Chapter Text
BEATRIZ DE ALMEIDA CARRIED THE NAME OF THE first and only daughter of King Fernando of House Borgonha. One would think a name to be trifling, and yet, what her father once told her about names, and the curses they bore, marred her like a disease she scarcely survived. Telling a fifteen-year-old girl she would be left with little to no luck because it belonged to the princess had been as much portending as it had been unfair. Why did her father believe a girl, born and raised in a castle, needed more luck than she already had? It sounded like he was choosing between the two, standing with the princess who was wealthy, cherished, and according to rumors, of a beauty capable of having Castile’s king bend the knee for her hand.
What use did she have for luck when God had smiled on her upon birth?
Ten years later, when sitting across her madam in her study and waiting for the woman to acknowledge her from the other side of her desk, Beatriz was hit by her father’s words and by the nostalgia of an ignorant childhood. At the brothel, she was a different type of ignorant, aware of her lacking, her efforts to overcome those shortcomings futile.
Beatriz sat there for longer than she had ever deemed possible, seeking in the belongings cluttering her surroundings a distraction from the thundering doom. Throughout the two years under Madam Blanca’s thumb, Beatriz had been presented to a whole other version of the brothel’s—and therefore her—proprietor. Her real name was Branca Aguiar, and she had been a lady coveted by many men when young, many of whom frequented her place now. They compared the silver of her hair to the honey-coloured strands that had once earned her the nickname Loureira—the golden one—which was cemented by the way they swore she used to wield her full, curvy body to draw attention to herself. Beatriz knew better than to take men’s opinions on a woman’s behaviour for anything of worth but, listening to their descriptions, she was revealed a different side of a person who seemed unbounded even by time.
Beatriz’s debt to Madam Blanca was equally infinite. Without her, Beatriz would have died in the unfamiliar streets of Lisboa, where she had found sanctuary after fleeing her town at the southern border of Portugal. At first, she had been ambitious, believing the capital to be a place for fulfilment and for starting anew. This is where dreams come true!
But her ambition had been a drawing on the sand, easily washed away by the growing intensity of an awakening town. In a strange city like Lisboa, a woman with nowhere to stay fell prey to the dangers lurking where even the light could, in fact, reach.
Madam Blanca snapped close the accountancy book she had been writing in, startling Beatriz. “I bring news,” she declared.
“Are you talking about the pending rebellion? Because I already know about that.” Another courtesan, Helena was her name, had been talking about it nonstop since she first heard it from one of her usual patrons. But Beatriz knew not if it was true; most men were eager for war. Lords enjoyed picturing themselves in steel armour, and even came at the thought of grandeur—but their excitement would not extend to the act of battle per se. They did not need to confess; everyone knew them to be cowards.
“Rebellion? No.” Pushing a folded paper towards the young woman, Madam managed to appear both triumphant and bored.
“You know I can’t read.” With eyebrows knitted together in confusion, Beatriz reached for it.
“I’ve received an offer from a distinguished gentleman. A lord who has taken a liking to your charm and wishes to acquire you!”
“Excuse me?” Beatriz stammered, leaning forward. “Someone wants to buy me?” The words left a gut-churning aftertaste in her mouth, swallowing nothing but her discomfort. “Does this man know? About…?”
Madam Blanca was the only person in Lisboa who knew of her magic and, sometimes, Beatriz wondered if the old woman had a power of her own, allowing her to find the frailty in people in order to manipulate them. In her case, no matter how gratifying it would be to put the blame on someone else, there was only Beatriz’s recklessness to blame for exposing her liability.
Five days had she spent in the dirt of Lisboa seeking a kind soul, chewing on her nails and her mouth, growing numb to the stench of decay. The cool weather and hunger had begun to bite onto her senses and, if she had thought them unbearable during the day, she had almost died of despair during the night.
Time and time again, she had been reminded of the bible, of the first sin committed by humanity and thought it rather ironic. Maybe their perfect world was a farse, just like Lisboa had been, and maybe they too had been so hungry that they couldn’t find themselves to care whether it was right or not to bite onto the forbidden fruit. So, it hadn’t been a surprise when she had dawdled to a stall and considered stealing an apple.
Her stomach cowered in fear, the groan a protest against the reminders of starvation. It was half the reason why she endured the brothel and what she was made to do within those walls. Some days she would dwell on the possibility of murdering Madam Blanca and being free, but it was better to sacrifice herself for a decent meal, a decent bed, a decent bath because she knew how it had been like without those, and it terrified her even in her dreams.
Madam Blanca tangled her fingers, elbows resting on the desk. “Can you imagine how dangerous it would be for my establishment and reputation if anyone knew of your… eccentricities?”
