Haldrych’s tension eased as he reached his favourite bathhouse.

It stood among white grounds as majestic as a palace on a grand estate, its façade supported by braided columns. Wood panelling sealed its balconies from winter’s cold. When the weather warmed, panelling would be replaced by patrons drowning in wine and spirits, filling the balconies to bursting. Painted courtesans would lean over balustrades draped in silk and flowers, flashing smiles that stopped the heart and calling with voices like a summer wind.

Steam rose from several vents. A natural hot spring boiled within indoor baths nestled among a garden of delights: music, liquors, spiced foods and more carnal pleasures. One could even obtain dried mushrooms and powders that offered all manner of exotic transformations to the senses.

The poet nodded to the guards by the front gate; broad shouldered men and women encircling a fire pit. Facial scars were a chronicle of their grim careers.

Lining the snowy walkway were dancing statues of pleasure deities from half a dozen pantheons. It was to them that the bathhouse owed its name.

The Lovers’ Paradise.

No pleasure temple in all of Laexondael was finer. Or more exclusive.

Haldrych handed Marctinus’ reins to a shivering stable boy then made his way to the threshold. The door loomed before him, painted like a gateway to an otherworldly garden.

He knocked three times.

Clnk.

A wooden slot slid aside.

“Master Ameldan,” a deep voice reverberated through the opening. Piercing eyes examined the young poet. “How charming to see you again. It has been some time since your last visit. I trust you have been well?”

“Healthy, Jeva, but not happy.” Haldrych pulled a small medallion from his tunic; it bore a grapevine coiling about a pair of nude figures. He brought it up to the slot for Jeva to examine; the seneschal nodded.

A click signalled the latch sliding. The door pulled aside, revealing an unassuming man with grey dusting his brown hair and beard. His doeskin gloves creaked as he gestured inside. “If it is happiness you seek, then paradise opens its gates to you.”

Haldrych entered the foyer without a word, handing Jeva his cloak. He moved to step past him.

“Ah, Master Ameldan?” Jeva held out an open hand.

Haldrych grunted, digging a small coin from his pouch and dropping it into the black gloved palm. The seneshal held it up to one of the oil lamps upon the wall, turning it over.

“My coin’s good.” Haldrych muttered.

“I am sure, Master Ameldan. Your House has ever been an honourable one.” Jeva’s pupils narrowed in the light. “But these are strange times. The Zabyallan merchant princes carved up the House of Cas like a roasted pig. Coin flows freely across the Sea of Gods again. Some of it…less than pure.”

“I’m a man of honour.” Haldrych insisted.

“Indeed.” Jeva paused. “But…with the killings…”

“What about them?”

“They have made some a little more eager for the comforts of our bower. And sometimes, when one is eager, they may not pay attention to the coin they give. Especially, on such a dark night-” Jeva smiled, his teeth white in the dim light. “-when one can feel the wolf on their threshold.”

The seneschal reached into his robe, producing dried purple lilac and lemon leaf. One for love. The other for discretion.

“Your sacrifices, Master Ameldan.”

Haldrych crossed the foyer to the shrine and kneeled. A fire burned in a stone basin beneath a dozen deities in mass embrace. He tossed the sprigs into the flame and bowed his head slightly before rising.

Jeva nodded in approval, then knocked on the inner door. “Juliana?”

The door opened. A young woman smiled in the entryway, her face framed by strawberry blonde hair pouring past a pale, delicate neck.

The velvet of her robe hugged her supple body, bunching in all sorts of ways as she glided across the tiles. Her arms wrapped around one of Haldrych’s. “Haldy! You’ve come!” She pouted, caressing his hand with soft fingers. “You abandoned meeee.”

“Juliana.” He smiled tightly. “It was not by choice, fair maiden.”

Her laugh was the tinkle of crystal. “I’m no blushing virgin, Haldy.” She leaned in. Her hot breath touched his ear. “You would know that better than most.”

She punctuated her words with a light kiss on his lobe.

He shuddered. The heat of her body seeped into him as her scented oils caressed his nose. Haldrych cleared his throat.

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“So adorable, Haldy,” Juliana chuckled. “Come, let us get some hot water on your skin and some wine in your belly.”

He smiled ruefully. “You always make a man feel like a king.”

“I try.” She twirled a finger through one of his reddish-brown locks. “Especially when that man deserves to be treated like royalty.”

Juliana chattered warmly as she led him to the cleansing chamber. No patron was admitted bearing the dust of the streets. He availed himself of the steaming fountains - each sculpted like satyr children pouring water from gourds - and scrubbed his body until it felt anew.

He took the fine robe that she had prepared for him; his own clothes were already stored away. They entered the wine room to a chorus of laughter and music.

A beautiful young man commanded the stage, singing to the driving beat of drum, warble of water organ, and strings of lyre. Dancers leapt and twirled in time, matching the drums with the slap of bare feet on carpet. Below, guests frolicked in displays more amateurish, but with matching enthusiasm. Their compatriots laughed and clapped and drank.

Flame roared in a central fire pit, its heady light playing along the mouldings and ceiling murals. At the room’s edges the light thinned, leaving only an intimate dusk. Within, silhouettes twined together with clutching hands, pressing lips and grappling tongues.

Spices and perfume suffused the air while paradise’s guests filled long tables; their jewelry glimmering upon freshly oiled skin.

“Full today,” Haldrych noted.

“In dark times, one seeks comfort,” Juliana replied. “Perhaps we-”

“Oh? Haldrych!” a baritone voice cut through the revel.

A familiar figure waved to the young poet with a bronze bracer glinting on his forearm.

“Adelmar!”

