Previous Chapter: The Sorceress Reminisces
A Visit to a Brothel in Wine Country
After walking the highway for nearly a week’s time, they came upon the village of Hampton, a province of Beaune, a city-state much renowned for its wines. This came as a surprise, for they had not realized how far they had strayed inland after hugging the coast for so long. Fergal’s direction, it seemed, had not been accurate, though the promise of wine country and some respite raised morale. The Thief was eager to check into a tavern and sample the local vintage, but to his dismay, as well as the company’s, they found Hampton to be overrun with refugees. After interrogating a local coiffeuse, they discovered that Beaune had just been attacked by Rheine, its historical enemy, and the invading forces had pushed people out of the surrounding towns. “It is the season of war,” said the woman, who leaned indolently on the railing of her salon. “Sometimes we invade them, other times they invade us.” She moved away to chase off a gang of children who were staring through the windows at her clientele. Others were not so nonchalant. “They’ll kill us all this time,” said a man waiting in line to draw from the communal well. “They’ll take the vineyards and fill them with soldiers, idiot Rheineland boys with peasant palates who won’t be able to tell one vintage from another.”
They stopped at a tavern, a place with no name, just a tankard painted on the door. It was crowded and cramped with men and women pushed tightly together in a seething mass. A haze filled the room; one could cut through the smoke with a wave of the hand. Fergal pulled himself up to the bar, jostling with another patron for ownership of a seat. The Aiv was just about to be displaced (his opponent, a gangly man with a neck like a rooster, had two feet in height on him) when Josun’s thick arm separated the two, throwing the other back into the sea of persons and securing the seat for his companion. The little Aiv called out at the bartender and ordered drinks for everyone, including the sorceress. When they were served, he and the others retreated to a space by the window front that had recently be abdicated by three large men, soldiers by the looks of them.
“Way too many people in here. Not my sort of place,” said the Thief, looking sideways at the soldiers as they left.
“The ratio of guardsmen to whores is off, I’m assuming,” said Cassilda innocently.
“Too many refugees for harlots to make any money. The desperate will do anything for food and shelter,” commented Josun.
“The brothel didn’t look to be this crowded. They serve wine at brothels,” said the Thief.
“Do you wish to reach San-Elza or do you want to squander your coin earning a venereal disease?” asked Cassilda, making a bitter face. The drink Fergal had purchased for her, a cocktail called Burgundy, did not meet her rather lofty standards.
“Coin spent at the brothel is never squandered. Besides, I’m compiling a list of all the various illnesses one can acquire while making love,” responded the Thief. “Surely you acquired a few of your own while making friends at the Duke’s court? I know the barbarian needs to sate the procreative urge, I can see the frustration in his eyes. I’m sure they’ll have a dwarf or something for you, Fergal, assuming your parts are compatible. Come, Cassilda, every brothel has a gigolo or two. Let us spend the night here, with a roof over our heads before braving the wilderness again. What says the company? Put it to a vote.”
“No need. We can visit the brothel,” said Cassilda, to everyone’s surprise. “What? It will be quieter, and we could all use time away from one another. If the Thief wants to make another notch on his belt, who am I to stand in his way?”
They left the bar and went down a block to the brothel, which was called the Silver Cross. The parlor was done in an upscale manner, all red-velvet upholstery and silk curtains, and the madam was a handsome woman, tall and curly-haired, though a little weathered beneath the eyes. A butler served them wine, and they sat down as the madam introduced herself and her establishment, stressing that the Silver Cross had a fine history to uphold as the oldest brothel in all of Beaune, and it was her purpose on this earth, as far as the gods were concerned, to make sure her customers were satisfied to the fullest extent. “You will not find such devotion and service in the alleyways or tavern stalls, sirs and lady,” said the madam, whose name was Claire. “Nor need you worry about complications from your pleasure, for we are a worker-safe establishment that values discretion above all things.”
“An ethical whorehouse,” said Cassilda. “How comforting.”
“Ethics change from land to land and city to city. Here in Hampton we have a liberal attitude towards sexuality that may unnerve some from lands with more conservative traditions. Galvania, for instance, outlawed brothels forty years ago, I believe. Well, ma’am, you are not in Galvania now. You are free to enjoy yourself.”
