"Why, yes," she replied. "Henri works for the king."
"I was wondering," I began, not knowing how much I should say exactly, "If you had heard of a wizard named Dante?"
She thought for a moment. "I believe I have," she said finally. "Not a very pleasant figure, I'm afraid. How do you know him?"
"Well, we're acquaintances," I said vaguely. "Do you know what he does there? At the palace."
She wrinkled her nose. "Not much as far as I know. I believe he has the title of Middle-Class Court Wizard, but I never see him doing any work. He seems to be independently wealthy."
"I see," I said, and then sighed.
"Well, you are an interesting young man," Elanora remarked. "I should definitely like to see more of you."
"As I said," I assured her, "anytime."
The rest of the hour passed fairly painlessly. I poured her tea and asked about life in the palace. It seemed that the king had a multitude of advisors, wizards, and all manner of others beneath him, all of whom lived in the palace alongside the nobles.
"It's all very modern," Elanora said. "After all, Henri is simply an accountant, and we never dreamed we'd ever be living in the palace like royalty."
Finally, the hour was up, and Henri Edwards came out into the back garden, looking slightly red-faced and dishevelled. He came nervously up to Elanora, and, to both of our surprise, she stood and greeted him warmly, informing him that she'd had an absolutely lovely time.
"That right?" he said, observing me suspiciously over his thick, mussed moustache.
"Yes, we've been talking," explained Elanora, making it sound as if we had been doing anything but.
"I see," said Henri, and his moustache twitched.
Then they were gone.
I made my way into the sitting room and collapsed into one of the antique velvet chairs.
"Ah, hello handsome!" cried Muse, rushing in to sit next to me and leaning over to inspect. "You look absolutely delectable with your shirt undone that way, you know. Did you have a good time?"
"I feel exhausted," I told her bemusedly.
"Ah," came Hailey's voice from the top of the stairway. "
You
are tired, are you? I can see how serving tea must be enormously exhausting." She looked rather dishevelled, as well, pulling the collar of her silken robe up over a pale shoulder, but she also looked quite pleased. "Marcus," she said in singsong down the railing. "She looked
very
happy."
"Oh, do shut up," I retorted, and she giggled and disappeared inside her room.
Suddenly, Titiana appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and shouted at me to join her in her office. Terrified, I did so.
"You did well," she informed me. "Whatever you did, Mrs Edwards seemed to be quite pleased."
"Ah, thank you," I said meekly.
"Here is your paper." I looked to see that she was holding out four or five sheets of thin bleached parchment. I took them gingerly from her, and she said, "This is payment for your favour. Tomorrow, you will start on the laundry, in lieu of rent."
"Yes, ma'am," I said, and left as quickly as I could without it looking like running away.
I was already in my room
and sitting happily at the writing desk, before I realized that I didn't have a pen. My stomach churned at the thought of going down and asking Titiana for one. Who knew what she'd make me do for that? Slowly, dragging my feet as though locked in iron shackles, I went into the hallway.
Hailey was there. She had changed, putting on a simpler robe and arranging her hair nicely on her head. She smiled at me, and then made a face at my dead expression.
"Whatever is the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing," I sighed. "I just need to ask Titiana … for a pen."
"Oh," said Hailey, and thought a minute. "I've got one you can borrow, and some paper, too, if you need it."
"What?!" I exclaimed, and then realized I sounded rude. "Er, just the pen for now. Thank you, Hailey."
She smiled and bounced off to her room, returning with a beautiful, ink-filled pen. It was dark blue and seemed to be inlayed with gold.
"It was a gift to me from one of my patrons," Hailey said airily. "Go ahead and keep it."
"Uh. Thank you?"
"Don't mention it," she laughed, and then floated gracefully downstairs for dinner.
With a feeling of concerned disbelief, I went back into my room and shut the door, forcing myself not to leave until I completed my compositions.
