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They called her Aiseän, after the aisa, the nightingale, for her voice was sweet and soft, and she could sing beautifully, both the folk songs of her own people of Cetho and those of other more distant provinces. Although she had never journeyed outside of the city where she had been born, she could affect accents well, and she liked to make us children laugh by imitating the voices of people we knew.
She had left her real name behind when she had come to the brothel, as all the women did, and she never told me any words of her past or her family; in hindsight I imagine it was too painful for her to speak of. In those days I was more often hailed as ‘boy’ than by my real name, which upset her greatly. She told me often my name was a precious thing, and I must never relinquish it, and even at that young age I heard the unspoken “as I was forced to do”.
She would, or more likely, could, tell me nothing of my father. She was my mother, and that was all that mattered.
There were four of us children: myself, Seltho, who was a few years older than the rest of us, and Naru and Aleö, who were both a year younger than I and well-nigh inseparable. Although none of us shared a mother, and there was likewise no indication of kinship on the father’s side, I always thought of them as my sisters, and they in turn held me as their brother.
Even as children we had to earn our keep, and the cost of our care was held as a debt to the matron the same as it was for our mothers. The girls worked in the kitchens and the laundry, we all scrubbed the floors and refilled the oil lamps and emptied the lavatories, and I ran errands for the matron and the women alike.
I learned to be quick on my feet and sneaky, as we all had to be, and I am ashamed to admit I would occasional supplant my meager possessions by way of picking the pockets of patrons. Sometimes too, I would pass messages between the women, and as none of them could read or write, by this practice I became quite skilled at memorization. All of these skills would later serve me in other endeavors, although at the time I thought nothing of a life outside the brothel.
When I was eleven, I was cornered by a customer, who trapped me against a wall and held my arm so tightly it hurt. He was clearly drunk, and he would not let me go no matter how hard I struggled. I was not so innocent as not to get the gist of where this was heading, and likewise to know it would be useless to attempt to fight back.
Luckily for me, my mother arrived at that moment, and gracefully plied the man away from me by way of her own charms. As soon as he had released me, I ran to join my sisters in the kitchen, where I soon forgot my fears in joyous conversation with them. At the time, I thought little of the miserable night my mother was surely having, nor of how this incident might change the course of my own life.
The last time I saw my mother was unremarkable. She came to the room I shared with my sisters around our bedtime, as she often did whenever she could get away. She sat next to me and sang me to sleep, although I insisted I was too old for such things. I fell asleep with her soft voice in my ears, and a smile on my face.
The next morning, the matron took me aside. She told me in her brisk and businesslike manner that my mother had negotiated with her to add my debts to the brothel to her own contract. That meant that I was free to leave—and indeed, the matron told me in no uncertain terms that I could not remain there any longer as it stood—but with eleven years of childcare on top of the debt she had racked up herself, there was no hope that my mother would ever be able to pay it off, and thus she would be trapped her forever.
It was with shock that I gathered my things and said hurried goodbyes to my sisters. Seltho rattled off pieces of advice, while Naru speculated on all the wondrous things I could see in the outside world, and Aleö made me promise not to forget her with a stiff face like she was trying not to cry.
The matron had told me my mother was busy, and could not possibly see me, so after that there was nothing to do but to leave.
As difficult as life at the brothel had been, life on the streets of Cetho did not prove much better. But I had never been anything if not resourceful, and soon enough I had found a family who were willing to let me work as a stable boy in exchange for room and board. It was miserable work, but it was a roof over my head, and I was unlikely to find the sort of trouble there that had clearly so frightened my mother.
It was there that I met Varana. Varana was a year or so older than I, but much more worldly. He was a goblin, with pitch black hair and skin the color of charcoal, and his eyes were warm amber. I had never met anyone like him, and in truth I was rather infatuated.
He had lived in Barizhan when he was very young, but his father had died at sea and his mother had brought him to the Ethuveraz, where she had an uncle who took them in. He was a stable boy as well, but unlike me he knew how to ride, and he could read a little, both Barizhin and Ethuverazhin. He taught me to write my name, and to mount a horse, and a great many tales of the places he had seen on the long way from the Chadevan Sea to Cetho, and in return I sang my mother’s songs to him, although I never could do them justice as she could.
Varana was nearing thirteen, which meant, he told me, that he would soon be old enough to join the courier fleet, and travel all over the world, never to be tied down again. To my young mind, it sounded like paradise. I had never left Cetho, nor even dreamed of doing so, but now my dreams were full of high mountains and vast plains and the far-off sea.
