Once the heat of the bath had baptized anew and reset the shaken heart to a subdued primal pulse, and each woman was dressed to her comfort, two orderlies escorted them through the freshly-swept parlor, deep into the house. Through the walls, an invigorated sound of patients returning from the yard and receiving instruction could be heard dimly, but the tour moved away from it, toward quiet and respite, away from the bright sun and into warm glow of lamp light.<br/><br/>It was difficult now to distinguish one orderly from the other, or to say for certain whether either was the woman spoken to before. There was a sameness to all who bore the drab uniform, not merely in appearance but in sound, in gait, in manner. Each was a vessel for the cloistered culture of the place, washed of the individuality so celebrated on the<em>Charlotte. </em>Only glimpses of personality rippled to the surface, like niggling neuroses.<br/><br/>Where a Dementlieu parlor would have portraits hung to lend the place a homely charm, instead messages, precepts, greeted the curious eye on a stroll through the commons. Accompanying the words were simple iconography, faces reduced to starkest representation, in extremes of contrast painting the world as black and white, good and evil, obedient and wicked.<br/>Ezra is Watching, that was reminded, but there were additional insights to be gleaned as well.<br/><em>There is a place for US in Ezra's tomorrow. </em><br/><em>Together we are Dominia. </em><br/><em>When there is nothing to hide, there is nothing to fear. </em><br/><br/>The dining hall door held open with a creak to allow the train of guests to filter in and negotiate a place at the enormously heavy butcher block tables arranged all in a single column. Laid out on trays and in clay bowls was a luncheon feast of crisply-browned bread and grain crackers, wheels of cellar cheese, garden vegetables and wine-dark plums from a single tree. Six masked women attended the table with amphorae and clay plates; whether orderlies or patients, it was impossible to tell.<br/><br/>Seated at the head of the table, in grim thoughtful repast, was a woman wholly unlike the others of the manor. She was scarlet, incarnate; a fulsome rose whorl, healthy glow filled to bursting the most luxurious gusseted fashions of the Barovian belle, where East met West, where the weighty traditions of the old forest intersected with the baroque splendor of the renaissance coast. Her home, her manor, her island, she commanded from the table's head with lordly dignity content in absolute authority.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Heinfroth</div><div class="spoiler_body">(https://i.imgur.com/xBLdroR.png)</div></div><br/><br/>Two places down the table sat Zoe, her color returned, hair brushed to a silken shine and a smile on her face in anticipation of Corinne walking through the door. Thrilled though she was, she deferred to the head of the table.<br/><br/>"Welcome. All of you, join us."<br/>Heinfroth's voice carried to the very end of the table, and whipped the attendants clear of it.<br/>"It is good you made it to us through that dreadful storm. Consider yourselves my guests until the<em>Mercy </em>is ready to sail again."<br/>Down the table, she indicated Zoe.<br/>"Mlle. Lambert has been sharing stories of the mainland, and your unfortunate journey. It sounds quite different from my youth, and the women of Dementlieu quite liberated."