'Madame, Dindan ordered five bottles of our best Aurvesh wine last night. We have only a dozen bottles left ...' A balding man stepped in front of her with a shopping list.
'Then buy more.'
'But, madame, since the prince arrived it is almost impossible to buy Aurvesh wines!'
'Buy them! But first sell the old bottles to Dindan at the new prices.'
'Yes, madame.'
The kitchen was a large, brightly lit room hidden away at the back of the house. Her cooks and an assortment of tradesmen haggled loudly at the back door while the half-dozen or so young children of her working girls raced around the massive centre table. Everyone grew quiet as Myrtis took her seat in a sunlit alcove that faced a tiny garden.
Despite the chaos the children caused, she always let the girls keep them if they wanted to. With the girl-children there was no problem with their earning their keep; no virgin was ever too ugly. But the boy-children were apprenticed off at the earliest possible age. Their wages were garnished to support the on going concern that was the Aphrodisia House.
'There is a soldier at the front door, Madame.' One of the girls who had been cleaning the lower rooms interrupted as Myrtis spread a thick blue-veined cheese over her bread. 'He demands to see you, madame.'
'Demands to see me?' Myrtis laid down the cheese knife. 'A soldier has nothing that "demands" to see me at the front door. At this hour, soldiers are less use than tradesmen. Send him around to the back.'
The girl ran back up the stairs. Myrtis finished spreading her cheese on the bread. She had eaten half of it when a tall man cast a shadow over her private dining alcove.
'You are blocking my sunlight, young man,' she said without looking up.
'You are Madame Myrtis, proprietress of this ... brothel?' he demanded without moving.
'You are blocking my sunlight and my view of the garden.'
He stepped to one side.
'The girls are not available during the day. Come back this evening.'
'Madame Myrtis, I am Zaibar, captain of Prince Kadakithis's personal guard. I have not come to inquire after the services of your girls.'
'Then what have you come for?' she asked, looking up for the first time.
'By order of Prince Kadakithis, a tax of ten gold pieces for every woman living on the Street of Red Lanterns is to be levied and collected at once if they are to be allowed to continue to practise their trade without incurring official displeasure.'
Only the slight tensing ofMyrtis's hand betrayed her indignation at Zaibar's statement. Her voice and face remained dispassionately calm.
'The royal concubines are no longer pleasing?' she replied with a sneering smile. 'You cannot expect every woman on the Street of Red Lanterns to have ten gold pieces. How do you expect them to earn the money for your taxes?'
'We do not expect them to be able to pay 'the tax, madame. We expect to close your brothel and every other house like it on the Street. The women, including yourself, will be sent elsewhere to lead more productive lives.'
Myrtis stared at the soldier with a practised contempt that ended their conversation. The soldier fingered the hilt of his sword.
'The tax will be collected, madame. You will have a reasonable amount of time to get the money for yourself and the others. Let us say, three days? I'll return in the evening.'
He turned about without waiting for a reply and left through the back door in complete silence. Myrtis went back to interrupted breakfast while the staff and the girls were hysterical with questions and the seeds of rumour. She let them babble in this manner while she ate; then she strode to the head of the common table.
'Everything shall continue as usual. If it comes to paying their tax, arrangements will be made. You older girls already have ample gold set aside. I will make the necessary adjustments for the newer girls. Unless you doubt me in which case, I'll arrange a severance for you.'
'But madame, if we pay once, they will levy the tax again and again until we can't pay it. Those Hell Hounds ...' A girl favoured more by intelligence than beauty spoke up.
'That is certainly their desire. The Street of Red Lanterns is as old as the walls of Sanctuary itself. I can assure you that we have survived much worse than the Hell Hounds.' Myrtis smiled slightly to herself, remembering the others who had tried and failed to shut down the Street. 'Cylene, the others will be coming to see me. Send them up to the parlour. I'll wait for them there.'
The emerald day-robe billowed out from behind her as Myrtis ascended the staircase to the lower rooms and up again to her parlour. In the privacy of her rooms, she allowed her anger to surface as she paced.
'Ambutta!' She shouted, and the young girl who attended her appeared.
'Yes, madame?'
'I have a message for you to carry.' She sat a't the writing table composing the message as she spoke to the still-out-of-breath girl. 'It is to be delivered in the special way as before. No one must see you leave it. Do you understand (hat? If you cannot leave it without being seen, come back herd Don't let yourself become suspicious.'
The girl nodded. She tucked the freshly folded and sealed message into the bodice of her ragged cast-off dress and ran from the room. In time, Myrtis expected her to be a beauty, but she was still very much a child. The message itself was to Lythande, who preferred not to be contacted directly. She would not rely on the magician to solve the Street's problems with the Hell Hounds, but no one else would understand her anger or alleviate it.
The Aphrodisia House dominated the Street. The Hell Hounds would come to her first, then visit the other establishments. As word of the tax spread, the other madams would begin a furtive pilgrimage to the back entrance of the Aphrodisia. They looked to Myrtis for guidance, and she looked out the window for inspiration. She had not found one by the time her guests began to appear.
'It's an outrage. They're trying to put us on the streets like common whores!' Dylan of the artificially flaming red hair exclaimed before sitting in the chair Myrtis indicated to her.
'Nonsense, dear,' Myrtis explained calmly. 'They wish to make us slaves and send us to Ranke. In a way, it is a compliment to Sanctuary.'
'They can't do such a thing!'
'No, but it will be up to us to explain that to them.'
'How?'.
'First we'll wait until the others arrive. I hear Amoli in the hall; the others won't be long in coming.'
It was a blatant stall for time on Myrtis's part. Other than her conviction that the Hell Hounds and their prince would not succeed where others had failed in the past, Myrtis had no idea how to approach the utterly incorruptible elite soldiers. The other madams of the Street talked among themselves, exchanging the insight Myrtis had revealed to Dylan, and reacting poorly to it. Myrtis watched their reflections in the rough-cut glass.
They were all old. More than half of them had once worked for her. She had watched them age in the unkind manner that often overtakes youthful beauty and transforms it into grotes-querie. Myrtis might have been the youngest of them young enough to be working in the houses instead of running one of them. But when she turned from the window to face them, there was the unmistakable glint of experience and wisdom in her eyes.
'Well, it wasn't really a surprise,' she began. It was rumoured before Kittycat got here, and we've seen what has happened to the others the Hell Hounds have been turned loose on. I admit I'd hoped that some of the others would have held their ground better and given us a bit more time.'
'Time wouldn't help. I don't have a hundred gold pieces to give them!' A woman whose white-paste make-up cracked around her eyes as she spoke interrupted Myrtis.