A Beggar's Kingdom Read online

  The suit is damp. His skin is damp. He had just been itchy and uncomfortable. He had just been tired and thirsty. Not anymore. He’s less the sum of all other parts than he is of the awakened primal hungry thing. He takes in their curves and dark nipples, their swaying white breasts, their loose hair and limbs amber in the candlelight. One has straight long brown hair, one wavy thick slightly shorter brown hair. One has larger breasts, one has larger hips. They’re both rounded and soft. They’re on their knees on the bed, joyfully running the polymer zipper up and down over Julian.

  This is so unexpected.

  Julian smiles.

  “Ooh, what’s this?” one girl coos.

  “Do you mean the zipper?” he asks. “Or…”

  “What’s a zipper? No, this squishy black covering all over you. How do you squirm out of it? Oh, look, it stretches. And what’s this around your neck, some kind of talisman?”

  “Yes,” he says, pulling the girl’s hand away from it and trying to glimpse into her shadowed face. “It’s some kind of talisman.”

  “How do we get you out of this unwieldy thing?”

  “You could stop playing with the zipper and pull the suit off my feet.” Julian is on his back. “Or do you want me to do it?”

  “No, no, handsome, you just lie there, you’ve done enough, don’t you think? You almost started a fire. We’ll find other things for you to do.”

  The women get off the bed and pull off his wetsuit. He feels better now that he is naked himself. He lies on a bed of silk sheets, while two young beauties, bounteous and bare, stand at his feet, lustily appraising him. They’re both delicious, both about the same height. Is one of them his? Julian hopes so. It’s hard to tell in the ghostly light. They’re both so beautiful, and he is so fired up.

  “Are you sure we should touch him? Remember what the Baroness said? What if he carries the sickness?”

  “Where are you from, sire?”

  “Wales. The unknown forest.”

  “There you go. Wales. The unknown forest. Where’s that?”

  “Over yonder,” Julian says. “Where there is no sickness.”

  “There you go. Just look at him. What sickness? I’ve never seen a healthier specimen of a man, have you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “He is so robust, so full-bodied.”

  “He is.”

  “He’s the epitome of male health. Have you no interest in touching him where he’s especially strong and vigorous? Then leave at once. I’ll have him all to myself.”

  “I didn’t say I had no interest in touching him.”

  The girls stand, admiring him, smiling. He lies, admiring them, smiling.

  The room is warm and getting warmer. Everything that can stir in Julian, stirs, simmers, gets hotter. Everything that can be switched on and lit up is switched on and lit up.

  “What are your names, ladies?” Please let one of them be his.

  “What do you want them to be, sire?”

  “Josephine,” Julian says, his voice thick. He opens his arms.

  “Your wish is my command,” says one. “I’m Josephine.”

  Not to be outdone the other chimes in, “I’m Josephine, too.” They crawl to him, lie next to him, one on the left, the other on the right, pressing their breasts into his ribs. What good did Julian ever do in his life to deserve this? One kisses his left cheek, one kisses the right. One kisses his lips, the other pushes her away and kisses him, too. They run their hands over his body, from his long beard to his knees. They ooh. They ahh. He puts his arms around the girls, leaves his hands in their hair, one head silky and straight, the other soft and thick. He wills himself not to close his eyes.

  “What would you like, sire?” one croons in her easy sexy voice.

  “What we mean to say is, what would you like first?” the other croons in her easy sexy voice.

  “I don’t know,” he murmurs. He doesn’t know where to start. He wants it all. “What have you got?”

  A better question might be what haven’t they got.

  For his visual pleasure, the girls fondle each other leaning over him, playing with each other’s breasts. Two sets of breasts are heaved into Julian’s hands, two sets of nipples are pressed into Julian’s mouth. They fight to climb on top of him and for his auditory pleasure, argue over which one gets to mount him first, a discussion Julian deeply enjoys. After a while, he informs them—again, trying to be helpful—that they can take turns or, if they wish, both get on top of him. He points to his mouth. They eagerly assent. For his tactile pleasure, they give him a lot, and finally—God, finally—all at once. They move him to the middle of the bed, throw off all the blankets and pillows, and ride him like a carousel. One mounts him, first facing him, then facing away from him. One presents herself to his mouth. They switch. They switch again. Their lack of modesty is as stunning as it is magnificent. They pull him up, both get on their hands and knees in front of him and summon him with their moans and beckoning open hips to alternate between them. A minute for me and a few seconds for her, sire. No, no, a minute for me and a few seconds for her, sire. Julian obliges. No one wants the bell at the end of that round to ring, not them, and emphatically not him.

