Verity explained as well as she could about the dragon difficulties Queenston and the more inland parts of the country were experiencing.
Erotica interrupted her before she’d got to the part where the dragons were building-sitting, imitating gargoyles.
An hourglass whose bottom was full of sand gave a little chime as the last of the sand drained from the top. “Elixir’s done. I can use your help now.”
She whisked the shawl from the table and at her direction Verity lugged the heavy bubbling pot off the fire and set it down on the scarred and stained wooden surface. Erotica arranged blue bottles with their tops off in lines down the length of the table.
“Is this elixir an aphrodisiac?” Verity asked, being proud of herself for remembering the word. The other crewmembers had mangled it pretty well, discussing their plans for shore leave at this establishment.
“No place in the world has girls make you feel as good as hers,” Bretwen Bowen had said. He was from Horn country and knew the establishment even before he went to sea at the age of fifteen.
“Aren’t you a clever girl?” her aunt said, beaming through the steam of the musky-sweet liquid. “It is, though not in the usual way.”
Verity wasn’t sure what the usual way was.
“Your ordinary aphrodisiac works exclusively on the nether regions. My potion appeals to the whole client, particularly the brain, heart, and sensory receptors. After a little trip to my place, the boys don’t rightly mind if they drown rounding the Horn on the return trip, because they’ve already been to paradise.”
“That sounds almost scientific,” Verity said. “All but the last bit.”
“Oh, it is! When my granny, Goodie Longlove, handed it down to me, it was called a love potion, but I analyzed it scientifically and found out it has all sorts of endwarfins in it.”
“Endwarfins?”
“Why do you think dwarves can delve in the mines so tirelessly and enjoy it? Endwarfins! Makes them feel like they can go at it in the dark for months on end!”
“Is it dangerous? I mean, could it poison the people who take it?” No matter how enthused her shipmates had sounded about this place, she didn’t want to be a party to them taking anything that would harm them.
“It is certainly likely to disturb their peace of mind. But other than spoiling them for all other establishments, no, not really. They may be melancholy for awhile but eventually, I’m told, the sea air disperses the lingering sense of loss. Usually the lovelorn letters delivered by carrier gull stop coming a fortnight or so after the ships sail.”
She poured some into a crystal decanter. “Let’s take some out into the parlor and add a little something to the drinks. There’s still some of the last batch in the massage oils.”
She opened the door and they went behind the bar where Erotica began mixing drinks with the elixir.
The captain and the black-haired woman played a duet while Bretwen Bowen hung over the back of the piano, apparently anticipating another sort of duet. The men who’d been there when the Belle’s crew arrived were entertaining Legs, who had one of hers wrapped around each. The ends of the tentacles made little stroking gestures on the men’s cheeks or snuggled into their ears unless they tried to move. Then the suckers came into play.
Verity trailed behind her aunt, “Lovelorn? Why? Isn’t this—aren’t these liaisons—er—commercial?”
“Not entirely,” Erotica said. “There’s an extra dimension with the elixir.” She poured and handed a glass to Mr. Bowen with a benign dimpled smile.
Verity’s curse prompted her to tell him, “That’s been drugged.”
“I know,” he said cheerfully, and drained the glass. “Bottoms up!”
“And to you, my sweet,” said the black-haired woman, doing the same, and glaring defiantly at Verity with a look that plainly said, ‘Interfering priggish cow.’
Verity saw through the makeup and recognized her in that instant, and she must have done the same because her eyes widened, and she stifled a squeak.
“Fiona?” Verity asked the typist and former classmate she had seen off at the train station.
“My—Verity?” she asked, before catching herself and saying, “Fawn, actually, Madame.”
Erotica took Verity by the elbow and led her away. “Let’s keep you from making trouble, shall we?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Verity said, lowering her voice when her aunt squeezed her arm. “But I know her. We were in school together, and she worked at the palace. She warned me.”