The madam clapped her hands and the butler vanished only to quickly return with several women and a few men. The Thief immediately picked his companion, opting for a buxom lass with auburn hair and a crooked smile. Josun retreated upstairs with a gracile, ebony-skinned girl. After several minutes of deliberation, Fergal chose a short, stocky woman with large ears and freckles under her eyes. And so Cassilda was left alone, sitting with legs crossed before the remaining prostitutes, wondering what she was doing here. As a courtesan in the Capetian court, she had been flirtatious yet careful enough not to let any relationship become sexual. If Ambierce could only see me now. It was doubtful that he would have approved, though she was sure he had visited whorehouses, especially during his army service. There had been a certain amount of hypocrisy about the man (Do as I say, not as I do), but he had been aware of it and acknowledged it, so she had never held it against him. Anyways, no matter how much she loved him, she had always done whatever she felt like, so now, staring at a line of scantily-clad humans as though they were nothing but pieces of meat, she shrugged and pointed at a lean man with silver in his hair and stubble on his cheeks.
“Silver-flaked fox,” she said, “show me to my room.” As they passed the butler, Cassilda snatched his bottle of wine. “I’m thirsty,” she said by way of explanation before taking a long swig.
Most of the room was taken up by a large bed, and it was this bed that Cassilda collapsed on, feeling the weight of weeks of marching easing off her shoulders. This is better than any sex she thought. The prostitute lay down next to her, crossing his arms behind his head while wearing a wry smile. He wore a red vest intricately embroidered with silver swirls that reminded her of patterns in the ocean’s surf.
“That is a beautiful vest,” she said, examining his form. He was tanned by the sun a warm brown; his stubble looked the right kind of rough.
“It is from Archaea. I obtained it there several years ago, and now I wear it like a peacock wears its tail.” His voice had a soothing quality, like listening to water pour slowly from a vase.
“I gather you weren’t traveling for pleasure? Not much of a vacation destination, right?”
“I was a sailor. No one wanted to stop there—the rocks rise out of the fog like giant’s teeth—but we had no other choice and sought refuge from a squall. We knew better than to land, for Archaea is haunted and plague-ridden. I found this vest on a rock jutting out of the shallows like an offering from the sea. When I saw it, I knew I had to have it, and so I risked wading close to the shore.” He was as content as she to lie and talk. The rise and fall of his chest were small movements that seemed to become slower with every breath.
“Archaea is my final destination,” said Cassilda, closing her eyes. “It is where the primeval race divided the pieces of Rankar the fallen. I go there to end a world and begin a new one.”
“Is that right?” said the prostitute, placing his hand on her shoulder. He had a firm grip. A laborer by day she thought, preferring to guess rather than pry.
“Yes, though I am unsure how it will all turn out. It could go very badly for a great many people.”
“So you are bad,” he said, his other hand down her thigh.
“If indifference to the fate of this shitty world makes me bad, then, yes, I suppose I am bad. Evil. Maleficent. Choose your descriptor.”
“I just see a woman. A very beautiful, tired woman in need of relaxation.”
“That may be what you see, but that is not what I am,” she said, opening her eyes. The ceiling plaster was riddled with faults. A chunk of it was liable to fall at any second. “If you stare hard at me, you’ll notice certain irregularities. There’s a faint haziness to my visage, as though it were a mirage on a distant desert horizon. My nose may appear a little strange, like someone’s gone and tweaked it, leaving smudges that hint at the original outline. My hair is whatever color you fancy; black, brown, blonde, red, auburn. Even the shape of my form changes to your desire. Maybe you like thicker hips; maybe a large bosom is just a bit too much. Ask someone else what I look like. They’re likely to describe a different woman.”
The prostitute was silent for a time, but he did not take his hands off her. She tried to think how long it had been. Am I trying to ruin this? Why? She should get her money’s worth.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but if what you say is true, then you would be very popular in a venture like this,” he said finally, looking her in the eyes.
“Surely this business is built on more than just appearances.”
“Of course the sex has to be good. Also one must be empathetic and comforting, yet maintain a certain level of professional distance. Not everyone can do all that. But appearances matter a lot.”
“You should hire sorcerers, then. But you’d have to consider the ethical implications,” said Cassilda, rolling over on her stomach. It was refreshing to talk to someone besides a member of the company, and she found herself in a contemplative mood.
“Ethical implications? Despite what the madam says, we are a whorehouse.”
