The bottle sat between them.
Brown glass.
A neat pharmaceutical label.
A measured dose.
Nothing about it looked dangerous.
Which, Stacy had learnt, was often how respectable danger preferred to dress.
—
STACY:
“Morphine.”
—
The physician nodded.
—
DR. PEMBROKE:
“For the pain.”
—
Stacy picked up another bottle.
—
STACY:
“Opium.”
—
PEMBROKE:
“For sleep.”
—
Another.
—
STACY:
“Cocaine.”
—
PEMBROKE:
“For exhaustion.”
—
Caelwyn leant against the medicine cabinet.
—
CAELWYN:
“Anything in there for being perfectly healthy?”
—
Pembroke glanced at him.
—
PEMBROKE:
“Brandy.”
—
Caelwyn nodded solemnly.
—
CAELWYN:
“Thank God for modern medicine.”
—
Later that evening, they found Dr Pembroke again.
Not at his clinic.
At a boxing hall.
Jacket off.
Sleeves rolled up.
Whisky in hand.
—
PEMBROKE:
“Come on, Harris!”
—
A punch landed.
The crowd roared.
Pembroke shouted something no respectable physician ought to know.
Then he saw them.
—
PEMBROKE:
“Oh.”
—
STACY:
“Doctor.”
—
He looked at the whisky.
Then the ring.
Then Stacy.
—
PEMBROKE:
“I can explain.”
—
CAELWYN:
“Please don’t.”
—
PEMBROKE:
“Why not?”
—
CAELWYN:
“You look happier than you did this afternoon.”
—
Pembroke went quiet.
The crowd thundered again.
—
PEMBROKE:
“I spend twelve hours a day listening to people who aren’t permitted to say what they mean.”
—
“Women who aren’t permitted to be angry.”
“Men who aren’t permitted to be frightened.”
“Soldiers who aren’t permitted to admit they’re broken.”
“Wives who aren’t permitted to want.”
“Husbands who aren’t permitted to fail.”
—
He took a drink.
—
PEMBROKE:
“And sooner or later, every one of them ends up in my consulting room.”
—
STACY:
“So you come here.”
—
PEMBROKE:
“I come here.”
—
STACY:
“Why?”
—
Pembroke looked towards the ring.
—
PEMBROKE:
“For three hours a week, I’m not Doctor Arthur Pembroke.”
—
CAELWYN:
“Who are you, then?”
—
A small smile.
—
PEMBROKE:
“Arthur.”
—
Outside, London was loosening its collar.
Pubs.
Music halls.
Boxing rooms.
Chemists.
Gambling tables.
Discreet doors.
Small permissions scattered across a city obsessed with self-control.
Drink here.
Shout here.
Fight here.
Dance here.
Desire here.
Forget here.
But only here.
Only now.
And only if society decided someone like you was allowed.
—
STACY:
“Perhaps that’s what we’ve misunderstood.”
—
CAELWYN:
“What?”
—
STACY:
“Civilisation doesn’t remove the things it calls primitive.”
—
She looked back towards the boxing hall.
—
STACY:
“It gives some of them rules.”
—
CAELWYN:
“Taboo.”
—
STACY:
“And permission.”
—
CAELWYN:
“We’ve seen that before.”
—
STACY:
“Everywhere.”
—
The Empire had travelled across the world studying societies governed by ritual, prohibition and sanctioned transgression.
Then it came home to its clubs, chemists, boxing halls, bedrooms, pubs and music halls—
and somehow failed to recognise the pattern.
—
CAELWYN:
“So the gentleman drinks and calls it society.”
—
STACY:
“The poor man drinks and they call it vice.”
—
CAELWYN:
“A boxer hits another man.”
—
STACY:
“Sport.”
—
CAELWYN:
“The wrong man does it in the wrong street.”
—
STACY:
“Savage.”
—
CAELWYN:
“A doctor gives you morphine.”
—
STACY:
“Medicine.”
—
CAELWYN:
“Someone else gives you escape.”
—
STACY:
“Degeneracy.”
—
Caelwyn looked at her.
—
CAELWYN:
“So perhaps the taboo isn’t really about what we do.”
—
STACY:
“No.”
—
CAELWYN:
“It’s about who is allowed to do it.”
—
STACY:
“And who gets to name it.”
—
## THE INNER FIRE — SEX, DRUGS & FOLK MUSIC
Civilisation did not extinguish the Inner Fire.
It built pressure valves.
Medicine.
Drink.
Music.
Fighting.
Desire.
Places where respectable people could stop being respectable for a little while—
then put their collars back on in the morning.
Perhaps that is not civilisation’s failure.
Perhaps it is part of how civilisation survives.
The hypocrisy begins when one person’s release is called recreation—
and another person’s is called vice.
## QUESTION FOR YOU
Every society creates places where its ordinary rules can bend.
**Which modern “pressure valves” do we treat as perfectly respectable today — while condemning other people for needing essentially the same release?**
## CTA
At Mythveil Chronicles, history is not wallpaper. Its contradictions become part of the world, the characters and the choices players have to make.
Enter the campaigns:
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Go deeper into the research, philosophy and living worlds behind Mythveil Chronicles:
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