“I would assume a great number of people are,” mused Father Amus.
“Perhaps without my direct knowledge,” conceded Pentandra, “but I’m aware that they are practicing. This isn’t that sort of thing. This isn’t a regular adept or spellmonger at work, or even a regular psychomancer.”
“You suspect the gurvani?” Amus asked, sharply.
“Always,” Pentandra answered as she continued studying Everkeen’s reports, “but this doesn’t seem to be their work, either. Not with that thaumaturgical signature. Certainly not directly. I don’t think gurvani shamanic magic is equipped to deal with subtle human emotions like this - this isn’t fear, despair or terror at work, this is far more subtle.”
“Then . . . what? Who?” demanded Amus, anxiously.
“In my professional opinion? This is more likely to be due to the individual Talent of a magical sport. Someone who has exceptional Talent in one or two things, but who lacks the capacity to be a full-fledged mage,” she explained, when the old priest looked confused. “Just what did those girls want with you, if I may ask?”
“Merely authorization to use the Temple Square to hold the festival,” shrugged Amus. “That is what their message requested, rather politely. That falls under my purview as Ducal Chaplain. But that is something I would have gladly done without magical . . . persuasion,” he finished, uncomfortably.
“Of course,” Pentandra admitted, reluctantly. “They didn’t try to get you to do anything else? Or suggest anything else to you?”
“Oh, they mentioned the idea of holding a grand ball at the palace for the occasion, and I told them I thought it was a fine idea,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “It is traditional that some sort of celebration at the palace follow the day’s festivities. But we were merely conversing. What is so sinister about a ball?” Amus asked
“One might ask the same about a tournament field,” Pentandra pointed out. “It all depends upon who the players are, and what their ambitions might be.”
“And how far they will go to see them fulfilled,” murmured Amus, finally understanding the subtle danger in the glamour on him. “Can you remove this spell?”
“Oh, certainly, with some study. As I said, it’s a mere hypnotic enchantment. It does you no direct harm. Or even clouds your basic judgment – it’s not that strong of a spell. But I think that I want to investigate a bit before I make the attempt. You are clearly not the only one affected by this.”
Amus looked surprised. “There have been others?”
“The court has its share of those gentlemen whose heads can be turned by a pretty ankle or a seductive smile,” she reflected. “If it makes you feel better, Father, most have endured far more embarrassing slips than mere distraction,” Pentandra agreed. “I am guessing they’ve been similarly infected with this glamour.
“But there’s only one way to be certain: visit the source. I need to go to the Street of Perfume, find this Hall of Flowers, and meet this Lady Pleasure in her home to discuss the proprieties of court . . . one lady to another.”
*
*
*
“Are you certain you don’t want me to escort you?” Arborn teased, as she dressed.
“My husband? Escorting me to a brothel? What would Mother say?” she asked, mockingly, as she brushed her hair in front of her magical glass.
“I wouldn’t know,” Arborn replied, dryly. “I’ve never met her.”
The words were said in jest, but there was some tension behind them, she could hear it in his voice. Arborn had been curious about her family since they’d wed, but had thus far only met her cousin, Planus. He was particularly interested in meeting her mother. Pentandra was particularly interested in postponing that meeting as long as possible. She could only imagine what horrendous bile her mother would concoct against her barbarian husband.
“When you do, she won’t be happy about it. Which means she’ll make you unhappy about it. And she certainly wouldn’t find the humor in us both visiting a brothel together. She would do anything to avoid the scandal. The servants would talk, she would say.”
“Is that why you don’t want me to go? Your mother?”
“No, I don’t want you to go because I am a newly wedded wife jealous of my husband’s roaming eye around a hundred nubile, attractive young maidens who give Ishi’s Blessing as a regular service,” she replied.
“You don’t trust me?” he teased.
“You’re the most trustworthy man I know,” Pentandra acknowledged. “But you’re still a man. You have a cock. And eyes. The two together tend to ignore the dictates of your mind and conscience.”
“Pentandra!” protested her husband. “I would never--
“Don’t tell me what you would or wouldn’t do, in a situation you have never been in, dealing with strange magic around strange whores,” Pentandra warned. “I might not blame you for your interest, but without my protections you would be just as subject to the potential spells as anything with a sack. I cannot do the work I need to if I have to keep my eye on you, all the time. And if I did catch you with one of those little . . . girls,” she said, exercising a tremendous amount of control over her emotions, “ . . . well, I’d hate to burn one to a crisp just because she caught your fancy.”
“‘The servants would talk’,” echoed Arborn with a chuckle. “At least your honest. But with a magnificent creature like you in my bed, my wife, how could I possibly gaze at another woman? Mae sgowtiaid yn ffyddlon.”
“My husband, may Trygg bless you for your loyalty. But where we’re going not even the virtuous can tread lightly,” she smirked. “I wouldn’t trust a monk, there. Quite literally.”
“Wife, I can face a hundred goblins and not flinch!” he said, rolling over on the bed lazily.
“But could you face a hundred nubile young tits and not stare?” she replied, gently as she picked up her hairbrush. “My dear naive husband, brothels are designed to entice the eye. The good ones, at least.”
