Over time, the resentment Amandice felt became harder and harder to bear. Rumors of a string of younger mistresses floating through Lenguin’s private chambers crushed her, even while she delighted in the Duchess being embarrassed so. Eventually, even her own scandal ceased to be of any interest amongst the jaded courtiers. She was all but forgotten, a remnant of a more pleasant age left to fend for herself at the margins of society.
Then Lenguin came to Vorone again, his own children growing into adulthood. Amandice remembered standing near to the street that year, just for the barest sight of her former lover. Once again she strove to catch Lenguin’s eye, but once again he was distracted, or did not recognize her.
Determined not to be ignored again, she had made a complicated series of plans to get her into the palace, into Lenguin’s proximity. But, tragically, before she could execute them, His Grace was persuaded to lead his Wilderlords to war to stop the goblin invasion . . . a battle from which he had never returned. The next time Amandice saw her lover, he was lying in state at the Temple of Orvatas.
Since then, her life had descended further and further into despair. The sudden loss of the ducal family and the kidnapping of Lenguin’s heir by Castal plunged Vorone into an economic depression. Waves of ignorant, poor refugees from the north inundated the town, and the appointment of an unpopular steward by a foreign duke over the capital grated on everyone.
There was very little left of her life in Vorone the day Amandice looked out of her balcony and made a decision that would affect the lives of all Voroni. If her best days had been as a novice in the Scarlet Temple, she would seek them again, she vowed. If there was no actual temple to the Goddess of Love and Beauty here, she would contrive to build one. If there was any way her talents and abilities could rescue the town that she fell in love with Lenguin in, she felt compelled to use them. She would invoke the goddess, herself, and give herself over in any way her patroness chose. Body and soul.
It was time, she decided that fateful day, to invite the goddess Ishi to come to Vorone.
The Goddess In The Garden
As the last words of the ritual faded in the night’s air, and the last tendrils of smoke arose from the censor, Ishi looked down at the hands – her hands, now - still dainty and feminine, but wrinkled and spotted despite the best creams the apothecaries could make – with her new eyes. Age, beauty’s tireless nemesis.
“A glass!” Ishi demanded to no one in particular. “Bring me a glass!”
The bucktoothed servant girl startled at her mistress’s sudden change in tone, but hurried to bring the old gilded brass looking glass to her. Ishi regarded herself in the imperfect surface. Like the face and body she now inhabited, the mirror looked fine and ornate from a distance, but once you got close enough its age was easily revealed.
“This . . . is barely adequate,” she muttered to herself. The Baroness was beautiful, for her age, but despite the care and attention she paid to herself, the climate and conditions conspired against her. The hair was exquisite, treated with herbs, brushed, and washed regularly. The body was well cared-for, she had to admit – strong, vibrant, humming with desire – but she had to do something about that face. Those . . . imperfections.
She was the goddess of feminine beauty, after all. Ishi concentrated a moment and filled her vessel with divine grace, directing it to achieve her goal. When she returned to regard herself in the glass she had been transformed.
It was no maiden who stared back at her, to be sure. But the face she beheld was smooth and clear, now, with the rich, healthy glow of youth. The eyes were clear and blue, sparkling like mountain streams in the morning light. Gone was the hint of despair and loss the Baroness’ worn face had carried for years. A beautiful woman first, her maturity and bearing was now a complement to that beauty, not a detriment to it. The marks of age on her hands were gone. Her hair was even more luxurious, and now fell over her shoulders with enchanting grace.
“Much better,” Ishi said, satisfied. “We’ll contend with the wardrobe later, I suppose. You, girl – your name?”
“Lespeth, Mum! But you know that, don’t you?” she asked, her mouth open unattractively.
Ishi sighed. “I have a lot of work to do here. Lespeth, I bear joyous news. Your mistress’s ritual was a success. She has invited me to occupy her body as my vessel. She has been chosen as Ishi’s earthly avatar, here and now.”
“Ishi . . . Mum?” Her eyes went wide with awe and wonder, and her jaw dropped.
