"What is happening here, in the busy village within our walls? That's quite a question. But yes, there were visitors the night before. They bedded in that room, over here."<br/><br/>Dark eyes flit to the spare guest room across the way, the empty one whose comforts had been hastily retired after just one night.<br/><br/>"<em>Charlotte, </em>I know the vessel from the papers in Ludendorf. We were warned of its coming one summer by Fer'ein Birjre Ensejchtijch, the Syndicate of Enlightened Citizens. A ship of harlots. Still I remember the illustration in the paper of garishly dressed old maids sloshing down wine with bodices overflowing and scandalizing the Lamordish gentry. I must say, you do not disappoint."<br/><br/>"The first I saw of them was in the infirmary. One woman her tibia splintered into the tendon and muscle, no chance for to walk until the bone was set. Another was drained of blood with a long knife and pale as a ghost. All agreed the perpetrator of that crime was a woman named Eloise, who was taken away."<br/><br/>"Down below, in the padded cells reserved for outbursts of mania and murderous intent, was the safest place to accommodate my two patients. None may go in, and none may go out except with a master key, and so there would be no more incidents of violence."<br/><br/>"Since the house is quiet, I must assume the good doctor Noire has settled the remaining guests in her queer way, with porcelain bondage and exercises in submission. Ever she was the sort of woman to editorialize in the papers under Fer'ein Birjre Ensejchtijch, to visit a<em>Charlotte </em>madam in the brig and taunt her through iron bars with nightshade-painted lips. But I would sooner meet you cavorting in the Breaking Wave with an instrument to play- music is what soothes the savage heart, weeps the stone, bends the boughs."<br/><br/>Doctor Blanche stood careful to respect the reach of Aloisa's blade, and set the violin to her breast. She began to play, with such concentration not another word was uttered.<br/><br/>Once the bow breathed life into the first note, there could be no pause. One bright, vibrant flourish flowed into another easy as breathing. The roaring fire gathered and swayed, and a scent of hot rosin evaporated off tuned string under duress.<br/><br/>When Doctor Blanche had played a short time, the guest room door shyly opened, and there were Zoe, Margaret, and Michelle. Was it the grogginess of sleep to blame for their dull-eyed, myopic stares, or something else?