The Enterprise of Death

by Jesse Bullington

  “Smoke?”

  “Poppy oil? I suppose not.” The girl sighed. “A Moor I knew shared it with me. He said it was not so rare in your land.”

  “And where is it you think I come from?” asked Awa, retrieving a bottle.

  “I suppose I was being foolish,” said Chloé as Awa took a drink. “You don’t all come from the same place, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Awa. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Of course.” The girl sat up and took the bottle. “Say, this is a sight better than what they keep down there. What’s your name?”

  Awa told her; she had long since given up on keeping it a secret.

  “Well, Awa, can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Can I sleep here? It’s late, I think, and I … I like sleeping against you. You smell nice.” Awa’s eyes had adjusted enough to see that the girl had dropped her head, and Awa felt her throat tighten, her stomach hot and nervous.

  “You can stay as long as you like, Chloé,” said Awa, and then the girl looked up, tears shining on her cheeks in the dark for some reason, and Awa held her tightly. Then they kissed, softly, much more softly than before, and lay back down together. Much later, after she was sure the girl was asleep, Awa sat up on her elbow and stared at the ivory creature beside her, wondering how long she could feel this happy. Longer than she expected, as it turned out, but, of course, not forever.

  The only nights Chloé did not sleep pressed against Awa were when a mark paid the extra franc to have her stay until morning with him on a lumpy pallet surrounded by cheaply perfumed curtains. Those nights were harder than Awa expected, though she was not so foolish as to think loving a whore would be easy. She managed it, though, and took a quiet little thrill in keeping her own secrets as Chloé let one after another slip out with the errant tear; she told Awa about her absent mother, her abusive father, and her molesting uncle, about running away from home to work in the city only to find herself on her back, about her dreams and nightmares.

  “I’m going to be famous, a poetess,” said Chloé as they sat on the edge of their pallet early one morning. She stunk like the man she had just left and Awa drank more to kill the scent. “That Moor I told you about, he had a book by one of them, courtier, no, courtesans. Italian bird, sang poetry into her books, and now everyone from the Grand Duke of Muscovy to the caliph of wherever are singing her praises. I’ll write like her, sad poems and sweet, and be the queen of the courtesans.”

  “Can you read and write?” asked Awa.

  “Not yet,” said Chloé, taking the bottle. “But I learned to suck cock when I was ten, so learning letters at eighteen ought’ent be worse.”

  “I can teach you,” said Awa. “If you like, I’ll buy, I don’t know, a book or something and teach you to read.”

  Chloé was silent for a time, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, why not?! Teach me!”

  “It’ll be fun,” said Awa, taking the bottle as Chloé rolled onto the floor and squatted in front of her, putting her hands on Awa’s knees. “Fun.”

  “My first fucking sonnet will be an ode to the soft wings of the raven, eh?” said Chloé, moving in as Awa lowered herself down with a sigh, the portrait of the girl watching them from just over the jet-haired head now nodding between Awa’s legs.

  Complications and jealousy were as inevitable as pox in that house, though not so easily remedied. The occasions when Awa passed through the third floor and saw Chloé at work, or worse, chatting up some slob in the tavern below, gnawed at Awa more than she would admit to herself or her lover. An especially loud and obnoxious Englishman named Merritt took a shine to Chloé, and he more than all the anonymous marks put together rubbed Awa wrong.

  Merritt delighted in talking immense amounts of shit about the other patrons and whores, flexing and strutting like an especially immodest peacock, and picking fights at the slightest provocation—provided his opponent was smaller or drunker than him. Awa noticed that he had become a regular, and that he favored Chloé, but did not pay him much notice until one night when her last bottle went unexpectedly empty and she was forced to march down to the tavern for some of the local swill. It was quite late and she was already a little drunk so she had not bothered donning her cloak, which was still drying anyway, and so she went downstairs with her head held high only to hear Merritt crowing in the worst French she had ever heard.

  “Blackmoor! Fuck, blackmoor!” Chloé was sitting on his lap and glanced up at his outburst. Awa looked to her instead of him, and when Chloé quickly turned away, whispering in Merritt’s ear, Awa set her face and made straight for the bar. Then it came again. “Fuck blackmoor! See! Why you telling me not they are had blackmoor, chit? Me buying her!”