“Oh, close your mouth, girl, you make me think of rabbits!” Ishi said, testily. “Yes, I – your mistress, the Baroness Amandice – invoked me by holy rite, known only to my priestesses. She has been chosen to bear the spirit of Ishi, the goddess of love, lust, beauty . . . I believe you are acquainted with the lore. Be not afraid. I am merely borrowing her, for a while, and will leave her enriched when I depart. Like borrowing a friend’s jewelry or a gown for a few nights,” she explained.
“Aye, Mum . . .Your Highness . . . Goddess . . . oh, whatever shall I call you?” the girl asked in confusion.
“Treat me as you always have, for now. It will take us both some time to get used to this, several days, at least, before I will be ready to go among the mortals. My true identity will of course have to remain secret – no one would believe us if we did tell, and that would work against my purposes.”
“Your purposes, Mum?”
“You don’t think I inhabited an aging ingénue in the ass-crack of the wilderness for the excitement, do you?” Ishi asked, coolly. “I do have a purpose, and that purpose aligns, for the most, with those of the Baroness. My time here will be short, but I shall leave your lives better for it, I think.”
“M-may I ask, Mum . . . what is your purpose?” the gawky girl asked, bringing her a warm mantle to drape across her shoulders, unbidden. That was a good sign. Lespeth may have had an unfortunate overbite and an overabundance of freckles, but she was smart and compassionate. Ishi didn’t mind the homeliness. She’d had worse to work with.
“To restore Vorone to health, to establish Duke Anguin thoroughly on his throne, and enliven the folk of the Wilderlands in support of him.”
“The Goddess of Love and Beauty is going to do that?” Lespeth asked, still confused. “Shouldn’t that rightly be Duin’s domain? Or Luin’s?”
“Warcraft and lawcraft will not save the duchy from destruction,’ she explained, patiently. “Not when the spirit of the people is broken and hope is so elusive. I was asked to do something constructive, Lespeth, and this is what I can do. Nor is it a small power I bring to bear – merely more subtle than axe or decree. Indeed, it is a very subversive power, affecting things in subtle ways and producing unexpected results. It’s all in the way you use it,” she said, more to herself than the servant.
But that reminded her of business. “Elspeth, tell me, how many servants are there?”
“Just me, Mum, the cook, the valet, and the butler.”
“For a house this size? That will never do. What is the state of your Mistress’ finances?”
“Oh, she was quite frugal, Mum. Is quite frugal,” she amended. “She has a few hundred in silver in her chamber, and she has an account with the Temple of Ifnia and a silversmith. But not much with either,” she confessed.
“That will not do, either. Every girl needs coin, if she’s to get anything accomplished.”
“Excuse me, Mum, but the Baroness has tried to get credit from several sources, and has been spurned, even from old friends. That’s one reason why she . . . she beseeched you. We were down to our last bit of silver. Creditors were starting to call.”
“I gathered,” Ishi said, dryly, looking around at the faded tapestries and old furniture in the Baroness’ chamber. She had made a magnificent effort, Ishi had to admit. Amandice had paid faithful attention to all of the subtle hints about decoration, color, contrast and placement the Scarlet Temple had taught her, and had added some inspired touches of her own to blend it with the floral t
heme of the hall.
But it just wouldn’t do. Not for what she had planned. It was far too shabby, and far too common.
“First, we need some servants,” she directed. “Then some students. Then a change of décor. A desperate change of decor. And a thorough cleaning. Tell me, dear Elspeth,” she asked, suddenly, “where can I find the most desperate of the desperate, in Vorone?”
“Why, everyone is a bit desperate, Mum,” the bucktoothed girl admitted. “But the sorriest lot have to be the poor frozen souls in the camps outside the gates.”
“Then that is where we will begin, tomorrow morning,” the goddess in human form pledged. “For what we need to do, human hearts are worth more than silver and gold. And only amongst the most desperate can you see, really see, what lies within a human heart.”
