The Golden Cross Read Online Free PDF Page B

workhouse occurred on Sunday. After the inmates listened to an obligatory sermon, the general public, for the price of a copper coin, was admitted to gawk at the inmates busy at their labors.
    After her release from the workhouse, Aidan resolved that she would never again venture into the “civilized” part of Batavia unless her life depended upon it. She could not deny that life was low and immoral down at the docks, but was life with the “respectable” people so much better? To all outward appearances, the leaders of Batavian society were clean, thrifty, and industrious, but Aidan recognized several of the gawkers in the Sunday workhouse crowd as men who regularly visited the tavern in search of whatever “entertainment” Lili could provide.
    Since her fifteenth year, Aidan had quietly despised her life. She hated the crime, drunkenness, and coarseness of the wharf, yet she also despised the hypocrisy of that other world. A permanent sorrow seemed to weigh her down, and she could find no way to escape it.
    She doubted that she would ever be respectable again, even if she followed Lili’s advice and found a husband among the seamen. Only those who had accomplished great things or won great fortunes found true respectability. Though hard work and virtue were expected from the gentry, the gentry seldom recognized or rewarded those qualities in people who lived near the wharf. As proof of this notion, Aidan had only to look at the native villages.The Javanese, who had been conquered by the Dutch when they arrived more than twenty years before, were simple folk who planted rice and flowers and kept to their own villages, yet they were held in contempt by the newcomers.
    “Aidan, are you going to sit there all day?” Lili stood in the doorway, her hands planted firmly on her wide hips. “Bram sent me to fetch you—there’s a new sailor at the first game table, and Bram thinks he’ll take a liking to you. Brush your hair, dear, and take him a pint or two. Today could be the day you find a husband!”
    “Didn’t you tell him about the curse that leaves men cold?” Aidan asked, her tongue heavy with sarcasm. “Or perhaps he’s heard it from Bram. No one will want to marry me, Lili, if you keep spreading that story.”
    “Och, love, don’t be so hard on your wee mother.” Lili’s expression grew serious. “I only tell that story when I’m worried for you. And anyone who is fool enough to believe it doesn’t deserve you, don’t you see? There’s no harm in it, and I know my little tale has saved you from many an unwanted attention.”
    “But not nearly enough.” Feeling restless and irritable, Aidan knotted her hair at the back of her neck. She rose from her pallet, smoothed her skirt, and ran her hands over her stained bodice. This poor sailor would have to take her as he found her, though he probably wouldn’t mind her bedraggled appearance if he’d been at sea for a month or two.
    “Who knows?” she murmured, ignoring Lili’s approving look as she stepped out into the sunlight and made her way to the tavern. “If he’s rich, he might have money enough for me to buy a sheet of parchment. And I’ll paint a picture for that artist. And then he’ll write the crowned heads of Europe about me, and Orabel and I will be living in a palace before the next rainy season.”
    Aidan slipped into the bustling tavern, then saw the sailor sitting at the first table. The boy looked up as she approached, and she caught her breath, noting the beardless face, the youthful features,the slender frame. This boy was no more than sixteen—Bram and Lili must be more desperate to marry her off than Aidan had realized.
    Forcing a smile, Aidan leaned her elbow onto the table and looked him in the eye so steadily that he squirmed under her gaze. “Hello. They call me Irish Annie,” she said. “What can I bring you, sailor?”

    Two hours later, buoyed by an inexplicable resolve, Aidan walked toward the stationer’s