Beatriz looked down at her bandaged hands and arms. The marks of past and recent scalds were a lesson on how nothing, not even that that is innate, is ever truly priceless. If she used her magic—that she called a disease or a curse—as much as she wanted to, there would be no Beatriz left. She would disintegrate into chunks and then sift through the remnants of her life.
“Who is this man?” Beatriz inquired, sitting uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a pet at some lord’s house. “Has he ever been with me before?”
“No, he saw one of your performances. I’ve been negotiating with him since that night. He was enthralled and had the most generous offers, but it was so hard for me to let go of my favourite child.” She pretended to weep, but Beatriz knew better than to believe her sadness to be real. As if to prove her point, she returned to her conceited composure, without a trace of the tears that had ornamented her eyes a moment before. “But it reached a price I could not refuse. You understand, do you not?”
Of course. Madam Blanca was all about the profit she would make out of her deals. It was not surprising how she had sold her for far more than her debt was worth; it was surprising how she had let go of the one woman who earned her the most money and got rid of those whose defiance could endanger her fortune.
“What if I refuse?” Beatriz interjected, staring at her fingers and noticing the bitten nails, the dried blood where her skin had peeled off alongside charred patches left by her magic. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman around—her power made sure of that by burning her as much as it spent her, taking bits of life as much as poverty did, but she also knew it was not beauty that dictated the workings of this place. She would never leave this hole if she did not accept to be bought.
“Must I remind you that you don’t have a saying in your life? You’re mine, before you are any man’s. That is a lesson so many women before you have had a hard time learning, but they did, one way or another. And what is there to refuse? He is a wealthy man. You will be a whore dressed in the finest garments, living inside walls encrusted with gold and exquisite relics, bathing in God-scented waters, licking your sugar-coated fingers!”
The truth had Beatriz fighting back tears. “But a whore nonetheless. Not his wife, not a woman of equal value. An ornament, a plaything.”
“What is there more for you to be?” Madam Blanca’s question was loud in the quiet of her room, echoing Helena’s when they met earlier that day.
“Don’t you have ambition? What is it that you want for your life?”
She craved what many deemed inconsequential. A home where she would live with her father, away from the constant fear of every day being her last before the Church dragged her to the city square and stoned her to death. Beatriz knew what she wanted, but wanting and getting were too far apart sometimes.
And that was the dilemma Beatriz lived in. After all she had gone through, one would think her to be empty inside, but if she were to split her chest in half, anyone would find both ambition and hope tugging at the strings that kept her alive. It would be easier if they had deserted her altogether.
“You are not a princess as your name might indicate,” Madam continued. “You’re a peasant, a nobody. To have a lord desiring you might be the greatest thing you have and will ever accomplish! It is no shame to be a whore if it allows you to survive.”
“But what if I desire more? What if I want more than to just be a leashed bitch, waiting for him to seek me for his own pleasure? Even dogs are given better chances.” Anger burned from the depths of her stomach to her throat, her voice tamed by the respect—or fear, she couldn’t quite differentiate anymore—she had for her madam.
The woman let out a dry chuckle. “What do you wish for? A normal life? There’s no such thing as a normal life, much less for a person like you! And pleasure, as much as an opinion and free will, are delicacies that we, women, rarely get to taste.” Madam Blanca got up from her chair, rounding her desk to stand by Beatriz’s side. She caught a whiff of rosemary, the plant her madam used to cleanse the brothel of any bad odour, thickening when her fingers found the young woman’s chin and brought her to look at her. “My beautiful flower, you’ve been so lucky. Do you remember how I found you?”
Beatriz turned her head to the side. She knew not how to forget all that had ever happened to her. She would wake up from nightmares with her heart thrashing against her ribcage as if she was back to that dreadful day at her father’s inn, or when she had been in between buildings with only her stolen apple and the rain as company. She couldn’t have been luckier, she thought to herself back then too. Whatever divinity ruled over them was quick to chastise her for her wrongdoings—even when her crimes meant she got to live another day.
“You thief! I knew the moment I saw you passing by that you were up to no good. You dare steal from me!” The push at her back was still fresh in her mind, and so was her fall, and the apple slipping from her fingers, rolling away into an open ditch. How she had tried to scramble after it, considering eating it even after dipping into the soiled waters of the capital. How she had been dragged back to the man’s embrace, the chafing of the muddy cobblestones on her elbows. How he had wrapped his rough hands around her throat, and much like when at her father’s inn, face to face with another man blinded by rage, she had resorted to what she knew best.
Her magic had rushed to the tips of her fingers, willing it so she held him under control.
