"Sure," the man said, and grinned a mean grin. "You'll be back inside with the rest of us soon enough. I know it. You know it. What else is there for you?"
Alec flicked the reins again, his mouth tight. When David asked him, quietly, "Do you know that man?" Alec looked right at him, right through him, and didn't say a word.
***
The city was enormous, stretching out in all directions and capped with a hill at one end from which a tall white building bloomed.
"A castle," David breathed.
"King's palace," Alec said, "King--" his voice trailed off. He stopped the cart. When he spoke again his voice was strained, almost angry. "I'm off to drink ale. You--you're on your own."
When David didn't move he gestured for him to get off the cart.
"You don't like this place," David said. Off the cart the city looked even grander, the rocks of the street under his feet smooth and polished, the house and stores gleaming clean, like they were scrubbed every day. He thought it was pretty but he didn't like the look on Alec's face, a tight pinched unhappy look.
Alec sighed. "I like it fine. I just didn't plan on seeing it again."
"Why not?"
"Don't bother thanking me or anything," Alec said nastily, not answering his question at all, and twitched the reins. The horse started forward, the cart rattling as it moved down the street. Alec didn't look back.
It took David a few hours to find the square. It was enormous but not quite in the middle of the city, was closer to the palace than anything else. At first he merely walked along its edges, staring at the stalls and the people thronging about them. There was a fountain in the center with a grand stone shaped like a young man in the middle, gorgeous and shining brightly in the sun. It was surrounded by a sea of people, and David saw a million things for sale, anything and everything a person could ever want. He saw men and women playing instruments. He saw people dressed in brilliant robes and drab rags. He saw plump cats and skinny ones, big dogs running free and tiny ones carried cradled in sacks by their owners. Even as the sun set the square continued its activity, soldiers coming through and lighting torches. As the stalls closed and people slowly dispersed, David moved closer to the fountain. As the torches burned low he found a place to sit. He wondered what Alec was doing. He wrapped his hands around his knees and thought of songs to sing.
Only a few people stayed in the square all night, huddled shapes curled against rocks and the wall. He talked to a few of them. They all spoke strangely, drifting twisting sentences, and had odd eyes, unfocused and filmed with what looked like wriggling creatures. They would ask him questions and not listen to the answers, instead reply by asking if he knew where there was wormwood to be had, leaning in close enough so he could smell the scent of spicy bitter smoke that clung to them.
"I don't know what that is," he'd told one old woman and she'd sighed, her eyes clearing for a moment.
"Lucky you," she'd told him. "It's strange cursed stuff. It makes your blood race, takes your mind where you want it to be. Backwards, forwards, it's madness but you're there, all those faraway places you want to be at once…but then it's over and you have to find your way back, have to--
surely you know where I can get some. I can tell you know. You've got the eyes for it." There was a knife in her hand, small and rusty. Her fingers were shaking wildly.
"I can't help you," he said, and touched her hand.
The knife shattered when it fell to the ground and the woman shuffled off, hand tucked under her other arm, teeth chattering and face blue from cold.
No one else approached him that night. It wasn't cold and he was used to not having anyone to talk to so it wasn't so bad. It was an adventure, he told himself. A story, and he was part of it.
Still, he felt alone when the sun rose and it wasn't a feeling he'd had for a while. He didn't like it, hadn't missed it. He looked for Alec before he could help himself, wanting to see his face.
Wanting him in his story.
He didn't see him, not even when the sun pushed its way fully into the sky.
He sang. He didn't know what else to do and it made him feel better.
He was singing a song about clouds when a coin was pressed into his hand. He paused, stared at it for a moment. There was a face carved on it he'd never seen before, beautiful and smiling. It looked like the face of the man whose statue stood in the fountain. And it was his now. If Alec was here David could ask him how much it was worth. He tucked the coin away. He kept singing.
