The Black Prince: Part I by P. J. Fox Page B

to her. Her women brought it in and filled it, keeping the water warm with brands from the fire until she was ready to disrobe.
    There were public bathhouses in Barghast, which were frequented by those high and low. Some were quite expensive to use, requiring an exclusive membership. Most were open to all. She’d heard from Hart, who’d been known to patronize one of the most expensive as well as that provided to Tristan’s personal guard within the castle, that they were an excellent place to form connections. Hart had gleaned a great deal of information from afternoons spent with various of the town’s burghers.
    She’d also heard from Hart that there were as many as two score bathhouses now, the most recent having opened after Solstice.
    There were none in Eamont.
    Where Hart told stories of being served meals at the Baths of Gideon, lounging in the water as servants brought plates of bread and cheese and tarts, the church denounced bathing as wicked. And public baths as even more so. Isla couldn’t credit the claim, that bathing caused illicit sex. Or obesity. Or even death, if some commentators were to be believed. Most of the baths in Barghast were connected to bakeries, making use of the heat from the ovens. And most of the men who frequented them were hardly the stuff of female—or male—fantasies. They were old and fat or, as was the case with Hart, had all the charm of a cross-eyed mule.
    The most common punishment that the church prescribed, for those who’d indulged in the sin of cleanliness was three days’ fasting on bread and water. Or, if one had been particularly licentious in one’s scrubbing efforts, on nothing at all. Scourging, or so she’d heard, was also becoming a popular cure for the depravity.
    Isla was glad she’d never been to Eamont.
    With the church, her thoughts turned to Father Justin. She no longer had the same nightmares, but she couldn’t think of him without shuddering. Even though part of her wished that he were still alive, so she could face him down.
    Now that she was stronger.
    Now that she was different.
    It wasn’t just…the change. She’d grown. Matured. Things that had once frightened her, didn’t. There was a time when Rose’s defection would have left her crushed. When she depended on those who weren’t dependable and so much of her life was spent placating them. So they wouldn’t vanish. So she wouldn’t be alone. But she’d stared into that gaping maw that was a life alone, that was sacrificing her very life, and survived.
    And now, of course, she wasn’t alone.
    Would never be, again.
    Those first few days had been the most difficult. The aches and pains, the vomiting, all of it had been nothing in comparison to the feeling of invasion. Like there was something pressing in on her. Gently. Inexorably. Like being suffocated from the inside out. An invisible hand on her chest. before her body had felt safe, had felt like
her
, it had become a prison. Alien. She’d wanted to drink herself into oblivion, to leap from the tallest parapet, anything to escape.
    But the more she fought the feeling, fought to keep breathing, the sicker she became. When Hart had come to her, that first morning, she’d been well enough although she’d felt like she’d been run over by a wagon. A fully laden one. But by the morning after that, she’d been unable to rouse herself from bed. She couldn’t keep anything down. She’d thought that this must be what it felt like to die of the plague. Although she was, by that point, too sick to care if she was dying or no. Death, indeed, sounded like a merciful release.
    And all the time was that slow, relentless sense of
pressing
.
    And all the time, Tristan was there. As much as he could be; there were vital matters of state that couldn’t be ignored. Yet, even so, he spent what spare minutes he could by her side. His presence was a comfort; with him in control, she could relax. He’d keep her safe, keep all the terrible things