“But if you had a whorehouse full of sorcerers, then you’d open up all sorts of possible issues. What is to stop a sorcerer from reading the client’s mind without their permission? What’s to deter a magic user from making the client believe they had sex? What if a conjurer is asked to indulge a taboo fantasy like rape? Magically created images are just images, but at what point has a crime occurred?”
“Perhaps that’s why there are no whorehouses run by sorcerers,” said the prostitute.
“As far as you know. The world is vast, and no one has seen all of it. What lies past Zanj or the icy lands of Aldeen, for instance? Maybe there’s a whole country full of sorcerers and their whorehouses.”
“I have been to Zanj. Only stayed a week. They had a tiger in the market square, a huge creature with massive forelimbs and sabers protruding from its jaws.”
“See what I mean? I thought tigers were just a myth. But myth is usually based on reality. Do you, in these parts, know of the Heart of Rankar?” asked the sorceress.
“That is a Capetian legend, if I’m not mistaken,” answered the prostitute. “Rankar is called Rankeer around here, however, though we do not hold him in any particular reverence. Beaune is a rather secular place. I believe the priesthood was run out of town by Count Oudinot, who was peeved that they wouldn’t allow him to divorce his third wife.”
“Yes, the sanctity of marriage. I’ve never been fond of priests either. But as I was saying, the Heart of Rankar is very real. I’ve seen it and marveled as it beat in rhythm with my own heart. Looking at it, I knew that it was the timepiece of the universe, that the myths, the stories, they were all true. With it I could destroy the world. Or perhaps remake it anew.”
“How very romantic of you,” said the prostitute, kissing her face. She let him wrap himself around her, his limbs entangled with hers, the bed feeling like a patch of quicksand, enveloping them in fatalistic abandon. The words that she had said were gone, dissolved, vanished from her memory. Why she had said them, she did not know.
Soon after Cassilda had left, the prostitute had another client.
“You’ll never guess who I just had,” he said, staring out the window. He watched as people melted into the darkness of the street, their outlines a tremulous suggestion in the flickering light of the flames.
“King Wotan and all his sons,” said the woman, who was tall and homely, with short hair cut rather raggedly, like an urchin boy’s mop.
“Well no, you know I don’t see men on Wednesdays. I had the pleasure of meeting a Galvanian sorceress who claimed to have seen the Heart of Rankar. I thought you might be interested,” he said, somewhat sullenly. She was always like this: dour, petulant, impossible to please. But he always tried to please her.
The woman leaned on the bedframe and rapped her fingers against the footboard. She was clad in black, wearing high boots, a long coat whose tails dragged the floor, and a tricorn hat. Her hands were long and thin, suitable for playing piano or garroting a neck. When she moved, you paid attention, partly out of fear and partly out of the simple joy of watching her move.
“What did this woman look like?” she asked.
“I’m not sure it would matter if I told you. She admitted to using a spell to make her appearance dependent on the viewer.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Long, flowing auburn hair. Symmetrical, oval face. Green eyes that glow, almost. A very striking woman, not the sort that often finds her way into this lovely establishment.”
“I hope that was not a dig at my personal appearance. I never had use for that sort of magic, you should know. The brazen dishonesty of it always struck me as… well, rather whorish.”
“Come sit down, and I’ll do rather whorish things to you.”
“What else did this woman speak of?”
The prostitute looked upward and rapped the side of his head with an index finger. He knew that she loathed this gesture, which was why, of course, he did it.
“Myths, appearances, doom and gloom. Archaea is her final destination. I think she mentioned something about destroying the world.”
“Is this woman still here?”
“No, I don’t believe so, though I saw one of the men she came in with lingering in the foyer. A short fellow with a rather peculiar face. Large ears, big eyes… kind of nervous, like a giant mouse. I’d point him out to you, but that would be against our policy.”
“That’s a laugh. One of the reasons I come to you is that you have a way of making people confess all sorts of hidden information. You would’ve made an excellent priest.”
“Celibacy never suited me, though I don’t suppose that stops some people. Hypatia, where are you going?”
“We will have to do this another time,” she said, pausing with one hand on the door. “There, by the night stand, is your fee.”
As she left, he couldn’t help feeling as though he had been used. He never felt that way with his other clients.
