Book 8: Chapter 28: Staff
“I’ll do anything,” said the Xie woman. “Please don’t send me back out there. I’ll do anything you want me to.”
Sen just gave her a bland look for a moment before he sighed.
“Did you not understand the requirements when you came in here?” asked Sen for at least the tenth time that morning. “I don’t need sycophants, or courtiers, or sexual playthings, or anything else that doesn’t contribute in some meaningful way. Do you have any skills, any at all, that might actually prove useful?”
“I… I…”
“What is it that you did here before? How did you contribute? What was your job?”
The woman opened and closed her mouth a few times, tears welling up in her eyes, and Sen knew the answer. She didn’t have a job before. Or she’d considered being a noble her profession. Some profession, thought Sen. She’d been a professional at being an awful human being. Sen pushed that thought back. He didn’t know that was true of her, specifically. She might have been a kind person before. He sort of doubted it, but it could be true. Sen sighed. As the morning had dragged on, he’d noticed something about himself. While he still felt almost entirely pitiless toward the men, he’d been making excuses not to send the Xie women back out onto the street. He supposed it was at least partially because he knew what it would mean for them.
The men could probably find work or join gangs. A strong back could let you survive. As for the women, well, he’d seen what happened to them, even back in Orchard’s Reach. A few of them might get extremely lucky and find a soft heart to take them in, but most of them would end up working as prostitutes, or get themselves killed, or probably both. They would lead short lives, brutalized by anyone stronger or in a better financial position than them, which would be almost everyone. He couldn’t stop any of that from happening in the big picture. It was too common. It happened everywhere. But he could decline to contribute to it happening here. At least, he could if he decided to.
“Can you read? Write? Do you have basic math skills?” he asked.
Hope flickered in the woman’s eyes as she nodded frantically and said, “Yes!”