Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  Some of the crowd roared and others groaned and Marvan saw coins changing hands as a group of warriors detached from the onlookers to carry the smaller opponent away. The big man laughed and shouted out a challenge, but no one answered it and after a few moments he shrugged and left the ring.

  The man who replaced him looked considerably less intimidating. He was taller but slightly stooped and there were threads of silver in his long hair, which he wore loose over his shoulders rather than in the topknot most tribesmen preferred beneath their turbans. That was a mistake, Marvan thought, a potential handhold for his opponent. The man moved a little stiffly too, and he favoured his right leg. He went to the centre of the ring, raised his arms over his head and shouted the same challenge to the crowd.

  There was a stirring among the throng opposite Marvan and he thought an opponent was about to emerge. He pushed aside the man in front of him and stepped out before they could. ‘I answer you,’ he said in the language of the tribes. ‘I’ll fight you.’

  There was a murmur from the crowd, not entirely happy.

  ‘You, Ashaneman?’ the warrior said. ‘What tribe are you? What band?’

  ‘No tribe,’ Marvan said, ‘and Ashane no longer. I’m just a man of Smiler’s Fair, as you can see. Why – are we too much for you to face? Will the tribes only play their little games with each other, or would you take on a real warrior?’

  The man’s face darkened with anger as there were whoops of derision from the onlookers, though it wasn’t clear if they were aimed at Marvan or the tribesman. Probably both. There were a dozen different bands here, and each liked to think itself the best. The man he’d challenged would have more enemies than friends in the crowd, or so Marvan hoped. He eyed them speculatively and found his gaze caught by a woman: petite and very pretty and clearly Ashane. She held his gaze with a confidence that sent a jolt up his spine.

  He watched her a moment longer and then pulled out the two axes from his belt and turned to the elderly man beside him. ‘Will you look after these for me, friend?’ One glance at the muddy ground and he shucked off his shirt and jacket and handed them over, too. His movements felt a little jerky, the blood already pumping faster through his body and his head buzzing with the hunger about to be sated.

  The elderly man sized him up as he took the weapons and the clothes. As Marvan stepped further into the ring he heard him offering two to one on his opponent to win. Well, Marvan didn’t look like much, he knew that: tall and skinny with a pigeon chest and an odd twist to his walk that made him seem as if one leg was shorter than the other. He liked to be underestimated; he just hoped he hadn’t done the same with his opponent.

  The other man eyed him as he approached. ‘Think you can defeat me, Ashaneman?’

  Marvan grinned. ‘I’ll certainly give it a try.’

  If only Smiler’s Fair wouldn’t keep bloody changing. Marvan was gasping for breath, his pursuers were only a few score paces behind him and he’d just turned in to a dead end where he’d expected to find himself in Tailors’ Row. He spun to face the mouth of the alley and his hands reached for the axes at his belt – only to remember he’d left them with the old man before the fight. He pulled the stiletto from its sheath in his boot, knowing it would be close to useless against so many.

  The crack of his opponent’s back breaking echoed in his mind, but rather than pleasing him it filled him with self-disgust. Now that his hunger had been satisfied, he knew he’d been a fool. The wrestling wasn’t to the death, that was the whole point. Only the shock and confusion following his victory had allowed him to escape the square at all. He’d broken a trust along with the man’s back and now the tribesmen would settle for nothing but blood.

  The warriors shouted in their nasal tongue as they approached the blind alley that had trapped him. They had no need to be stealthy when they so outnumbered him. Marvan realised that his hand was shaking. What a stupid way to die, and what a horrible place to die in. The alley stank of piss and there were fish-heads and animal guts in the soup of mud at his feet.

  He tightened a hand round his knife and resolved to die with more dignity than most of his victims when another voice joined the tribesmen’s, a woman’s soft tones. Marvan couldn’t quite make out the words, though he didn’t think it was any of the plains dialects. The tribesmen grumbled a reply and then she spoke again, for longer. And then … when the tribesmen next spoke their voices were fainter. They were walking away from the mouth of the alley.