A few hours later a woman walking by with a little brown dog stopped and looked at him, then pressed a piece of bread from a loaf she was carrying into his hand. "Like a lost angel, you are, aren't you?" she said, and her eyes were kind; they reminded him of his nurse's, but her fingers on his arm were different, curved possessive, and when she pulled him close her other hand touched him in places his nurse never had. He stared at her, wide-eyed, his blood singing. "I'd pay for a private show," she said. "Later today, when my husband is at the courts. Shall I give you the address?"
He arched into her touch as her dog yipped around his ankles. He let his fingers touch hers, thinking of things he didn't have a name for and couldn't quite picture but was sure he wouldn't mind having. He liked the way his body felt. Her face paled at his touch, her hand falling away.
David looked at his fingers. There was a thin sheen of ice on them. He couldn't feel it. He ate the bread as the woman faded back into the crowd. His fingers dripped water onto the ground. He kept singing.
He was given a glass of ale by a stall owner midmorning, clapped on the back and told, "That voice of yours is good for business. Keep it up!"
Midday, when the church bells sang their song and David sang along with them, a passing priest gave him the address of a church and suggested he join its choir, bought him a glass of wine and talked to him of the great mysteries. "They say that over the mountains lies a land cursed by snow, forever forsaken because its inhabitants forgot to honor God."
"Some people like snow," David said and drank all the wine. He liked the way it tasted but the priest's words left a bitter taste in his mouth.
As the day progressed he was given more coins and a handful of grapes, a sweet wrapped in paper by a little girl who smiled when he said "Thank you" and replied "It dropped on the ground" and then ran away laughing. In the afternoon a man with a green hat stopped and listened to him sing three songs. When David finished the third he walked up to him, smiled and stood so the edge of his cloak brushed David's arm. It was green too and made of the softest velvet, sprinkled with glass colored to look like jewels.
"You sing wonderfully," the man said and though the look in his eyes reminded David a little of the woman who'd touched him earlier, it reminded him of the way his brother and sister had looked at him more. He wanted to look away but didn't, stayed staring into the man's eyes, watching them flicker hot and feeling his body spark in response.
"I have money," the man whispered "Do you like my cloak? I'll buy you one like it. Just come for a short stroll with me."
"A stroll?"
The man smiled. "There are corners everywhere. Pleasure's not hard to find, if you're willing to look."
David looked at the man. He was pleasant-featured, smiling. There was a stain on one of his fingers, a tiny teardrop of brown red. Across from him another singer was staring at David with wide warning eyes, shaking her head slightly and pointing to a long white curving scar on her face.
David touched the man's arm and the man shivered but didn't move away. Instead he moved closer. The man's eyes were definitely like his brother and sister's and when David stared into them he felt something dark stir inside him, something he couldn't name but knew wouldn't settle easily if it was released. He started to sing. The man frowned. He said something else, lower, his face angry, but David didn't hear him. He didn't listen.
He grew sad when the sun began to set, but wasn't sure why. He'd made coin, talked to people--
he was living a life like all the stories his nurse had told him. He'd journeyed to a strange land and was making his way through it. But something was missing. He didn't feel like he was in a story. He felt like he always had, the square just a larger noisier version of the quiet room he'd lived his whole life in. He felt alone even though he was surrounded by more people than he'd ever been before.
Then he saw Alec at the edge of the crowd passing through the square and knew what he was missing. Who he was missing. He waved, but Alec didn't seem to see him. David waded into the crowd and followed him.
Alec walked slowly, hands in his pockets. At the end of the second street they'd passed since the square, he stopped and turned to face him.
"Doing pretty well for yourself," he said. "Lots of coins."
"I guess," David said. "I haven't counted it yet, but--"
"That's good." Alec said. "What do you want?" There was a faint hint of impatience in his voice.
"I--I just wanted to talk to you," David said. "How was your day?"
Alec stared at him for a moment. "You have somewhere to stay?" he finally said.
"I--I guess I do," David said, thinking of the woman with the little dog, the man with the green hat. He knew there could be others. He didn't know how he knew, but he did.
