A Beggar’s Kingdom. Paullina Simons
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be more careful. Sometimes he forgets that beheadings and burnings aren’t just facts in history, but are real blood and real hatred. But wasn’t Joan of Arc canonized, though? Why is it, no matter how much Julian thinks he knows, it’s never enough?
He tries remembering the names of the girls by height, but four of them are the same height, and he tries remembering them by age, but eight of them are under twenty, and he tries remembering them by hair color, but all ten of them are some shade between brown and black. Six of them are bosomy, eight of them are hippy, two of them have barely any breasts at all, and their clientele is limited and specific. The Baroness tells Julian that there’s only one way he must rank the girls, “And that’s by how much money they bring in. That’s your only yardstick as the keeper of this house.”
“That is not his only yardstick, Baroness,” Margrave says, and the girls titter.
“Hush, Margrave. Stop wearing him like a medal.”
The madam is right. Julian learns their names much faster using her method. Brynhilda, a large, buxom lass of Germanic origin, is first. The men wait hours for her. Mute Kitty is second because she’s quickest. Beatrix and Millicent are sisters, work in tandem, and are three and four. Brazen Margrave is five, Ru is peppy and six, and French Catholic Severine is seven. The girl who’d been calling herself Jeanne before Julian ruined it for her, and who now must refer to herself as plain Joan, is currently underworked and number eight, boyish Allie is nine, and Greta is last. Greta is skeletal and at almost thirty has outlasted her usefulness. But her great-grandfather is rumored to be Parson, the man who founded the Silver Cross, so she’s not going anywhere.
The ten bedrooms and ten girls mix and match depending on the workload. The rooms are strictly for pleasure, six on the second floor, four on the third. The girls sleep high up on the fourth floor, in the stifling attic rooms by the dormers, five ladies to a cubby. The three maids, including Mallory, are segregated down on the ground floor, in the back by the servants’ kitchen. They mix with no one.
Except for Mallory—who is the prettiest of all the girls at the Silver Cross—the cleaning girls are desperately unattractive. Carling is lame and Ivy is scarred. Carling and Ivy loathe Mallory, because she’s the Baroness’s niece and “not nearly ugly enough.” Though she’s not allowed to sit with Julian and the regulars while they have their dinner of spiced eel and fish pies, all the girls, the maids and the molls, resent Mallory for having too many privileges. The main complaint about her is that she never gets punished for the things she does wrong. Julian doesn’t dare ask what she does wrong, lest it reveal how he feels about her.
The girls don’t stop complaining about one thing or another. Nothing is so trivial that it won’t cause offense. Yes, on the one hand, Julian is surrounded by women. But on the other, Julian is surrounded by women. They’re soft and busty, flirtatious, voluptuous, and their erotic inclinations know no bounds. But when they’re not arguing with him over the house-set price of goods and services, they’re bad-mouthing each other. They’re also not above blatant mendacity. They ascribe to each other all manner of vice and malice, they saddle one another with the lies of the most hideous contagious diseases. They often accuse one another of attempted murder through poison and infection. It’s astonishing. They are beautiful but venal.
Fortunately, it’s the Baroness not Julian who deals with the bulk of their grievances. When he asks her how she sustains herself, she laughs. “Oh, dear boy,” she says. “Margrave is right about you. You’re too good a man. She says you may be of noble blood. Eventually you’ll learn how to handle the commoners.” A commoner is another name for prostitute. “Rule number one: You must stop being so respectful. Do like me and pay them absolutely no mind. I pretend to listen, for they need to complain. It’s about seniority. It’s about money. It’s only when they don’t complain that they worry me. And by the way, do you know who never complains? Mallory. And she’s the one who’s got the most to complain about, for the other girls are simply dreadful to her. But she never disparages them in return, she never whines about the cleaning, or being overworked, and she never says a bad word to or about anyone. Or a good word, for that matter. She’s my niece, and I love her like family, but frankly, she is too tame! She’s the one who vexes me the most with her unspeakable silence. Oh, how she vexes me!”
LATE ONE NIGHT JULIAN IS ASKED BY IVY THE MAID TO BRING some wine to Room Two, his favorite room. It’s an odd request, for Julian is not usually in the business of fetching and carrying. He doesn’t mind the chore; the evening has been passing without a crisis. He’s only had to throw one man out into the street. As is his custom, Julian is formally dressed, in black silk hose and pointed-toe black leather shoes. He wears a blue velvet waistcoat with dark red buttons. His long thick hair is shiny and down, slicked back behind his ears. And he has shaved his epic beard, because wouldn’t you know it—in 1666, no one has beards! He can’t keep up with men’s facial hair fashion. Considered most virile at the turn of the century—the longer, the better—beards are now deemed lawless and dirty.
Julian knocks. A male voice answers. The room is dim, lit by three candles and a low fire. In a chair by the unmade bed sits a big fat man in loosened silk robes. Across the room from him, by the row of candles, illuminated from the side, Mallory stands naked. The man in the chair motions Julian to bring the wine and place it on the table by his elbow. Julian sets down the decanter, takes the empty one and turns to leave. He tries not to look at Mallory.
The man grabs his arm. “What do you think of our beauty, sir?” he says, chuffing like a horse.
Julian still won’t look at her. Our? “Beautiful.” He yanks his arm away.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nope.” Julian doesn’t bother faking politeness. He doesn’t need to. He’s in charge. His antenna is up, and so is his concern for Mallory.
“This is Lord Fabian, sire,” Mallory says softly. “He is one of our most kind and generous patrons.”
“I know who you are,” the fat man says to Julian. His puffy white shirt is open. His chest is hairy, he’s perspiring, sickly perfumed. “And you certainly know who the girl is.” He sniggers, winded even from speaking.
“Lord Fabian watched us the other night, sire,” Mallory says. She points to a tapestried panel on the wall. “From a hidden enclosure.”
That does not endear Julian to the man. He backs away to stand between Mallory and the lord, shielding her from the man’s lecherous gaze.
“You put on quite a show, young man. Well done.” Fabian wipes his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “I’d like you to do it again.” He pauses. “But this time while I watch comfortably from a chair instead of peeping through a hole in a wall like a burglar.”
“No,” Julian says.
“Pardon me?”
“You heard me. Mallory, get dressed, come with me. The Baroness is asking for you downstairs.”
“No, sire,” Mallory says calmly. “The Baroness knows where I am. She allows me this indulgence from time to time—because it’s Lord Fabian.”
“I should think she allows it,” Fabian says, bristling, “all the money she’s made off me.”
“Yes, you have been very good to me, my lord.”
“Come, Mallory,” Julian says, reaching for her.
She pulls away from his hand. “No.”
From me you pull away, Julian wants to say to her.
“I demand you stay,” Fabian says to Julian, “or God help me, I’ll have your job. And possibly your head on a spike.”
Julian