Blackveil (10 page)
K
arigan outfitted herself in an old wool coat, wrapped the scarf that Aunt Brini insisted she wear around her neck, and pulled on heavy mittens. In the sleigh was a thick, coarse blanket she and her father could throw over their laps, and sea-rounded cobbles that had been heated at the hearth to keep their feet warm.
arigan outfitted herself in an old wool coat, wrapped the scarf that Aunt Brini insisted she wear around her neck, and pulled on heavy mittens. In the sleigh was a thick, coarse blanket she and her father could throw over their laps, and sea-rounded cobbles that had been heated at the hearth to keep their feet warm.
Her father took up reins and coach whip, clucked to the pair of drays, Roy and Birdy, and the sleigh lurched forward. The sun had broken clear of clouds and clumps of snow dropped from fir boughs along the drive as they glided along.
The air felt lighter, not so bitter, and the chatter of birds reminded Karigan the worst of winter was done and spring was on the way.
“Why are we going to town?” Karigan asked.
“You shall see.”
Karigan settled beneath the blanket, slightly annoyed. She said no more, however, figuring her father would reveal his purpose in his own time, and no sooner, even if she pestered him. So she kept her peace as the horses paced steady on through drifts, their brasses and harnesses jingling in a cheerful rhythm.
The G’ladheon estate sat in the country just outside of Corsa, and once they joined the main road, they picked up speed, for the road wardens had already knocked down drifts and compacted the snow. Such maintenance was spotty throughout the realm, but Corsa was prosperous, and the city masters paid attention not only to the harbor, but to the roads as well, knowing that while a great deal of trade happened along the waterfront, goods must also be transported to and from the harbor overland. Proper road upkeep, they asserted, could only promote the city’s continued prosperity and its reputation as the foremost merchant port in the lands.
Soon the woods thinned, opening up to field and pasture, the snow smooth across the landscape like thickened cream and undisturbed save for the meandering tracks of hare and fox. Houses appeared with more frequency as they approached Corsa. Karigan could sense the ocean, too, feel the moist draft of it upon the air. And still her father did not speak. He just sat there, subtly guiding the horses, his gaze fixed on the road.
In Corsa proper, the streets were lined with homes and shops, folk sweeping and shoveling snow off front doorsteps. Children played in the street throwing snowballs at one another, and a few shoppers struggled along on uncertain footing.
Her father halted the sleigh before a poulterer’s shop with plucked chickens, geese, and turkeys displayed in the window.
“I’ll be back momentarily,” he said. He hopped out of the sleigh and entered the shop, returning minutes later with a large, dressed turkey, and deposited it in the back of the sleigh.
He left her again for other shops, returning with a huge wheel of cheese, a sack of flour, a jug of molasses, a tub of butter, and other foodstuffs to amply fill any larder. Karigan could only watch in astonishment as the back of the sleigh was filled up. She did not think Cook’s pantry had been so barren.
“What is ... ?” she started to ask, when finally he sat beside her again and collected the reins.
“You’ll see,” he said.
He guided the sleigh onto Garden Street. It wasn’t a particularly gardenlike neighborhood, even when it wasn’t winter. Still, it was a solid street of middle- to lower-class merchants and tradesmen. Their houses stood tightly together, smoke issuing from chimneys.
Her father brought the drays to a halt in front of a tall narrow house sided with cedar shakes, just like all the others.
“This is Garden House,” he said, startling her. “We shall go in for a brief visit—it’s time I brought you here, because as my heir, you will one day become its steward.”
What was he talking about? Before she could ask questions, however, he said, “Look and listen, and you shall see.”
He spread blankets across the backs of the horses, then removed a basket from the sleigh, leaving the rest of his purchases in the rear. He strode toward the house and Karigan could do nothing but follow.
Her father bounded up the front steps and knocked on the door. Within moments it was opened by a matronly woman with steel gray hair. At once she smiled.