I wrote two letters—one to my parents and one to Dante. I told Dante that I was definitely still alive, and that he should send for me immediately, because I wished to come to the palace. I then told my parents that there had been a horrible mishap, and I had to stay in a brothel and do chores, because I couldn't get into the palace. With some dread, although I felt it was necessary, I informed them in a postscript that I had written to Dante, and that hopefully he would learn about my whereabouts and come get me.
But
, I added,
I should surely prefer to come back to Rell where I belong. If you could perhaps send a messenger to collect me, or even money, I could make my own way home. I remain your devoted son—Marcus of Rell
.
I carefully folded and enveloped each letter, and then went downstairs. I was quite pleased with myself, until I was informed by Emie that I needed postage to send anything anywhere. Perhaps he noticed that the frustration I was feeling was surely going to cause me to spontaneously expire on the spot, and he didn't feel like dealing with a dead body in the kitchen, because at the look on my face, he immediately snuck me into a back room, which was full of books and papers and official-looking things. There he found me two coloured squares of paper, which he licked and stuck onto the letters for me, and then showed me out to the road, where I found a post box. I mailed the letters, quite glad to be finally rid of them.
As I walked back to the Parlour, I realized that several passers-by were looking at me strangely. The looks were not necessarily that of dislike, I noted; most of them simply looked amused, some even impressed. It was how I was dressed, I realized; like an aristocrat—or a slut, depending how one looked at it. I knew I should button up my shirt and rush embarrassedly into the Parlour, but I found I couldn't. I rather liked the attention, and this knowledge worried me somewhat.
That night, as I undressed before bed,
I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I was surprised—not by what I saw, but by my
lack
of surprise at seeing the figure in the mirror. The person standing there was so different from the person I had seen when I had looked in the mirror back home in Rell. This tall, slender man with the perfect body and beautiful face—when had he become me? When had I come to accept that this was how I looked—that this was who I was?
I had never really known myself, I realized, as I crawled into bed—only what people had told me.
Maybe this is who I am
, I thought,
maybe this
is
me, and I don't even know it
.
With these and many other disjointed thoughts on my mind, I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
I awoke to a weight on the end of my bed.
I thought immediately that it was Draeden, and opened my eyes to glare at him. However, when I discerned that it wasn't Draeden at all, but a woman, I jumped and scrambled away from her. It was Elanora, I realized, taking in her wide blue eyes and elaborate clothing, even as I struggled to pull my blanket up to my chin.
"You don't have to do that," she said sweetly. "I've changed my mind."
"Ch-changed your mind?" I stuttered. "About what?"
"About what you said," she said earnestly. "About … exploring."
I gasped. "Um … You mean … you want …
me
to … "
Elanora nodded eagerly.
"Er." I wondered how on earth I was to use my powers to get out of this. "How did you get in here?"
"Oh, I told the girls I wanted to visit you, and they said you were up here." She smiled at me. "I'll pay, of course, and if you like, I can wait until you get ready, but you're already undressed so … " She leaned toward me.
I was terrified. I definitely, definitely,
definitely
did not ever want to sleep with a woman—any doubts in my mind about that immediately fled from my mind. I didn't know what to do. If I refused, and she got angry, the Parlour would lose out on a lot of money and reputation. I couldn't let that happen. I had no choice. I had to—
Suddenly, there was a loud commotion from outside, and I heard heavy footsteps down the hallway, and then a man's voice shouting, "You let her
what
? What did you think would happen? It's not funny at all; how could you do that to him?"
The door burst open, and a man stood there. At first, I didn't recognise him, but then I realized that he was the same flaxen-haired man whom I had discovered in my room a few days before. He looked much less young now, with a stern, concerned look on his face.
"Mrs Edwards," he said, "I'm terribly sorry about the confusion, but you cannot do that."
Elanora turned to look at him, a bit confused and a bit perturbed. "Why ever not?" she said haughtily. "I'm paying. Good money, too."
The man took a deep breath. "Because," he said calmly, "Marcus does not actually work here."