“Witch!” His accusation had matched that of the man she had first murdered in Faro, bringing her to hesitate, recalling what her father had once told her. “What is the use of anger to a young woman like you? Were you a princess, maybe you would be able to conquer lands with it but, being a peasant, it will only bring you more trouble than satisfaction. Spend that hatred in your work and in prayer or you will get yourself killed!” But the thought had hardly stopped her from willing her magic and ripping the merchant’s body into two chunks of guts and blood. Beatriz had hissed at the burn across her hands and arms, shoving them into a puddle seeking relief.
“Guess we’ll have to do something about this.” A voice had brought Beatriz to squint her eyes at the shadow approaching her, the hood slipping so the light of a grey day would let her see a woman, whose age lines marked her forehead, her eyes, and the space between her mouth and nose. Those were traces of forced smiles—which had only deepened in the two years Beatriz had been in the brothel. Madam Blanca had sparkled with what she had witnessed, knowing then that she had earned her biggest prize yet.
“Yes. I remember it too well.”
“Why are you hesitating, then? Do you wish to go back to the streets? Do you wish for hunger, for thirst, for cold? Do you wish for me to tell the Church what I have seen you do? Perform your little trick of magic before my customers to steal their coins? Murder men—"
Beatriz shot to her feet. “You ordered me to kill them!”
“Do you have any proof of what you are saying?” Madam Blanca whispered.
“I could kill you too. It would be easy, and you know it.”
“But you won’t.” Her madam set herself straighter, any pity wiped off her face. They stared at each other, one knowing she would never win and the other fully aware that she set the rules. “You will sign this contract, and you will meet him after your performance tonight. He paid for a night with you, like a little boy eager to play with his new toy.” The woman seized the courtesan’s thumb, soiled it on the red paint before pressing it where Beatriz suspected her name had been written not by her but by Madam Blanca herself. She yanked her hand free at the sight of her fingerprint in the colour of spilled blood, cradling her arm while the other woman snatched the paper sheet away, folding it in half. “Off you go. You don’t want to be late tonight! We will have very important guests visiting!”
Zeroing in on the folded paper, she wondered if she could steal it. It would take but a bit of magic to rip it from her grip and shove her madam out of the window behind her. But how many more deaths did she want tainting her hands? And was it worth losing the little stability she had now? What is the use of anger to a young woman like you?
Instead, Beatriz wobbled out of the study, sneaking away from the chaos through the narrow halls leading to the quarter housing the courtesans. Hidden in the shadows of the lively main building, behind doors guarded by two brutes planted on each side of their frame, their haven allowed them to be themselves, where no patron would dare chasing them. She climbed until there were no more stairs left and slipped into her plain room.
Sinking onto the bench in the corner, Beatriz opened a cranky drawer to fetch hairpins only to find the long-forgotten coin she had managed to keep away from Madam Blanca’s greedy claws. Her mind tricked her, and she no longer knew for certain how long she had sat on that muddy street, curled up into a miserable ball of flesh and bones, but the clink of a coin falling at her feet had awakened her from the self-destroying dejection. Her fingertips had reached for it, lifting her swollen eyes to see if she could find who had been so kind as to spare some of their money—her only belonging left now. She remembered the blur of people, some towing their wooden wagons across the wet filth, others attempting to outrun their misfortune.
But no benefactor.
The sound of her bedroom door opening made her put down the coin amidst her accessories, hiding it from view and hurrying to pull her hair into an updo for her performance.
“Are you ready?” Her roommate appeared from behind her on the mirror, her big round eyes assessing what Beatriz was trying to do. “Do you need a hand?”
“I’m good.”
“Move.” She stole the pins from her hand and finger-combed Beatriz’s droopy updo. She took no offence, aware that she had never been the most dexterous with coiffures, and because Beatriz enjoyed when Àgueda played around with strands of her hair, causing a shudder to hike her neck to her head, and lull her to a slumber she had to fight to stay awake. Watching the young woman pull and twist her curls into elaborate shapes at the top of her head, leaving some to cascade down her back, she couldn’t help but smile. “You don’t want to look like you’ve just gotten out of bed, do you?”
“Does it matter? They don’t come here for our beauty.”
“Well, but your beauty is worth seeing. You should make use of it.” Hearing her spit out her madam’s words squashed Beatriz’s mood once again. Águeda was young, too young, and having been born at the brothel, she was raised by Madam Blanca and all the other courtesans. It did not matter how much they had tried to shield her from the ruthless reality enfolding between those walls she called home; it had been only a matter of time until Madam Blanca saw in her youth and allure an immeasurable wealth.
