But the girls were still watching the coach with great, huge eyes, waiting for a peek at the grand lady within. They went on down the boulevard until the girls were dizzy with the sights-then the older lady led them into a side street that very quickly turned into a maze of lanes. “This city is grown much less grand of a sudden,” Flaminia said, staring about them. Laundry was pegged to ropes that ran across the street. Peddlers hawked their wares, and grimy children played on the cobbles. The procuress wound her way adroitly between them. Matt slowed the pace, keeping the party just barely in sight. “We will lose them!” Flaminia said impatiently. “No,” Matt said, “but we don’t want them to know we’re following.”
They passed another mature couple they knew from the road, being guided by an enthusiastic young city man. “Only a little farther, and you shall see the bridge for yourself!”
“Then we can truly buy it, and charge toll to everyone who would pass?” The man fairly licked his chops at the prospect of riches. “Indeed you can! I shall give you a lawyer’s deed to it!”
“But it must cost a fortune,” the woman said anxiously. “Not a bit! It will cost you only… How much did you say you had in your purse?”
Matt hurried his charges ahead. “Can they truly buy a bridge?” Pascal asked, eyes round.
“No,” Matt said, “but they can lose every penny they have, trying.”
“We must stop them!” Flaminia protested. “If we do, we’ll lose the madame and her flock of gullible little geese,” Matt told her, “and I think they’re about to lose something more than cash.”
Flaminia blanched and hurried on. They turned three more comers, then came out into a narrow street of tottering houses. It was dusk, and lean, wasted-looking men were coming out to hang red lanterns over every other doorway. “Here is my house!” The beldame waved at a doorway-and waved harder. The ferret-faced man in the doorway whisked his lantern behind his back, then pasted on a smile and bowed. “Welcome, mistress! And have you brought us guests, then?”
“Aye, Smirkin-three lonely girls, fresh from the country!”
“Fresh meat for the grinder, you mean.” Matt came up right behind her. “Away, rogue!” The woman turned on him sharply. “Get you hence, or I’ll call the Watch!”
“Why, ‘tis the minstrel!” one of the girls said in surprise. “Ask her what she sells in there,” Matt told them.
“I sell nothing!” The woman drew herself up indignantly.
“Don’t you really?” Matt climbed the steps. “That’s funny. Half the houses on this street have red lanterns, and…”
Suddenly, he yanked Smirkin through the doorway. The man squalled, bringing up his hands to ward off a blow-and one of them held a red lantern. Unlit, but his other hand held a tinderbox. “She’s in the same business everyone else is here,” Matt told the girls. “The red lantern is the sign of a brothel. She’s right about one thing-she doesn’t sell anything, only rents them by the hour.”
“What is that?” one girl said, eyes wide. “Women,” Matt said, “for men to do whatever they want with, short of killing.” He turned to the proprietress. “Or do you allow that, too?”
“You lie, sir!” she said indignantly. “No, but all the girls you bring home do lie-lie down, that is, or suffer until they’re willing to.” He turned back to the country girls. “Let’s go. There’s someplace better for you than this.”
“Do not believe him!” the madame cried. “He seeks to use you for his own purposes!”
The girls hesitated, uncertain. The door of the house across the way burst open and a half-undressed man shot out, with a huge burly brute behind him. “Be off with you! If you’ve no cash to pay, you can’t have her!”
“But I had money!” the man bleated. “Gold! She took it while I was undressing!”
“The more fool you, for letting her know where it was,” the bouncer said contemptuously. “Go on, get your clothes on and get out of here!”
The girls turned pale.
“Yes, that is my business, too!” Suddenly, the nice old granny had turned into a sneering harridan. “But you’ll come to it sooner or later, my chicks, so why not sooner?”
“Never!” the tallest girl cried indignantly.
“No? Is there a one of you that’s still virgin, after that carnival trek you’ve taken? Where do you think you’ll find husbands? What work do you think you can find in a town overflowing with girls new from the country?” She shook her head. “Oh, no, sweetings-this is the only bed you’ll find, and the only bread you’ll eat. You can starve until you’re willing to take it, until you throw yourselves into the trade with no training or bracing-or you can come in now, and learn the business properly and at a decent pace.”
The girls shrank back, looking very frightened. ‘There are other choices,“ Matt told them. ”Let’s go.“ He strode down the steps and away. They followed him with relief. ”Go men, fools!“ the harridan screeched at them. ”But remember where this house is, for you’ll need it within the week!“ And to Matt, ”A pox on you, minstrel! A pox that you will give to them! Did you think him a rescuer, girls? No! He’s just a pimp, come to steal you from a procuress!“
“No, I’m not,” Matt told the girls. “I’m not going to keep you, just find you a safe haven for a couple of days.”
The girls still looked uncertain, but followed him, shuddering at the harridan’s screeches behind them. As they came back into the high street, a sergeant came strutting along. “Hup! Hup! That’s right, lads, at the barracks they’ll give you fine clothes like mine, and each of you a bright new florin! Then dinner, and bed with a score of brothers!”
Eager young men trooped after him.
“Why, there is Berto!” one girl cried. “And Samolo, and Gian! Are they going to be soldiers, then?”
“Looks like it,” Matt said, “and the sergeant will become a lot less friendly as soon as they’re safely in his barracks. Even so, they’ve got a better choice than you girls have-at least they’ll have room, board, and safety.”
“And all for nothing but the risk of their lives,” Flaminia said darkly. “I think I would prefer that,” said the thinnest girl, with a trembling voice. “Where will you take us, minstrel?” one girl asked.
“To the…” Matt’s voice trailed off. He had been about to say “the church,” that always being a safe place for girls needing sanctuary and advice-but in Latruria the churches were boarded up, and the few priests still ministering to the faithful weren’t about to go public just yet. “We’ll find you jobs,” Matt told them. “You can clean house, make beds, cook meals, that sort of thing.”
“But that is what we fled our village to escape!” one girl protested. “Where is the wealth of Venarra, the continual parties and fine clothes and dancing?” asked another. “In the palace,” Matt said, “and the mansions of the wealthy. Rumor lied to you, damsels.”
The youngest girl began to weep. ‘To come so far… to have lost… have lost…“
“Your home is still there,” Matt told her, ignoring what else she might have been saying. “If worse comes to worst, you can join one of the bands of people going north.”
“Not the wasted, haunted ones!” the tallest girl cried, looking up in horror. “Better to join them before you’re washed out, too,” Matt said, “but in the meantime, if you want to be able to earn the money to enjoy the life of Venarra, we’d better find you some honest work.”
They trooped along behind him in silence for a few minutes. Then the oldest girl said bitterly, “We shall have to get it ourselves, shall we not? No one will get it for us!”
“No.” Matt shook his head sadly. “No one will. You have to pay for what you get, one way or another-and if anybody tells you he can get it for you without any cost to you, he lies. He may not know it, but he lies.”