Part 7

"My lords," Primaverra said opening the heavy curtains to the bed with a heavy jerk of her arm, then lifted a tray heavy with food and carried it up the two stairs to the bed where a sleepy Duo was blinking awake, Heero pulled himself into a seated position and took the tray from her. "Hmm," Duo mumbled through the fugue of sleep that was smothering him. "I can smell sausages." He smiled, pulling himself into a seated position, "and bacon and something else."

"Kir, master Duo," Primaverra said with a rather impish smile. "When you have finished breaking your fast, Milady Minako has requested your presence to accompany her into town, there are some items she was hoping to purchase. Master Heero, there is correspondence for you, if you cannot read simply advise me and I will have a scribe brought for you." Heero gaped for a moment, for two reasons, she had asked if he could read, and the other, someone had sent him a letter.

"Ooh," Duo said with a laugh around the fried bread he had rammed into his mouth, obviously to prevent Heero beating him to it, although Primaverra had brought plenty. "Someone has a sweetheart, we're in town one day and you get yourself a honey."

"Don't be a baka." Heero murmured, "and don't talk with your mouth full." Duo stuck his tongue, covered as it was with half masticated bread, out at him. Heero frowned at him, "so, Prima…" he tested out the abbreviation, he had heard everyone else call her Prima but wasn't sure if she would like him to call her that, she beamed at him, "can you bring me this missive and we can see from who it has come."

She pulled the letter from the pocket of her livery and handed it to him. It was sealed with a lump of golden wax impressed with a pair of open wings. "Hn," he said recognising the sigil, it was the same image that the Seraphim had tattooed on their bodies, the same image he had on his own back.

Sliding a fingernail under the wax he opened the letter as Duo poured them cups of kir. "Its from someone called Matherion."

Prima's eyes opened in shock. "He's the Duke of Jacurutu." She whispered in shock, "He's the Seraphim Lord. All the Seraphim bow down to him."

"What's he say?" Duo asked.

"He wants to talk to me." Heero answered reading the tiny script, it read like old Japanese which shocked him. "He's calling me Enamoured." Duo grunted, he didn't like that. "It's a trainee." He said. "That's what they call the Seraphim in training."

"And why are you calling you that?" Duo asked with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows brought into a tight line.

Heero noticed his reaction but didn't say anything, he pushed the tray solely unto Duo's lap and turned on his side, showing both Duo and Primaverra the tattoo on his back. "I've had that all my life." Heero said, "they have it too. These are, apparently, Enamoured wings. That is why he calls me Enamoured."

Duo ran his fingertips over the outstretched wings. "Wow," he murmured, "and I wasn't allowed to pierce my ears in case they became an identifying feature and you had ink done."

"I don't know when or why," Heero answered, rolling back to his back.

"Well," Primaverra said, "you have to tell the Lady Minako, she can get Lord Alister to leave you alone. The Seraphim are bad news. You don't want to get involved with them, sir, they kill their own, and they cut out the hearts of women that cross them and claim them witches. They're really bad news, sir, and they want to kill Lady Minako real bad."

Heero registered it and then screwed up the letter. "I have no time for people that don't even learn my name."

That seemed to relax Duo somewhat but his body language was still tense which Duo didn't understand.

"Well, pardon my presumption, but master Heero, the Seraphim would ask you to take Master Duo into L'Plaza dell Aguo to strap him to the great stone and use their greave to cut out his heart and chop off his head." She was aghast and her hand played at the hollow of her throat, "and then they keep his heart in a jar because they say it will bring him back from the dead."

"I'm sure that's just propaganda." Duo said.

"No," Heero said, "it's carved unto their doors."

Duo went pale. Primaverra nodded. He pushed the tray away. "I think I've lost my appetite." Then something occurred to him and he turned to Heero, "and the only reason you don't want to associate with them is because they don't use your name?" He asked.

Heero looked at him for a long minute before he burst out laughing.

