Dreams plagued Karigan. She dreamed of descending through the blackened depths of the river, descending like a rock, and the harder she tried to swim, the faster she sank. And there, in the gloom, she saw the sunken river cog. The figurehead watched her as she drifted near, though this was not the wooden figure she’d seen adorning the prow of the real wreck but Lady Estora.
The garden is too cold, she said. I want it to be summer again.
“I cannot be your friend,” Karigan tried to say, but only bubbles rushed from her mouth.
We are not who we must be.
Then slowly, Estora’s body stiffened and took on the grainy texture of wood. The illusion of flesh was no more than paint, her expression one of endless sorrow. She held a bouquet of dead flowers.
The current carried Karigan away over the wreck and again the rigging reached out for her like a live thing. She found Fergal trapped in the ropes, but realized it was not Fergal at all, but King Zachary, his face a sickly greenish-white, a drowned corpse with its eyes wide open.
“No!” Karigan cried, but again, only bubbles exploded from her mouth.
Do not grieve for me, he said with blue lips.
Then the scene changed to night dark instead of river dark. Stars shone in the sky high above and she was surrounded by forest, and he was there. No longer a corpse, he pulled her to him, into his warm arms, warm body, his skin soft as velvet…
I want it to be summer again, he murmured into her neck.
She wanted to say, “Me, too,” but his mouth covered hers, and there was only his warmth around her, and within her.
Karigan awoke with a groan and found herself clutching her pillow. She willed the dream to be real, but it was not. Overwarm, she released the pillow and pushed back the comforter. It was then she realized she was not alone.
“Shhh,” said a female voice in the dusky dark. “We heard you cry out.”
As Karigan’s eyes adjusted, she made out a slender woman standing at the foot of her bed who was wearing a filmy shift that revealed her curves in silhouette. In the doorway, two others peered in, the lamplight of the corridor gleaming in their eyes.
“Who are you?” Karigan demanded, hauling the comforter back up to her chin.
“Trudy. I work here.” She sat beside Karigan on the edge of her bed. “Are you well?”
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I will go back to sleep now.”
“Would you like company?”
“Would I like what?”
“I could help keep you warm.”
Then it dawned on Karigan—the luxurious inn, Silva’s elegance, the noises she was beginning to discern creeping through the walls of adjacent rooms…The ferry master had brought her to a brothel.
“N–no, thank you,” Karigan stammered, overcome by the urge to pull the comforter over her head. “I am quite warm.”
“Are you now,” the woman said softly.
“She’s not interested, Trude,” said one of the women in the doorway.
“If you change your mind, I’m in room twelve.” Trudy stood and left with her companions, closing the door behind them.
A brothel! Well, it explained the one dream, which was beginning to fade away, though it left her with a strong sense of longing.
If her aunts and father ever heard of this, they’d be scandalized. One did not stay at brothels. One did not even go near brothels. That was, at least, the law as handed down by her aunts. Aunt Stace would have a heart attack if she found out!
And Karigan had been propositioned. Now she did pull the comforter over her head. “Company” might warm her, but the only “company” she desired was a man miles away in a castle, a man never destined to be hers.
She drifted back into sleep, wishing for some reason, it was summer.
In the morning, Rona, a matron in her grandmotherly years, and obviously not one of the “ladies” who served the brothel’s clients, dragged an oversized hip bath into Karigan’s room and filled it with steaming water from a kettle.
“You take a bath like a good girl,” she said, “then come on down for breakfast. I’ll leave you to it.”
After the door closed behind Rona, Karigan slipped into the bath with a sigh. She decided she must find alternate lodging as soon as possible. It didn’t look good for a servant of the king to bide her time in a brothel, no matter how fine the establishment, and no matter her reasons for her being there. It was just plain inappropriate.
Her aunts would agree. She remembered accompanying them on a shopping trip to a mercantile that shared the same street with a couple of brothels, although she was young at the time and didn’t know what they were. Her aunts had held her hands tight, and when she’d expressed admiration for the “pretty ladies” she saw, Aunt Stace had slapped her, explaining how those “pretty ladies” lived.
Karigan had never been slapped before, and even now she touched her cheek as though all these years later it still stung. She’d been horrified by the things her aunts told her. How could one sell her most precious commodity—her body, her self—for currency?
For her aunts, it was a matter of immorality. They had been raised, like her father, on Black Island, where there were no brothels, only a tight-knit community that honored the gods with hard work and attention to family. There was no tolerance outside the islanders’ strict mind-set of right and wrong—one of the reasons her father had fled the island. He’d felt stifled, trapped.
Yet, when her aunts also left to join her father in Corsa, they brought with them their islander attitudes, and after Kariny’s death, they had much influence on Karigan’s up-bringing. They could be doting and playful, but also stern and disapproving, imposing their rigid ways on her. Fortunately her father’s more indulgent nature had lent some balance to her childhood.