Haldrych and Juliana weaved through the throngs to reach a small table near the fire pit. There, a young man wiped beer from his sculpted, blonde beard. “I thought you’d died!” Adelmar laughed, gesturing with a calloused hand toward free seats on the bench. “Come, sit!”

“Why’s this table so empty?” Haldrych asked as he sat down. Juliana squeezed his thigh and quickly left to fetch a decanter of wine.

“Because of these.” Adelmar kicked something at his feet. A woman groaned. The young poet glanced down. Three figures were curled up beneath the table. “It was their table, now it’s mine.” Adelmar grinned. “And since I’m not feeling like just anyone’s company tonight, I’ve been telling people who come along that I’m saving the seats for these three.”

“Do you know them?” Haldrych asked.

“No, but it doesn’t matter.” Adelmar shrugged, popping a dried berry into his mouth. “Why don’t you tell me what the trouble is.”

“Trouble?” the young poet asked.

The blonde merchant’s son speared a hunk of herbed cheese. “Your face looks like a dried plum. Something’s happened. I’ve never seen you next to Juliana without that big, stupid grin on your face.”

“I don’t grin stupidly,” Haldrych insisted.

“Sure you do.” Adelmar pulled the cheese off his fork with his front teeth. “Everyone in here grins stupidly. That’s the point of being here. So, why do you look like you’ve been sipping vinegar?”

Haldrych grimaced. “Mother’s set a marriage for me.”

Adelmar nearly choked. “To-” he coughed, pounding his chest. “-to who?”

The young poet’s scowl deepened. “To Fulberte of House Gomentrude.”

“Really?” The other man’s blue eyes narrowed. He speared and chewed a piece of roasted pork. “That’s not so bad.”

“It’s awful!” Haldrych’s fist banged the table, his pinky ring digging into his hand. Beneath, one of the figures groaned. “She’s a bore!” the young poet cried. “A witless country bore!”

“A pretty country bore.” Adelmar pointed out. “Raven haired. Good shape.”

“Nothing compared to Juliana.”

A snort came in response. “Don’t go comparing normal folk to goddesses. S’not fair to mere mortals.”

“This is serious.” Haldrych chewed his bottom lip in irritation. “She’s condemned me.”

“You could do a lot worse. She could’ve married you off to Ingrid Tolstoff and you’d’ve ended up in Twinspire for the rest of your life. The Gomentrude lands have good farms and good hunting.” Adelmar snatched up a copper cup and drained it of beer. “And great beer. This is from there, you know? And you’ll get to drink all you want.”

“That’s some life,” Haldrych growled bitterly. “Old and unsung, hunting foxes and rabbits and drinking until my belly’s as wide as a keep.”

“Don’t sound so bad to me.”

“I want adventure, Adelmar, not some dull wretched life!”

“Thought you wanted to be a poet?”

“Yes, and write of my own triumphs!” He leaned forward with dark eyes alight. “It’s an age of adventure! Yuriya of Cymorillia is offering an audience to any landed man in the north who makes his name by wit and sword!”

Adelmar scoffed. “You want to marry a Cymorillian dragon princess?”

“No, but think of the glory of such a quest! I could bring an expedition to the mountains of Riyen and join the Dragon Hunt! I could collect a band and make a go of taming wild Garumna now that Avernix is dead! I could-”

“Haldrych.”

“-Prince Jasea is building a fleet to sail to the other side of the world! Even here! Merrick the Hawk burgles manses by night and makes sport of the trove guardians-”

“Haldrych!”

“I should be out there! Among those names! Do you know what they say about my poetry? That it’s uninspired! Uninspired, Adelmar! Of course it’s uninspired! I write about things I’ve only heard about in songs! So how can my poems help but be uninspired?” He took a deep breath. “That…woman…that mother of mine cages me like a lapdog! And now this! Marriage! A prisoner before I can even fly!”

Adelmar slowly placed his utensils down. “You’re serious about this.”

“As serious as a plague!” Haldrych snarled. “She’s been this way ever since she drove father to his death! Softened him with her mollycoddling until he couldn’t even beat a summer cold! The poor fool died with a smile on his face!”

Bang.

Both fists struck the table this time. Another groan came from beneath.

“Damn all hells! Where’s Juliana with that wine? I have a thirst!”

Wordlessly, Adelmar slid a jug of beer to Haldrych, who tilted it back until it was empty.

He slammed the jug on the table.

“The house of Ameldan sprang from war heroes!” the young man raged. “War heroes! Now its reduced to a worry-sick matriarch driving her men to silken graves! We were meant to struggle! To see blood-”

Adelmar’s gaze grew sharp.

“-to be a part of the thrill of life and death!” The poet clasped the air. “I would capture that life with my reed pen! No one could ever tell me that was uninspired! But she’ll never have it! She’ll never let me be the man I’m meant to be!”

“So, leave.” Adelmar's hands laced together before him. He rose to his full height in his seat. “You have weapons. Take them and go.”

“I cannot!” Haldrych cried. “Funds, man! I need funds! Provisions! Warriors or mercenaries! Guides! She’ll give me all the coin I want to entertain or comfort myself but none for glory! I could…I could…”

His hands clutched the air violently.

“…kill her?” Adelmar supplied.

Haldrych froze. “What?”

The merchant’s son stared at him with piercing eyes. “You could kill her?”

“Well…I…that’s not to…”

“Are you barking uselessly?” Adelmar pushed. “Or do you mean it?”

“I…er…”

“You’re a poet, aren’t you? Use your damn words.”

That final provocation made Haldrych’s face flash hot.

Sense deserted him.

“Yes!” he snapped. “I could kill her, Adelmar! I could!”