  While mortal man rejoices, refracts and rejuvenates, all the while wishing he were immortal and needed no bells and no rounds, the roses and lilies show him that downtime can also be wonderful, by intermingling with each other in ways Julian has only dreamed of. The flowers have reappeared on the earth. The girls make kissing and sucking sounds when he uses his mouth and fingers to please them, as if to guide Julian aurally to what they would like him to do to them orally.

  He fights the desire to close his eyes as he is smothered under their warm abundant flesh in friction against every inflamed inch of him. With impressed murmurs, they cluck over his rigid boxer’s body, they praise his drive, his short rest, his devouring lust. They kiss his lips until he can’t breathe. One slides south. Aren’t you something, she purrs. She kisses his stomach. Josephine, she calls to the other one. Come down here.

  I’m coming, Josephine. They both kiss his stomach. Their hair, their kisses, their lips, their hands slide farther south. His hands remain on their heads, in their hair.

  Four breasts bounce against him, four hands and two warm mouths caress him in tandem. They feed him and drink from him and melt in the fading fire. One scoots up to his face, holding on to the frame of the bed and lowers her hips to him. One remains down below.

  I’m coming, Josephine.

  They entrust him again and again with their bodies and their happiness, and he bestows them with his own gifts because he doesn’t like to deny insatiable beautiful girls with lips of scarlet.

  If you keep this up, next time I’ll charge you double, one moaning girl murmurs.

  If you keep this up, next time I’ll give it to you for free, murmurs the other.

  Julian can’t decide which murmur he prefers.

  The honeycomb hours pour forth in a treacly feast, in debauched splendor. The fire goes out. The room is lit only by faint moonlight through the open windows. It’s hot, and outside is quiet except for occasional bursts of revelry on the street below. Exhausted, the girls lie in his arms during another break, ply him and themselves with house wine, and confer to him all manner of knowledge.

  Julian learns he’s near Whitehall Palace, in a house of pleasure named the Silver Cross. So for the second time, he’s back in London. He knows the tavern fairly well. The Silver Cross, a block away from Trafalgar Square, is one of London’s oldest pubs. He’s drunk and eaten there a few times with Ashton. The selection of beer is first rate and the red meat is tender. Whitehall, a short stroll from Westminster, was once the residence of kings. In 1530, Henry VIII bought the white marble palace from a cardinal, lived there, died there. A fire had decimated the palace (a fire? or the fire?) and now only the Banqueting House remains, and the eponymous street. It’s July, the girls inform him, which explains why it’s so bloody hot, tha
t and the fiery female flesh scorching his hands.

  Before Oliver Cromwell in his Puritan zeal shuttered all of London’s playhouses, pubs and houses of bawd, Charles I licensed the Silver Cross as a legal brothel and the irony is, to the present day the license has never been revoked. The king was beheaded, England became a republic, there was a civil war. There was so much else to think about besides a brothel license. For four hundred years, it had slipped everyone’s mind. Julian read this on a plaque in the pub, while dining and drinking there with Ashton.

  The Silver Cross is run by a woman named Baroness Tilly. She has ten high-quality girls and “ten rooms of pleasure.” The house is colloquially called the Lord’s Tavern after its most frequent patrons—“the Right Honorable Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the Kingdom of Great Britain, England, Scotland, and Ireland in Parliament Assembled!” the girls proclaim to him in happy unison. They do so many splendid things to him in happy unison. With the recently re-established House of Lords, the Temporal Peers have become the tavern’s most generous benefactors. They have unlimited time, unlimited money and unlimited vices. The girls are top-notch, game for all sorts of debauchery (as Julian can attest), and most importantly (after the recent “epidemic of death”), clean. The girls and the rooms adhere to rules of purity not found in other similar establishments, “like that pig-pit the Haymarket, or Miss Cresswell’s in Clerkenwell.”