  Awa’s face must have given away far more than she intended, for Dario already had two bottles off the shelf and held out to her, his smile more grimace than grin. Through his frozen expression Dario murmured, “Fucking English’re the worst, eh, Awa? We fleece that mutton closest, believe me, so just go—”

  “Blackmoor! How much for you eating the shit of me, blackmoor?” Dario winced, as if the shouting drunkard were addressing him instead of Awa. “Not, not story. You eating the shit of me, me paying, me watching, girl watching. How much?”

  “No fucking charge for what I’ll give you,” Awa heard herself say, and she was already halfway across the tavern when a great Dutch shadow fell over her. Awa felt her hand extend to kill Monique, and then Merritt and Dario and everyone else in the tavern, and then she would burn the building down, and if Chloé didn’t like it she would kill her, too. Then she caught herself and yanked her hand back, her fingers almost brushing Monique’s arm.

  “Upstairs, Awa. My room,” Monique said softly, then, raising her voice and turning to Merritt, “Oi, Saxon! Don’t know bout on your gloomy native rock but ’ere bouts we got laws gainst doin nastiness with blackamoors.”

  “Me wanting not fucking it!” Merritt protested loudly, addressing the other patrons as much as the brothel’s nominal bouncer. “No, not fucking blackmoor!”

  Awa heard him spit as she went up the rickety stairs, and had a single other voice joined in or even laughed she would have wheeled around, murdered them all, then brought them back so that she might murder them a second time, but no one else spoke or chuckled, and she went down the second-story hallway to Monique’s room. It was locked. Fuck this, and fuck them, and Awa was storming back down the hall when Monique appeared, and she looked so miserable and tired that Awa’s rage began to steam off her, and she let herself be led back into Monique’s room.

  “That fucking asshole! Who the fuck does he think he is?!” Awa drained the drink Monique offered and slapped the clay mug back into her friend’s palm. “I don’t have to take that shit!”

  “No,” agreed Monique, refilling the mug and drinking it herself. “Ya don’t ’ave to take that shit—only if ya wanna stay under this roof, aye?”

  “So that’s how it is?” Awa took the bottle from Monique’s hand when the cup was not refilled and stalked around the room. The bed was nice and soft, by the look of it, and there was a table against one wall with scales and canisters on it, a trunk underneath it and a chair beside that, but otherwise the room was empty save for the clothes strewn about the place, frilly things far too small and delicate for Monique to ever fit into. “Some fucking loudmouth idiot over me.”

  “Ya got a real tidy thing goin on here,” said Monique, sitting down on her bed. “ We got a real tidy thing goin on here. We don’t ’ave ta take the shit, but we will if we like it as it is, if we wanna keep it as it is. Understand?”

  “Easy for you to say, without some squinty piece of shit taking that tone with you!” Awa took another long pull on the bottle.

  “Right, right, I forgot, it weren’t me gettin zero fuckin credit for this affair while that ginger-lout I pay ta embezzle my fuckin bar inta his belly gets the praise an’ Christ knows ’ow many tips an’ perks for bein born with a
prick. Weren’t me gettin the short end, was some other Low Country cunt.” Monique sighed. “Ya gonna bring that bottle back here or am I gonna ’ave ta chase ya down?”

  “So I just take it? When some shit-eyed bastard talks that fucking way to me, I just bend over and take it?” Awa returned the bottle, the fiery gutrot matching her acidic mood.

  “Smallest, softest cock you’ll ever take is the ones what come out they mouths,” said Monique. “For any of us it’d be hard, but for those sisters of our circumstances this’s good as it’ll ever get, believe you me. Not many places in this wide, wonderful world the Lord made for us’ll tolerate a fuckin blackamoor witch, an’ dyke besides, sittin up most nights gettin her business tended by the fairest fanny in fuckin Paris. No?”

  Awa looked at Monique, and smiled the slightest bit. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t.”