Although I was younger than Varana, I was nearly as tall, and my legs were longer than his. I picked up horsemanship as quickly as I grew to despise the lot of a stable boy, and I thought long and hard of the choices before me, such as they were.
So it was that when Varana entered the Courier General’s office on the day following his thirteenth birthday, I arrived in tow, and the clerk said nothing when I told him I was the same age.
I was prepared, too, when he asked for my surname. I had none whatsoever, of course, with no family besides my mother, whose true name I did not know. It did not matter, in any case—as she had been the nightingale, so would I be, and although I changed the form to be more believable as a surname, I hoped that if ever she heard my name she would instantly recognize me for her son.
Although for the next ten years I spoke of her to no one, I never stopped thinking of her, and wondering what had become of her. I never had much money, but I saved as much as I could, in hopes that one day I could go find her and buy out her contract so she could live in freedom as I did. It was a ridiculous dream—until suddenly it wasn't.
I shall not write here of my own rise to glory; in truth it is nothing all that interesting, I simply had the fortune to be in the right place at the right time, as is so often the case in these situations. I am sure there are a thousand other men who could have been favored by chance as I was, and who would surely have done as well or better a job as I have.
Regardless, finding myself suddenly far above any station that a whoreson courier should ever expect to find himself in, and in possession of such a salary as my younger self should have considered a small fortune, my thoughts returned to my mother, and I realized my fancies of providing for her were now truly possible.
It took a few weeks to find her—the brothel I had grown up in had been relocated twice, and there was very little of a paper trail to track it down—but eventually I did, and I confirmed via a friend that my mother was still living there.
I went myself to visit her, afraid that she would not know me as I am now, so far from that little errand boy. I should not have feared—she knew my name at once, as I had hoped, and I had scarcely knocked on the door to her room before she was embracing me.
I had grown two inches taller than her, but otherwise looking on her face was akin to looking into a mirror; her eyes the same pale watery color as my own, her chin and nose the same shape, her complexion identical, if it was a little paler and more lined.
I told her I had bought out her contract, and purchased her a townhouse on the other side of the city, not far from the court so I could visit her on occasion, and I promised her as pleasant a life as I could afford. A secretary’s salary, I admitted, was not endless, but it was more than enough to live on, and in much more comfort than she was used.
I asked also what had become of my ‘sisters’—Seltho’s contract had been sold to another brothel, she said; Naru had married a rich merchant; Aleö had succumbed to a fever a few years ago. I made a note to look into Seltho and Naru’s fates further, and to bring flowers to Aleö’s grave; my mother praised my handwriting effusively.
She would speak of nothing but me as I took her to her new residence, praising my accomplishments, gushing on how handsome I had supposedly become, asking for every detail of my new life. I was careful with what I told her, but I think some of what I would not say she guessed herself.
She asked if I had any lady friends, and when I told her I was far too busy for such a thing she asked instead if I had any gentleman friends. I must have looked quite shocked, for she assured me quickly that such a thing was not so uncommon and she would have nothing whatsoever to say against it; she nearly seemed disappointed when I told her I did not have any of those either.
She settled well into the townhouse, although it took much argument to convince her to set aside her pride and accept the services of the housekeeper I had hired. I encouraged her to introduce herself to her neighbors as the widow Merrem Aisavo. She laughed and told me Aiseän Aisavo was a ridiculous name; I told her if it was not to her liking she could use any name whatsoever that she wished.
I later tracked down Naru and her husband living in Cairado; I wrote to them and received a lovely response from Naru herself informing me they are very happy, with three much-loved children and a fourth expected this spring. Her eldest son, I learned to much surprise, was named after me.
I am still looking for Seltho; it is often difficult to find any concrete answers, as brothel contracts are rarely publicly available and names can change on a whim, but I still have hope I will be able to find her some day, or at least learn something of her fate.
My mother seems well, I visit her when I can and exchange letters via the housekeeper when I cannot. My mother is learning to read, and as she has always been very quick-witted I am confident she will be writing to me in her own hand before long. She is still cautious around her neighbors, but there is a young couple next door who have been friendly to her.
She has met Varana, and my other friends from the fleet; I was worried they would not know what to make of each other but they have gotten along very well indeed.
I only wish I could introduce “that person” to her, although of course it is impossible… I have not told anyone in my new life of her; I would not know how to explain. Even if I did, to bring her into the court would only shame her.