  He sagged against the rotten wood behind him, the stiletto hanging limp in suddenly nerveless fingers. The rush of relief was almost as intense as the thrill of a kill. Death had walked past him and looked aside.

  He was still shaking when the woman appeared. She stopped about ten paces away and stood studying him. She was an Ashanewoman with the darker skin and straighter hair of the south, and the proud bearing of the shipborn. Her familiarity nagged at him until he realised that he’d seen her in the crowd at the wrestling match. He smiled uncertainly at her. ‘I think you just saved my life. Did you?’

  ‘I told them I’d seen you back at that last crossroads.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She shook her head, denying the thanks as if she’d helped him only by mistake. He thought she meant to move away, but he didn’t want her to go. He sheathed his blade and held out his elbow to her. She looked at it, startled.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he said. ‘It’s the very least I can do.’

  The man took her to a dingy parlour with the sign of the fat, smiling cook swinging on a rotted rope outside it. Nethmi didn’t think it was wise to go out in public with so many people after his blood, but her companion seemed confident. He climbed through the trapdoor to the upper floor, offering a hand to help her after him. Her skin prickled with fear but no one spared him a glance as he led her to a corner table.

  She studied him as he raised an arm to order a flagon of wine from the barmaid. He wasn’t a handsome man. His nose was huge. And he wasn’t a good man; that was clear. She still didn’t understand why she’d helped him. But she’d seen his face as he killed the tribesman in that duel. There had been something in his expression she’d recognised.

  ‘I’m Marvan, by the way,’ he said as he threw back a mouthful of the wine.

  She sipped at hers. It was rougher than any she’d tasted before, but the heat of it erased the cold terror she’d felt when she’d directed the warriors away from their quarry and wondered if they could tell she was lying.

  ‘I’m Nethmi,’ she told him. ‘Are you sure it’s safe here? Anyone could recognise you.’

  ‘In Smiler’s Fair we look out for our own. Well, some of the time. Besides, this place belongs to the Merry Cooks and they won’t betray a Drover. Don’t worry, I simply need to wait until the Jorlith have had their chance to calm things down. I’ll tell them it was all a terrible mistake and they’ll pretend to believe me, especially once I’ve paid the blood price and a little extra for the clerks’ coffers.’ He grinned, but she didn’t smile back. She didn’t see how he could be so calm when he’d just killed a man. She’d thought about In Su every day since she’d taken his life, and Thilak’s dying gasps haunted her nights. She wondered if this man could teach her how to stop caring so painfully much.

  Marvan studied her with disquieting thoroughness. Then he leaned back and rested his forefingers against his lips. ‘You’ve come a long way from Ashanesland. From Whitewood, unless I miss my guess.’

  She started, and then knew her surprise betrayed her, making denial pointless. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’d recognise those eyebrows anywhere. I hail from Fell’s End myself, third son of the lord of nowhere in particular. And you must be … Of course, you’re old Lord Shaan’s daughter, aren’t you? Little Blade, they used to call you. We met at a banquet once when your father was newly elevated, though you were probably too young to remember. Oh, don’t worry, I abandoned Ashanesland long ago, and whatever’s caused you to leave
it is of no interest to me. Well, that’s not entirely true – I’d love to know what’s made you seek out the delights of Smiler’s Fair. But I’m not planning to turn you in to the clerks, if that’s what you’re worried about. And even if I did, they’d just turn you back out again. A person leaves their past behind when they enter the fair.’

  Was that possible – to leave your past behind? But something made her tell him, ‘I was married to Lord Thilak of Winter’s Hammer.’

  ‘And you didn’t like it, so you ran away.’

  She looked down into her cup, stirring the wine with her finger. ‘Yes. Yes, I ran away.’

  ‘Then you’re without a home and in need of a friend.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ she said stiffly. She didn’t think it wise to take favours from any resident of Smiler’s Fair, even a shipborn Ashane.

  He seemed to understand her doubt. ‘I’m in your debt,’ he said. ‘I can’t repay it, as I place a very high value on my life and I’m short of coin. But if nothing else, I can be your guide around this place. I remember what a maze I found it when I first came. We’ll need to wait a few hours for my trouble to calm itself down, but once the clerks have done their work, will you let me show you Smiler’s Fair?’