“Master G’ladheon!” she exclaimed.
“Greetings, Lona,” he said. “How are you?”
“Never better,” the woman replied, “and now even better than better to see you. Come in, come in out of the cold!”
Karigan followed her father into the dim entry hall and was conscious of others peering from doorways and around corners.
Her father handed the basket over to Lona. “Fresh baked oat muffins,” he said.
She lifted the cloth that covered them. “Ooh! They look delicious!”
“There is more out in the sleigh,” her father said.
“Oh, Master G’ladheon, you shouldn’t have!”
He grinned. “Of course I should have.”
“Jed! Clare!” A boy and girl came running down the stairs at Lona’s shout. “Master G’ladheon has brought us some things. Please unload the back of his sleigh for him.”
Without taking the time to put on coats, the youngsters dashed out the door.
“You must have tea with us,” Lona said, her gaze falling curiously on Karigan.
“I’m afraid we must decline. Another time perhaps. But, I wish to introduce my daughter, Karigan. One day she’ll be watching over Garden House.”
Lona gave Karigan a solemn curtsy. “I am pleased to meet you, mistress.”
“Me, too,” Karigan said, much bemused.
“We are grateful for all your father and Mistress Silva have done for us,” Lona said.
Karigan glanced sharply at her father at the naming of the Golden Rudder’s madam. Garden House, however, did not have the air or appearance of a brothel. She didn’t know what to make of it.
“Have we any new residents?” her father asked.
Lona nodded and glanced down the hall. “Vera, dear, please come meet Master G’ladheon. Don’t be shy; he is most kind.”
A figure emerged from the shadows of a doorway and limped toward them. When more light fell upon her, Karigan’s heart skipped a beat. Much of her face was a mass of burn scars. Karigan was immediately reminded of her friend Mara, whose own face was badly scarred when Rider barracks burned down. Karigan judged the young woman to be her own age. She did not approach closely.
“Vera,” Lona said, “this is Master G’ladheon, our patron, and his daughter, Karigan.”
Vera curtsied, but did not speak.
“Hello, Vera,” Karigan’s father said with a nod. “I want you to know you are most welcome here. Welcome to stay as long as you need. And safe.”
“Thank you,” Vera said in a tentative voice, and she receded back into the shadows.
Lona drew closer to Karigan and her father, and said in a low, confiding voice, “Vera’s husband hurt her. Threw lamp oil on her and burned her for no reason other than his dinner was a little late.” As Lona spoke, Karigan could hear the fury behind her words. “He did that, and other things. One of Mistress Silva’s people brought her to us from Rivertown. It was best, we thought, she be hidden some distance away from her husband.”
Karigan glanced at her father and saw his brows knitted together in anger. “You did right,” he said.
Just then, Jed and Clare returned, arms loaded with some of the foodstuffs Karigan’s father had purchased.
“Master G’ladheon, it’s too much!” Lona said.
“There’s more out there,” Jed said, with wide eyes.
Karigan’s father just grinned.
Lona decided Karigan must meet the rest of Garden House’s residents, and one by one, they filed by to curtsy and bow to Karigan and her father. Mostly they were young women, some with children, a babe or two of suckling age among them.
Her father greeted each of them by name, and received a kiss or smile in return, none so reticent as Vera had been. Meanwhile, Jed and Clare brought in the rest of the goods from the sleigh.
There was much oohing and aahing over the size of the turkey, which seemed to dwarf Jed, and once again Lona asked that they stay for tea or supper, and once again, Karigan’s father declined.
They made their good-byes and walked in silence back to the sleigh while the residents of Garden House watched and waved from the front step and windows.
As Karigan’s father removed the blankets from the backs of the drays, she demanded, “What was that all about? Who were those people?”
“They are those who’ve come on bad times; some profoundly hurt and mistreated by those who are supposed to love and protect them. Garden House provides them refuge, when they cannot find it elsewhere.
