Lark and Wren (18 page)

"Oh, don't make the mistake of thinking that because he's small and a bit crippled that he's weak," Amber said. "He wouldn't thank you for that. He's quite fiercely proud of his strength, and I have him as my summoner for a good reason. He can-and has-brought strong guardsmen to their knees, and men constantly underestimate him because of the way he looks."

"Oh," Rune said weakly.

"You'll meet everyone tomorrow; I thought you'd rather get to sleep early tonight," Amber continued, holding open a door for her. "This is your room, by the way. You did very well, just as well as Tonno said you would. I'm happy to welcome you to my little family, Rune."

Rune stepped into the room before the last remark penetrated her fatigue. "You are?" she said, a little stupidly.

Amber nodded, and lit a candle at the lantern outside the door, placing it in a holder on a little table just inside. "The bathroom is at the end of the hall, and there should be hot water in the copper if you want to wash before you go to bed. In the morning, simply come downstairs when you're ready, and either Parro or I will introduce you. Goodnight, Rune."

She had closed the door before Rune had a chance to say anything. But what could she say, really? "Wait, I'm not sure I should be doing this?" That wasn't terribly bright. "Just what is going on around here?" She
knew
what was going on. This was a whorehouse. She was going to entertain here. The madam was a gracious lady, of impeccable manners and taste, but it was still a house of pleasure-

But this was certainly the oddest bawdy-house she'd ever heard of.

She looked around at her room-
her
room, and what an odd sound that had! There wasn't much: a tiny table, a chair, a chest for clothing, and the bed. But it was a real bed, not a pallet on the floor like she'd had all her life. And it was much too narrow for two, which in a way, was reassuring.

There's no way anyone would pay to share that with Amber, much less with me. 

The frame was the same plain wood as the rest of the furniture; the mattress seemed to be stuffed with something other than straw. Not feathers, but certainly something softer than she was used to; she bounced on it, experimentally, and found herself grinning from ear to ear.

There were clean, fresh sheets on the bed, and blankets hung over the footboard, with clean towels atop them. The plain wooden floor was scrubbed spotless, as were the white-painted walls. There was one window with the curtains already shut; she went to it and peeked out. Less than an arm's length away loomed the wooden side of the house next door; there were windows in it, but they were set so that they didn't look into any windows in this building, thus ensuring a bit of privacy. Not much of a view, but the window would probably let in some air in the summer, as soon as the warmer weather really arrived. It was better than being in the attic, where the sun beating down on the roof would make an oven of the place in summer, and the wind whistling under the eaves would turn it into the opposite in winter.

Her room.
Her
room, with a latch on the inside of the door, so she could lock it if she chose. Her room, where no one could bother her, a room she didn't have to share with anyone. Maybe it was the size of a rich man's closet, but it was all hers, and the thrill of privacy was heady indeed.

She looked longingly at the bed-but she knew she was filthy; she hadn't had a bath in several days, and to lie down in the clean sheets unwashed seemed like a desecration. It also wouldn't give Amber a very good impression of her cleanliness; after all, the woman had gone out of her way to mention that there was water ready for washing even at this late hour. That could have been a hint-in fact, it probably was.

She took the towels and went to the end of the hall to find the promised bathroom. And indeed, it was there, and included the indoor privies she had seen in the Church hostels, which could be flushed clean by pulling a chain that sluiced down a measured amount of water from a reservoir on the roof. There were two privies in stalls, and two bath-basins behind tall screens. One was big enough to soak in, but the other wouldn't take as long to fill, and she was awfully tired. Both the baths were fixed to the floor, with permanent drains in their bottoms.

She filled the shallow bath with equal measures of hot and cold water, dipped from the copper and a jar, both of which were also fed by the roof-reservoir. As she dipped the steaming water out of the top of the cauldron, she longed more than ever to be able to take a good long soak-

But that could wait until she had a half-penny to spare for the public baths and steam-house. Then she could soak in the hot pools, swim in the cold, and go back to soak in the hot pools until every pore was cleansed. She could take an afternoon from busking, perhaps the Seventh-Day, when people would be going to Church in the morning and spending the afternoon at home. That would mean there'd be fewer of them in the streets, and her take wouldn't be that much anyway; it wouldn't hurt her income as much to spend the afternoon in the bath-house.