“And you know this . . . how, my wife?”
“Sex magic, remember?” she said, wiggling her behind at him while she brushed her hair. “When I studied at Alar, I regularly visited a brothel called The Bluest Sky for research purposes. It was one of the reasons I was later asked to transfer to Inrion.”
“Research?” he asked, skeptically.
“I was fifteen – no more than a maid. You didn’t think I could do it all at that age, do you? No, I bribed the madame of the house to let me observe.”
Arborn looked surprised. “The clients allow such a thing?”
“The clients pay for such a thing,” she corrected. “At The Bluest Sky each of the patrons wore a silken mask, but it was understood that others would be discreetly watching from squints in the walls. It was far less exhausting than actually doing all of the work myself.”
“What an interesting life you have led, my wife,” Arborn reflected, after a moment’s silence.
“And it just keeps getting more so,” she sighed, putting down the brush. “The truth is, husband, I don’t know what to expect. Is she merely a crafty old whore seeking to promote her enterprise at court? From what I felt the other night, there is more to her than that. The place almost crackled with magic. Astyral and Azar felt it, too, as did any with Talent and the wit to see it. No, that was a glamour of some sort she cast. Or one of her whores did. That is why I don’t want you to escort me.”
“Aren’t you worried you will become subject to the spell?” he asked, curious.
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Pentandra shrugged. “While the men were captivated, the women were put into a state of . . . call it anxious envy. It was strange, even for magic. Some sort of Psychomancy, perhaps, triggered by the male sexual response. Which is why you, my husband, are staying here.”
“But . . . but I’ve never been to a brothel before!” he said, pouting mockingly.
“You aren’t missing much,” she shrugged. “Just a bunch of pretty young women wil
ling to take off their clothes and pleasure you in any way possible for money. Usually surrounded by tasteful art, beautiful music, incredible food, fine spirits and wines, that sort of thing.”
“And you have to pay for that? When you can get it at home?” he asked, amused. “You Narasi are so odd!”
“I am no Narasi,” she reminded him, pulling her mantle over her shoulders. “But we have brothels, too. Hells, we perfected brothels, according to my mother. But it is you Kasari who are odd. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed another culture completely devoid of brothels. Or prostitution.”
“Our girls wouldn’t like that,” her husband grunted.
“Oh, I know,” she assured him. “Most women cannot stand the idea of whores around them. Unreasonable competition for attention. Considering how well your girls shoot, I can’t imagine a brothel in Kasar or Bransei ever prospering.” The Kasari had a highly conservative culture, sexually speaking. Most Kasari were virgins until they were wed. She had never asked Arborn point-blank if that was the case for him, but she assumed it wasn’t far from the truth.
“Are you ready, Mistress?” came Alurra’s polite voice from the door.
“Nearly,” she nodded. “You and your pigeon can wait downstairs for me, and if you can flag down a castellan to send word to equip a carriage for us . . .”
The girl smiled, nodded, and disappeared. In the few days she’d been at the palace she had done amazingly well in learning her way around, and with the help of Lucky she was able to deftly navigate the corridors of the confusing place. When she and her bird got confused, it didn’t hurt that she had a pretty face under that untended hair. The guards and the castellans always seemed eager to point her in the right direction, Pentandra had observed.
In terms of magic she had been equally impressive – and disappointing, in equal measures. While Pentandra had never had her own apprentice before, she had borrowed one of Minalan’s for a time. She had been responsible for young Lenodara’s introduction into the arcane art, and the two girls were similar in many ways. Both had quick minds, bright imaginations, powerful measures of Talent, and a particular natural facility for Brown Magic, the ability to use magic with animals.
But while Dara had been both curious and cautious, Alurra was bold and complacent. Her previous work with the mysterious witch Antimei had given her a far different introduction to spellwork than Dara – or Pentandra, for that matter. Pentandra had learned the Art as an academic student, not as an apprentice. There were differences in approach, she was realizing, that were difficult to bridge.
Alurra’s sightlessness compounded the challenge. At this point in her education, most students would be reading voraciously. Alurra had proven that she knew her alphabet and numbers in theory, but she could not read them. Which meant she could not read and study the way other students of Imperial magic did . . . or visualize the spells in the same way.
How did you practice magic without magesight, for instance? That question had plagued her in the few lessons she had attempted to give the girl in the last few days. There were so many things that had to be seen in order to be understood, and Alurra simply lacked that facility.
It didn’t help that she didn’t see much point in Pentandra’s formal exercises. Alurra endured them because Antimei had told her to, and in that obedience she was ideal as an apprentice. The girl genuinely wanted to be helpful. The problem was that she wanted to help everyone else, and saw little gain in improving herself.
It was a difficult problem that she needed to solve if she was to truly attempt to teach her. There were just too many things in the Art that required a real, honest-to-gods ego behind them in order to work properly. Without ego, there could be no Will, which was essential.
Pentandra was far from giving up. She had only had a few days to work with the girl, so far, and the sheer novelty of having an apprentice hadn’t worn off yet. Of course, going to a brothel was hardly the sort of education a normal young woman apprentice was exposed to, but then, Pentandra decided, Alurra was hardly a normal apprentice.
