Orson Card - Hart's Hope

"Unless you have more money than you look to have," she said, "you might as well go home. The deeper you go into Whore Street, the more expensive it gets."

She was all breast and teeth—at least to Orem she was, for all he could see when he looked at her face was the way both rows of teeth were visible when she smiled, and when he didn't look at her face all he could see was the way her breasts hung provocatively within her blouse.

Perhaps she was one of those few whores who haven't lost their taste for beauty or for love. Not that Orem was beautiful. But he had a kind of gangling grace, like a colt first running, and he could look at once childlike and dangerous. (Perhaps only I saw the danger in his face; Beauty would have prospered better if she had seen it sooner.) Whatever her reason, she accepted an offer he did not make. He was so trusting that when she asked, he told her he had but five coppers. She had a conscience—she only charged him four.

His new-engaged whore brought him past the fierce guard at the door of a nearby house, announced in loud tones to all who cared to hear that she had found a virgin stalk to reap, and pushed him toward the stair. She walked behind him, and twice reached under his tunic and pulled his wrapping cloth down below his buttocks. Each time he jumped in surprise; each time she giggled.

"That costs a silver, no bargaining, that's what the house charges and I got no choice." Off they went up another flight. This time the carpet ended at the turn of the stairs, the moment the steps weren't visible from the carpeted hall. "It's like a hundred houses in one," she said, "depending on what you pay." The next flight creaked. And the fourth flight of stairs wobbled underfoot. "It's the cheap rooms, forgive the fleas, but four coppers ain't exactly money."

They walked carefully down a dark corridor, lit only by a torch at each end. Orem glanced into the rooms that were open. Just glanced, until what he saw made him stop and stare.

They sat side by side. Two women, just sitting, still as trees. They were dressed like any other whores, and had bodies perhaps more lovely than other whores. But their faces: which was more terrible? The one with a single eye, and a mouth that opened only on the side, and a nose skewed around so the nostril pointed more up than down? Or the one with no face at all?—neither brows nor eyes nor nose nor lips, just a circumference of hair and a blank of flesh interrupted only by a thin slit that could not be called a mouth, for there were no lips and it hung open in a limp O that dripped a steady stream of saliva down on her open bosom.

"Twins of the flesh, they were," said Orem's whore in a whisper, and she drew him away. Though he could not bear to look at the women, he hung back; she pulled harder and he drew away from the door. "Twins of the flesh. Born of a noble house, it's said, and they got the finest physicians and the finest wizards, not to mention priests, who blessed them till they damn near sprouted wings. Then they cut them apart. Twins of the flesh, joined at the face, except that the one was looking away from the other just a little, so she had an eye and half a mouth and half a nose, but the other nothing at all but a tiny hole that was letting air in from the other's mouth. They widened the hole. The blessings worked, for they lived. And the spells worked, for they grew flesh over their bloody wounds. But what was there for them? And which is worse cursed, do you think? The one who cannot see? Or the one who knows mirrors? We call them the Sweet Sisters. Kind of a joke, you know."

Orem had never known a woman in his life who would joke about the Sweet Sisters.

His whore opened a small door and ducked to go in. Orem also ducked, but still banged his head. "Low roof," she said.

His whore pulled her blouse from her shoulders; her breasts pulled up and then jogged back down when she lowered her arms. Orem saw, but all he could think of was the slack face with the hole that drooled. The whore undressed him, but all he could think of was the face with the single eye and the canted nose and the half-mouth. His whore stroked him and kissed him but it did no good; he lay trembling and unable and cold on the thin rug on the floor. Whatever he may or may not have wanted as he came up the stairs, the whore had nothing of him, because he had seen the twins of the flesh who had once been joined at the face and could think of nothing else.

"Fifteen," his whore said contemptuously. "Might as well be five. What did you plan to stick there, your knee? God knows it's skinny enough to fit. You got the balls of a mouse and the cod of a flea, that's what you got, so don't go telling me it's my fault, I'm still pretty enough, I didn't hear you telling me I was ugly down there on the street, did I?" She dressed quickly, then stooped and took four coppers from where they lay on the floor. "You pay for my time—it's not my fault you didn't use it. You're damn lucky I don't take the other one, for the insult." She spat on his loin wrap where it lay pathetic and empty on the floor, then stepped on it. "That and piss is all you'll ever find in your wrap in the morning. Find your own way out, dingle. When you turn ten come back and we'll see what we can do." And she was gone.

Ashamed, Orem tried to wipe her spittle from the wrap by dabbing with his shirt. Was this how his poem would begin?

He dressed and ducked back into the cluttered, shadowy hall. At once he saw the wall of light from the door where the monsters called the Sweet Sisters waited for him to pass. He was at once drawn to them and terrified. He stepped carefully, he trembled at the knee, he stumbled, he lurched against a wall. He was all the noisier for his efforts at silence.

"Who is there?" said a thin, high, wavering voice.

He kept his silence, kneeling on the floor of the dark hall. Don't come out and see me. Stay where you are, go to sleep, die. Let me pass.

"Answer. You know it makes my sister angry when you don't answer."

The last thing Orem wanted was to make a sister angry. In the name of God, Orem said silently, don't be angry at me. "I fell," he said.

"The voice of a child, yes? The voice of a clumsy child, yes? The voice of a boy who was charged four coppers and given nothing. But think, but think, she took nothing from you either. For the price of just four coppers, you're still a lake undrained by any stream." And then a slight laugh that angered him. His whore had been too loud; they knew his failure.

"Come in," said the voice.

No.

"Must I come get you?" He got to his feet and walked weakly forward, turned at their door. The single eye of the one face was looking at him, but if he looked away, the only place for his gaze was the other, the blank flesh, the steady trickle of drool. He forced himself to look about the room. There was a single chair besides the ones they sat in, old and frail and ready to break. There was a small loom, with a cloth half-finished in it, a ragged cloth which was also rotting, and the loom was so strung and clotted with webs and dust that it was plain it had not been used in years. And then the rug on the floor, just like the rug where he had lain helplessly with his whore: only this rug glowed in the light, and Orem realized it was woven with gold thread.

"Sit down." He did not try the chair, but sat on the floor.

To Orem's horror the lipless mouth tried to answer. A moan, a modulated moan like a song of pain, and the one-eyed sister nodded. "Yes, fifteen, but scrawny of body. My sister says your will is stone—you may crumble under the hammer, but long after the hammer has rusted away, you will

remain. Isn't that pretty? What's your name?"

"Orem." He still had not learned to lie.

"Orem. Do you want your four coppers back?"

It had not occurred to him that it was possible. "Yes."