The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 6: Taking the Cure, Part 8

 "I must provoke a brief transformation. I have implements to control it, but I must protect you from the possibility of completely transforming and running off into the city."

"Speak plainly, Master Cursewright."

There was no doubt she was an Imperial princess, Ammas thought. "During your diagnosis I must bind you to the altar."

There fell a stony silence.

Then: "While still in my smallclothes. Are you a cursewright, Master Ammas, or a pervert?"

"I am a cursewright, your highness. My perversions have nothing to do with it." Before Carala could retort, Ammas spread his hands imploringly. "Princess Carala, I know this is an offense to your dignity, and not just because of your station. This is something I must do if I am to treat you and I take no pleasure in it. In the days before the dissolution, I would have a female assistant to ensure your dignity and my reputation. But those days are gone."

The princess's legitimate outrage subsided a bit, perhaps by the implicit fact that if not for her father, her treatment would not be quite so fraught.

"That said, there is an option, if you wish it. The establishment next door -- "

"The brothel? The Prideful Lioness?" The sneer was unmistakable.

"Yes. I am on good terms with the women who work there -- "

"The whores, you mean."

"The Lioness girls, I prefer to call them."

"Oh, I am sure you are most respectful of them, Master Cursewright. Probably on a nightly basis." Her tone was less arch than downright vicious.

Ammas merely looked at her, his hands clasped before him. After a moment she looked down.

"I apologize. That was unworthy of me."

Ammas shook his head. No doubt he had imagined it, but he thought he had caught a note of jealousy in Carala's voice, and this baffled him completely. "I'm a criminal, as the bouncer over there likes to remind me. I work in a slum next to a brothel. There's no reason for you to think I have a sense of propriety at all. But I do not indulge there, or anywhere else."

She looked up at him, something in her eyes telling Ammas she feared she had crossed a line. "You've taken a vow against it?"

Ammas laughed a little. "No. Just -- it's not something that interests me." This was not exactly true, but it wasn't something he intended to discuss with Carala. "But I was about to say I can call one of the girls over here to -- chaperone us, let's say."

"You mean have one of the whores over there come and watch this?" She shook her head, scowling. "I saw the two on the porch, the things they said to me, the way they looked at me. I would rather it just be you, Master Cursewright."

"No. Not them. Her name is Lena. I helped her father some time ago. His affliction was much more severe than your own -- "

"What in the gods' name was wrong with him?" she asked wonderingly.

"That is not something I may discuss with you, just as I will forever keep my silence regarding your own condition. That is a vow I've taken. Suffice to say it was a considerable service."

Carala nodded, though her expression remained faintly horrified.

"Since then, Lena has on occasion assisted me when I require aid of this nature." Lena had in fact done so about a dozen times since her father's exorcism, usually for nervous highborn women like the princess who were shocked at the idea of being unclad alone before a commoner man, and once or twice because he hadn't wished to be alone with them. She had even helped him on one or two much more serious occasions, closer to the sort of thing Carala presented him with, where Casimir's assistance wasn't enough or the client insisted the boy be dismissed. One of them had been a Q'Sivari woman who affected the dress and gear of a professional thief, and who had presented with a case of iridescent scales which had sprouted all across her back, from her neck down to her buttocks. Lena had been startled even after her experience with her father. Ammas had taken one look at her, demanded she turn over to him whatever artifact she had stolen from one of the sunken mausoleums in the Chalk Hills, administered the necessary unguent, and advised her not to do anymore tomb robbing. Abashed, the woman had given him a ring in the shape of a serpent devouring itself then taken the cure. Ammas melted the ring in his workshop and lamented the unsaleability of cursed gold.

"She knows how to keep her silence, she is kind, and she will not flee from your condition."

Still the princess looked skeptical. "You would tell her of my condition? You said you took a vow not to."

"I would be obliged to tell anyone who helped treat you. I can protect myself from anything that might happen should you lose control. They can't."

"But she can keep her silence?"

Ammas thought of Orson and the things he had shrieked in the garret; the awful injuries the demon inflicted on his body. Lena had said not a word about any of it, save one whispered conversation on the portico late one night. She had asked some of the things Casimir had, whether her father had somehow brought it on himself, and had received answers from the cursewright no more satisfying than the ones he had given the boy. Other than that it might never have happened, though Ammas always noticed the somehow pale expression around her eyes; the way she laughed and flirted less than she once had. Indeed, she seemed merrier when assisting him than when working at the Lioness.

"Lena can hold her tongue on the matter," Ammas said. "This matter or any other. Perhaps someday she'll tell a story about a werewolf she helped cure. I doubt she'll remember who it was."

But this seemed to raise a new worry in Carala's mind. "What if she recognizes me?"

"She won't."

"Why not?"

"Highness, portraits of the Imperial family are hardly posted in every tavern and brothel in Munazyr. I don't believe even the Doge's Villa has any."

"You recognized me."

"I met your mother personally, and even I didn't realize who you were until I saw your family crest on that bracelet. I can assure you none of the Lioness girls knows heraldry."

"Just say she does. What happens then? What does she say? What does she think?"

"I imagine she would think you'd come to work at the Lioness or some other bawdy house."

Carala stared at him, her face less offended than baffled he would make such a childish jape.

 "Erm -- not that I mean it quite the way it sounds, highness. What I mean is -- well. You wouldn't be the first Princess Carala to work there."

Now she was more perplexed than ever. "I beg your pardon."

"There have been a few Princess Caralas at the Lioness. I think they shared the wig, none of them quite had the right shade of black. Also your mother worked there a few years ago, although she had to use far more makeup to get the right shade of pale."

"My mother -- ?"

"Also three of the Sultan's brides, the Dowager Queen of Tymalus, Lady Zinna of the Argent Council -- although she put a stop to that the moment she heard of it -- and the Lady Terazla, who was not only part of my fellowship, but has been dead for over nine hundred years."

Carala stared at him, simply not comprehending. Finally it began to dawn, her gentle mouth twisting into a disgusted expression. "Are you saying -- are you saying men pay whores to -- to dress up as -- as -- "

"As famous and beautiful women they would otherwise never so much as clap an eye to? Yes, your highness. And a few women, as well."

This information made her blush redder than anything had since she had described what had happened between herself and Tacen. "I see."

"My point, highness, is that nearly any commoner would find the possibility of the real Princess Carala coming to an outlaw cursewright for help -- especially me -- so outlandish as to be beyond belief. And that seems to me the likeliest conclusion they would draw instead."

Carala's blush was fading as she shook her head. "I will say this, Master Cursewright. This experience has been an education."