“If you say so, Mum,” the servant girl agreed, reluctantly. “But we’ll as like get our throats slit for our shoes, as stir the kettle of human compassion, out there. Those folk are desperate. Especially in the cold.”
“No mortal will harm Ishi,” she chuckled. “Nor anyone under my protection. But for now . . . a bath! Draw me a bath, girl, as hot as you can, and as fragrant as you can manage in this dismal parlor. For the kind of magic I plan on, I must be at my best – or as best as I can manage. And lay out suitable clothes for tomorrow – I’ll want to select the appropriate garments for scrounging through a refugee camp.”
“There are appropriate garments for that, Mum?”
“There are appropriate garments for every occasion, my dear, including none at all. One of my favorites. But for this, I need to look regal, noble, untouchable. But beautiful, in a Wilderlord sort of way.”
“I will do the best I can, Mum, with what is available.”
“I trust that you will, Elspeth. You are of noble spirit, even if of heavy heart – and you doubt that your mistress has, in fact, transformed. But you are willing to endure her apparent madness . . . why?”
Elspeth shrugged. “A job is a job, Mum. I figure a reference from either a goddess or a baroness would stand me in good stead.”
“That’s very opportunistic of you, Elspeth. I like that. Bath, clothes. Run along!”
“Yes, Mum!” the servant said, and ran to comply.
For three days Ishi, in her guise as the Baroness, prowled the lowliest sorts of places on the outskirts of Vorone. One by one she visited the camps, used her presence and her silver to keep the unwanted at bay, and began selecting from among the girls she found there.
Few were virgins, she quickly discovered, through her divine ability to sense such things. In the desperation of the camps, with no kin or protector, the girls who had made it to Vorone had learned quickly to use the one resource available to them to survive. Not all had bargained away their sacred seal so lightly, but most. Almost all had been subject to deprivations and predators, starvation and beatings.
But as Ishi walked through the camps and surveyed the girls, she sensed more than their sexual histories. She sensed their deepest passions, desires, and delights.
Usually she would approach a girl directly, if she had no pimp or protector around.
“You, lass,” she would call in her Wilderlands brogue. “Are you for hire?”
The question usually bought their rapt attention, for copper and silver were rare in the camps. Simple jobs for pennies a week were fought over by grown men. An opportunity for a girl to earn coin on her own was just too alluring to ignore.
“Aye, my lady!” they usually said, trying their best to make themselves look presentable and healthy. “What work have you?”
“Does it matter?” she would ask, amused. “Would you do it, for silver?”
She would display a single silver coin, gleaming and irresistible.
“Aye, my lady!” they almost always said. They knew the routine. If a regal lady didn’t mention what work it was they were to do, they could guess what it might involve. But most had enough experience to understand that a middle-aged woman likely had less demanding tastes than a tradefallen peasant in a camp with two apples, a crust of bread, and a hard pecker. They were eager to be hired.
If she found them acceptable, Amandice would give them her address, and a wooden token with her crest upon it that would allow them entrance for their “interview. But they were instructed to bring all of their clothing, for there was the possibility of livery – room, board, and perhaps even a bit of coin.
Ishi took a few here and a few there, ten from this camp, a dozen from another, only nine from another. Nor were maidens the only servants she sought. As she prowled through the desperate paths between makeshift shelters that had lasted years, faithful Elspeth behind her, she also found youths of sound body and of a particular bent, most quite handsome, who were willing to take service as guardsmen for lady of such noble bearing.
Best yet, she found a middle-aged widow nearly the Baroness’ own age who was a bit of a prodigy, for this backwater of a backwater. She discovered Goody Candrice running a soup kitchen of sorts in conjunction with an oft-drunken monk of Huin, providing meals for many in her camp, and providing protection for as many young women as she could. She had them pooling their efforts, taking in mending and washing from town and purchasing grain and eggs with the profits.
But Goody Candrice was no pious nun. Before she wed she was a notorious unofficial disciple of Ishi, nor had she let her vows to Trygg stop her from taking her pleasure as she wished. Since the war she had constantly schemed, both on her own behalf and on behalf of those she found worthy to protect and nurture. And in turn, she had organized them into conducting some discreet whoring in the camps and in the less fashionable parts of town on their own.