“It’s her professional name,” Erotica said. “All of my ladies use them. It saves awkwardness with former clients later, or perhaps family or old friends. How long is your ship in port?” Still pouring elixir into opened bottles with her free hand, she drew Verity back to the office.
“I’m not sure, really. The captain wants to pick up cargo in Frostingdung, but was happy enough to detour to bring me here.” She didn’t mention finding the treasure, although it was the reason the captain and crew were more relaxed about reaching Frostingdung in time to pick up a cargo. The captain had sworn everyone to secrecy and gave the crew just enough coin to enjoy their shore leave. The fewer people who knew about the treasure the better until they could cash it in or hide it somewhere safe. At the moment it rested in the captain’s walk-in closet, with a collection of Madame Louisa’s shawls, garter belts, boas, and stockings concealing the chest by making it resemble a pile of fripperies. With her shoes stacked on top, it was invisible. No one would suspect. No other captains had walk-in closets, and hers was cleverly disguised with a sign declaring it, ‘Captain’s Bog.’
It wasn’t that Verity didn’t trust her aunt, but she did not know her and was incapable of lying to her. The secret was not hers to tell. No one need suspect the treasure until the crew paid their bills in gold coin, and swiftly set sail thereafter.
She shifted the topic, subtly, she thought. “I hope once they’re ready to leave here they might take me to my father’s other sister. The one who lives up the coast near Mermaid’s Atoll?”
“Eulalia? That could be a bit hazardous for Captain Louisa and her crew,” Erotica said, rubbing her chin carefully so as not to gouge herself with her long red nails.
Verity cocked an eyebrow.
“You do know your Aunt Eulalia is a mermaid?” Erotica asked.
“I do now. There seems to be a lot of that going around. So she’s the mermaid of Mermaid’s Atoll?”
“The only one now. She had a partner, but she died a few years ago. Got caught in a net. Sister has it in for fishermen now.”
“How much mer do we have in our family anyway? Are you—?”
“Heavens no. I’ve never even liked swimming. Wreaks havoc with my hairdo. I will, however, send a message to Eulalia to tell her you are here and encourage her to forego her revenge singing long enough to come and visit.”
“How?”
“Haven’t you heard of sending a message in a bottle?”
“Well, yes, but that seems a random way to organize a family reunion.”
“I give it a little guidance. A recipe for a love potion isn’t the only thing left me by my Granny.”
“You didn’t all have the same one?”
“We all had the same mother. Other than that, it’s complicated. Mother didn’t want Dad to know, but the neighbors reported the selkie who shed his skin at the door while our father was at sea. When the next two babies—Eulalia and your dad—arrived, it was obvious. One strain of selkies can actually convert to merfolk, and Mum’s suitor was that kind. Eulalia had a birth enhancement, the doctor told her—fins, gills and a tail. Your dad’s was only apparent if he spent too long in the water. Ephemera, Epiphany and I—well, honestly, we were never sure about Epiphany, but she’s a Pisces so even with Dad being at home around the time Mom conceived—well, you never know. That selkie—Uncle Flip, we called him—was one slick fellow.”
“What did your father do? I mean, with the selkie and all.”
“He knew mother had ‘certain needs.’ She was a passionate lady, and selkies can sense that kind of thing from out in the water. Dad was away from home for months at a time, even years, and when he was home, the last thing he wanted to do with Mom was fight. Besides, folk do say that having a selkie on board or as a friend of the family brings a sailor good luck. He badly wanted a son, so he never quite got around to asking about your dad.
“Eulalia—well, she wasn’t exactly just one of us kids because she had to be in a saltwater tub in the yard until we could haul her and it down to the water.
“One of his shipmates told us later that Dad would get everybody to plug their ears before they got close to the Atoll; then he’d take a longboat and row out there to make sure she was doing well, take her a gift or two from some foreign port, like he did the rest of us. Dad was a kind man, and he didn’t like the idea of Eulalia out there all alone. He said a lonely mermaid was a particularly dangerous mermaid. I think he wasn’t sure who he felt most protective of, Eulalia or the other seamen. He had a lot of friends on other ships.
