As for Fergal, the ferry master told Karigan they’d pumped about half the river out of him and got him breathing again, and when they took him to the mender’s house, the other half came gushing out, “With all the fishes, too.” It would take the night to see how well Fergal fared.
“I’m g–g–going to k–k–kill him,” Karigan said through chattering teeth.
“My dear,” Silva said, “if you wished him dead, you could have just left him in the river.” She glided away, a rich but not unpleasant perfume lingering in the air behind her.
Still, if Fergal survived the night, Karigan was tempted to throttle him for putting her through this—not only because she had to risk her own life to save him and as a result felt bloody awful, but because of the anguish he caused her. She had visions of returning to Sacor City with his corpse swathed in winding cloths and lashed across Sunny’s back. Even if he tried her patience at times, she had to admit she cared. One thing was for certain: she was going to get to the bottom of the incident. No one saw him fall into the river, and until he was well enough, she would not know how it happened. She wanted an explanation, and by the gods, it had better be a good one.
Meanwhile, all she could do was sip the broth. It helped quell the inner cold that made her bones ache, and when she started to sag in her chair and the bustle of the kitchen became a distant thing, Silva gently pried the mug from her hands.
“Nia certainly watched over you this day,” she said in a soft voice.
“The room is ready,” someone else announced from behind.
“Good. Just in time, I’m thinking. Thank you, Rona. I believe we shall need help getting her upstairs. Could you please fetch Zem?”
Karigan must have drifted off after Silva’s order, for a broad-shouldered man stood before her when he hadn’t been there just a moment ago. He smelled of soil and decaying autumn leaves.
“Karigan, dear,” Silva said, “this is Zem, the inn’s gardener. He’s going to assist you to your room. I’ll be right behind him.”
“I don’t need help,” Karigan said. But she couldn’t seem to rise by herself, and when Zem got her upright, she found she did need his help to remain standing.
They progressed slowly from the kitchen to a foyer illuminated by a crystal chandelier that reminded her of ice. She shuddered. The sounds of men and women engaged in sociable conversation drifted out of an adjoining parlor. Zem, with his arm around her to support her, directed her toward a daunting staircase. Step by step they made the ascent till they reached the top landing.
“Room six,” Silva instructed from behind.
Karigan’s toes curled in the plush carpeting as Zem guided her along the corridor. They passed numbered doors, all closed, but through which trickled the laughter of women and the voices of men.
Karigan was almost beyond recall when Zem helped her into a bedroom with a blazing fire in the hearth. It contained a stately, canopied bed, and when she sank into the down mattress, Silva hurried to pull the covers over her. This was indeed a luxurious inn, Karigan thought, and she wondered just how much it was going to cost the king for her to stay here.
“Is she a new girl?” asked a feminine voice in the corridor.
“No, dear,” Silva said. “A guest.”
“Oh? One of Trudy’s then? Shouldn’t someone tell her?”
“No, dear,” Silva said more firmly. “This one requires no company.”
“Pity, Trudy always likes the ones in uniform.”
Karigan’s foggy brain could not comprehend the conversation. The bed was blissfully soft, and warmed with river-rounded stones taken from the hearth, wrapped, and placed under the covers with her. The last thing she remembered was Silva looking down at her with a smile and saying, “Rest well, dear.”
Dreams plagued Karigan. She dreamed of descending through the blackened depths of the river, descending like a rock, and the harder she tried to swim, the faster she sank. And there, in the gloom, she saw the sunken river cog. The figurehead watched her as she drifted near, though this was not the wooden figure she’d seen adorning the prow of the real wreck but Lady Estora.
The garden is too cold, she said. I want it to be summer again.
“I cannot be your friend,” Karigan tried to say, but only bubbles rushed from her mouth.
We are not who we must be.
Then slowly, Estora’s body stiffened and took on the grainy texture of wood. The illusion of flesh was no more than paint, her expression one of endless sorrow. She held a bouquet of dead flowers.