And Pentandra was hardly a normal mistress, she realized. She was a Court Mage who specialized in sex magic, not some demure little witch from the hinterlands. If Alurra’s education was unusual, in that sense, she would just have to endure it the best she could. Along the way, she could render assistance and service to her new Mistress. Which, this evening, included a brothel visit.
There was something seriously amiss about “Lady Pleasure”, Pentandra knew, something powerful and potentially dangerous. She needed to get to the bottom of it, and her impressionable apprentice would simply have to overcome the ordeal.
It wasn’t like she was going to see anything scandalous, Pentandra decided.
Alurra was waiting at the front of the palace with the borrowed coach – one of the perquisites of being a senior officer of the court was access to such perquisites. The cool spring evening air promised rain tomorrow but tonight the stars shone through the cloudless sky as brightly as magelights overhead. Pentandra inhaled deeply, the scent of spruce and juniper and pine from beyond the walls cutting through the woodsmoke and less pleasant smells of Vorone.
The breath was deep and cleansing, and as she exhaled she realized for the first time that she actually liked it, here, in Vorone.
She, Pentandra anna Benurvial – no, she, Pentandra, Ducal Court Wizard of Alshar, she corrected in her mind – the pampered daughter of a decadent house of Remeran magi, accustomed to refinement and sophistication, felt at peace here in the wilderness.
Where she had once worried that the amenities of Vorone would not meet her expectations, she found herself now looking forward to a life in this strange and rustic place. If she was going to be a court wizard, this was a nice court to be attached to.
That brought her a quiet strength and resolve, as the carriage rumbled forward and she prepared to get into a shouting match with an aging whore.
Life in Vorone was many things for Pentandra. Boring was not among them.
Chapter Twenty–One
The House Of Flowers
During the short coach ride to the infamous Perfume Street, Pentandra did her best to prepare Alurra for what she might experience at the brothel . . . starting with explaining what a brothel was.
And then explaining to her what a prostitute was.
And then explaining to her what prostitution was, and why men (and a few women) were willing to pay good coin for the experience.
And then explaining to her some of the more basic truths about men.
As Pentandra’s exasperation grew with the length of her explanation, she realized that the challenge here was not Alurra’s blindness, it was her hopeless naiveté. She was a young girl from a remote and unsophisticated Wilderlands culture, one whose usual rules of sexuality (and nearly every other part of life) had been disrupted by the damn goblin invasion.
She’d been raised by an old woman, protected by an ignorant rural society that had thoughtfully taken account of her disability . . . and had left Alurra, therefore, woefully ignorant of the facts of life. Pentandra found herself explaining some very basic matters to her, while making mental notes of future discussions.
By the time the coach arrived at the House of Flowers, Pentandra realized that she would be instructing the Wilderlands girl in the arts of womanhood as much as she would be the magical arts.
“. . . but we’ll continue this discussion later,” she said, when the groom announced their arrival. “For now, keep silent, attend me, and don’t do or touch anything. Understood?”
“Understood, Mistress,” Alurra said, biting her lip with determination. “Do I look presentable?”
No, you look like a backwoods wilding orphan girl who never heard of a comb, Pentandra wanted to say.
In truth, a few days of palace livery had cleaned up and fed the girl so that she at least looked healthy, now. Her dress was clean, if worn, and slightly too large for her; her mantle had been laundered and patched, and she h
ad found some cloth slippers somewhere - Pentandra guessed Castellan Bircei was responsible for that.
But Alurra still looked more like a beggar waif than a professional apprentice. Her hair, in particular, was a mess. It needed some serious care. At the moment it looked like a perfect place for Lucky to stash shiny things and bits of string.
There was no time to do anything about that now, though. “You look fine, dear. Like a magi’s apprentice. “ That made the girl beam. Thank the gods she couldn’t see herself.
As it turned out, Alurra’s blindness proved a blessing again as the door opened and they were confronted by the reality of the Hall of Flowers.
The old mansion had clearly undergone a revival and reconstruction. The three story edifice had been draped in banners, and pots and planters scattered everywhere were bursting with spring flowers. Sweet-smelling incense was burning somewhere – sandalwood, lepry and goss, from what Pentandra could tell – and the second floor balcony was occupied by a quartet of musicians playing lively dance music on a tambour, flute, and two guitars.
The house had been painted recently and the walkway leading to the door had been swept to a pristine state. Torches lined the walkway and the garden, and a merry fire had been set in a brazier, adding the dancing illumination of its flames to the scene. Somewhere someone was cooking something delicious, too, her nose reminded her.
But it was her eyes that were captivated. There were beautiful young women everywhere she looked, as ubiquitous as wildflowers in a meadow. On the front walk Pentandra walked by three of them dancing together for the amusement of a pair of gentlemen, while a dozen others mingled and laughed with their own callers and patrons in the front garden. Each maiden wore a pretty but simple dress of green, without an under tunic, and bore a flower pinned to their breast.
Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) Page 45
