Authors: Scott Lynch
“I’ve heard about these things, but I never, I never thought of you—”
“First they cut,” said Sabetha. “Right out of a girl’s sex. What they call the sweetness,
the little hill. You’ve been around Calo and Galdo long enough, you must have heard
a dozen names for it. Then, while the wound is gushing, they bring in the old bastard
with the rotting cock or the festering sores or whatever he wants miraculously cured,
and he does his business. ‘Blood of the blood-haired child,’ is what they call it.”
“Sabetha—”
“And then, even though
most
of the miracle is already used up, they bring in the next hundred men that want a
go at the bloody hole, because it still brings good luck. In fact, it’s
especially
good luck if you’re the one riding her when she finally dies!”
“Gods.”
“Yes. May they all spend ten thousand years drinking salted shit in the deepest hell
there is.” Sabetha slumped against the rear wall of the balcony and stared at their
discarded wine cups and scripts. “Damn. I
am
pitching a fit.”
“You have some cause!”
She gave a sharp, self-disgusted sort of laugh.
“How was
I
supposed to know all this the first time I ever laid eyes on you?” said Locke. “I
remember that first glimpse as though it happened yesterday. But that’s not the only
thing I think about … if it really bothers you that much—”
“My
hair
doesn’t bother me,” she said forcefully. “It’s the stupid bastards who’d put me in
chains on account of that nonsense about it. I’ve had to mind this every day of my
life since I went to Shades’ Hill. Every day! All the hours I’ve wasted peering at
my hair in a glass, slopping
it with alchemy … someday I’ll be old enough that it won’t matter anymore. Someday
not soon enough.”
“What about before Shades’ Hill?”
“Nothing before the Hill matters,” she said quietly. “I was protected. Then I was
an orphan. Leave it at that.”
“As you prefer.” Slowly, hesitantly, he leaned against the wall beside her. Stars
were just beginning to pierce the bruise-colored sky above them, and the faint, familiar
whispers of evening were rising—the hum of insects, the clatter of wagons, the din
of eating and laughter and argument.
“I’m sorry, Locke,” she said after a few moments had passed. “It’s stupid and unfair
to be so upset with you. I’ve insulted you.”
“Absolutely not.” He put one hand on her arm and was encouraged to find her resuming
the habit of not flinching away. “I’m
glad
you told me. Your problems should be our problems, and your worries should be
our
worries. You realize how rarely you bother to explain yourself?”
“Now, that’s a load—”
“A load of straight truth! You could give inscrutability lessons to the gods-damned
Eldren. You know, it’s sort of frightening how you’re actually starting to make sense.”
“Is that meant to be complimentary?”
“Maybe toward both of us,” said Locke. Her weather-like mood swings, the brief seasons
of warmth followed by withdrawal and frustration, her urge to control everything in
her life with such precision and forethought; behavior that had mystified Locke for
years suddenly had a context. “I honestly don’t care what color your hair is as long
as you’re under it somewhere.”
“You forgive me for being … unreasonable?”
“Haven’t you forgiven me for the same thing?”
“We may find ourselves once again in serious danger of a happy understanding,” she
said, and the way her smile reached her eyes made Locke’s pulse race. Suddenly they
seemed to be competing to see who could bring their lips closer to the other’s without
appearing to do so—
The sound of a rapid, careless tread echoed from within the passage, and they sprang
apart in instinctive unison. The passage door slammed open, and Alondo Razi stumbled
out, red-cheeked and sweaty.
“Alondo,” said Sabetha with plainly exaggerated sweetness, “would you consider yourself
at peace with the gods?”
“I’m sorry,” he panted, his voice slurred. “I don’t mean to barge in on you, but I
can’t find Jovanno. It’s the Asino brothers. Need help—”
“Don’t tell me they started a fight,” said Locke, straining to banish the sudden mental
image of a Sanza insulting Lord Boulidazi, and all the intersections of flesh and
steel that might result.
“No, gods, no! Sylvanus bet that they couldn’t chug the Ash Bastard.
Nobody
can chug the Ash Bastard. So they tried, and got what was coming. Ha!”
Locke seized Alondo by the sweat-stained collar of his tunic and briefly forgot that
the Esparan had half a decade of growth on him. “Razi,” he growled, “what the cock-blistering
hell is an Ash Bastard?”
