The Enterprise of Death (34 page)

The road to Paris had not proved smooth, direct, or happy, but at last they were unpacked and settled in a miserable dump in the worst ghetto in the entire stinking city. Laws were changing, and every city and hamlet they passed through had already reached their quota of sanctioned brothels, which was rarely more than one or two in even the larger towns. With each failure Monique would curse and grin and the small caravan would move on, only occasionally losing whores to desertion. The gunner was adamant her business be legitimate and licensed, and that was how they found themselves in Paris with more mouths than they had loaves, and there at last Dario, a scrawny, ginger-tufted little man, returned to the wagons with all the paperwork signed, the license acquired, and the last of Monique’s funds exhausted.

Awa was a little surprised to find that Monique had a husband, but soon enough realized what her friend meant by
beard
—the man had no more interest in women than Monique had in men, and so their marriage was far less tumultuous than most. He did have a rather virulent case of the pox when they had finally tracked him down in Marseilles, but Awa got him cleaned
up and before long he was boasting and swaggering and drinking just as much as his wife. They had served together in Lombardy long before Manuel had enlisted, though Monique confided to Awa that Dario was no better with an arquebus or pistol than she was with a penis.

“Kin work a soup spoon or a saber like I kin work a nub, mind,” said Monique. “Could turn a turd inta a currant tart, that one could, an’ when we got in it he’d keep straight ahead an’ I’d be ta the rear reloadin, which would’ve got von Wine’s goat if we didn’t get the results we did. Fucker was always tryin ta get us ta act like archers when these bronzies of mine are shit from more’n a few paces.”

Dario had not served in the last campaign under von Stein, meaning he had a better idea than Monique of where her favorite prostitutes had gotten to. Most were still working for Paula, the madam who had previously followed von Stein’s camp, and while Monique had no interest in an alliance she did hope to screw the woman out of some of her better whores. The harlots they picked up were in no better condition than the wagons they found themselves needing before very long, women worn down and scarred by life but nevertheless capable of rolling on a few more leagues.

Despite the drafty, flea-ridden room in the dilapidated brothel Awa had briefly shared with Monique before leaving Bern, the necromancer had imagined that, once they were all settled in, Monique’s operation would closely resemble the harem where Omorose had lived and Awa had served. The reality was remarkably less comfortable, the half-timbered three-story building listing as though it might topple onto the village of tents and ramshackle huts beside it if a mark were to go at one of the girls with more vigor than a rheumatic geriatric climbing a steep staircase.

As promised, Awa did have a private room, even if it was the
low-ceilinged attic in the gable. The garret would have been dustier than an indulgence-seller’s piety if the leak in the thatch roof had not turned the dust into mud the color of gunpowder. Dipping into her small fortune of antique coins—the graveyard loot that she had decidedly not volunteered to help Monique get her business off the ground—Awa bought a pallet, blankets, a spindle, some wool to spin, an iron pot, and a large pan to burn wood in, though over the years she had become quite adept at using only the salamander eggs to cook her dinner. After she had scraped the layers of mud away, enlisted the spirits of the next storm to show her where to patch the ceiling, killed every flea that landed on her with a flick of her will, and hung the small nude portrait from a beam, Awa had a home for the first time since leaving the mountain.

They turned the ground floor into a tavern, with Dario cooking delicious food with the poorest of ingredients, and pouring wine that was a week from being vinegar and spirits that were years from being smooth. The second story was where Monique and Dario had their private rooms, as well as the common sleeping chamber the whores shared. Monique would have preferred to have her offices at the top with the servicing area on the second story, but the second floor already had separate chambers, whereas the third was a single open room, and so the third story was where the fucking took place. With the thin, colorful linens separating one bed from the next and the near-constant screams and grunts the place reminded Awa of Paracelsus’s clinic. She took to drawing the ladder to the attic up after her, and fitted a lock to the trapdoor when she went out.

Awa went out often, preferring to pull a cloak down over her face and roam the streets rather than stay in the dark attic with the constant riot of Venus taking place just below her. Each expedition revealed a new marvel to her, from the recently completed urban canyon of the Pont Notre-Dame to the flamboyant,
castle-like façades of the aristocrats’ hôtels rising up behind their curtain walls; moldering, unique Gothic flourishes and newly built, symmetrical arcades were of equal interest to the curious young woman. Especially alluring to Awa were the gorgeous cathedrals and abbeys, and the small, charming cemeteries that abutted them, but she had not set foot in a churchyard since parting ways with Manuel and took only an aesthetic pleasure from admiring the tombstones and crypts. No matter what hour she left the majesty of the ever-growing city behind her and returned through the tightly constricting avenues that choked out the sky, she would find the brothel lit up like a beacon, and the third story every bit as noisy as she had left it.

Even had she been inclined Awa could not join in the sport on the third floor—the punishment for a woman lying with a Moor was death, in Paris and elsewhere, and the punishment for two women lying together supposedly the same, so Monique insisted Awa and any girls who shared her or her predilections did so far removed from any witnesses, lest the letter of the law by some rare chance find itself enforced. Monique, good as her word, had found whores willing to take a tumble with a blackamoor; in fact, several seemed eager to try her out, but Awa only rarely got so bored and lonely that she took one up to her attic.

Awa had once awoken to find the woman she had brought up rifling through her bags, and she gave the whore a different kind of little death than she had earlier in the evening, only reviving the terrified, confused woman after she had dragged her down and delivered her to Monique. The gunner waited until Awa returned the whore to life before administering a beating that rang in Awa’s ears even after she had run back to her attic. From then on when she did fuck the whores she did not go to sleep until they had gone back downstairs and she had stowed her ladder.