If Halcyon was the heart of Dathyl then Well Street was it's main artery, it was the street that ran the length of the city, and because in places it was so steep it had steps in place of pavements, from it branched every street to every banlieue, from the opera house and the university to the docks and the brothels. Well Street was the barrier between the wealthier parts of town and the slums, as it was the only street that led through the city walls, beyond it the houses were built of stone, rather than wood and plaster, and the streets were swept. On one side of the wall, past the gate the houses were palaces, although much smaller than Halcyon which was easily as large again as the city, through the second wall the houses were large and well appointed, past the third they were wooden and packed together. "This is Cinderton." Minako said noticing Duo's stare as they reached the bottom of the hill, Heero and the Senshisha, Mamoru, trailed behind them, "and no where makes gowns like Lucia of Cinderton. I thought we could start there and work our way up the hill, and possibly catch "Menelaus and Onestra" at the opera house. Tobin's going to sing and that really is something to see, a case of if there is only one thing you ever do in Dathyl it's watching Tobin sing."

"Is she good?" Duo asked, but he really wasn't paying attention.

"Duo," she answered, "Onestra was the most beautiful woman in the world who damned nations with her pride and saw the last dragon slain, you have to come with me."

"If it's such a spectacle how can you guarantee tickets?" Duo asked, looking for some way out of it, he really didn't do opera on the whole.

She laughed, it was a sparkling soft sound, like light falling on moving water, "I am the lady of Meirin and the Darin ambassador to the King, I can get tickets."

A tall men in a red cloak pressed past him, just trying to get on his way, past Duo, but his hand touching Duo's bare skin.

The vision left him gasping.

She came to him in the catacombs under the cellars of his castle, cellars he wasn't aware were even there. He had awoken at night, flung the covers from him with no care as to whether or not his wife was even in the bed, and stood up. He didn't bother to dress; he just stood up and began to walk. He walked through sitting rooms, down to the cellars, and then he pushed a brick to reveal a passage he was unaware of, entering the old passages his father's family had used to escape when under siege. He walked bare foot and naked through the long winding passages with the cold damp air against his skin till he came to the room with the fire where she waited. At first he thought she was a gift from the conspirators, or a lady of their cause sent to convince him. Then he thought she might be a royal spy sent to get him to confess and then kill him. She was a noble woman with dark blonde hair she wore loose down her back and a heavy red velvet dress embroidered with gold at the hem. Then the soldiers came out of hiding, two of them with thick curly beards with black jackets and grey culottes trimmed in the red of her gown, and they fixed him with rope to the rings he had not seen in the wall. He would know who she was, later.

They began with a flail with strands of wire hanging loose from it, and day fell into day in the lamplight whilst she watched. He was aware of the passage of time only when the soldiers changed, and through it all she watched idly, as if it bored her. When they drove an iron into the fire till it glowed red as the velvet of her gown and pressed it against the small of his back, she spoke to a man in grey hakama. He was beardless. As day fell into day he didn't scream, he prayed.

When they poured hot vinegar into the open grazes left by the flail he prayed. "Where I am too weak to walk, my god carries me." When they poured hot oil into his nose, eyes and down his throat, he prayed. "Where I am not strong enough to be beloved, my god loves me." When they poured molten wax in his ears and deafened him he prayed. "Where I fail to believe." When they cut the skin from his fingertips and seared the flesh sealed, he prayed. "My." When they pushed needles into his muscles over and over he prayed. "God." When they ripped off his fingernails he prayed. "Believes." When they fettered him he prayed. "In." When they set alight to all the hair on his body he prayed. "Me." And when she stood up waving away the guards, he prayed.

She touched the places where they hurt him and kissed the places where they cut him until he was caught between begging her not to stop and crushing her skull between his palms. She laughed, and let him drop to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut before her. Then she thrust out her foot and told him to kiss her hem. He lifted the fabric, feeling its luxuriant weight and the rough gold thread because he could not longer see it. He kissed it with his broken lips again and again and again. She told him to strike her. He did not, and the pain bent him double and he spewed blood all across the tight flags of the floor and she laughed and laughed and laughed. "When you intend violence against me or my Garvem I will know and this will be your fate. When you fail to do my bidding I will know and this will be your fate." Then she bent down and helped him to his feet and she gave him back his hearing, and his sense of taste, and his sight and all the other things she had stolen from him. The scars across his body were gone, and she smiled as she kissed him on the forehead with her large wide mouth. Then his training began.