“Come down,” said the unsteady young actor. “Best see for yourself.”
Locke and Sabetha followed him to the common room, where they found the company and
the evening ale-swillers even more scattered and dissipated than usual. Calo and Galdo
were lying on their sides, artfully symmetrical, in the middle of a slick black-red
puddle. The smell in the air was somewhere between wet animal fur and an unwashed
torture chamber, but all the non-Sanza onlookers were quivering with mirth. Mistress
Gloriano was the only exception.
“I said take it out to the yard! Idiots! Pink-skinned Therin infants!” She noticed
Locke and Sabetha, and encompassed them with her glower. “What kind of fool tries
the Ash Bastard indoors?”
“What the hell are you people
talking
about?” said Locke. He knelt beside Calo. The twins were alive, though they were
liquored out of their wits and had clearly lost a fight with those potent joint antagonists,
vomit and gravity.
“The Ash Bastard,” said Jasmer, who was leaning against a nearly comatose Sylvanus,
“is that ghastly spittoon.”
Locke glanced where Jasmer pointed, and saw a tar-colored cask about two feet long
resting sideways on the floor. The stuff spilling from it looked like campfire ashes
after a hard rain.
“It’s a quaint ritual of the house,” smirked Jasmer.
“Performed in the yard!” bellowed Mistress Gloriano.
“True enough. But the gist of it, dear Lucaza, is that the Bastard collects tobacco
ash and spit for weeks, when people remember not to use the floor. We test the mettle
of brash young pickle-wits like your friends there by challenging them to chug the
Bastard, which means we fill it to the brim with a hideous black juniper wine Mistress
Gloriano imports directly from hell. We swirl it around and make them drink the slurry.”
“That’s idiotic,” said Sabetha, who was making sure Galdo still had a pulse.
“Completely,” laughed Jasmer. “No one in the history of the company has ever chugged
the Ash Bastard without hucking it right back up. And lo, the Bastard is victorious
once again!”
“Jasmer,” said Sabetha, lowering her voice, “not to put too fine a point on it, but
we need these two unpoisoned if they’re going to keep rehearsing. In fact, we need
everyone! Can’t you idiots dry out a bit—”
Sylvanus, though he seemed barely aware of the existence of his own face let alone
the world beyond it, gave an elephantine snort.
“Green gills or no,” said Jasmer, “the company always takes the stage, my dear. Besides,
this can hardly even be called a proper debauch by our lofty standards. Your friends
hold their liquor like sieves, is the problem.”
“Sorry to make this your trouble,” said Alondo, sinking into a chair, “but we needed
some help with the floor, and moving the Asinos, and we’re all too blotted to be much
use, and we can’t find Jenora or Jovanno … Hey, did you two see Lord Boulidazi? He
was here, too!”
“We know,” said Sabetha. “Mistress Gloriano, we need some water buckets. Lucaza, we’d
better drag these two out to the yard and get to work. They’ll be stuck to the floor
like barnacles if we let them alone.”
“I was going to thank you again for prying me out of Boulidazi’s grasp,” whispered
Locke, “but now I think I’ll wait and see how the evening ends first.”
“How do you think I feel?” She squeezed his arm and flashed him a hint of a smile,
like a fellow desert traveler sharing out precious water. “Now, pick arms or legs.
Let’s heave this one outside.”
“Where the hell is Jovanno?” muttered Locke.
JEAN HAD
watched Locke ascend the stairs, skin of wine in hand, with a mix of relief and annoyance.
It was past time for Locke and Sabetha to sort themselves out, or pitch themselves
out of a high window. Jean’s own peace of mind would be the benefactor in either case.
He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and let the wall do the job of holding it
up for a moment. What a time he must be having, when merely sitting alone and not
pretending that his bruises didn’t hurt felt like an immoderate indulgence.
When he opened his eyes again, Jenora was smiling at him from two feet away.
“I’ve found a threadbare boy!” she said. “Let me help you back up to your room.”
“Oh, uh, my room?”
“Trust me,” she said, hauling him to his feet. “Until the rest of the company’s too
drunk to move, you never want to be the first to fall asleep around ’em. Gods know
what mischief you’ll wake up to.”