The current carried Karigan away over the wreck and again the rigging reached out for her like a live thing. She found Fergal trapped in the ropes, but realized it was not Fergal at all, but King Zachary, his face a sickly greenish-white, a drowned corpse with its eyes wide open.
“No!” Karigan cried, but again, only bubbles exploded from her mouth.
Do not grieve for me, he said with blue lips.
Then the scene changed to night dark instead of river dark. Stars shone in the sky high above and she was surrounded by forest, and he was there. No longer a corpse, he pulled her to him, into his warm arms, warm body, his skin soft as velvet…
I want it to be summer again, he murmured into her neck.
She wanted to say, “Me, too,” but his mouth covered hers, and there was only his warmth around her, and within her.
Karigan awoke with a groan and found herself clutching her pillow. She willed the dream to be real, but it was not. Overwarm, she released the pillow and pushed back the comforter. It was then she realized she was not alone.
“Shhh,” said a female voice in the dusky dark. “We heard you cry out.”
As Karigan’s eyes adjusted, she made out a slender woman standing at the foot of her bed who was wearing a filmy shift that revealed her curves in silhouette. In the doorway, two others peered in, the lamplight of the corridor gleaming in their eyes.
“Who are you?” Karigan demanded, hauling the comforter back up to her chin.
“Trudy. I work here.” She sat beside Karigan on the edge of her bed. “Are you well?”
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I will go back to sleep now.”
“Would you like company?”
“Would I like what?”
“I could help keep you warm.”
Then it dawned on Karigan—the luxurious inn, Silva’s elegance, the noises she was beginning to discern creeping through the walls of adjacent rooms…The ferry master had brought her to a brothel.
“N–no, thank you,” Karigan stammered, overcome by the urge to pull the comforter over her head. “I am quite warm.”
“Are you now,” the woman said softly.
“She’s not interested, Trude,” said one of the women in the doorway.
“If you change your mind, I’m in room twelve.” Trudy stood and left with her companions, closing the door behind them.
A brothel! Well, it explained the one dream, which was beginning to fade away, though it left her with a strong sense of longing.
If her aunts and father ever heard of this, they’d be scandalized. One did not stay at brothels. One did not even go near brothels. That was, at least, the law as handed down by her aunts. Aunt Stace would have a heart attack if she found out!
And Karigan had been propositioned. Now she did pull the comforter over her head. “Company” might warm her, but the only “company” she desired was a man miles away in a castle, a man never destined to be hers.
She drifted back into sleep, wishing for some reason, it was summer.
In the morning, Rona, a matron in her grandmotherly years, and obviously not one of the “ladies” who served the brothel’s clients, dragged an oversized hip bath into Karigan’s room and filled it with steaming water from a kettle.
“You take a bath like a good girl,” she said, “then come on down for breakfast. I’ll leave you to it.”
After the door closed behind Rona, Karigan slipped into the bath with a sigh. She decided she must
find alternate lodging as soon as possible. It didn’t look good for a servant of the king to bide her time in a brothel, no matter how fine the establishment, and no matter her reasons for her being there. It was just plain inappropriate.
Her aunts would agree. She remembered accompanying them on a shopping trip to a mercantile that shared the same street with a couple of brothels, although she was young at the time and didn’t know what they were. Her aunts had held her hands tight, and when she’d expressed admiration for the “pretty ladies” she saw, Aunt Stace had slapped her, explaining how those “pretty ladies” lived.
Karigan had never been slapped before, and even now she touched her cheek as though all these years later it still stung. She’d been horrified by the things her aunts told her. How could one sell her most precious commodity—her body, her self—for currency?
For her aunts, it was a matter of immorality. They had been raised, like her father, on Black Island, where there were no brothels, only a tight-knit community that honored the gods with hard work and attention to family. There was no tolerance outside the islanders’ strict mind-set of right and wrong—one of the reasons her father had fled the island. He’d felt stifled, trapped.
