of the others. But that gets away from my question. If that were Jowi and the last brother died and ended the chance of alliance, would you refuse to marry her even though you loved her?"

"Why, I don't know," Lorand admitted, considering the question with surprise. There had been a family like that on a farm near Widdertown, where every one of their boy children suffered from uncontrollable bleeding. The smallest scratch had turned fatal for three of them, and the family physician had said the others would probably go the same way. The family had put themselves into debt to travel to Gan Garee and consult a High practitioner in Earth magic, but the man hadn't been able to find anything in the way of a germ that didn't belong. They might as well have stayed with their family physician who, like many other physicians, was an ordinary practitioner of Earth magic