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“I take it you haven’t been to one of those either, Princess.”

“But I have.” I jerked my chin up. “I visited one just last year with my father. The men have spacious, airy rooms for them and their children. They’re given options for honest employment while their children go to school. They’re fed well and get assistance for clothing and medicine if needed.”

His chest rose with a heavy sigh.

“I wish you could visit them all, then. Maybe the conditions in all of them would improve if you did. Either way, a charity house was the last resort for us. The better ones are always full. The others... Well, let’s just say they aren’t a good place to grow up or to grow old in.” He moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “My father could’ve gotten a job as a blacksmith helper. No one knew his name outside of our village, of course, but Mother’s shop did well, and his work was good. This one even made it all the way to the royal palace.” He tipped his head at the sword over my fireplace. “But then, the lady who owned the land where we lived offered to take us in. Father got the job of a general laborer on her estate, and I was supposed to be a companion for her son who was only a year younger than me. Father did it forme. He hoped the lady would eventually help me find a good wife and ensure my future.”

“That sounds like a great opportunity,” I agreed, but he winced. “Was it not?”

“Well, it certainly improved my education. I attended the lessons with the lady’s son and learned everything he did. But instead of finding me a wife, the lady set her eyes on me herself. Shortly after I turned fourteen, we became lovers, with little consent on my part.”

I gasped in a painful breath. My spine went stiff, my stomach sinking. The darkness of my past brushed over me again with its worn filthy wings. It was a different world, a different life, a different person, yet somehow, I knew exactly how Salas must’ve felt, and it made me nauseous all the same.

“Did your father know?” I asked, my voice hollow like an echo in an empty cave.

“No. By then, she had sent him away from the estate to work on a distant farm. The hard work ruined his health. He passed away shortly after.” His free shoulder jerked once. But he remained in the same casual position, leaning against the frame. “I was seventeen when the lady died too. Her daughter inherited the estate. She knew what was going on between her mother and me and ordered me to leave, afraid that my ‘wicked ways’ might rub off on her younger brother and ruin his good name along with his chances for an advantageous marriage. As the word about my tattered reputation got out, no one would hire me. I was too young to even sign a contract with a slave owner then.” He shrugged, trying to downplay his sufferings. “I knocked on many doors that winter when it got too cold to beg on the street. Few of the doors opened. No one let me in. Except for one establishment.”

“The fun house?”

“The fun house,” he echoed with a sigh. “I wish I could say my story is unique, Princess, but it isn’t. During my years in the brothel, I met men from all walks of life. Actors and musicians down on their luck. Lady’s favorites who have fallen out of favor. Widowers. Run-away husbands who’d given up on trying to please their moody, abusive wives and found it easier to please many different women instead. I made friends. I felt safer there than in the lady’s manor where I lived before.”

“Why did you leave the fun house?” I asked, striving to understand.

He stared past my shoulder, as if peering straight back into his past. “Once again, I had little choice when it happened. As popular as our services were, the town folks hated our establishment. Even those who visited us in private would call the house all kinds of names in public. One fine night, they went even further and set it on fire.”

“They burned it? Were there people inside?”

His nod sent chills down my spine.

“We were all inside. A few clients too.”

“That’s murder,” I spat out the accusation, furious at the injustice of it all.

“I’m afraid murder was the point, Princess. They wished us all gone, along with the house.”

“Did people die?”

“Thankfully, no. Not that night. The owner woke up. Her husband shook me awake, then woke up many others. Everyone managed to get out. Some got burns and injuries, but all survived that night.” He paused, slowly rubbing his right thigh. “The place burned to the ground, however, and the owner chose not to rebuild it.”

“Were those who burned it ever held accountable?”

He looked at me as if I’d just said total nonsense.

“For what? For getting rid of a ‘sinful place?’ They were heralded as heroes by the local folks.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. The visions of a roaring fire in the dead of the night assaulted my mind. People running through the flames in panic, screaming, their clothes smoldering. Even imagining it was hard. I couldn’t fathom what it’d be like to live through a night like that.

“What did you do then?” I asked softly.

“All I could legally do at that point was to find a similar kind of employment in a different location. But by a stroke of luck, I came into possession of a reference letter that vouched for the bearer’s character. It enabled me to enter into a contract with a slave owner, and... well, here I am now.”

Salas and I were born and raised worlds apart. His story was different from mine. Yet it resonated with me deeply, reflecting my own experiences in some ways and echoing my emotions.

I remembered what it was like to have no choice. I knew first-hand what a hopeless situation felt like. The feeling of being all alone in the world with no place to go and no one to ask for help was also way too familiar to me.

But my story had a happy ending when his did not.

“Tell me something, please. Did that fight you ended up being flogged for have something to do with your past?”