  The crowds pushed Nethmi against Marvan and she found she didn’t mind. His body was warm and his scent clean and she was weary after the hours they’d spent walking the streets of the fair. She rested her hand against his arm and turned her attention to the stage.

  Half the dancers wore wooden masks, carved to resemble horses’ heads. The long jaws that looked pleasing on the animals seemed sinister on the men. The other performers were dressed as men of the tribes in beaded vests and high turbans. They were singing to the horse-masked figures as they danced. In front of the stage, a row of men sat cross-legged with drums in their laps and did their best to drown out the singing. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, but she had no idea what it meant.

  ‘I don’t understand the words,’ she told Marvan. ‘I don’t speak the tribes’ tongue.’

  ‘And why would you? It’s a nasty-sounding thing.’

  When he said no more she cut her eyes to him and saw that he was grinning. She realised he was teasing her and felt an odd mix of warmth and melancholy. The last person to do that had been Lahiru. In Su had been gentle and kind, but he hadn’t been a merry man. She hadn’t realised how much she missed it.

  ‘So what does it mean?’ she asked Marvan.

  ‘Well, they’re composing poems in praise of the horses.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Truly. These men are Snow Dancers, the first company of Smiler’s Fair to come from among the tribes. This is a thing the plainsmen do, you know. The women run their affairs instead of the men, and the men sing the praises of the horses instead of the women. They’re an odd people.’

  ‘Not all one people,’ she corrected him. ‘The different tribes have different ways.’

  ‘Indeed. You’ve studied them, I gather.’

  She looked back at the stage. ‘A friend told me.’

  They watched a little longer, but it was more intriguing than entertaining.

  ‘How would you like to see some real animals?’ Marvan asked during a break in the drumming.

  ‘Whatever you’d like to show me.’

  He led her through a warren of alleys and streets that she thought led deeper into the fair. At least he was helping her develop some slight sense of the geography of this maddening place. ‘Much of Smiler’s Fair is subject to change,’ he told her as they walked. ‘But a few places always take the same pitch. Ah – and here’s the first of them.’

  They’d spilled from a shadowed avenue into a wide square. An enormous building sat in its centre, the largest she’d yet seen. It dwarfed even Whitewood but was far less elegant. Like the shipfort, it seemed to have been built of wood, but it had since been patched with cloth and here and there faced with stone, which had in turn begun to crumble away. There were decorations everywhere, carvings of flowers and trees and paintings of people and animals, but none of them seemed to bear any relation to each other.

  ‘This is the Temple,’ Marvan said.

  ‘To which god?’

  ‘Oh, all of them. The Worshippers aren’t fussy that way. Pay them their coin and they’ll pray to whomever you choose. It saves you the effort of showing any piety yourself. Would you like to go inside?’

  She nodded, and he slipped two clay anchors to a child standing by one of the many doorways and led her in. She stopped to gasp and Marvan laughed. ‘More gods than you expected? The world is full of them. Over there are our Ashane prow gods.’ He pointed at wooden statues of the Lady and the rest. ‘Except for the Smiler, of course. This being his home, the god of pleasure and revel gets pride of place. See?’ The Smiler’s statue sat at the centre of the room, easily thirty feet high and gilded all over. It made his rolls of fat and unsafe smile seem overwhelming.

  ‘And those are the gods of the tribes.’ Marvan gestured at a large cluster of statues, human-sized and human-shaped but dyed all colours of the rainbow. ‘They’re an easy-going lot, always adopting new gods into their families and hiring the spirits of the tribesmen’s ancestors to serve them as their clerks. And the rather striking lady over there with the strange ears is the Hunter of the Moon Forest folk.’