  “So maybe turnin the other cheek when some greasy Saxon runs ’is gob ain’t too steep a price for the ass I found ya, especially when said ass is chargin triple what she oughta from that particular greasy Saxon?”

  “Just burns me up, seeing her on his lap, knowing what she’ll be doing before the night’s out.” Awa shook her head, teeth clenched so hard that her jaw began to ache. “That asshole!”

  “Call’em Roast Beef, ya ever want ta take some of what he’s been robbin.”

  “Roast Beef?”

  “What the locals call them Saxons what come down all pale an’ pink up in the sun.”

  “Pet insults don’t take the sting out of her kissing on him and everything else.”

  “Well, she’s an earner, a true earner, an’ that’s what it takes.” Monique put her arm around Awa and gave her a tight squeeze. “Most ’ores can’t juggle private with business, but that minky pink of yours seems more’n capable. Be careful, though—a mink got teeth, don’t it?”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” said Awa, removing Monique’s arm from her shoulder and standing up. “You wouldn’t be jealous, would you, Mo?”

  “Of her or you?” Monique shook her head. “That bitch is too bony for my likin, an’ too damn clever by ’alf. On occasion I’ll take a bony ’ore, or a smart one, but never the two in one. Recipe for trouble.”

  Awa stared at Monique for a moment, then burst out laughing. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. That … that makes absolutely no sense!”

  “It don’t, does it?” Monique smiled. “Philosophy’s a pretty personal affair, don’t always translate. Oi, let’s get us a new bottle. I tell ya I got the shithouse fair ta sussed?”

  The shithouse was Monique’s saltpeter farm, a small brick building she had built behind the brothel. She filled it with dung from the nearby stable and the contents of every chamber pot, and woe to the ear of the whore who dumped her pot in the street instead of the special gutter draining into the shithouse. The gunner had endeavored to get Awa to assist in managing the balance of excrement, urine, and other elements to ensure the proper conditions were maintained, but the necromancer would have none of it, insisting that such esoteric matters were more the forte of Paracelsus than she. Eventually Monique got it sorted well enough on her own, and after she had separated—and sold off—the table salt from the mineral deposits that grew in the shithouse, she mixed the resulting saltpeter with willow charcoal and sulfur in her room, and had started bringing in almost more money from the blackpowder she sold than from the whores. Never in her life had Monique been happier.

  They sat up most of the night drinking and talking, both realizing it had been far too long since they had simply relaxed together and shared a drink, and both realizing how much they missed it. Neither woman let the whores—regular visitors to their beds or not—in on their secrets or their pasts, and being with another individual who knew more about both than either were necessarily comfortable with felt liberating, and they had a proper night of it. When a soft knock came around the end of the second bottle Awa wasn’t sure she entirely wanted to leave the company of the Dutch gunner, but Monique shooed her off after making a lewd innuendo or two, and Chloé helped her drunk lover up to the attic. Awa tried to go straight to sleep but Chloé made her drink some water, and as she did the whore apologized.

  “He’s harmless, just an idiot, really—I’ve never met anyone so conceited and stupid.”

  “Gotta do what you gotta,” said Awa, no longer as annoyed as she would have liked.

  “He’s just a mark,” said Chloé. “Nothing more’n a pisstaker.”

  “Eh?” Awa heaved herself back out of bed, reminded to relieve herself before passing out. “Who said he was more than that?”

  “He’s not … he’s really not so bad,” said Chloé, so quietly Awa could barely hear her over the sound of piss hitting the chamber pot.

  “What are you sayin?” Awa clambered back into bed. “I don’t want to hear about his fucking style.”

  “What? How much did you drink?”

  “A lot.”

  “Oh. No, like … like as far as they go, he thinks he’s funny, sure, but he’s harmless. I talked to him, told’em I’d cut him off, he talked that way to you again.”

  “Don’t go missing out on wages on account of my fucking sensitivity to loudmouthed assholes,” said Awa, though she appreciated Chloé threatening the bastard. “Heard you get triple from him.”

  “Trip’s what I tell the boss,” said Chloé, snuggling against Awa. “It’s more like four times the usual minge money.”

  “So long as you’re happy,” Awa muttered sleepily, and they both dozed off as dawn crept under the eaves.