“It was Silva’s idea, actually, and she founded the first in Rivertown. It’s called River House. She seeks out the abused, those with no place to go, and offers them a place for as long as they need. One in her profession has occasion to find such persons.” He set the blankets in the back of the sleigh and they both climbed up onto the bench. It was cold right through the seat of Karigan’s trousers.
“But why ... ?” she began.
He clucked Roy and Birdy on. “Let us just say Silva was once in a position similar to those she aids today. She was inspired to help others because of a stranger who once helped her.”
“You?”
He smiled enigmatically. “Silva and I go back a long way.”
Karigan was glad he and Silva helped those in need, truly she was, but she found it difficult to reconcile the Golden Rudder and Garden House as being part of the same equation.
“Silva runs a brothel,” she said.
“Yes, she does,” her father replied. “It’s what she knows. And, she is very good to those in her employ. She does not force them into labor or to stay as others do.”
Karigan remembered Trudy, one of the prostitutes at the Golden Rudder, speaking well of Silva. But it was still a
brothel
, a business that traded in flesh. It was a demeaning profession, and just plain wrong.
brothel
, a business that traded in flesh. It was a demeaning profession, and just plain wrong.
Her father drove the sled down the main street of Corsa, past shops where one could purchase exotic teas and spices and other goods from afar, and by landmarks Karigan knew well from her childhood: the counting- and customshouses, the stately residence of the lord-mayor, and the offices of important merchants, including her father’s. She picked out its bold, granite facade as they drove by.
A branching street was inhabited by the guild houses of the merchants, coopers, and longshoremen, among others. Another street held housing for dockworkers and shipwrights. All appeared quiet, and would remain so until the spring trading season picked up.
They paused on the brink of a hill before the street descended straight down into Corsa Harbor, to take in the view. The harbor bristled with masts, some vessels tied up to wharves, others anchored offshore or moored to buoys. The snow concealed the usual squalor of the waterfront, made it appear more quaint. Traps and nets, pilings and barrels, all the ephemera of a busy waterfront, were bumps beneath the covering of snow.
Gulls lined up on the wharves and waves thudded against wooden hulls. A way off, Karigan could make out a raft of eider ducks adrift, undismayed by the swells the storm had created. It was nearing sundown and the edges of billowing clouds were tinted orange, while small islands across the harbor, with their crowns of spiky spruce and fir, fell into silhouette.
A crumbling keep of the Second Age stood jagged on the headland of a larger island at the entrance to the harbor, maintaining a ghostly vigil over all who passed. Mordivelleo L’Petrie, a clan chief of old, had built the keep. He’d known the harbor’s importance and stoutly defended it from those who’d contest him for it, namely pirates and invaders from foreign lands. After repelling a particularly ferocious assault from the Under Kingdoms, he was formally invested as the prince of the region that included the harbor, today’s L’Petrie Province.
Karigan’s gaze swept along the crescent contour of the shoreline, and there, near where the Grandgent River emptied into the ocean, were the warships of Sacoridia’s navy, and the yards that serviced them. It was a testament to Corsa’s importance as a port that the navy’s largest fleet berthed in its harbor, guarding it, the realm, and the all-important river from any enemies. Mordivelleo L’Petrie, she thought, would be pleased.
“I was going to show you Garden House when you finished service with the king,” her father said presently, the sunset casting an orange glow on his face as he gazed out to sea. “But it seemed appropriate to take you there today. I hope you consider it a worthy endeavor, something to keep going when the time for you to inherit comes along. Many of our residents have moved on and done well for themselves.” After a long pause, he added, “I don’t suppose I’ve redeemed myself in your eyes at all.”
“Is that why you brought me to Garden House?” Karigan asked.
“I did not wish for you to judge my relationship with Silva based purely on your knowledge of the brothel.”
“What
is
your relationship with Silva?”
is
your relationship with Silva?”
“We are friends of long standing.”
“And you’re a client of her brothel.”
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