When the fortress-like entrance that seemed impenetrable to even a ray of light opened, the sight before my eyes was an entire sea of red.

“Wait here for a moment. Don’t make a fuss.”

Regina’s whisper rippled faintly and vanished in my dazed ears. I stood at the dark doorway as the voice had instructed. In the distance, I blankly stared at candles emitting a dim light inside red-painted glass covers. Flames captured alive and submerged in black air.

Some lamps were hanging from thin strings coming down from the ceiling, while others illuminated window frames and tables with red dots. Women who looked like employees also held the same lamps in their hands. Women who seemed like ghostly flowers, burning red along with the candles – one, two, three, four… were mixed among the surging crowd.

I couldn’t bring myself to count more than ten women. There were many naked slave girls there. As if strange.

A woman with bare shoulders clinging to a man’s arm disappeared up the stairs, precariously shedding red light.

What on earth do they sell here? I stared, mesmerized, at a woman singing like a water bird while standing on a round table in the center. My consciousness was completely captivated by her round breasts and white thighs.

The woman, who suddenly noticed me through strands of blonde hair flowing down beneath her loosely pinned-up hair, more disheveled than her attire, drew her singing lips into a thin line and smiled at me. Those plump cheeks still shy, that youthful face didn’t look very old. Her gaze meeting mine was as gentle as a statue of a dead mother.

“Why do you have eyes like a boy’s?”

I was startled by the voice that came without warning. When I looked to the side, almost jumping, my field of vision was filled with Regina’s eyes.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she? Not as much as you though.”

“Why are they all naked like that?”

I immediately pounced on Regina as she leaned in close to ask. Regina’s long eyes widened as she looked down at my face pressed against her chin.

“I, I’ve never seen before.”

“What?”

“A woman’s body…!”

I quickly whispered, covering Regina’s ear with my palm. Regina, who made a strange expression as if she had heard something absurd, stared at me for a moment and then smiled broadly.

“So that’s why your face is bright red?”

“Uh, huh? No way! There’s, there’s no…”

I was startled and cupped my cheeks with both hands. Regina’s face tilted slightly over my forehead.

“There is. Then what’s this red thing?”

“Isn’t, isn’t it because of the lighting?”

“No. You’re red too.”

Regina’s hand dug into my side. She hooked her arm around me, almost snatching me, and led me into the crowd.

“Really, pitifully… How did you end up suffering such humiliation?”

“Have a drink.”

“Is this the time to be swallowing alcohol? You have no sense. It won’t go down.”

“It’s good liquor.”

A wine glass seemed to shake beside my face, which was bowed down. How good could the liquor be to insist so persistently? Before that, would she even know what’s good by a free person’s standards?

I frowned deeply and shook my head. To be honest, I was too busy trying to remember Alyona’s gestures to pay attention to such bothersome urging.

What did she do when taking care of me? Where and how did she press…? Until then, I didn’t know that binding a person’s hand with cloth required more skill than it seemed.

As I remained motionless, focusing only on the skinned palm in front of me, Regina finally sighed deeply and put down the wine glass.

“Why do you think I was beaten…? I got caught by the pimp there while trying to make some money in someone else’s territory.”

She suddenly muttered softly, as if reciting. I asked back without even raising my head.

“Pimp?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know such things. It’s none of my business…. I really should have killed them.”

“Instead of wasting energy on unnecessary thoughts, why don’t you just drink this?”

“You shouldn’t have stopped me.”

“You keep saying scary things. I could have just pretended not to see and it wouldn’t have mattered to me at all.”

“Why?”

“You can see for yourself.”

Not knowing what she meant by ‘see’, I raised my face in confusion. I stared intently at the cool face in front of me, but I had no idea what she was getting at.

Regina raised her uninjured arm, shrugged her shoulders, and gestured from her toes to her chest with her chin. Her eyes seemed to ask me, ‘You still don’t understand?’

“I’m just a woman who sells her lower body anyway.”

“Lower body?”

“A prostitute.”

“……”

Ah.

“You really… don’t know anything.”

Regina burst into laughter. I couldn’t say anything for a while.

In fact, I wasn’t unaware of prostitutes either. Rather, they were the ultimate sins that my mother had drilled into these eardrums to the point of nailing them. But at that time, I felt as if I had been hit hard on the head. I never thought that such an unimaginable evil act could actually be possible.

“I wondered… what you were talking about.”

At some point, my lips parted on their own.

“I heard there were whores in the world, and it turns out you were the ones I only heard about as threats.”

I stared deeply at Regina’s features anew, as if looking at a beautiful and rare foreign insect. Thinly carved eyebrows and clear, open eyes. A long, light nose bridge. Bold-looking lips. And the lavish decorations thickly covering them. Ah, come to think of it, all these women….

