‘A slave from the palace brought them. He said they were from Terapis.’
A surprise. There were always still surprises, and renewed by that comforting
knowledge Myrtis threw back the bedcovers. The girl set down the flowers and
held an embroidered day-robe of emerald satin for Myrtis to wrap around herself.
Five girls in their linen shifts busied themselves with restoring the studied
disorder of the lower rooms as Myrtis passed through them on her way to the
kitchen. Five cleaning, one too pregnant to be of any use, another off nursing a
newborn; that meant twenty girls were still in the upper rooms. Twenty girls
whose time was fully accounted for; in all, a very good night for the Aphrodisia
House. Others might be suffering with the new regime, but the foreigners
expected a certain style and discretion which in Sanctuary could be found only
at the Aphrodisia.
‘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