There was a strange heat on his cheeks, like the warmth of too many ales. Jenora’s
hand was around his waist as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and
together they made a quick exit from the common room.
“So what are you not telling me, Jovanno?” She closed the door to Locke and Jean’s
chamber softly, then put her arms on his shoulders.
“Not telling you?”
“Oh, come now.” Her fingers began to work the knots between his shoulder blades. “You
read, write, and figure, but scribes don’t get muscles like
this
pushing quills. I know you speak Vadran as well as Therin. You can handle a needle
and thread. You fought a grown man to a standstill … not just any man, but Bert. Bert’s
a scrapper and a half.”
“I’ve had a, ah, strange education,” said Jean, feeling his wits loosening as agreeably
as his muscles under Jenora’s ministrations.
“You’re all strange, you Camorri. And strangely educated.”
“It’s nothing sinister. We’re just …”
“Slumming, hmm? Isn’t that what they usually call it when someone dresses down and
plays beneath their station?”
“Jenora!” Jean turned around, grabbed her hands, and halted the massage. His well-soothed
wits grudgingly rose to the occasion. If she’d been snooping on them a flat denial
would probably be useless. “Look, imagine whatever you like, but
please
believe me … everyone is better off just taking things at face value.”
“Is there some sort of danger in my being curious?”
“Let’s just say there’s absolutely no danger in
not
being curious!”
“Rest easy. It’s an informed guess, Jovanno. Your cousin Lucaza, well, he seems a
little surprised every time he notices that the world isn’t revolving around him.
And Verena, she’s no scullery maid, you know? Manners, diction, learning, poise. Then
there’s swordsman’s calluses on these hands of yours.” She ran her fingers lightly
over his palms, and the sensation made Jean’s blood run hot in more than one place.
“The gods put you all together from odd parts. There’s a story to be told.”
“There isn’t. There are so many trusts I’d be breaking … Jenora, please.”
“All right,” she said soothingly. “I can live with a bit of mystery. Let’s work on
what ails you, then.”
“What ails … I don’t … oh, well, ha—”
She slipped her hands under his tunic and ran them up his back, where they started
to gently but firmly put his sore muscles into something resembling their proper order.
This had the natural effect of bringing them together; her breasts were warm against
his upper chest, and her lips were parted in a half-smile just in front of his nose.
“Heh.” She blew playfully on his optics, fogging them over. “Not frightened of older,
taller women, are you?”
“I, uh, wouldn’t really know what to be frightened of.”
“Oh? So you’re an untapped vintage, hmmm?”
“Jenora, I’m not used … surely you can see that I’m not thought of as, uh, you know—”
“You know what I
don’t
like, Jovanno?” She moved her hands and teased the thin line of hair that ran down
his stomach. “Stupid men, weak men, illiterate men. Men who can’t tell a play from
a pile of kindling.”
Their lips came together, and as they kissed she slowly, deliberately guided one of
his hands until it rested atop a breast. She squeezed for
both of them, pushing his fingers, and Jean felt his awareness of the world narrowing
to the delightful corridor of heat that seemed to be rising between them.
“Lucaza,” he whispered. “He might—”
“I have a feeling your friends are going to be up on the roof for a very long time,”
she murmured. “Don’t you?”
Soon enough, by some process halfway between legerdemain and wrestling, their clothes
were off and they fell into his bed. Jean could barely tell where light skin ended
and dark skin began. He lay wrapped in the taste and smell and warmth of her, with
smoke-colored hair falling around him like a teasing shroud. Jenora seemed very much
at ease taking the lead, staying on top of him, alternately slowing and quickening
the rhythm of their coupling. All too soon he reached the limit of his untrained endurance,
and with a joyful, aching eruption there was one less mystery in Jean Tannen’s life.
Exhilarated, exhausted, and pleasantly bewildered, he clung to her for some time as
their heartbeats slowed from a gallop to a canter. The pains of his tussle with Bertrand
the Crowd seemed a hundred years in the past.
Jenora found her jacket in the mixed scatter of their clothing, pulled out a slim
wooden pipe, and tamped it full of a tobacco mixture that smelled alien and spicy
to Jean. They covered the room’s feeble alchemical globe and shared the pipe back
and forth in the near-darkness, talking softly by the orange glow of the embers.