Yet, when her aunts also left to join her father in Corsa, they brought with them their islander attitudes, and after Kariny’s death, they had much influence on Karigan’s up-bringing. They could be doting and playful, but also stern and disapproving, imposing their rigid ways on her. Fortunately her father’s more indulgent nature had lent some balance to her childhood.
She lathered fragrant lemon soap on her arm, watching steam rise off her skin. After the incident with Aunt Stace, she’d given brothels little thought. They were usually located in neighborhoods into which she rarely ventured, kept out of sight, really, and out of mind. While brothels weren’t banned in most towns in Sacoridia, they weren’t exactly condoned, either, particularly by the more “upright” citizens of her aunts’ disposition.
Some brothels purchased textiles directly from Clan G’ladheon, but for Karigan they were only names recorded in her father’s ledgers. They were treated as any other customer so long as they had the currency to pay for their goods.
And yet…she could never imagine selling her body, giving away its mysteries to anyone less than the right man, one whom she loved, and one who returned that love, and most certainly not in exchange for currency. She couldn’t even give herself over to the casual pairings some of her fellow Riders engaged in, whether among themselves or along the road. Their work was dangerous and often solitary, and she couldn’t blame them for seeking companionship where they could find it, fulfilling very human needs. In fact, she’d been tempted herself by more than one offer…
Still, while Karigan’s own urges were alive and well, they were overridden by her desire for a relationship of deep trust and respect, one that transcended baser needs. She remembered how her mother and father cherished one another, and though Kariny died when Karigan was young, she recalled the tenderness between her parents, the soft touches, the wordplay—even if she hadn’t understood it all back then—and the way they gazed at one another. This lesson left an even more indelible impression upon her than Aunt Stace’s slap, and it was the standard by which she measured her own life. How could anyone desire anything less?
She sank beneath the water to wet her hair, and reemerged longing for the kind of love her parents had shared. The way her life was going, however, she feared it might be something she was never destined to experience.
When Karigan finished her bath, she found her uniform laid out for her, clean and dry, and she dressed. Still exhausted from her ordeal in the Grandgent and desiring nothing other than to crawl back into bed, she needed to find out how Fergal fared through the night.
She hurried down the corridor and found Rona at the bottom of the stairs, smiling as if she found something about Karigan amusing.
“I hear Trudy looked after you during the night,” she said.
“What? No, no. She looked in. Not after.”
Rona chuckled. “We do try to look after our guests. Cetchum is breaking his fast in the kitchen. You should join him.”
“Cetchum?”
“Yes, dearie, the ferry master. My husband.”
Oh, so that explained why she ended up here. Karigan entered the kitchen and found him tucking into ham and eggs while Silva sat with him looking as regal and perfect as the previous evening. She sipped on a brew that smelled like kauv.
“Come, Karigan, dear,” Silva said, “and join us for breakfast.”
Hesitantly, Karigan sat at the table across from Silva. “Morning,” she said.
Cetchum grunted as he looked her over. “Weeell, yer looking a sight better, sir.”
Karigan pinched her eyebrows together, and glanced at Silva who smiled and shrugged. Apparently calling her “sir” was an accepted eccentricity on Cetchum’s part.
A cook set a plate of eggs and ham before Karigan, as well as a loaf of bread just drawn from the oven. Cetchum pushed a pot of creamy butter toward her.
Karigan, however, couldn’t eat until she heard about Fergal. “How is Rider Duff?” she asked.
“The lad is fine,” Cetchum said, maneuvering a mouthful of eggs around his words. “Or will be. Needs his rest, so says Mender Gills.”
Karigan closed her eyes in relief. Relief that she would not have to return Fergal’s body back to Sacor City.
“The young man will be transferred here for the duration,” Silva said.
“Here?” Karigan had not meant to sound so expressive, but she sensed that bringing Fergal into a brothel was like dropping a candle in a hay barn. At Silva’s raised eyebrow, she said, “Uh, I am sure your rates are steep for those on king’s business.”
