Cededa snorted softly. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one.” He tipped his chin toward the opposite side of the room. “Try those over there. You might have better luck and discover something more interesting than who bought flax or a pair of oxen.”

His words proved prophetic. The first scroll Imogen extracted from a painted box and unrolled made her eyebrows climb. While the ink might be faded on documents of lading, this scroll retained the vivid hues of both paint and ink.

Pictures illustrated inside decorative frames revealed themselves with the scroll’s slow unrolling, and Imogen’s eyes rounded with each revelation. Niamh’s forthright teachings regarding bed play, even the more intimate details she’d written of her relationship with Varn in her journal, didn’t compare to the lascivious scenes painted on the scrolls.

“You’ve found something that’s snared your attention,” Cededa called out. “Bring it, and I’ll translate.”

Imogen glanced at him and let the scroll roll itself closed. “I don’t think this one needs translating.” She picked her way to him, handed him the scroll and resumed her seat beside him. Her smile widened to a grin at his startled expression.

“They kept these in the library?” His obvious shock made Imogen clap a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter. She cleared her throat and grasped one side of the rods as he unrolled the parchment to its full length.

Each brightly painted square depicted a sexual act—sometimes between a man and a woman, sometimes between a man and a man and sometimes between two women. A few involved several participants. The painter wasn’t what she’d call an artist, and she had a more difficult time deciphering whose limbs and appendages belonged to whom. She peered closer at one of the scenes. Was that a goat?

“Look your fill?” Cededa’s dry question interrupted her perusal. His pale eyes shone in the gathering gloom. “It’s getting dark. We’ll return to the palace so you can eat. Bring the scroll with you. You’re right, it’s self-explanatory.”

“What is it? Instructions for lovemaking?”

Cededa stood and relinquished the scroll to her. “Hardly. More like fucking.” An odd shiver raised gooseflesh on Imogen’s arms at his blunt declaration. “It’s a list of services offered at one of Tineroth’s brothels. Such things were commonly posted outside the business. Odd to find one stored in the library.”

Imogen stared at him and then at the scroll in her hands. Her first glimpse of the painted scenes had elicited surprise and then a tingling warmth that coursed through her body. While she wasn’t at all interested in the finer details regarding the goat, she did want a closer look at the others. Their graphic intimacy flustered her and left her with questions Niamh had not answered in her bid to prepare her daughter for adulthood, even a solitary one.

While her curiosity about the scroll raged, Cededa’s interest had waned almost instantly. Beyond his initial surprise at finding the document here, he’d exhibited no more reaction to it than to any of the dull ones he first translated for her.