Inside the brothel, and before Madam Blanca’s clientele, Águeda was not an orphan child but a foreigner who had taken a liking to Portugal. She had gone through otherwise uproarious lengths to prove the veracity of the identity she claimed for herself, learning odd words in a language she swore to be English to cement her lie. Beatriz knew nothing of English, and her Portuguese had been polished in the two years at the brothel to sound less like the poor woman she really was.
“What put you in such a mood?” Águeda asked, adding some final touches.
“Nothing,” Beatriz muttered, nibbling her lower lip. “Everything. All of this.”
“Of this?” The girl glanced at her hair.
“Not that. Being bossed around because a woman picked us up from the street and manipulates us to work for her. Isn’t it tiring? Have you never wanted something else other than this brothel?”
Águeda blinked. “N-No?” Beatriz deflated, defeated by her simple mindedness. It occurred to her then that maybe she should have kept her frustrations to Madam Blanca. “Yes? I don’t know. I have always lived here. I highly doubt I can do anything else other than this. It keeps us clean; it keeps us fed; it keeps us warm during the winter. I don’t know, Beatriz. What more could I possibly ask for?”
Freedom, Beatriz said to herself but not to Águeda. She glanced at the mirror once more before smiling at the girl staring back at her with withered kindness. I can’t blame her. This is my fault. All of it. “You’re right. Forget I said anything. And thank you, Águeda. It looks lovely.”
“You should pinch your cheeks. Just to get a little pink on your face!” Beatriz tapped the sides of her face, which always made her remember her own father. The chubby cheeks, the unruly curls, the thick eyebrows leading onto her pronounced nose and shadowing her dark irises. The warm olive skin. They were all hers as much as they were her father’s. The gesture, however, brought the girl to giggle. “Don’t be silly!”
“I must make haste now or Madam will come and get me by this finery of a hairstyle.”
She stepped out to the corridor and let out a deep breath. As she climbed down the staircase, Beatriz glanced over the handrail to the depths of the foyer. Two figures, tight in their yellow bodices to draw attention to their squashed bosoms, carried out their own dance routine around newcomers. Célia and Dulce stuck together by the vow they made to each other in the name of love. Where one was radiance and the sun, the other was caution and the moon.
Beatriz leaned against the railing to observe how the ladies dispossessed two guests of their weapons. Why are these men bringing daggers to a brothel? It was uncommon, much like their faces. Every murder that had occurred between those walls had remained a secret. Madam Blanca had her ways of making sure none of the dead left any loose ends that could lead trouble to her doorstep.
So why are they armed to their teeth?
One of the men was both fascinated and insulted by the place, torn between hating the scent of it, or the people surrounding him, and the growing interest in the life led inside the building. The other looked around with the same bewilderment Beatriz had had the first time she arrived at the brothel. His dark eyes went through each balcony, taking in every inch of pink, yellow and red chiffon adorning the wood before his whetted gaze stilled on her. She braved it, unmoving where he had caught her snooping. Are these the important guests Madam mentioned? There was nothing special about them—except their blades.
The spell broke when he was invited to dive deep into the dim lights and the loud chatter, where laughter and clapping hid the occasional moan and scolding. The same laughter, clapping, moaning and scolding that hid the tinkling of their coins being stolen by Beatriz’s magic as she seduced the audience while on stage.
“What kind of performance will she do?” Dulce had been thoroughly confused the first time she had met Beatriz.
“A bit of dancing, a bit of illusion, a bit of teasing and seducing.”
Every section of the brothel was alit with candles, melting upon the wooden chandeliers on the walls and hanging from the ceilings. Every girl wore kirtles with a yellow ribbon sitting upon their hairs, whereas the men were allowed to wear tunics and robes, their piety kept from stray eyes when not in service. Some were young, like Àgueda, but all of them were an example of how poverty caught them in almost equal cruelty.
Beatriz wanted to rebel, but she could not. She owed Madam, who had presented her the secluded fourth floor that had been nothing more than a dust-webbed attic when she first arrived. Beatriz could think of worse creatures to share a bed with, and at least in a brothel she would have a ceiling over her head, the mattress sustained her weight without breaking on its wonky legs, and the covers could be washed, dried and used again.
Àgueda was right. Her preaching about freedom was unreasonable.
“You’re to address me as Madam. You’re not to refuse customers. If they ask you to kneel, you kneel. If they ask you to call them Your Royal Highness, you do it without question. You’re not to use your little tricks when you’re not performing unless I tell you to. You’re to smile, to play with their minds so they throw their money at you, and then you’re to collect it and give it to me. Every piece of money you earn is mine to distribute. Are we understood, Beatriz, princess of Portugal and Queen of Castile?” Her teasing that first day was the beginning of a transformation that made Beatriz who she was now. A tool. A doll. The means to someone else’s end.
“Yes, Madam.”