Alec scowled for a moment before smiling, broad and not real. "That's great." He started to walk off.
"Wait," David said.
Alec turned around slowly and the not smile on his face had totally faded. "What?"
"Dinner." David said. It was the first thing that popped into his head and he thought frantically for something else to say. "I--I owe you a dinner!" he said triumphantly.
"No, you don't," Alec said. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
"But--I--I miss talking to you."
Alec's expression shifted for a moment, going soft, startled. "Pretty hard up for conversation then, aren't you?" he said quietly.
"That means yes, right?"
"Yeah," Alec said. "But I don't see what you're smiling about. I heard you say you were going to pay, you know, and I'm holding you to it."
They ate dinner in a tavern as small and warm as the last one they'd been to but this one was filled with men like Alec, all of them marked with dark cracked hands, with starlight sprinkled on their clothes. No one said anything to him but David saw more than a few people looking at him and then at Alec with raised eyebrows or hungry wondering expressions.
A few people spoke to Alec, stopped by and leaned in to talk to him in hushed whispers that David could barely hear and couldn't understand when he did. He heard things about veins and picks and levels, saw a few men shake Alec's hand with smiles on their faces. A few more said nothing, just looked at him with smirks and shakes of their heads. Alec either ignored them or said something that made the smirks fade.
He'd tried to pay for their food but Alec hadn't let him. "Keep your money," he'd said and waved away David's stammered thanks with a frown.
"Well," he said when they walked outside and his voice sounded a little unsure. There were torches lit on this street too, and David stared at them in wonder. Even at night the city glowed like it was day. He started to ask Alec about it but noticed Alec was already starting to turn away from him, hands shoved back into his coat pockets.
"You didn't have to pay," David said. He wondered if Alec didn't like to show his hands in the light.
"I'll see you around," Alec said, and there was a scowl on his face, like he knew what David was thinking.
"Really?" David said. "Tomorrow, then? I could meet you somewhere."
Alec's mouth tightened and he didn't say anything for a moment. "What do you want from me?"
he finally said, and his voice sounded weary.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I just--I liked traveling with you," David said. "And I could help you now. I know how to clean and um, cook and--"
"You want to come home with me?"
"I need somewhere to stay and--"
"You have somewhere to stay. I saw the woman talking to you, the one with the little yippy dog.
And then that guy with the green hat."
"You saw that? But that was this morning and then later, in the--"
"I was just passing through on my way to--somewhere. Stop changing the subject. You have a place to stay. Or could. Just go find--"
"But I want to stay with you."
Alec flushed, red darkening his face, his eyes going soft for a moment. "No," he said, and his voice was gentle. "Look, David. I'm not--I don't do--" He gestured between them. "This."
"What?"
Alec narrowed his eyes for a moment. "You--" He sighed. "You don't know, do you?" He was silent for a moment. "So you want to stay with me and what? Cook and clean?"
David nodded.
"Why?"
"I like you," David said. "I like being with you. I thought about you today, when you weren't around. I wondered what you were doing."
"That's just boredom."
"No," David said, and his voice was so sharp he surprised himself. "You make me--you make me feel like smiling."
Alec smiled. It transformed his face, lit it up. David's breath caught. "Like that," he breathed. "I like how you make me feel. Alec--"
Alec's eyes went wide and David felt his heart beat fast and heavy in his chest. He'd made Alec look like this, flushed and wondering, just by saying his name. He liked that. He took a step closer. He looked down, directly into Alec's eyes. Up close and in the flickering torchlight they were brown, deep and dark. The look in them made him realize he could lift a hand and touch Alec's face. He wanted to do that and thought that maybe Alec would let him. That maybe Alec wanted him to.
He did. The tips of his fingers touched Alec's face. It felt different than he thought, soft skin right above his cheekbone and the rasp of stubble below it. David stroked his fingers back and forth, liking the feeling, the simple act of touching.