  XXV

  The Judgment of Paris

  Awa’s time was running out. The days were passing far too quickly, the nights even faster, and not even Chloé could distract Awa from the truth of the matter. All the signs were there—the brothel’s boost in business as harvest arrived, the few trees Awa passed on her walks losing their leaves like skeletons shedding desiccated skin, the pinch in the air, her own memory that would not be quiet, no matter how much alcohol she poured down her throat. She had reached her final year before the necromancer would claim her.

  It had been easier than Awa had anticipated to forget, especially with the help of Chloé and Monique, and Manuel, who had come to visit a year before, no, two years before, bringing Katharina with him. Not to the brothel, of course, but to the city, and Awa and Monique and the artist’s wife had all posed for him. It had been fun, much more fun than the only other time she had posed for Manuel, though she had to argue vehemently with him before he agreed to tweak her features and lighten her skin, lest she be identified by the completed painting. Little details like this told her she had not yet given up entirely, that she would not roll over and let death take her, but she pretended it was modesty instead of self-preservation, and so she convinced herself she would not rage against her fate as she once had.

  The sketch for his painting, though—Manuel had wanted Monique to be nude, which had led to blushing instead of blows but nevertheless Monique’s staunch refusal. They had talked it over, the three models and the artist, and if he was annoyed when they hijacked his vision he did not dare voice it. Monique would be the mother instead of Awa, and keep her modesty even if it meant wearing a fashionable dress for a change. Dario was dragged along, but by this point they had a few more hands employed at the brothel and so the five were able to nip off to an uncleared acre of trees and shrubbery in the outskirts without being missed.

  The barkeep and official whoremonger sat on a rock facing Katharina, the artist’s wife nude save for a transparent shift that concealed her charms no more than a light breeze might. She held an apple in her hand, the very image of Venus to Manuel’s eye. They had been right, of course, and as he worked he could scarcely believe he had gotten Awa’s and Monique’s roles reversed. The gunner made as perfect a Juno as Katharina made a Venus, but there could be no denying that of the three Awa most embodied her goddess—though Manuel was perhaps a touch mixed up over the histori
cal roles and identities of the goddesses in the first place.

  Manuel felt guilty adding the long curls of hair on Awa’s shoulder that she had insisted upon, at softening her at all, at lightening her flesh and masking her features, but still she shone through the disguise he gave her, Minerva as she had first appeared to him in the cave, his sword in her hand, a borrowed shield on her shoulder, his hat upon her head. Catching himself comparing his models, Manuel smiled to himself—he was more in Paris’s position than the seated model, and made sure to replace the barkeep’s face with his own in the finished painting. For now he sketched them as carefully as he could, and upon returning to Bern would have the apprentice he could finally afford make a cartoon of his sketch, which in turn the boy would copy onto a panel for Manuel to paint.

  “You look like shit,” Manuel had told her earlier in the day, Awa’s eyes sunken and purple-rimmed, her breath hellish, but now she looked perfect.

  “So do you,” she had said, and she was right, a few years away from mercenary work enabling him to acquire a bit of a paunch.

  “Come visit sometime,” said Manuel. “I want to show you some things I’ve been working on.”

  “I’ll come …” Awa paused. “Soon.”

  She had not, and now time was running short. Awa was beginning to lose sleep, to grow distracted even when Chloé was tending to her, and she went from drinking every night to drinking every morning as well. Monique commented on it, as did Dario, but Awa did not pay much mind until Chloé brought it up.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” the younger woman demanded.

  “Huh?” Awa blinked, unsure if it was morning or dusk. Not enough light was coming in for it to be midday, but too much for night. “What?”

  “You’ve been calling me that name again,” said Chloé. “You can call me Rose or anything you want, but you need to pay extra.”

  The girl had grown quite lippy since Awa had run out of her stock of coins and had to start collecting a stipend from Monique to keep Chloé in clothes—going to a churchyard to refill her coffers no longer appealed to her in the slightest. Reaching around for a bottle, she found them all empty, which did little to improve her mood. Chloé watched her, shaking her head. “Pathetic.”