House of the Scarlet Rose Pt. 04

"So you want to be an accountant?" Margarete summed up.

"That is what I said, I think. Yes."

"Our accountant," she mumbled with a smoking cigarette between her teeth. "Well, that's certainly ambitious of you. But I can't call it undeservedly so, outright. I understand that you have experience?"

"I was helping in my father´s office," Anri said sheepishly. "I was writing letters for him, copying documents, doing calculus et cetera. Sometimes I would help with overseeing trade between towns and documenting the transactions."

He was looking to the ground, trying to avoid her piercing gaze. They stood in the middle of Margarete´s office, which was hastily converted into a beauty salon as a troop of tailors ran around carrying silk cloths and scissors, ribbons and tapes. She posed with her arms spread wide while a pair of assistants took her measurements, which naturally meant that she was wearing only tight, one piece dress with a corset and a pair of stockings. She didn't mind him seeing her, apparently, since she let him in when he knocked. Formalities and relations aside, if he didn't want to come across as a creep, that meant either he had to look her in the eyes or to the floor. He chose the floor.

"Interesting." She shooed the assistants aside when they were done and finally took the cigarette out of her mouth. "You have a LOT to learn before advancing into such a prominent position, however. You know that?"

"I was counting on it, Mrs. Margarete," Anri reassured her.

"Well, I considered the proposition when Jarill told me. I got to say, I almost told her to bugger off. Out of all her daring ideas, this one might just be where the line is. But as it turns out... you're not half that bad."

She sat down behind her desk which was pushed to the corner of the room and flicked the cigarette dust into the ashtray. When the tailors rushed to the side with their equipment and started to draw some designs, she continued: "You are a smart man Anri, but just that. For now. This establishment is the best this kingdom has to offer, therefore I always hired the best it has to offer as well. But compared to all of the high-class university upstarts I had employed, you have one glaring advantage: I trust you."

Anri was sweating like he was awaiting his sentence. He felt dumb coming here with this insane idea, and even dumber discussing it while his interviewer wasn't bothered to dress appropriately. He made a mental note to make Jarill pay for this later.

"Tell me," she continued, "do you have any imagination of how many of the snobs who worked for me are now rotting in prison for embezzlement or have had their manhood cut off for abusing my staff?" She shook her head. "Of course you wouldn't. Are you okay? You look a little pale."

"No, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? Can I get you some water? Or maybe a cigarette? Really? Well, back to the topic. Point is you have been living here for months and you haven't done anything to make me distrust you. Not even a minor transgression, nothing. In fact, you keep acting like you owe me something just for keeping you alive. You even have good relations with my employees! And Jarill... Jarill likes you," she said with the look of utmost seriousness in her eyes. But the corner of her mouth betrayed her. "Plus, my sister wouldn't raise no bad man. I can see her influence in you, you know? The way you talk, the way you deal with people around you. You never said a bad word about her either. And that's enough for me."

For the first time since he came here, Anri could breathe. His "not aunt´s" words of validation filled him with a kind of pride he rarely felt since he left home. He actually felt like he had a purpose again.

"You will have standards to meet though. This is not trading potatoes for flour bags. It will take a few years perhaps. You need a higher education in law and to understand the flow of my business. Getting you a tutor will be more efficient than university and my secretaries will be able to get you into the gist of things. Jarill will be your supervisor when she´s not in the university since she ever-so-graciously offered you the position. Unless you start slacking off, everything will be taken care of, at least you won't die of boredom around here hahaha! If you can hold up to my expectations until one of my accountants retires, the position is yours. If not, I am sure you won't have a problem finding a different job with your new set of skills. Agreed?"

"Of course! Thank you Mrs. Margarete!"

"Now I believe you must have more important things to do than breathe in my cigarette fumes. It was nice talking to you again. As always, if you need anything else, you know where to find me. Or tell Jarill."

"Sure. Thank you for your time, and help," he said as he turned to the door. Margarete waved him a quick goodbye tainted with a reflexive dismissal, while she turned her attention to some of her tailors´ schematics.

