Free Sinners and the Sea by Rebecca Kanner Page A

do. The best whores have whole stacks of tunics. Sometimes the whores present them to traders for food and wine.”
    “And what do they do with them otherwise?”
    “Trade them for children that they can prostitute, which is what you could do, should Noah ever tire of you. You like children.”
    I had seen many traders when I dwelled in my father’s tent, and they were all men. Some of them had seemed greedy enough that I could imagine them trading in children. “Men might do such a thing, but not women,” I said. “You lie.”
    “I just killed two men. I do not have the energy to lie.”
    Indeed, she did not seem like a woman who would bother to lie. She did not have the decency.
    “Families come from surrounding towns,” she said, “or sometimes from far away, to trade their children.”
    My husband’s town was hardly better than Arrat’s tales of it. My knees buckled. Sorum was no more than a large brothel for mercenaries.
    “Perhaps you should give each piece of clothing some flaw,” Javan taunted. “Make the tunics too short, or with an odd tear here or there, or spill some grape juice on them. Better yet, soak them in blood. Then the traders will not want your clothes, and our men will not be afraid to wear them.”
    I could not speak. Javan was no doubt overjoyed at the effect her words were having on me. She kicked my knee to make sure I was listening, then went on: “Though pulling the clothes off the dead is great sport. No matter how you damage the clothes you make, still they will not be as lucky to the men as the ones they pull off each other in battle.”
    She kicked me again. She did not kick hard, but I would not have cared if she had. “The men must fight the bodies of the dead for clothes and teeth even as the battle wages around them, because afterward nothing will be left. Not one single tooth. And this is honorable because it is more dangerous than fighting the living—another man can see you pillaging a dead man and kill you while you are distracted.”
    She is mad, as are all the rest who have not fled this place. A small, sweet hand touched my hair and played lightly with it. Except Herai. Thank you, God of Adam, and all other gods, for this one joy.
    Javan continued, “They never fix their clothes, because why spend time mending something that will tear again? A man can only mount so many whores, and then what else is there to dobesides drink and fight? You see? You see, simple woman?” Suddenly she clapped her hands together and cried, “Ah!” as though she had been struck with an idea. “You could make necklaces of teeth! These are stolen so often, there is always a need for more.”
    I did not open my mouth or move my eyes to Javan’s face. I reached for the little hand in my hair and squeezed it weakly between my palms.
    “Well, if you have no more milk or goat meat . . .” Javan said.
    It was a relief when she started walking away, and a heartbreak when Herai drew her hand from mine and ran after her.
    Before they had gotten ten cubits away, Javan turned back to me. “Do not fear a mob, demon woman. Your secret is safe with me.” She touched her finger to her brow and continued away.

CHAPTER 10
    SONS AND DEMONS
    I t was clear I would never be part of a gathering of women like the ones I imagined in my father’s village. But even in the worst of places, people long for company. Especially in the worst of places. I hoped Herai might come back for milk. After a couple of moons, I grew tired of waiting and decided I would have to go into town to find her. I could not work up the courage though.
    One day it was unusually quiet. I heard no people screaming or fighting, only the occasional bleating of one of Noah’s goats. The quiet called up a loneliness so deep within me that I knew there was no son in my belly. I was empty. I felt the loss of my father as deeply as if it had only been yesterday that I’d watched him weakly slap Noah’s donkey and limp back to his