  Did someone say Clerkenwell?

  Yes, sire, do you know it? It’s filthy.

  I know it. It’s not so bad. His heart pinches when he remembers Clerkenwell, the rides to Cripplegate through the brothel quarter on Turnbull Street. He wants to peer into the girl’s face but can’t keep his eyes open.

  At the Silver Cross, the rooms are spotless, richly decorated, well furnished. “And the girls, too,” Julian murmurs sleepily. His body is raw, sore, sated in all its imaginable and unimagined earthly cravings. This is his favorite room in the world.

  Yes, this room is nice, the girls murmur in return, but there are a few others that have bathtubs, and in those rooms the girls can soap him, and lather him, and wash him. Would he like that, for the eager girls to soap his naked body? Look, it’s almost dawn, one girl says, what’s better than dawn by cocklight? Nothing, says the other, tugging on him and smiling. Nothing’s better than the crowing of the cock to usher in a new day.

  Julian is nearly unconscious. Yet the mention of being soaped by the caressing hands of the lush sirens in his bed calls him to attention and turns the girls once again into warm quivering masses of excited and groany giggles—

  The bedroom door is thrown open. The giggling stops. In the frame stands a tall woman wearing yesterday’s theatrically overdone face makeup and an outrageous pink velvet housecoat with a red fringe.

  “Mallory!” she shouts. “How many times have I told you—No! Bad girl! No, no, no, no, no!”

  One of the girls scrambles off the bed and searches the floor for her clothes.

  “This isn’t your job! Do you know what your job is?”

  “Yes, Aunt Tilly.”

  Julian nearly cries. Don’t go, Mallory! Her back is to him, but if only he could catch a glimpse of her face…

  “No, I don’t think you do know what your job is. And it’s Baroness Tilly while you’re working—and I assume this was work?”

  “All my other work was done, Baroness.” The girl throws a chemise over herself, a skirt, a flowy blouse, an apron. She ties up her hair. “I was finished for the day.”

  “You don’t look as if you were finished.”

  “Just wanted to make some extra money, Baroness…”

  “That’s everybody’s excuse. But you know I forbid it. Your mother, may she rest in peace, forbid it. I will not tell you again. I’m going to send you to the South of France if you don’t stop this. Do you want to be sent away with your boorish benefactor? He’ll be a lot stricter than me.”

  “No, Baroness.”

  “I didn’t think so. Then, go do what you’ve been hired to do and stop the wickedness at once. Oh—and who is this man? I allowed you upstairs at the start of the night for the viewing pleasure of Lord Fabian, and here you are, at nearly dawn, with another man in your bed.”

  Viewing pleasure? Lord Fabian? What? Julian lifts his head off the pillows. Baroness Tilly, a broad, vulgar woman, turns her unwelcome attention to him. “I don’t remember you walking past me, good sir, and I certainly don’t remember you paying me. No one goes upstairs with my girls without me knowing about it. Announce yourself! Mallory, Margrave, who is this man?”

  Still in bed with Julian, Margrave, a most unblushing flower a few minutes earlier, gets tongue-tied. Her brazen demeanor vanishes. She stammers.

  The standing girl comes to his aid. “I believe he said he’s here for the position of the keeper of the house, Baroness. Aren’t you, sire? He came from the Golden Flute across the river. Madame Maud sent him.”

  “So why is he up here with you? Why didn’t he speak to me first if Maud sent him?”

  “He wandered in and got lost, he didn’t see you.”

  “Oh, enough! There’s clean-up needed in Room Four. Golden Flute indeed. I am so tired of your nonsense, Mallory, so very tired.”

  Mallory rushes past the hyperventilating baroness. Margrave covers Julian with a quilt. He finds it fascinating that she remains uncovered as if it’s only his modesty she is concerned with.

  “Margrave, don’t sit there like a wanton hussy, get dressed. It’s morning. What is your name, sir?”