Anri really had something important to do. First he needed a celebratory drink. Then he would be preparing something between a thank you and some well-deserved justice for Jarill. Something likely involving bedroom and a shower afterwards.

* * *

Brothels were complicated. That was one of the first thing Anri learned after starting his training.

For customers it was simple. You walk in, you pay and you have fun. Managing that circus, as it turned out, didn't share a common language with "simple". Try managing the biggest and most notorious brothel in history and you will find yourself in a special kind of bureaucratic hell.

Luckily for Anri, he didn't have to understand all of it, just where the money went. Where to, where from, what for, how much. The costs of each action, each trade or innovation, the earnings from every type of service, workers´ salaries, what portion of the money went to where.

The numbers. He was good with numbers.

His first task was to become familiar with every "division" of the house. Not all of it was just paid sex. There was a whole bunch of things customers were willing to pay money for. Food, drinks, potions, rooms, pools, performances, even illusions. The brothel employed exotic dancers, musicians, actors, had its own transportation system, its own mage and much more.

Margarete´s secretary was nice to him and managed to present the basics in such a way, he started to understand the concepts within a week. Jarill, on the other hand, got into the role of his supervisor way too quickly for his liking and almost took over the whole training. He enjoyed studying with her until Margarete got him a proper tutor, but her "passionate nature" ended up interfering with the flow of his education more often than it helped.

Soon he was in over his head with the things he had to memorize and Jarill started preparing for her inevitable departure as new semester drew near. That meant they had less time for each other and more responsibilities to fill in that time. Anri had more space to progress in his training that way but also became more stressed as a result.

Four days before she would be leaving for university, he was currently in the process of visiting and interviewing the leading management of each division. He was tasked with understanding what exactly they did and to what results in hopes it would help him better remember the data he had to derive from them. He was walking through the halls ticking off items on his list until only one last remained.

"Hi Anri. What´re you up to?"

He looked up, or rather down, from his notepad to see the halfling that was talking to him.

"Hello Mellina," he responded tiredly. "I´m just, ehm... gathering some info."

Out of all the workers in the House, Mellina was one of the friendliest. And not in the artificial pretend way the workers reserved for the clients. She seemed genuinely interested in lives of the House´s inhabitants. Maybe out of boredom, or perhaps she just considered him one of their own by now. Either way, they ended up chatting every now and then. Just casual conversations, though. He never slept with her, but not for lack of chemistry. She specialized for clients of a different... size.

"Can I help you somehow? You seem kinda lost. Or are you a just little out of focus?"

"Well, yeah, maybe. Do you know where I can find the lab?"

"The lab or THE lab?" she asked.

Anri, bemused, double checked his papers, then just turned them to her.

"Oh, if you´re looking for the alchemist then she's in the northern wing. You take the stairs down then to the left until the green door. You can't miss it."

"Got it. Thanks."

"No problems. If you make it back, we could go for a drink perhaps? Siera's talks are all bragging lately. I´m starved for a proper company."

"Oh, sure. Okay. We'll see."

"Okay, bye than."

He went on his way, finding the stairway in the northern wing with relative ease. He descended down and took the left corridor thinking how some well-earned rest with a cup of nectar sounded rather nice right now. Maybe he would take her up on that offer if he got...

"Wait. If?"

He found himself starring at a heavy, green painted door at the end of the underground hallway. On it a small copper tag, green around the edges from years of oxidation read: "Laboratory" in old, engraved lettering.

This is the place, he thought and found himself a little nervous. He knocked.

There was an audible rumble inside as if someone started hastily rearranging tools or quickly cleaned a desk before a series of steps approached the door. Several locks clicked and the thick slab of wood made way for a tall, mature woman to step into view. She looked to be in her forties, her long, curly, black hair already had a streak of silver in it. She had a few visible wrinkles on her forehead, crow's feet around her eyes and a face that seemed somewhere between a caring mother and a witch from an old shack at the edge of a forest. The goggles around her neck had left rings on her face from recent use and her stained alchemist's coat, donned over a leather apron, perfectly obstructed the view into the room behind her.