Now that my secret was out, I immediately felt guilty for misleading Elanora. At the same time, I felt incredibly grateful to the strange man who had saved my virginity.
"What?" Elanora turned to look at me. "But yesterday—"
"He was working for us yesterday," continued the man, "but he's not actually available for … that kind of service. I'm terribly sorry for the confusion. If you like, I can service you. I'll give you a discount."
Elanora hesitated. I didn't blame her; I would have, too. The man in my doorway was absolutely gorgeous. His eyes were large and sea-blue, his face smooth and flawless and aristocratic, and his shirt was open down the front, revealing a slender, toned body.
I
would have taken him up on his offer in a heartbeat, and it seemed Elanora decided something similar, because she stood and stepped toward him.
"Well, alright," she said slowly. "But it had better be a
good
discount."
"Next to nothing," the man assured her, and with a strange look at me (halfway between annoyance and amusement, it seemed), he took her arm and led her out of the room.
I fell backward onto the bed and several of the girls at whom the young man had been yelling swarmed into the room to see if I was alright. I most certainly was not.
"Why on earth did you let her in?!" I yelled. "Did you tell her she could—"
"No, no!" they assured me, seeming genuinely distraught about the whole thing. "She only said she wanted to see you! We thought you'd be up by now—you do sleep late. What a rude lady, not even knocking."
All this excitement so early in the morning was making me feel a bit ill, and I shooed them all from the room. Only as they were leaving did I think to ask, "Who was that man? Why haven't I seen him before?"
"He's one of the male prostitutes," said Ellie, peeking back around the door to answer me. "Surely you've seen him before? He's always around."
"I've never seen him," I said crossly. "I didn't even know we had male prostitutes."
"Of course we do!" she said cheerily. "You're one of them, aren't you?"
She disappeared before I could correct her.
I spent the next few days moping
around the Parlour, waiting in vain for a letter from Dante. I was trying, and failing miserably, to keep up with the laundry. I just didn't have the head for it. I would often forget which sheets I had washed on which day, and whether I needed to again. Sometimes, I even forgot to put the sheets back on the bed, and when I did remember, it was a dreadful hassle and I never could get it to look right. The girls were always complaining that they had to fix their sheets whenever they brought in a gentleman and it was very unromantic. I couldn't help that I didn't know how to make a bed—I had never learned how at home. I was a noble, after all, and had always had servants to do this sort of thing.
I might have remembered better to put the sheets onto the beds after washing them, however, if I hadn't always been allowing my mind to wander. I was always wondering about that male prostitute and where he was hiding. I certainly hadn't been into all the rooms in the Parlour, but I had been in most of them. And, anyway, what did he eat? Perhaps he was like Titiana, taking a dinner of roast beef or stewed chicken with mashed, garlic potatoes in her study every day, while the girls and I had gruel. In any case, it was very strange, and I wasted many hours looking around for and wondering about him when I should have been doing laundry.
In any case, I was under no illusions that the letter to Rell would take at least two weeks to arrive, and any letter or messenger back would take another two weeks. However, we were only an hour's walk away from the palace. Surely Dante had gotten and read my letter by now. The knowledge that he must have been purposely ignoring me irked me to no end, and after about a week, I could stand it no longer. I decided to go to the palace and force my way in, using any means needed to get past the guards.
I got dressed in my finest clothes—a pair of soft brown leather pants and a flowing blue shirt, which I buttoned up to my collarbone like a proper gentleman. I pulled on the high, shiny leather boots, with which Hailey had provided me, and meticulously pulled my hair back and tied it with a navy blue ribbon. Then, satisfied with my reflection, I went out, ignoring the whistles of several of the girls who saw me leave.
The walk to the palace took far longer than it had with Muse—mostly due to the fact that I got lost several times—and the sun was high in the sky before I arrived at the wrought iron gates. The same two guards were there (at least, I thought; it was hard to tell through the moustaches), and I steeled myself before walking up to them.