“Anyway, he was very glad when, last time he rowed out there, she introduced him to Meranda. He died not long after in a big storm.”
“But you think she’ll come back here to visit?”
“I can’t be sure. She hasn’t been back since Meranda was killed. But there are all those wrecks up that way since then. She’s getting revenge, but I think she’s also lonely. We’ll see.”
She wrapped herself in a big brown wool shawl and pulled an oilskin coat over it, tying a cap of the same material under her chin, covering her coiffure.
Verity, still dressed in her shipboard clothing, trudged and sploshed beside her in the half-frozen mud as the two of them walked down to the seashore.
Erotica had written a note and just before tucking it in the bottle, asked Verity if she had anything to say. “Just that I really want to meet her.”
“Very well,” Erotica said, and corked the bottle and flung it into the water. It landed in the shallows beside the harbor mouth. Erotica muttered a few words and the bottle ceased bobbing and began cutting its way through the water.
“So that’s magic?”
“No, it’s the underwater delivery service.” Erotica said sarcastically. “Of course it’s magic, girl. What else would it be? Magic’s been all around you at least since you arrived here. And didn’t I hear something about you and some dragons?”
“That’s different. Dragons are just animals.”
“Who happen to breathe fire.”
“There are scientific explanations for that,” Verity argued, then changed the subject. “How long will it take for her to receive it?”
“A few days. And if she comes here, a few more. Anywhere between a week and a fortnight.”
The ghost cats, who had been absent or invisible since her aunt began distributing the potion, ran down the hill on paws either still invisible or hidden in the scrub grasses.
“Missed me?” Verity asked them. The cats swarmed her and her aunt, who did not notice them.
Once back in the parlor, Erotica walked over to a plate-sized gong on the bar and struck it. Just one ‘bong’ and the women disengaged themselves from conversations or other forms of communication and formed a circle.
“Now then, have you girls given each of the gents his posy?”
“Aye, Madame,” they replied as meekly as schoolgirls, and with a similar amount of giggling.
Erotica clapped her hands twice and said in a flirtatious tone, “Gentlemen, your attention please. Now begins what you’ve all been waiting for—the dance of love! Form a circle and begin to turn clockwise. The girls will circle around you turning widdershins. As the girl you want to give your flower to passes, tuck it in her bosom.”
This they did until three of the most attractive girls had collected quite lush floral trim to their décolletages. Then the girl with the most flowers asked each of the men who had presented her with one, three questions:
1. What would you be willing to do for my favors and half my father’s kingdom?
A. Scale a wall of thorns.
B. Climb a glass mountain or
C. Discover how I wear out my dancing slippers so quickly?
2. If you were a frog, how would you persuade me to kiss you and turn you into a handsome seaman? And
3. How would you rescue me from
A. A dragon
B. An evil wicked knight who wanted to do truly nasty things to me or
C. A horrid brothel, not a nice place like this one?”
The men answered with patience that amazed Verity. The little ceremony actually did seem to whet their appetites rather than diminish them.
The man with the answers the girl liked best received her hand to hold as a promissory token of the rest, while they toasted each other with an elixir-laden drink before disappearing up the stairs.
It was purely subjective, since it seemed to Verity that the prettiest girl actually just chose the best looking among the sailors whether or not he could answer her questions with more than a stammer and a blush.
As the selection process continued, more drink was taken, more flowers were dispersed and tucked. Probably because of the drink, the girls who received the last of the droopy primroses were as avidly sought by the remaining customers as their more attractive sisters had been before them, and soon everyone felt they had won a prize. The parlor emptied. Soon the entire house, sturdy brick edifice though it was, was thumping and bumping.
“I thought the men would be asking the questions, and not nearly such romantic ones,” Verity told Erotica. “The men who met us when we arrived didn’t strike me as sentimental.”