"Hello," she said with the warmest smile she could muster while simultaneously appearing half annoyed and half intrigued by his presence. "Who are you and how may I help you?"

"Oh, greetings. Name's Anri Danurel."

"Lady Margarita's protégé?" she exclaimed with a sign of interest. She was fidgeting nervously the whole time, not opening the door an inch more then she needed to.

"Also an apprentice accountant now. I've been making a sort of research on the function of the House's divisions, a personal look so to speak. You must be professor Tristrame?"

"Please, call me Angeline. Everyone just calls me the alchemist anyway, no reason to bother with no titles," she said looking through the notes he presented her, confirming what he told her. "I take it you would like to come in?"

He nodded. She grinned.

"Okay, first," she said, "I am not to be held responsible for any harm or injury you sustain during your visit of this laboratory, self-caused or accidental. You will be responsible to compensate for any damages done to the lab's equipment and contents by your hand, consciously or accidentally. You vow not to share details of any secrets or procedures you will be witness to during your visit. Understand?"

Anri agreed, though a bit hesitantly. Angeline waited for his confirmation before she opened the door fully, letting him into the dimly lit, windowless room.

It was wide, cellar like space with low ceiling and stone walls lined with shelves filled to the brim with vials, bottles and flasks of all kinds, containing unknown colorful liquids. There were boxes, barrels and jars of the weirdest plants, roots, shrooms, spores, powders and all sorts of other alchemical ingredients he never heard of before. The long table in the middle was cluttered with tools and devices, the purpose of which he didn't dare to guess. Various tubes and other pieces of machinery ran through the room, converging at the table and vanishing behind myriad white curtains hung from the ceiling, which separated the lab into more individual segments.

The room was illuminated by multiple glowing crystals slotted into the ceiling which provided enough visibility to not trip on one of the cables lining the ground while not blinding you if you looked upwards. It was the kind of organized chaos one does not believe exists until they witness it.

"Look around but please don't touch anything. Some of the machines' tuning is so delicate even a millimeter could ruin a whole batch of potions. The damages would be incalculable. Or rather, you would NOT want to be the person calculating them. This is what you wanted to see, boy-o? Puts the little numbers on your bills into a whole new perspective, doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah. Totally!" he responded, eyes wide in fascination. A lock clicked behind him.

"Tell me, what do you know about alchemy? Anything specific you're interested in?"

"Ehm, maybe. I know next to nothing. How much potions do you make daily? Do you have to make new batches of every kind every day, or do you have a bunch saved up? What happens if you run out?"

"If we run out, we lose profit. That's why I don't run out. It's my job to keep this place running twenty-four seven. I usually have saved up just enough of every potion to be able to make more if we drop below a certain amount, based on how much of each is consumed daily. Hmm," she frowned as she observed him, her eyes showing clear signs of boredom. "I was expecting you to be interested in something more thrilling than that. You can find all of this in reports. You have a chance to see the real thing and you start asking about production? Looks like you'll fit in with the graybeards at the writing tables better than I thought."

"What do you mean? What should I be interested in? I don't know anything about alchemy."

"Oh, boy-o, for your age, you're way more boring then you should be, you know? Guys like you usually ask me if I can turn their roommate into a frog, make them a dick enlargement potion, or a one that would make any woman drop her clothes and jump on them like a rabbit."

"Uh, I don't think that's on the House menu," Anri said awkwardly, hoping the greenish lighting would mask his reddening cheeks. For a moment, he thought he heard a sound from behind one of the curtains.

"No, but could it?" a devilish grin was appearing on her face. "Aren't you a least bit interested in what I can do?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"Alchemy, my dear boy," she said, slowly walking closer, her heels clicking against the stone floor, "is a powerful art that allows you to experience things that are seemingly impossible. In the right hands, it could create pleasures so unperceivable, you wouldn't be able to go back to normal again. And I assure you, my hands are just right."

"Ehm... thank you, but I don't plan to become a potion addict any time soon. And, no offense, but you're old enough to be my mother."