All that changed a year and a half after they had settled in
Paris, when Awa met Chloé. Awa had seen the girl before—indeed, she saw her every morning when she woke up. She was the whore Manuel had painted on commission for Bernardo, the girl whose portrait had saved the artist’s life back in that wet cave two years before, the portrait hanging on Awa’s wall. Chloé was curvaceous yet fit, black-haired, green-eyed, and foulmouthed, and Awa fell in love as she had only once before in her life. Or rather, fell deeper in love, for she had loved the girl in the portrait with that feverish intensity hearts reserve for imaginary paramours. Unlike Omorose, Chloé was far from proud; despite being one of the youngest women in the brothel she was willing to take on the crustiest, rankest beggar who had robbed or murdered his way into enough coin for a fuck or a suck.

Chloé was in the early stage of the pox when she arrived, but upon inspection Awa saw that half a dozen other wayward spirits also infected the young woman’s nether regions. Breaking them all, as well as running her hands over the girl to kill the inevitable ticks, fleas, and lice, took quite a bit of energy, and by the end Awa was barely remembering to apply the mundane paste she mixed to cover her necromancy. Chloé did not even wait until Awa had finished before making a move, rubbing against the necromancer’s fingers as she shakily smeared the ointment.

“Your boss asked if I’d fuck a blackamoor, and I told her nay,” said Chloé as Awa looked up from her work in surprise. “But I thought she meant blokes. You’re not a bloke, though, so if you got the francs to match that interest I’ll make myself obliging.”

“What makes you think I’d have an interest?” said Awa, unable to meet the woman’s eyes.

“Everyone’s got an interest in something,” said Chloé, “and you’re interested in putting your tongue up there or I’m a blackamoor myself. What say you wash me off and get first taste of the new pottage, eh? Didn’t even let the monger have a go, said I wanted to get clean first.”

A year or two before Awa might have turned away or at least blushed, but instead she met the young woman’s olive eyes and nodded. Upstairs they went, Awa leading her out of the whores’ sleeping chamber and quickly past Monique’s closed door. When they reached the attic Awa lit a candle and pulled up the ladder.

Then they sat facing each other on the pallet, the younger woman suddenly demure, and Awa found herself pinning Chloé down, kissing her hard, more excited than she had been in ages, the dark-haired whore letting out little gasps. It was strange, taking the initiative, and even when Chloé traded places with Awa the younger woman maintained her beguiling modesty, repeatedly leaving Awa shuddering on the edge to adorably ask for guidance that they both knew she did not require. It was unlike any fuck Awa had enjoyed since arriving in Paris, and when they were both exhausted she tightly held the warm little creature. Feeling Chloé’s willowy arms intertwined with hers, Awa drifted off remembering two junipers she had once seen that had somehow merged their trunks and become a single beautiful, twisted tree.

“Who’s Omorose?” Awa started awake, the warmth and darkness suddenly cloying instead of comforting. She rolled away from Chloé, scolding herself for falling asleep.

“Nobody,” said Awa, her eyes not so quick to adjust as they once had been, the girl beside her in the bed still just a pale lump. “How long have I slept?”

“I don’t know. I was asleep, too,” said Chloé. “Do you have anything to smoke?”

“Smoke?”

“Poppy oil? I suppose not.” The girl sighed. “A Moor I knew shared it with me. He said it was not so rare in your land.”

“And where is it you think I come from?” asked Awa, retrieving a bottle.

“I suppose I was being foolish,” said Chloé as Awa took a drink. “You don’t all come from the same place, of course.”

“Of course,” said Awa. “Would you like a drink?”

“Of course.” The girl sat up and took the bottle. “Say, this is a sight better than what they keep down there. What’s your name?”

Awa told her; she had long since given up on keeping it a secret.

“Well, Awa, can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“Can I sleep here? It’s late, I think, and I … I like sleeping against you. You smell nice.” Awa’s eyes had adjusted enough to see that the girl had dropped her head, and Awa felt her throat tighten, her stomach hot and nervous.

“You can stay as long as you like, Chloé,” said Awa, and then the girl looked up, tears shining on her cheeks in the dark for some reason, and Awa held her tightly. Then they kissed, softly, much more softly than before, and lay back down together. Much later, after she was sure the girl was asleep, Awa sat up on her elbow and stared at the ivory creature beside her, wondering how long she could feel this happy. Longer than she expected, as it turned out, but, of course, not forever.

The only nights Chloé did not sleep pressed against Awa were when a mark paid the extra franc to have her stay until morning with him on a lumpy pallet surrounded by cheaply perfumed curtains. Those nights were harder than Awa expected, though she was not so foolish as to think loving a whore would be easy. She managed it, though, and took a quiet little thrill in keeping her own secrets as Chloé let one after another slip out with the errant tear; she told Awa about her absent mother, her abusive father, and her molesting uncle, about running away from home to work in the city only to find herself on her back, about her dreams and nightmares.

“I’m going to be famous, a poetess,” said Chloé as they sat on the edge of their pallet early one morning. She stunk like the
man she had just left and Awa drank more to kill the scent. “That Moor I told you about, he had a book by one of them, courtier, no, courtesans. Italian bird, sang poetry into her books, and now everyone from the Grand Duke of Muscovy to the caliph of wherever are singing her praises. I’ll write like her, sad poems and sweet, and be the queen of the courtesans.”