Duo blinked as his legs went from under him, Minako and her husband the austere Senshisha caught him before he hit the ground. His eye were wide and his breath came in little pants. Heero swept in and picked him up, putting Duo's arms around his neck and with one arm around his waist and under his thighs. "I'm here." He murmured.

"That poor man." Duo whimpered, burying his face into Heero's neck, "that poor, poor man."

"What is this?" Heero asked as Duo quivered and whimpered in his arms.

"A death vision." Mamoru answered, "We're near the Scarlet Arches," he said, "We can let him rest there."

"Hee-chan," Duo murmured, he had never called him that before. "Help him." He looked after the red cloaked man as he moved through the crowd.

"That's Malchia D'Eschane." Mamoru said as he watched the man go. "Don't. He deserves nothing. There is not a man in Dathyl that wouldn't kill him where he stands, then spit on his corpse."

"I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire." Minako said and Heero noticed it, but said nothing.

In the banlieue of Cinderton Dathyl housed the most famous brothel in the known world, a building which from the outside resembled a warehouse that was known only as "The Scarlet Arches", funded by a secret patron and engaging only the best and most beautiful courtesans, the Scarlet Arches was the reason many travellers came to Dathyl. It was said that lords had whiled away their fortunes in the arms of one of the ladies there, and that the pleasures there were equalled only in the mythical arms of a naiad.

The Scarlet Arches was the best renowned brothel in the known world, it was said that it would cost no less than a year's wages to just eat inside its walls, the girls were the most beautiful in the world and the man who upholstered its chairs was as famous for his stories of its wealth as he was for his work. In truth it was not the palace it was rumoured to be, just a converted warehouse in the jewellery district of Dathyl, lushly decorated and full of the most expensive whores in Dathyl, Darie, Zhentra and Aran. To protect his investment the Earl of Medoc'Ne, who owned the brothel, had hired Brisen, a former whore from Saida as enforcer and nothing happened within its walls that was without her consent. She didn't look dangerous, just an ageing prostitute but she was the best enforcer money could buy.

Dathyl was a city of slums and spires, of nobles and beggars, of parks and cemeteries and all of the world people talked of two wonders, the Halcyon palace and the Scarlet Arches Chamber. It was an old building that had the look of a warehouse about it, but inside fortunes were traded for one night in the perfumed arms of the highest level of courtesan in Dathyl, Brisen's girls.

The girls were lounging on chaise littered around a wide foyer and were dressed, like Brisen, in a short tunic held in place with cord, each of them was beautiful and exotic, some with skin the colour of honey, some the colour of copper, and some with skin so dark it looked like it had been burnt. Some had long hair, some had short, some were thin, some fat, everything a man could desire was provided here. In Darié women controlled the consumption of the pleasures, they ruled the Okiyas and the prostitutes of the street, they controlled the alcohol and the opium and iocaine. The Scarlet Arches denied all that in that it was created only to please. Anything that pleased you could be bought here, for a price.

Barging past the prostitutes as they went to gather around him Heero laid out Duo on the small couch. "He's so pretty," a girl with blue hair murmured.

"She looks like Miss Avili," another whispered back. "Is Tobin here?"

"This early?" The one with the blue hair whispered, "if he is it's because he's not gone home yet." They laughed.

"Brisen!" Mamoru shouted, "Some brandy, it's an emergency."

The woman came forward carrying a tray. "You bring me such pretty boys, Tennosha," the woman said, her voice was low and throaty. She poured out a beaker of the steaming hot brandy. "And no one can ever cope properly with the Dathyl winter." She had no intention of pressing further than that.

Duo was pressed against Heero and sobbing hard, what he had seen, something no one else had, had almost shattered him, this boy who had seen worlds destroyed had seen something so terrible all he could do was weep.