Page 43 of The Shadow of Breninsol
“It was a gift!” Mirabella exclaimed.
The shrillness in Mirabella’s voice had risen to such a volume that Eleanor was considering leaving the bathing house, hoping Madam Grace would let them back in to the baths soon.
Mirabella’s furious eyes landed on Jasmine. “You!” Mirabella accused with a pointed a finger. “You jealous old hag.”
Eleanor smirked at the possibility that this might get entertaining, knowing those around her couldn’t do any mortal damage. With a keen sense of impending trouble, Iris, ever watchful, subtly shifted her position to stand behind Jasmine, a protective and supportive move.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jasmine replied in a bored voice. She was sitting partly in the pool on the opposite side of the pool.
It was the wrong thing to say to the already upset Mirabella. She shrieked in rage as she unleashed her fury and lunged at the other woman, her towel flying off.
Unfortunately for everyone in proximity, Mirabella took the most direct route: through the pool. The other women shrieked and cursed as they were splashed, but Mirabella didn’t care. She was single-minded in her pursuit. Her reaction was so quick that Jasmine didn’t have time to get out of the pool. With a swift move, Cookie grabbed Mirabella around the waist before she could make contact. It was like watching a kitten think it was a wildcat: harmless, but a small ball of fury. Cookie winced from getting an earful of Mirabella’s shriek of annoyance at being thwarted from getting to her target.
Mirabella tried admirably to get away from Cookie, but she soon realised that no matter how slight Cookie looked, his grip was firm enough to hold her and haul her back to the pool’s edge.
Sensing the worst of the trouble was over with, Eleanor placed her thin, grey dressing robe on a nearby bench, then slipped into the warm pool, her hair floating out behind her like a dark cloud.
They were all naked—modesty wasn’t something that existed in the pleasure house. She didn’t know where the inherent shame of one’s body came from; it hadn’t existed when she’d been a witchling, but it’d risen up and women had been taught to shame their own bodies. A shame that she’d pretended to have when she first arrived at The Ladies Grace.
The most fabric any of them were wearing were scarves wrapped tightly around their hair. Some wrapped multiple brightly coloured scarves around their heads, the aged silk smooth against their skin, determined to keep their hair perfectly dry.
Eleanor skirted the pair as Cookie whispered words in Mirabella’s ear to make her deflate in defeat.
Milk took the glass vial that had started this drama from Annabella’s hands. He lifted the glass stopper to give its contents a sniff and subsequently gave a hacking cough. “The First,” he cursed as he wrenched his face away, coughing into the crook of his arm. “You sure it didn’t smell like that when you got it?”
“No,” Mirabella wailed as tears streamed down her face. “He said it would smell like the Harrow Mountains.”
Milk scrunched up his face. “The Harrow Mountains don’t smell like that. It’s…” he gave the bottle a quick sniff as if to confirm his suspicions and coughed, trying to remove the scent from his nose. “Yeah, it’s piss.”
“It was a gift,” Mirabella repeated, her tone was with much less venom and more bereft.
The water enveloped Eleanor as she ducked under, the scent of the plain soap filling her nostrils as she reached for the bar. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d properly washed her hair. There was an absence of a greasy sheen that suggested it hadn’tbeen too long, but embarrassingly long enough for her to have forgotten.
Eleanor’s movements broke the room’s silence, rippling the water as she moved to an empty spot. She sank into the steaming water, its warmth enveloping her as she rested her shoulders against the tiled bench which ran around the edge of the communal bath.
“Imagine putting that on before you smelled it,” Lucy said, breaking the silence.
Milk snorted, and giggles emanated from Lauressa and Calla.
Cookie guided Mirabella to Annabella’s waiting arms on the poolside, and with gentle hands, she rubbed her back in soothing, circular motions.
“At least you have the bottle,” Lauressa said. “It looks pretty enough to be an ornament.”
Eleanor stopped paying attention to the murmurs and chatting around her as she let her limbs loosen under the warm water. The steaming water deliciously washed away aches and pains.
She'd envisioned a tranquil escape, but the air hung heavy with unspoken anxieties. The bathhouse featured two primary entry points: a serving entrance and its main door. The serving entrance, the same one everyone else had used, was a slim wooden door, accessible only from the kitchens. The main entrance was accessed from the client floor, and the madam had it securely locked. The double doors were designed to add a layer of seduction for the clients, with clusters of naked ladies, pouring urns over themselves, etched into the wood.
Both doors required descending three steps into the bathing house, and that was the problem that always kept her alert. The air was heavy and damp, much like stepping into a dark basement. Eleanor focused on the small decorative holes in the ceiling that allowed for the release of the plumes of steam andfor light to fracture the space, and the easily breakable wooden slats covering the upper rectangle windows. Eleanor knew several crates sat below those windows. No doubt for prying ears or spying eyes to catch a glimpse of a naked, wet body.
She couldn’t relax in here, not truly, but she let herself enjoy the much-needed soak, as the heat of the steam cleared the final remnants of the dull ache that’d built at the temples of her head. She wasn’t sure the last time she’d ever truly relaxed. To do so would mean to unravel her threadbare spool of magic that covered parts of her body and that was something she couldn’t do here.
Eleanor thought that perhaps she should have brought a bottle with her, the wine would have done a better job at drowning out the voices surrounding her. She’d done it before, especially the first few times she’d been in here. She needed the wine to steady her nerves as she carefully descended those damnable few steps and sit in the water while fighting back the rising panic. However, the women had wanted to share, to which she’d given them a hard enough glare to make them stop asking.
“Eleanor?” Lucy called from the other side of the pool.
Eleanor tilted her head to see Lauressa, Calla, and Lucy sitting on the water’s edge, and they all looked a little suspicious. Calla nudged Lauressa when she noticed their small group had Eleanor’s attention.
“Go on,” Lucy muttered.