Half a dozen of her older girls were already trading their favors for select clients she screened herself, either out of a tent in the back of her camp or on an on-call basis. It was such an efficient and dear little operation that, once Ishi understood it by observation, she invited Candrice to come and be her matron and cook at her house . . . and invited all of her girls as well.
The matron was shocked, and didn’t believe the offer was genuine until Elspeth reluctantly placed ten ounces of silver in her palm. But once she closed her fingers over it, the deal was done. Candrice would come to the Hall of Flowers, as Ishi had re-named the Flower Bed, and help oversee the restoration of the place. Not to mention help regulate the maidens.
Everywhere they went, however, Elspeth seemed to second-guess Ishi about her choices. The homely girl was critical, but she had a good eye, the goddess had to admit. She was adept at sums, despite her illiteracy . . . and every silver coin that left her purse made her moan in despair under her breath.
But then the first investments in femininity began paying dividends. On the fourth day of their search, girls began arriving at the Hall of Flowers with their baggage and their hopes. Elspeth greeted the first of them politely, took their names and birthplace, determined whether they were noble or common, and then assigned them to a chamber with several other girls.
By the end of the week there were more than a score crowding the hall, with Goody Candrice’s girls arriving last.
Candrice quickly took over the kitchen, even as one of the older girls – a pretty blonde name Rancine – assumed the role of clothier. Most of the girls arrived in rags, torn dresses they’d outgrown or oversize cast-offs they’d acquired in the camps. Few had had a bath since summer, and as the winter winds began to rise in the dark West, it was unlikely they’d see one before spring, in the camps.
Most of the poor wretches were half-starved. A big pot of simple bean soup and a loaf of bread took care of that problem. It was taking a good portion of her remaining savings to feed them, but it had to be done, Ishi knew. Goody Candrice was adept at turning a little into a lot, and within hours of her arrival she and her more homely girls had turned what meager fare Ishi had been able to procure into a wholesome repast – the best most of the girls had eaten in weeks.
“I know you are all wond
ering why I invited you here, chose you to be here,” Ishi began as she addressed the first group of girls at dinner that first night. “The simple fact is that I have seen all of Vorone, all of the Wilderlands, suffer too long under this awful war. So many fair maidens and sturdy lads have gone off to die, or be enslaved, or otherwise doomed in the darkness, and many more have suffered at the hands of the fellow men.
“But for good or ill, you have all survived and found yourself here, in Vorone. Perhaps this is the last outpost of true culture in the Wilderlands, perhaps it is the first, but here in Vorone we must do our best to create a world worth living in. And one worth fighting for.”
“Why us?” one fleshy girl with long dark hair and big brown eyes asked. Her name was Lega, Ishi knew.
“Because, my dear Lega, you are the smartest . . . fairest . . . most promising wildflowers I’ve found so far, growing in the wilderness. And from you I shall make a beautiful garden of culture and civilization grow, here in Vorone,” she answered, sweetly.
“Baron won’t like that,” grunted Lega, around a mouthful of bread.
“The Baron won’t be in charge for much longer, if I understand correctly,” Ishi replied evenly. “Nor will you all truly be ready until he is cold and dead in his grave. But when that time comes, each of you will be well-prepared, as will this hall.”
“Prepared how, Mum?” asked a winsome girl with delicate features and child-like eyes. Aubrum, she was.
“Why, Aubrum, you will be instructed. Instructed in how to bathe. How to dress. How to speak, how to walk, how to stand, how to sit, how to eat, sleep, shit, piss, fuck, suck, and dance a pavane. Each of you will learn the intricacies of your own femininity, and discover how to take that supposedly frail framework and turn it into the most deadly and dangerous weapon known to man or god. You will become my Maidens of the wood, and allure every man in the city. While inspiring envy and jealousy in every woman.”
Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) Page 5