But for now, at least, she could go to bed clean.

She scrubbed herself hastily, rinsed with a little more cold water, and toweled herself down, feeling as if she were a paying patron. And if
this
was the treatment that the help got, how
were
the patrons treated?

With that thought in mind, she returned to her room, locked herself in for the night, and dug out her poor, maltreated bread and cheese. It was squashed, but still edible, and she found herself hungry enough to devour the last crumb.

And with the last of her needs satisfied, she blew out the candle and felt her way to her bed, to dream of dancing lutes dressed in Gypsy ribbons, and fiddles that ran fiddle-brothels where richly dressed men came to caress their strings and play children's lullabies, and strange, wizened old men who lifted houses off their foundations and placed them back down, wrong-way about.

She woke much later than she had intended, much to her chagrin. She hurried into the only clean set of clothing she had-a shirt and breeches that had seen much better days-and resolved to find herself more clothing before Amber had a chance to comment on the state of her dress.

When she found her way down to the common room, she discovered the exterior doors locked tight, and a half-dozen people eating what looked like breakfast porridge, and talking.

One of those was the most stunning young woman Rune had ever seen. Even in a simple shift with her hair combed back from her face, she looked like-

An angel,
Rune thought wonderingly. She was inhumanly lovely. No one should look that lovely. No one
could,
outside of a ballad.

The girl was so beautiful it was impossible to feel jealousy; Rune could only admire her, the way she would admire a rainbow, a butterfly, or a flower.

Her hair was a straight fall of gold, and dropped down past her waist to an inch or two above the floor; her eyes were the perfect blue of a summer sky after a rain. Her complexion was roses and cream, her teeth perfect and even, her face round as a child's and with a child's innocence. Her figure, slight and lissome, was as delicate as a porcelain figure of an idealized shepherdess.

Her perfect rosebud mouth made a little "o" as she saw Rune, and the person sitting with her, who Rune hadn't even noticed at that moment, turned. It was Amber.

"Ah, Rune," she said, smiling. "Come here, child. I'd like you to meet Sapphire. She is one of the ladies I told you about last night."

Rune blinked, and made her way carefully to the table. Anyone with that much beauty can't be human. She probably has the brains of a pea- 

"Hello, Rune," Sapphire said, with a smile that eclipsed Amber's. "That isn't my real name, of course-Amber insisted we all take the names of jewels so when I leave here and retire, I can leave 'Sapphire' behind and just be myself."

Amber nodded. "It will happen, of course. This is not a profession one can remain in for long."

"Oh," Rune said, awkwardly. "Then-"

"Amber is not my real name, either-at least, it isn't the one I was born with," Amber said easily.

"I'll probably become 'Amber' when I take over as Madam," Sapphire continued. "Since there's always been an 'Amber' in charge here. This Amber decided to take me as her 'prentice, so to speak. I already help with the bookkeeping, but I'm going to need a lot more schooling in handling people, that much I know."

Rune nearly swallowed her tongue;
this
delicate, brainless-looking creature was doing-bookkeeping?

Sapphire laughed at the look on her face; Rune felt like a fool. "You're not the first person who's been surprised by Sapphire," Amber said indulgently. "I told you the ladies were all something very special."

"So are you, love," Sapphire replied warmly. "Without you, we'd all be-"

"Elsewhere," Amber interrupted. "And probably just as successful. All four of you have brains and ambition; you'd probably be very influential courtesans and mistresses."

"But not wives," Sapphire replied, and her tone was so bitter that Rune started.

"No," Amber said softly. "Never wives. That's the fate of a lovely woman with no lineage and no money. The prince doesn't fall in love with you, woo you gently, carry you away on his white horse and marry you over his father's objections."

"No, the prince seduces you-if you're lucky. More often than not he carries you off, all right, screaming for your father who doesn't dare interfere. Then he rapes you-and abandons you once he knows you're with child," Sapphire said grimly, her mouth set in a thin, hard line.