I slowly looked around the dark, shabby inner room and the half-naked women sprawled here and there, whispering softly.

“That’s right.”

“……”

“Even if you were to be beaten a hundred times in broad daylight, not even in the middle of the night, you would have no excuse. Selling your body…. It’s more strange that filthy women like you haven’t already been stoned to death.”

“……”

“That would be fitting.”

“…You, are you really not going to drink this?”

“I told you I have no thoughts of it.”

Regina’s eyes, which kept offering me alcohol, felt particularly cold and hard. Perhaps it was a sign of some plot, but I carelessly brushed it off, oblivious. Regina’s gaze wasn’t that important to me.

“But you know, I don’t like being beaten.”

I smiled, remembering the old man from Indridason.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

The sensation of his bony, wrinkled hand grabbing my hair still twists my insides even now. I’m so afraid, so afraid that all my flesh trembles. It feels like his deep, low breathing still echoes behind my back sometimes. Recalling those days when day and night were redder than red lanterns, I continued speaking without even looking ahead.

“Please spare me… It’s all my fault, even the sight of myself bowing my head to a person I hate more than death hurts, doesn’t it?”

“……”

“I really hate that. I just hate it.”

“……”

“I know. Of course, I’m the sinner. Harboring a lover who isn’t my husband in my heart, not being able to remain a wise wife is indeed a great sin. But still… I don’t like it…. I hate being in pain. Hey, don’t you feel the same way?”

Around that time, my focus returned. I looked at Regina’s face, which was finally forming a complete image on my retina. Somehow, she had lost her words. I leaned forward, untying her tightly bound hand.

“Earlier, I told you I was Duke Gustavus’s lady, right?”

“……”

“Shall I tell you one more thing?”

Regina’s silence with her eyes wide open seemed like agreement. I leaned in further, bringing my lips to the side of her face. Just as I had done outside, I covered her ear and my lips with my palm and whispered happily.

“You know, I won’t be beaten anymore in the future.”

“……”

“My brother, who has absolute power, is actually my lover. He loves me so much…”

“……”

“He likes me so much, he likes me too much, he can’t live without me…. He’s desperately clinging to me like a blind man…”

You will never know.

While whispering like that, how my insides trembled. As if stabbing myself to death while confirming each word of the truth without a single lie. There’s a lump like a horn of plenty below my solar plexus, and how sweet is the slowly, endlessly surging climax. You love me, don’t you? You want me too. My love. My man. Shamefully, it seems I longed persistently for Johannes at that moment. Ah, aah….

I want to hold you so badly.

“You can rest easy too.”

I sat up, tidying my blushing cheeks with one hand. I was belatedly shy to the point of being brazen. It seemed there was no help for the fact that one corner of my heart felt so embarrassed despite it being a natural confession.

“At least for today, I’ll stay by your side and protect you.”

I grasped Regina’s fingertips. When I lifted my eyelids, which were falling without my realizing it, my eyes met Regina’s. As if surprised by the meeting of gazes despite having been staring at me all along, she quickly averted her eyes.

“…You’re going to personally protect a filthy woman?”

“Oh my, are you upset? Why?”

“What do you mean why…?”

“I just stated the facts, that’s all.”

“……”

“I had no intention of insulting you at all. Would a dog blame another dog? I’m just as filthy as you.”

“……”

“And besides, I just saved you, didn’t I? You can rely on me for a day. As much as you want.”

“Oh my, how reassuring…”

Regina put her hands together against her cheeks and imitated me half-heartedly. Her gesture seemed somewhat deflated, so I found her attitude a bit strange. Regina sighed, saying “Oh well,” and smiled with a somewhat dejected look.

“If you were planning to protect me, you shouldn’t have thrown away the wooden club.”

“Ah! I didn’t throw it away! I dropped it while flustering! That was your fault for grabbing me recklessly… Hey, hey! Should I go get a new one now? Hm?”

The thrill of hitting the back of a huge man’s head is not easily forgotten. I got excited in an instant and jumped up from my seat.

“Stop talking nonsense and come here, come here…. Why are your eyes shining like that?”

Regina reflexively grabbed the hem of my skirt. Undeterred by such a small hindrance, I immediately grabbed the wine glass on the small table. As knights usually do before going into battle, I drank the alcohol in high spirits, as if cheering myself on. And at that moment.

“Ah!”

Regina stood up abruptly and shouted.

“That, you shouldn’t, drink it….”

I stared blankly at her, who was greatly alarmed. After urging me so much, why stop me now? I wanted to ask that, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t ask.