couldn’t deny that, secretly, he had wanted her for years. Desire had slowly replaced his earlier fantasies that she’d singled him out for equestrian training because he was somehow special. Now the danger was past, he didn’t even mind she’d used him. There was no other way he could have had her.
How bovine he’d been, blurting out that he would help her escape. As if she would ever need him to rush to her rescue. Her maid was loyal, and her eunuchs. There would be others, too, greater than a stableboy. He wondered if any of them cared for her at all.
He took a last walk down the row of his charges, petting the noses of those horses still awake and eyeing him over their stall doors. He would have to be up early to school Tulipe in the ring, and Lilas needed to be conditioned on the longe line. Guirlande, he sensed, would be coming into season soon, and possibly Tonnelle also. That would mean a trip to one of the far-flung breeding barns and, for him, relative luxury. Not only would he be caring for far fewer horses, he wouldn’t be assigned odd jobs, as when he was easily in view of the stable- master and his chief grooms. He wouldn’t be catching the associated random blows. Even better, the breeding barns were built in past days of unimaginable affluence, for a duke who had loved his horses, so the hayloft where Henri slept would rival—well, he had used to think it would rival the very bedchamber of the duke, but today he had been disabused of that notion. It didn’t matter. Small luxuries were easier to enjoy.
He felt again the weight and smoothness of her dress as it sagged from his hands, inhaled the flowery perfume she’d worn in the crook of her neck. While he, Henri, stank of horse sweat and dung. She hadn’t flinched from his hands upon her. Still, he hadn’t dared touch her face, or kiss her lips. He wished now he had. Then he would feel they’d known each other, however briefly.
It was childish of him to expect so much. She was as far above him as the stars, and old enough to be his mother. It was true many men took brides much younger than themselves, so perhaps it wasn’t so awful. Why not the reverse? He imagined her in his imaginary cottage, gorgeously gowned, rocking a cradle, and he laughed. More likely he’d be rocking the baby and changing nappies.
He turned away from Tonnelle and headed out the double doors, into the night. His body hummed. He couldn’t sleep yet.
It was late, but not too late for a bath. Perhaps, afterward, he would indulge in something more. The Dewy Rose specialized in all sorts of relaxations, and he never spent much of his paltry wages, sleeping as he did amid the horses. Perhaps he would share some of his money with the girls of the Dewy Rose. He could afford one of the cheaper whores. For an hour, perhaps. He always allowed himself the possibility, though in the end he usually decided to save his money, knowing that if he was frugal, his own cottage would be real that much sooner.
He walked into the town, principal seat of the duchy. The streets were more active than the estate had been. Drunken revelers spilled from a tavern near the gate, coaches rattled over the cobbles, and a raucous game of dice devoured an entire alley. Most of the street whores ignored him. He looked like empty pockets. He was just as happy to be on his way unmolested. It hurt him to look at the streetgirls’ eyes.
The Dewy Rose, a massive building of rough gray stone, towered three stories over the neighbors on either side, its white windowsills scrubbed clean daily and the shingled roof trimmed with decorative strips of copper. Its baths were cheap and popular. It cost extra, though, to climb the stairs with one of the girls, and cost considerably more for one of the young men Madame Hubert had imported from a desert land far to the south. He had glimpsed them once or twice, on his way to the baths: slender men with flawless skin and dark outlining around their eyes, wearing only long silken drawers, layers of necklaces and silver rings on their bare toes. The duchess might have bought herself one of those, through an intermediary. Except their skin was too dark for any child of theirs to pass as the duke’s.
Torches crackled at either side of the grand front entrance. Henri shoved open the carved oaken door and was confronted by a giant elderly eunuch wearing a black robe. He silently held out one slablike palm, and Henri laid a quarter-copper there. The eunuch’s hand closed over it; with his other hand, he jerked a thumb at the corridor beyond. Manic laughter swelled from the house’s interior, mingled with the clink of goblets and knives and, faintly, a twinging harp.
The common room’s doors were folded back to allow heat to escape, and to let the bath’s patrons have a preview of the evening’s entertainment. Henri had meant to pass straight by. He could not resist a look, though, to see if his memories of the room’s appointments compared ill or favorably with those of the duchess’s.
He could not see much of the furnishings. The long buffet table bore food on either end and a nude woman in the middle; two men in shirtsleeves were licking honey and wine from her belly and breasts. A couple copulated in the chair nearest the door. The woman, bodice pulled down to her waist, gripped the arms of the chair to raise and lower herself on her partner’s swollen red cock, her white buttocks flashing as her minuscule skirt fluttered with each stroke. Henri gaped, amazed that they were allowed to do that in the common room, even in a brothel, until he saw a ring of watchers. This was some staged entertainment, like the two women arranged on a chaise by the fireplace, one daintily fondling the other, who plunged an ivory dildo into herself. One of the male whores was massaging her feet. She looked up, as if awaiting orders. Henri followed her gaze to the center of the room and saw the duchess.
He had seen that court gown at a distance, and the outline of her hair confined within its tiara was familiar to him from the coin he’d just placed in a eunuch’s palm. The skin around his cock tightened automatically. Except—she could not be here. She would not be here. He looked closer, and of course the duchess was only Madame Hubert, was only a whore.
If he emptied his savings and paid her fee, he could have her. Well, almost. In a year or two he would have enough. For a moment he considered it; but it would be a mockery. He felt ashamed even for letting the thought cross his mind.
He hurried down the corridor and exited into the quiet rear yard. The bathhouse occupied almost the entire space; the narrow alley between its wooden walls and the tall fence had been planted with wandering roses. Their scent flooded his nostrils, clearing the indoor stench of perfume and wine and sweat, and sweetened the woodsmoke which rose from stoves at the rear. He followed a white gravel path to the entrance and pushed open the door.
The bathhouse was unusually quiet; he could hear water lapping and trickling. The pre-supper crowd had already departed, and visitors to the brothel would not yet have emerged for a sluicing before they returned home.
Henri stepped onto a rough straw mat in the narrow corridor running the length of the building. To his right was an alcove with hooks and benches where he hung his clothes and left his boots. The child who normally guarded belongings was sleeping on a pile of towels in the corner. Henri let him be; he had nothing of value to steal, anyway, except his boots, which were mired in horse muck. He took a towel from a shelf and entered the next room along the corridor. The floor in there was limestone, just rough enough to avoid getting slippery. The sluicing room held stools and stone bowls of soft, gritty soap, the cheapest kind. Smooth perfumed varieties had to be purchased separately; Henri always used what was provided. It did well enough.
He hung his towel and scrubbed off. His shoulder and elbow were scraped where one of the upper grooms had shoved him into a wall that afternoon for being late. He washed the wounds gently, but they had stopped bleeding hours ago and the bruises were emerging. He’d barely noticed them at the time, and if they’d known the reason for his being late, it would have been much worse. A few bumps and bruises were a small price to pay.
Pipes trickled warm water into flagons; when they overflowed, the water drained through a hole in the center of the floor. During peak times, the time saved in heating separate containers of water balanced out the
