Free Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) by Terry Mancour Page A

comes from the south, and it will stir a great many things to light here in the wood . . . if the conditions are right.  For our part, Maidens, we shall prepare the way with special blessings . . . and open our Hall to gentlemen callers on that sacred night.”
    The girls looked around at each other and grinned nervously.  “Gentlemen callers?” Haneth giggled.
    “ Clients , she means,” Andrette stated, flatly.  “Just like in the camps.  Only they smell better in Vorone.”
    “And so do you , my Maidens,” Lady Pleasure assured them.  “And you will learn to act like real women, now.  At Yule we will introduce ourselves to Vorone’s society, and welcome all that the new year will bring for us.  For after winter comes spring, the time of blooming.  Come spring, you will all be in perfect form to blossom as dazzling as any ingénue.”
    From that night forward, the first class of twelve Maidens began learning the Holly Dance popular in the Wilderlands, and the symbolic significance of the ancient plant and the other evergreens that were featured at Yule.  Meanwhile, the other girls of the Hall of Flowers prepared three special chambers, small in size but intimate in appointment, for their first callers. 
    While it meant some of the larger chambers were overcrowded at night, the three rooms – the Lily Chamber, the Tulip Chamber, and the Rosebud Chamber – were bedecked in the finest tapestries and linens the house’s dwindling coffers could supply.  Indeed, Elspeth’s daily accounting to Lady Pleasure of the declining balance the House enjoyed was the worst part of Ishi’s incarnation every morning.  She hated hearing Elspeth lecture her against unreasonable expenses.
    But she knew she could spare no expense, here.  This was an investment .  In Vorone.
    Ishi knew how powerful a public festival could be in restoring the people’s spirits, and Vorone’s spirits had been wracked repeatedly over the years.  The despair and hopelessness in the faces of the folk of the disused capital was tragic.  Yet there was much hidden strength here, she saw.  The folk of the Wilderlands were hearty, bold, and unused to lean times.  In some ways the residue of humanity who had found themselves in Vorone, out of easy reach of the goblins in the north, were the finest of the Wilderlands stock.  Brawny men and sturdy women, each possessing a rustic beauty.
    But Vorone had too long been bereft of any real purpose, save sheltering the people and carrying on a sham existence between Ducal visits.  Without the presence of the court in the palace, it was merely a regional capital town of modest commercial importance, at best – and one on the edge of a smoldering war zone.
    A time was coming when the fallow strength of Vorone, of all the Wilderlands, could arise again, she knew.  There was at least a chance that things could get better, if they were managed properly.  She wasn’t a traditionally powerful goddess – she couldn’t make the granaries full or wage holy war on the gurvani.  But that didn’t mean that she could not have an effect on the outcome.  With just a little inspiration, a little admiration, and a little wonder, Lady Pleasure decided, she could find a way to inspire the Voroni back into their strength once more. 
    Unfortunately, someone got wind of her plan days before the Yule festival.  On the same day, Lady Pleasure entertained to gentlemen who claimed to have business with her. 
    The first was the town constable, a vile man of noble lineage and common tastes.  Lady Pleasure saw him in the Sunflower Room, a tiny chamber roofed with expensive glass.
    “Excellency, it has come to the attention of Baron Edmarin that some along Perfume Street have been whispering that you plan on opening a bawdy house in this hall.”
    “People do find things to gossip about, Constable,” she assured him, pouring him a glass of fragrant herbal tea.  “I am merely taking in poor orphan girls, the few