  ‘And where’s the moon god?’ she asked, obviously not as casually as she’d hoped, since Marvan turned to regard her thoughtfully.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you’d been to Smiler’s Fair before. You must have done, to hear Jinn preach. There’s no statue of his moon god here. Apparently there’s no need of it, as the god himself is walking this earth. Have you ever thought that we Ashane are rather hard done-by in that department? There’s the Moon Forest folk with their goddess protecting them in person, the tribes due to join their gods when they die, and all we have are five statues in Ashfall. They say the five prow gods sat at the front of the five ships that brought our people here, with the Lady making the weather fair and the Smiler keeping them all happy through the long journey, but I wonder if that’s true. I sometimes think our forebears left them behind in the old land when they sailed and came here godless.’

  ‘But there are the god-dreams,’ she said, a little scandalised. Her father would have had a man whipped for such talk. ‘And our personal prow gods too.’

  ‘Yes – I had a handsome fellow myself, called him the Sun-summoner, but he never seemed to do me much good and I left him behind in Fell’s End.’

  ‘I had to leave my Peacebringer in Winter’s Hammer,’ she admitted.

  ‘There, you see – and yet you fetched up here and fell into my company. I’d say you’re doing very well without him.’ He smiled charmingly and she couldn’t help smiling back.

  They spent a little longer wandering between the statues, but after a while Nethmi began to feel their painted eyes following her, and she shivered and asked to leave the Temple.

  ‘The Menagerie, then,’ Marvan said and led her down another alley, lined with shops selling nuts and squares of glistening red meat. She frowned as he bought a packet of raw chunks.

  ‘For the beasts,’ he said.

  The Menagerie lay at the end of the alley. It was a little smaller than the Temple, but ten times noisier and a hundred times more malodorous.

  ‘Keep a hand on your coins,’ he instructed. ‘The Fierce Children run this place, but they’ve a deal with the cutpurses of the Queen’s Men: a share of all they steal from the gawping cullies.’

  She understood why visitors might be distracted. The first cage held a creature she’d never seen before or even imagined. Its body was the size and shape of a cow’s, but entirely covered in bright scarlet scales. There was a ruff of feathers round its neck and its teeth were as sharp as needles. She might have thought it a curiosity sewn together from the corpses of five different animals until a golden eye blinked open and stared at her.

  Marvan threw it a gobbet of meat, w
hich it swallowed whole. ‘A desert creature,’ he told her. ‘A reptile of some sort. But not quite as impressive as this fellow.’

  The next cage held a snake. Marvan was right: it was impressive, its coils as thick as her torso and its head little smaller than hers. She’d never seen a serpent so large, but she’d seen its smaller cousins and she knew its species: a yellow viper, the creature sacred to the Fierce Child. She couldn’t move her eyes from it. Marvan was speaking, but his words were just noise until he put himself between her and the tank, hiding her view of the snake.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘There’s no need to be afraid – it can’t escape its cage.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said, but her voice cracked. ‘I’m not afraid. We had a shrine to the Fierce Child in Whitewood. I saw the snakes in their tank there every day.’

  She saw the moment he understood. ‘Of course, I’d forgotten. Your father was killed by a serpent, wasn’t he? Murdered by your uncle.’

  A wave of unexpected tears washed over her and Marvan stared at her in alarm for a moment, then cautiously put his arms round her while she sobbed. Eventually shame overcame her grief and she pulled away, wiping roughly at her face to clean her cheeks and nose.

  ‘It was murder,’ she said. ‘Puneet cracked the glass to free the serpent on purpose, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘So the rumours said.’ He looked a little puzzled at her vehemence and she laughed moistly. He couldn’t know what it meant to finally hear her own suspicions voiced by someone else. She’d been so young when her father had died. In the small hours of the night she’d sometimes doubted her own interpretation of events. But now it seemed every shipborn lord in Ashesland believed the same thing.

  ‘I gave him the purple sorghum tea to ease his passing,’ she told Marvan.

  ‘I would have done the same,’ he said. His voice shook a little, as if her emotions were infecting him.

  Suddenly, she wanted to confide everything ‘In the Rune Waste, before I came to Smiler’s Fair, I had another friend bitten by a snake. I had to kill him too.’ At that his face froze and she felt tears start in her eyes again. ‘You think I did wrong,’ she said.