Hypatia immediately noticed the man whom the prostitute had described lingering about the foyer. He kept looking up the stairs and twitching his feet impatiently, as though he were prepared to run out the door, and his back was pressed against the wall like it was mortared in place. The madam was nowhere in sight, and other than a bedraggled prostitute snoring in a chair, the room was empty. Her subject looked about as dangerous and competent as a child, not the sort of person you’d expect a sorceress to keep as company. As she approached, she recognized the tell-tale glimmer of an illusion shimmering around the edges of his form. It was not a particularly well-constructed spell; she could break it with a wave of her hand, but she hesitated, not wanting to unleash some monstrosity that would run rampant through the city. At least she knew why he was nervous, even if she had no idea what he was.
“Good evening, sir. My name is Hypatia. Can I help you with anything?” she asked. She thought it was unlikely that this person was a monster or extra-dimensional entity, but sorcerers occasionally hid such beings behind spells such as this, and the illusion covered the entirety of his body, not just his face, which was a sign that this man may not be human.
‘No, no, nothing at all, ma’am. I am not in need of any further service,” he said, glancing at her briefly before turning back to stare at the stairway. His voice was high-pitched, though not quite shrill.
“You keep looking up those stairs. Are you awaiting a companion?” she asked.
“Um… yes, I am waiting for two persons of my party. They seem to be taking their time,” he replied with annoyance.
“There are many fine women and men here, and your companions are surely enjoying their company. Why are you so eager to depart?”
“I am not at ease in a place such as this, and another of my company has gone missing, and I think it is imperative that we find her. There is a war going on, after all, and this town is full of refugees, many of which, I am sure, would seek some ill-use of her if the opportunity presents itself.”
“Can she not defend herself? Where do you think she may have gone?”
The man looked suspicious suddenly, and she saw that she had overplayed her hand.
“Miss Hypatia, isn’t it? I’m afraid that I must beg your pardon. My business is my own, and I think that it is best if I leave you to yours. Good evening.” Having said his peace, the man turned his back on her and directed his complete attention towards the top of the stairs.
Hypatia smiled, for she had a good sense of the man’s character now, and she knew that, whatever he was involved in, he was out of his depth. With a brief whisper of words, she placed a tracking spell on him and left the brothel, heading for the police station half a block away. It was a deceptively nondescript building, square and utilitarian, giving one an impression of provincial nonchalance, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. The shire reeve took his job seriously, and his officers were well-trained and more dependable than the Count’s men (the Count had an eye for incompetence). She threw open the door, stared wordlessly at four officers lounging at a table playing cards, pointed a finger outside, and watched as they dropped their hands and grabbed their gear, operating like automatons. They knew who she was—an explanation did not have to be given—and anyways, the preciseness of her gestures brooked no argument. They went straight to the Silver Cross. Inside, the little man who may not have been a man was arguing with a tall black fellow with a scarred face and a robust individual that looked to be Barbarosie by his attire.
“Those three,” she said. “They are needed alive for questioning.”
The officers, who were armed with pikes, aimed their weapons at the men. One stepped forward.
“I am a police officer. You are to remain silent, place your hands behind your head, and come with us.”
“There, that’s the woman I was telling you about,” said the little man to his companions.
“What are we being charged with?” asked the scarred one.
“Comply or you’ll know what a pike in the leg feels like,” said an officer.
“I do know what that feels like,” said the barbarian, putting his hands behind his head. “But I do not think you’ll ever feel anything again.”
He had intended to decapitate the man with one fell stroke, yet when he pulled his ax loose, he found that the head was gone and all that he had in his hands was its handle. If he hadn’t been so surprised, things might have proceeded differently. One of the officers, perceiving the barbarian as a threat, stabbed at his leg, inserting the pike into the middle of his right quadriceps, crippling the big man before the fight had even started. The little one was seized and thrown to the ground, the scarred man sent to the floor by one hard swing of a pike against his head. The officers bound their hands with no further complications.
“Take them back and throw them in a jail cell. You do not have to keep them separate,” said Hypatia.
“I swear, it was her idea! I never would’ve done it otherwise!” blurted out the little man as he was dragged away.
“Forget it, Fergal. They don’t care about your sexual misdeeds,” said the black man.
“I care about a great many things,” said Hypatia, flicking her wrist. “Silence! You will not speak.”
They found that she was quite right. Not one of them could say another word.
Next Chapter: Arrested
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