“You’d be surprised. A lot of that posturing is for the benefit of the other men. It’s not uncommon for a client to want simply to talk to a woman, although for those who might want to limit themselves to talk because of physical limitations, the elixir can restore some of their vigor. Of course, there’s always the deranged ones who want to slap the girls around, but once they take the potion, it takes the wind out of their sails.”
“I had no idea there was so much to your business. Not that I’ve given it a lot of thought, but just because I’ve mostly been to girls’ schools doesn’t mean I haven’t heard things.”
“Nothing makes members of the opposite sex as intriguing as being cut off from them,” Erotica said with an amused twist of her mouth and a raised eyebrow.
Verity nodded. “And, I confess I believed that the sort of—um—arrangement between ladies who worked in these places and their clients was rather more temporary than the relationships you describe; but then, I’ve never heard of a formula like yours. Interesting, though a bit beside the point for my current mission.”
“Well, dear, you never know what will come in handy. I won’t live forever, and your current line of work doesn’t offer nearly as much security as this one. A girl can always use something to fall back on—especially if she makes the choice while she’s still young and in demand. We can offer a certain amount of on-the-job training, though my sisters would be cross with me if they knew I suggested it to you. And I don’t, really, not seriously, although you’d be surprised how many society ladies had their humble beginnings in places not nearly as posh as this one.”
“Like Fiona? I mean Fawn, as she wants to be called here. I accompanied her to the train station after she warned me of how hazardous the castle had become for my health.”
“She’s a good girl, Fiona.”
“Yes, she and I were in school together briefly. She was always quite decent to me, unlike some of the others. They were brutal to her when her parents were killed. Good thing for her she had to leave. I didn’t know her well. I was surprised to see her at the castle.”
“More surprised to see her here, I’ll wager,” Erotica said. “She’s a clever one though and has made herself very useful with the books and such. I’ve ordered a typewriting machine from Queenston. Might as well t
ake advantage of all the assets a girl has to offer.”
Verity studied the rows of glass bottles, frowning. Whatever her aunt said, she didn’t much like seeing her friend from the castle and former classmate in a ‘house of ill repute.’ Wasn’t she humiliated to be here?
Erotica changed the subject. “Several of your lads are a bit—unconventional, physically. But the elixir won’t harm them and since its benefits are emotional as well as bodily, they should derive satisfaction even if we don’t have, say, another octopus to entertain them.”
Verity grinned. “Legs seems to be doing fine without one. She’s not entirely an octopus all the time.”
The walls and ceiling thumped and thudded. Erotica led Verity through the office to a small but comfortably furnished room with a single bed. “You should be comfortable in here, dear, while waiting for your ship to leave again. Unless there’s something else you need? I confess I have to wonder why Ephemera thought you should visit me. I doubt she just wanted me to give you a seminar on how to run a brothel.”
“I’m searching for surviving remnants of the old magical families in this part of the country.”
“Other than you, me, and Captain Louisa? There was a mage around here, back in the day. I don’t know much about him except that he’s been presumed dead for a great long time, but he was said to be very powerful in his day, back during the Great War. He disappeared before the end of it though.”
“Tell me about him, if you would, please, while I lay these out on the bed.” She spilled out the beads and shells, the shells that told songs or stories relating to different wizards each strung with the bead that resonated most strongly with that wizard’s magic.
Erotica shrugged and turned away.
“Sorry, my dear. You’ll have to talk to someone who pays attention to such things. I’ve a business to run.”
An earth colored bead with linear blue and red spirals, wrought in a much more subdued pattern than the others, began to spin. Eight of the smaller shells that held shorter, more portable spoken and sung tales from the Archives, repeatedly jumped up and down on the blanket. Verity scooped them up and held the first shell to her ear. In a gossipy but authoritative voice, the first shell began speaking. It sounded like an excerpt from a history lesson, just a little, she thought.
The Redundant Dragons Page 9