“Perhaps.” Silva sipped from her cup, and her gaze unnerved Karigan. “You are of Clan G’ladheon, are you not?”
Karigan nodded, wondering what this had to do with anything.
Silva smiled. “Stevic’s daughter, I daresay, though you must favor your mother.”
“You know my father?” Karigan did not like where this conversation was leading.
Silva’s smile deepened. “He is a most generous friend and patron. I am housing you and the young man at no expense as a favor to Stevic. That saves explaining to your superiors why you spent the night in a brothel, does it not? It would appear inappropriate, I would guess, for the madam of a brothel to present a Rider seal at tax time for reimbursement.”
“My father?” was all Karigan could say, appalled. How in the world did he know Silva? What was he doing visiting a brothel? Well, she knew what, but why? She knew why, too, but–but—her father?
“You are mistaken,” Karigan said, certain of Silva’s error, certain of what she knew of her father. He would never patronize a brothel.
“No, dear, I am not. I hold Stevic in high esteem, and he conducts a good deal of clan business from here.”
A blackness flooded Karigan’s vision. “No,” she whispered. Everything she believed and thought she knew was cast into oblivion; the world was falling out from beneath her.
How could her father betray her this way? Dishonor the memory of her mother? She believed the love between her parents pure and true; thought he’d never remarried or seriously courted another woman because his love for Kariny was singular and infinite. It seemed, however, he’d been buying his pleasure elsewhere. Here. How could he…how could he consort with whores? Had his life with Kariny been a lie?
Suddenly, her father was a stranger to her.
To her disgust, tears flowed down her cheeks. She swiped them away. Everything good she thought her father stood for was false.
Silva watched her with a placid expression on her face. “Never doubt your father, dear. No matter what you may be thinking of him right now, he is a good man and I owe him much. I don’t allow just anyone into my house, either, you know; it’s very exclusive, and not all the entertainment my guests partake in is what you’re
thinking.” When Karigan said nothing, she continued, “I know of your father’s life, of how he tried to raise you in the absence of Kariny—”
“Do not invoke my mother’s name,” Karigan said in a hoarse whisper. “Not in this place.”
“As you wish,” Silva said, “but I do want you to know that I hold your father in high esteem. He helped me in the past, so this house is always open to him when he is in town, and to his kin, as well.” With that, Silva set aside her cup and stood. She walked across the kitchen to leave, but paused by the door. “It saddens me that Stevic’s daughter would think less of him for wanting to seek comfort on a rare occasion even though his wife has been gone all these years. Do not think less of him, Karigan, for he never forgets your mother, and he grieves for her still.” And she left.
Karigan could only stare at her plate with blurry eyes, yellow egg yokes bleeding into the ham steak.
“A great lady, that,” said Cetchum. “Aye, she keeps a goodly house, taking in girls who have lived through the five hells and worse, an’ teachin’ them their letters and figures. They don’ have to stay, and a lot have off and married good gents. And only the most worthy gents come here.” And now he whispered, “Why I’ve seen a lord-governor or two come here. Aye, fair lady Silva is good to all under her roof, including my Rona and me, and especially to the girls who provide the gents with companionship.”
Companionship. Trading in flesh. An even worse thought occurred to Karigan: there were brothels in almost every major city and town in Sacoridia, and Rhovanny, too. At how many of these was her father a favored “patron”?
Karigan wanted to fling something across the room. Instead, she would seek lodging elsewhere right this moment, someplace where decent folk stayed, and she would pen her father a letter about all this. She stood hastily, and the blood drained from her head. The world went gray and fuzzy.
Next thing she knew, she was on her back on the floor, staring up at the concerned faces of Cetchum, Rona, and Silva.
“Tsk, tsk,” Rona said. “You should’ve et your breakfast, dearie. Still weak from your dunking in the river, too.”
The High King's Tomb Page 17