"I am old enough to be your thrice-great grandmother, boy-o. And so is half of this brothel's staff. There's an elf here who has known its founder personally and, if the rumors are to be trusted, rather intimately."

"But you're a human."

"I am an alchemist. That ringin' any bells?"

Anri was taken aback. "You can make yourself younger?" he spat. Rejuvenation was a rare and very mysterious skill. Little people could make themselves permanently younger and even less could actually figure out how. From what he knew there was no reliable recipe and the potion didn't work for most people at all.

"Yes," she answered, her voice dripping temptation and alluring confidence. "But it was some time by now that I had a chance to do it. You see, I have been missing a certain... ingredient. Many people tried to help me, but it was never strong enough and the effects dissipated after a few months. And now that I have such a fine specimen here in my lab..." her voice trailed off as she inhaled deeply, sensing something he was missing. She walked around him inspecting his body, his broad shoulders, straight back, and gently hinted musculature. Her nearly black eyes were dilated and it wasn't because of the lab's dim lighting.

"Tell you what," she continued, "let's make a deal, you and I. You will help me with my problem and I will go through everything you need to know about my work with you, in detail. And I am willing to provide you with any potions you will ever need for your entire career here... with limitations in quantity, of course. I'll even put in a good word with mistress Margarita for you. What do you say?"

Every sane part of Anri's mind told him it was a bad idea. This woman wasn't a worker and he had barely met her. It didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever she was proposing wouldn't be on an official record, likely for good reasons. And though he didn't know what exactly she needed from him he had a pretty good idea of what it would involve.

On the other hand, that was exactly what enticed him. Last few weeks were full of work and they hadn't left much time for him and Jarill to enjoy each other's company. He was becoming increasingly more tense and frustrated and he didn't want to spend more money in the brothel so blatantly while Jarill was around, even though if she was him she probably would.

He went along with it.

"How can I help you with this?"

Angeline didn't even hesitate and had thrown herself at him, kissing him passionately, like they were old lovers. She put her arms around his shoulders and led him behind one of the curtains, where she laid him onto an empty table. Her soft bust was pressing on his chest through her thick apron as she unbuckled his belt and he started unbuttoning his shirt. This slight contact being enough to trigger reaction in his underpants was showing just how deprived of intimacy he was.

Soon he was lying on the table naked from waist down and with his shirt undone, Angeline's fingers tracing through his chest. Her hands were scarred. A result of what he assumed were decades if not centuries of work-related accidents and failed experiments.

"Shouldn't you be getting naked too?" he teased.

"No," she answered. A devilish gleam flashed through her eyes and suddenly Anri felt his hands being bound tight by a pair of cold, firm hands.

Confused, he tried to look up behind himself and froze. Right next to the table stood a golem. A solid two meters of man-shaped clay was currently holding his wrists and binding them to the table with fixed leather straps. He turned back to Angeline just in time to see her bind his feet as well. In the heat of the moment, he hadn't noticed the table was equipped for this kind of thing.

"What the hell?!" he yelped. "This wasn't part of the deal!"

"Wasn't it? You never asked for specifications," she replied as her magical construct moved to securing his chest and neck. The straps weren't quite tight enough to restrict his breathing or blood flow, but it was enough to restrict his movement masterfully. A final pair over his thighs and all he could manage was to turn his head slightly. Angeline waved off her minion and started rummaging through the clutter of potions on one of the shelves. Thinking back to it, it was weird she wouldn't have any assistants in here.

"Okay, this was funny for a moment, but I think I've had enough. Release me! I've changed my mind."

"But that's exactly what the straps are for, boy-o," she shouted back, not paying attention to his helpless wriggling. She picked a bottle after a minute and placed it on her worktable, then continued to not give a fuck while she searched through some crates.

Meanwhile, the golem returned, carrying a large box of some kind and lowered it on the floor with gentleness Anri would not expect from such a hulking mass of animated earth. The loud clunk it made suggested it must have been several times heavier than what he could lift. He was amazed the golem's head did not scrape the ceiling as it vanished from his field of view again.