The stolid manse of The Black Stag stood on a plentiful lot within RhyDin proper. The grounds were surrounded by a chest-high stone wall with an iron gate at its entrance. A thickly paving stone road took visitors from the by-way, along the side of the Black Stag to the carriage house where horses, carriages, and carts were housed with numerous other supplies and tack.
Trees young and old stand apart on the grounds with ample room for their branches to never reach one another, but no so distanced from one another to make it appear as if there is not enough to shield any on the ground from being able to find the shade of those branches.
The two-story home of stone houses the owner and a handful of servants to help with its caretaking. Within its infamous walls were known to be a sitting room, library, kitchen, dining hall, gardens, music room, along with a few bedchambers for the courtesan and any who were welcomed as her guests there.
By no mistake, this was not a brothel. It was, though, by the pledge of many wagging tongues, a house of ill-repute. This was not something that the dame of The Black Stag disputed. For it was, after all, the home of Victoria Helmshaw, the Courtesan.
People were a wicked group of gentle touch and poisonous intent, all in the same gesture if permitted. Victoria had learned that a long time ago, even before she was elevated from an orphan to a lady of self-acquired wealth. But she also knew that she was part of that spice of life that fed fuel to fires and even a cough among the more polite ones of society. It was her part in things, in such ways, that brought a smile on her face and a flutter to her hand-fan. She simply felt more alive.
It was in the 946th year in the 8th Age, according to one Rhydinian?s calendar, that a weight of pleasure came with it an equal weight of pain. Courtesan Helmshaw had celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday with all of the extravagance that a king?s mistress would be afforded with ease.
Numerous gentle men and women had been invited. Peacocks strolled the grounds that were light by oil lamps and standing torches. The tall windows and doors were left to stand open to allow the night?s breeze into the house that had more than fifty people within it, to include the servants of The Black Stag and any that attended their lords and ladies that night.
Trees young and old stand apart on the grounds with ample room for their branches to never reach one another, but no so distanced from one another to make it appear as if there is not enough to shield any on the ground from being able to find the shade of those branches.
The two-story home of stone houses the owner and a handful of servants to help with its caretaking. Within its infamous walls were known to be a sitting room, library, kitchen, dining hall, gardens, music room, along with a few bedchambers for the courtesan and any who were welcomed as her guests there.
By no mistake, this was not a brothel. It was, though, by the pledge of many wagging tongues, a house of ill-repute. This was not something that the dame of The Black Stag disputed. For it was, after all, the home of Victoria Helmshaw, the Courtesan.
People were a wicked group of gentle touch and poisonous intent, all in the same gesture if permitted. Victoria had learned that a long time ago, even before she was elevated from an orphan to a lady of self-acquired wealth. But she also knew that she was part of that spice of life that fed fuel to fires and even a cough among the more polite ones of society. It was her part in things, in such ways, that brought a smile on her face and a flutter to her hand-fan. She simply felt more alive.
It was in the 946th year in the 8th Age, according to one Rhydinian?s calendar, that a weight of pleasure came with it an equal weight of pain. Courtesan Helmshaw had celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday with all of the extravagance that a king?s mistress would be afforded with ease.
Numerous gentle men and women had been invited. Peacocks strolled the grounds that were light by oil lamps and standing torches. The tall windows and doors were left to stand open to allow the night?s breeze into the house that had more than fifty people within it, to include the servants of The Black Stag and any that attended their lords and ladies that night.