They teach her cards in the brothel — to improve her value, for they note that she

has none. Many guests in Doma are Garlean, and Garlemand populates their ranks with
every land they conquer. Snatched from countries across the ocean, from swells of
snow and sand, these foreigners are clothed in identical uniforms and dumped
unceremoniously on Doma's shores. Amidst their meager possessions, a few soldiers
manage to smuggle their games — battered cards and dice whispering to them of homes
long-stripped away — and the yearning for a taste of something familiar.
Such illusions of comfort are what the brothel provides. It is what their customers
pay for, regardless of the finer details. Yotsuyu's features lure them in,
particularly when she is painted well and dressed in the brothel's finer kimono,
but she falls short in every other way.
Though her body is still young, there is nothing of the freshness of naivete about
her. She does not smile enough when her customers touch her. She does not cry out
enough whenever they enter her, through whichever part of her body they desire — or
rather, she cries out in the wrong ways, too flat and toneless, an indifferent
recitation like a bird taught to warble only one note.
Pain does nothing to alter this melody. All of Yotsuyu's responses are dull. Her
eyes remain distant, staring at some point far away past the ceiling. She turns her
face away; her arms and legs go limp.
She never sounds passionate enough, even when her mouth is not full.
The senior courtesans all roll their eyes in disgust. A girl who cannot bring in
coin does not deserve the rice in her bowl, they tut. So many of the brothel's new
acquisitions are like this: spoiled, whining, convinced that if they simply sulk
like a piece of dead meat on the ground, they will eventually be allowed to do
whatever they wish once people give up on them. The new girl is a waste.
Yotsuyu is, after all, less than attractive when she laughs. Ungainly when she
dances, too tightly-pitched when she sings. Incompetent. Pretty — but lifeless. It
will take forever for her to earn enough to pay off her husband's debt, and in the
meantime, she will accrue even more for herself in being housed, clothed and fed.
There is no appeal in her as she is now. She is merely the widow of Sashihai:
useless.
All she does is disappoint.
In order to help entertain their guests, the brothel teaches Yotsuyu cards as a
substitute for the winsome smiles that she lacks, the conversations that she cannot
make. These games are nothing like the flower cards she remembers seeing others
play with in her youth. There are circular tokens from the desert, rectangular
decks adapted from mystics in Sharlayan. Some of the designs are painted on,
painstakingly drawn out with brushstrokes no thicker than a few hairs wide. Others
have been stamped, inked in symmetrical geometric patterns or scrawled with
crosshatch lines to simulate shadows and light.
The customs of each region vary, the scoring combinations contradict — but as
Yotsuyu studies the names and illustrations on each card, she sees the common
thread linking them all. No two games follow identical rules, but the principles of
winning and losing never change. The same cards always end up on top: kings, gods
and emperors, all dominating the ones below.
Merchant beats Beggar. Samurai claims Hamlet. Knight seizes Page.
Nobleman takes Young Girl.
She learns how to play Lover's Quarrel, Jesters High, Kitten on the Roof. She does
well. Very well. There is a subterfuge about cards which Yotsuyu seizes upon
hungrily, instinctively; they show her the value of a well-crafted deceit, which
the other courtesans have not managed to convince her of before. Here, when Yotsuyu
lies, she succeeds. She is spared. Before the brothel, her only prize had been a
beating, whether or not she had spoken the truth.
It is the first thing she has shown interest in since being sold, and it is the
first thing that does not hurt her for liking it.
But the guards snap and scold her whenever Yotsuyu ends up the victor too
frequently. It is not her business to rout her customers; she is here to make them
feel good, to fill them with the glow of satisfaction so they can be convinced to
fill her in turn. Her entire purpose for playing is to give them something to beat.
A whore is not supposed to win, they remind her. Often.
Despite her sluggish beginnings, Yotsuyu gradually improves. Punishment is a tool
that she recognizes in all its myriad forms; it kindles fresh life in the ashes of
her body, pairing the urge to eat with the mechanisms of performance. Her fingers
no longer resemble wooden sticks as she arches them coyly beside her chin. Her face
softens around her lies. She shuffles her smiles along with the cards, pulling out
a fresh one for each patron lumbering through her door, and embraces her bluffs
more fervently than any flesh in her arms.
After each customer's time is up, she helps sweep up the table and bids them
farewell as she hands the playing decks back. No one notices whenever she manages
to slip one or two cards away for herself, smuggling them into her sleeves.
Captured, they serve as her victory trophies. Paintings of places she will never be
free enough to flee to. Games for people who are as much prisoners as she is, save
that it is not their own kinsmen and country who hold them enslaved.
In the evenings — or the mornings, if she is paid for the entire night — Yotsuyu
shakes out her kimono carefully, pinching the silks between her fingers. Cards
tumble free to the tatami with a soft patter. They splash against the fibers like
rain on wet autumn leaves, droplets soaking into barren earth.
She knows better than to keep them for herself. The brothel guards will hurt her if
they discover that she is stealing from their guests. Those stained, worn card
decks that have been carried so carefully by Garlean soldiers — the last keepsakes,
in some cases, of a home that no longer stands — have been made forever incomplete
by her thefts.
In the light of each fresh sun, Yotsuyu studies the illustrations carefully. Then,
one by one, she rips each card in half. Then into quarters. Her fingers vivisect
each painted face. Her lacquered nails violate the bodies of emperors. She tears
through intricately colored forests, shredding towers and suns, killing kings with
a touch.
Then she carefully gathers the scraps and dumps them in the midden, for the shit
and piss to keep.
The cards the soldiers bring to the brothel all have different rules. The
courtesans add their own complications on top of that: never score too many points,
never make your customer feel like a fool. Always smile. Always deceive.
They teach Yotsuyu how to bet and tease and coax, manipulating her way through
narrow enough margins that her customers stay eager for more. They show her how to
shuffle the deck while showing off the slenderness of her wrists, how to dote upon
her lover of the moment and profess to ignorance.
Most of all, they teach her how to lose.
She never lets herself forget.