"And that is the prerogative of princes," Amber concluded with equal bitterness. "Merchant princes, princes of the trades, or princes by birth."

They both seemed to have forgotten she was there; she felt very uncomfortable. This was not the sort of thing one heard in ballads. . . .

Well, yes and no. There were plenty of ballads where beautiful women
were
seduced, or taken against their will. But in those ballads, they died tragically, often murdered, and their spirits pursued their ravagers and brought them to otherworldly justice. Or else they retired to a life in a convent, and only saw their erstwhile despoilers when the villains were at death's door, brought there by some other rash action.

Apparently, it wasn't considered to be in good taste to survive one's despoiling as anything other than a nun.

"Well, I'm not going to let one damn fool turn me into a bitter old hag," Sapphire said with a sigh, and stretched, turning from bitter to sunny in a single instant. "That's over and done with. In a way, he did me a favor," she said, half to Rune, half to Amber. "If he hadn't carried me off and abandoned me here, I probably would have married Bert, raised pigs, and died in childbed three years ago."

Amber nodded, thoughtfully. "And I would have pined myself over Tham wedding Jakie until I talked myself into the convent."

Sapphire laughed, and raised a glass of apple juice. A shaft of sunlight lancing through the cracks in the shutters pierced it, turning it into liquid gold

"Then here's to feckless young men, spoiled and ruthless!" she said gaily. "And to women who refuse to be ruined by them!"

Amber solemnly clinked glasses with her, poured a third glass for Rune without waiting for her to ask, and they drank the toast together.

"So, Rune, how is it that you come here," Sapphire asked, "with your accent from my own hills, and your gift of soothing the fears out of frightened young men?"

Rune's jaw dropped, and Amber and Sapphire both laughed. "You thought I hadn't noticed?" Amber said. "That was the moment when I knew you were for us. If you can soothe the fears out of a young man, you may well soothe the violence out of an older one. That is a hazard of our profession. Oh, our old and steady clients know that to come here means that one of the ladies will be kind and flattering, will listen without censure, and will make him feel like the most virile and clever man on Earth-but there are always new clients, and many of them come to a whore only because they hate women so much they cannot bear any other relationship."

"Then-I did right?" Rune asked, wondering a little that she brought a question of morality to a whore-but unable to believe that these two women were anything but moral. "I thought-it seemed so calculating, to try and calm him down-"

"The men who come here, come to feel better," Amber said firmly. "That is why I told you we serve a very special need. We hear secrets they won't even tell their Priests, and fears they wouldn't tell their wives or best friends. If all they wanted was lovemaking, they could go to any of the houses on the street-"

"Unskilled sex, perhaps," Sapphire commented acidly, with a candor that held Rune speechless. "Not lovemaking. That takes ability and practice."

"Point taken," Amber replied. "Well enough. Our clients come to us for more than that. Sapphire, Topaz, Ruby, and Pearl are more than whores, Rune."

"I'm-" she said, and coughed to clear her throat. "I'm, uh-beginning to see that."

"So how
did
you come here, Rune?" Sapphire persisted. "When I heard you speak, I swear, you carried me right back to my village!"

Once again, Rune gave a carefully edited version of her travels and travails-though she made light of the latter, sensing from Sapphire's earlier comments that
her
experiences had been a great deal more harrowing than Rune's. She also left out the Skull Hill Ghost; time enough to talk about him when she'd made a song out of him and there'd be no reason to suspect that the adventure was anything more than a song.

Sapphire sat entranced through all of it, though Rune suspected that half of her "entrancement" was another skill she had acquired; the ability to listen and appear fascinated by practically anything.

When Rune finished, Sapphire raised her glass again. "And here's to a young lady who refused to keep to her place as decreed by men and God," she said. "And had the gumption to pack up and set out on her own."

"Thank you," Rune said, flattered. "But I've a long way to go before I'm a Guild apprentice. Right now I intend to concentrate on keeping myself fed and out of trouble until I master my second instrument."