  “Julian Cruz.”

  “Well, Master Cruz, this is not the way I usually make the acquaintance of the keepers of my house. Did you need to sample the product before you could hawk it? I admire that. We have only the best here, sire. These are not the usual wagtails and bunters you’re used to at the Golden Flute, I can assure you.”

  Julian doesn’t need to be assured. He knows.

  “Our old keeper died last month without any warning. A little warning would’ve been so helpful. It would’ve given me and the girls time to prepare. This is a house run nearly entirely by women and there are things we do well, wouldn’t you agree, Master Cruz?”

  Julian would agree.

  “But there are other things we cannot do. Fix doors, patch holes, replace broken lanterns, fix the roof. We have lanterns that have not been filled with oil because Ilbert refuses to buy some, and the candles are running low, as is the soap. After the recent health problems, soap is an absolute necessity. We’re quite busy here. I hope you can manage. Marg, go tell Mallory to prepare the gentleman’s room, and you, sir, meet me downstairs as soon as you’re attired.” (Attired in what exactly, Julian wants to know.) “I’ll go over the rest of the details, and we’ll raise a glass. Margrave—spit spot.” With that, Baroness Tilly claps her hands twice, and exits.

  As soon as she’s gone, Margrave jumps out of bed.

  “We could’ve got into so much trouble,” she bleats, tying the sashes of her robe. “The Baroness hates it when Mallory disobeys. Not that she does anything about it, the girl is a terror.” She smiles. “But who could resist you? Even heartless Mallory couldn’t. Wait here, I’ll be right back with a robe. You should ask the Baroness for an advance, go buy yourself some clothes befitting a brothel keeper.”

  “What do they wear, tuxedoes?”

  “If you like, sire. Forever naked would be my preference.” Beaming, she straightens out, and Julian catches her eye. It’s dawn, he can see her smiling round face. She is pretty and young and sexy. Low light, a tired mind, lust, pounding desire are all great equalizers.

  But Margrave is not his girl.

  4

  Keeper of the Brothel

  THE ALE IS A COVER. ALE FOR BREAKFAST, ALE FOR DINNER, ale for supper. It’s a euphemism for the other things that go on at the Silver Cross. Yet downstairs, the wood-paneled restaurant-bar appears as just that: a well-to-do tavern, patronized by connected and wealthy men (much as in the present). The ale is top-notch, Baro
ness Tilly tells him, the food superb.

  Naked underneath a black velvet robe, Julian sits across from the Baroness, feeling ridiculous. Tilly’s pink robe has been replaced by hooped petticoats and gaudy layers of sweeping silk ornamental fabrics with puffy sleeves and lace velvet collars. She wears a huge blonde wig, her eyes hastily drawn in black and her oversized mouth made ever larger by smeared red cake-paint.

  The pub is narrow and tall, with flagstone floors and tables of heavy oak. It’s upholstered in leather, draped with blue velvet curtains, and set with crystal and fine china. The breakfast tables are lined with white napkins.

  “It’s a beautiful place, wouldn’t you agree,” the Baroness says. After colorfully describing what’s expected of him (the daily inspections of the girls before they begin work is one of Julian’s more intriguing duties), she offers him a salary and only as an afterthought inquires about his experience, which he recounts to her just as colorfully—parroting her own words from minutes ago (taking extra time to detail how he imagines the inspections of the girls might go). He would like to begin immediately. Where are these girls? When can he inspect them, so he can find his girl?

  He and the Baroness have a sumptuous breakfast of porridge and milk, smoked herring, spiced eel pie (“caught fresh from the Thames just yesterday!”) and bread and marmalade. And ale. The Baroness lingers over breakfast as if starved for some normal company, entertaining an increasingly impatient Julian with stories about the Silver Cross. A hundred years earlier, a man named Parson from Old Fish Street was paraded in shame down Parliament Street for selling the sexual services of his apparently accomplished wife. After spending years in prison, he opened the Silver Cross in revenge, and his wife became the cornerstone of his business.

  Julian tells the Baroness he’s read somewhere that a prostitute was murdered in the Silver Cross, and it’s been haunted ever since.