Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  He smiled uncertainly. ‘It doesn’t please you? I’m afraid I haven’t another.’

  ‘It will do its job, I’m sure. Now lie on the bed.’

  Her heart was pounding as he obeyed, a pulse she felt both high and low. She was shipborn, raised to be obeyed. It had never occurred to her that she craved the same obedience in this act, or that she’d ever have the opportunity to demand it.

  Marvan lay back, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m yours, Lady Nethmi, every part of me – even the less pleasing ones. Do with me as you wish.’

  The fair was as ever both familiar and unfamiliar. The map changed but its essence remained the same. Olufemi’s journey inward took her through the clustered houses of the Snow Dancers and the broader squares where the wine vendors sold their wares to the tribespeople come to watch the Dancers dance. After that it was Journey’s End, the company once founded by Rhinanish traders.

  A Jorlith guard struck her name from one census and added it to another as she crossed the border between quarters and then she was in streets filled with goods from across the wide continent. Diamonds shone outside one store and there was the clash of many perfumes at another, while above them all the banner of a rayed sun flew. Next were the Fine Fellows, with pleasures on offer that a younger Olufemi might once have paused to sample, and beyond that she reached the heart of the fair.

  The first thing she smelled was the menagerie: the musk of the animals and the sweat of the people who crowded round their cages. Three quarters were cullies and the rest those who meant to prey on them. A clever-handed lad brushed against her, but she clutched her purse and he went in search of easier marks when Adofo screeched at him from her shoulder.

  The Blue Hall loomed ahead of her, the second largest building in the fair. The thunderclouds had gathered above it so that the colours of the world seemed reversed, the hall as bright as the sky and the sky as grim as the rain-struck fair. It was pouring down now, rivulets running through her tight-curled hair to drip from her nose. Adofo snuggled against her, seeking shelter. His wet scales chafed her skin.

  The Blue Hall was ringed by Jorlith, these men alert, unlike their brethren on the fair’s borders. Four snapped to attention as she approached, and spears crossed in front of her to block her way.

  ‘Clerks only, stranger,’ one of them said. ‘There’s no entertainment inside.’

  ‘It’s the clerks I seek,’ Olufemi told them. ‘I need to call a meeting of the congress.’

  The spears didn’t move. ‘Congress meets at pitch-start. No meeting now till the next pitch.’

  ‘It meets for emergencies, too. And it will meet for me.’

  The Jorlith eyed her, their thin, pale faces unimpressed beneath close-cropped blond hair.

  ‘Let me in, at least,’ she said. ‘Let me speak to the clerks – to the consul if he’s here. Let them judge.’

  She thought they might deny her even that, but then there was the shuffle of footsteps behind them and their spears parted to let a man out. His face lightened with recognition when he saw Olufemi, though she knew she’d changed since they last met. He looked older too: what hadn’t fallen out was sagging and his whole skin had a yellowish tinge that showed a liver on the point of expiration.

  ‘Ethelred,’ she said. ‘You’ve been promoted, I see. An arbitrator. Well deserved, there’s no doubt of it.’

  ‘And you look more ragged than ever, Olufemi.’ He stepped back and waved her through into the interior of the hall, which glowed with candlelight and the gold leaf coating every wall. ‘You should never have left the fair. If you hadn’t, Vordanna and Jinn wouldn’t … Well.’

  His expression was ominous and her stomach clenched. ‘What about them?’

  ‘You haven’t heard?’

  ‘I haven’t been to see them yet. My business here is too urgent.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, well, they were taken, snatched away in the night when we were camped in the Blade Pass.’ He looked uncomfortable, clearly unhappy to be the one breaking this news to her. ‘We believe it was Seonu who did it, but the lord of Winter’s Hammer didn’t answer our demands for their return.’

  ‘And the congress did nothing?’ she asked furiously.

  He shrugged. ‘What was there to do?’

  ‘I need you to summon the congress. You have the authority to do that, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Olufemi. You know as well as I do that this is not enough to merit an emergency session. Why, there have only been seven in the fair’s whole history. They can’t meet just because you want your lover returned.’

  ‘I’ll have words with them about that, never fear, but that’s not why I’ve come. The congress needs to hear what I have to say. Oh, for the love of the gods!’ she snapped at the continued doubt on his face. ‘An army is coming – hours behind me. Your own people will see it soon enough, but by then it may be too late to do anything. Convene the congress and let me tell them what I know.’

  It took far longer than she would have liked to summon the congress to the hall, close to two hours. None of them looked pleased to be dragged from their daily quest for profit, the fair’s true god. The sour-faced delegate of the Merry Cooks scowled as he took his place at the table, but the painted boy the Fine Fellows had chosen for their representative grinned as he sat cross-legged on his chair and Rah Bae of the Drovers made at least one familiar face. He nodded thoughtfully at her as he took his seat.

  The consul was the last to arrive. Stanhild Thedlefsdochter of the clerks had been nothing but a lowly apprentice when Olufemi first visited the fair. Now she was grey-haired and stooped with age. Adofo observed them all from his place on the table beside Olufemi. Those who didn’t know her of old eyed the lizard monkey uneasily. His strange eyes shone silver and troubling in the dim room.

  ‘So, Olufemi,’ Stanhild said when everyone was settled. ‘You have us here, at much inconvenience. If this is about Vordanna –’

  ‘It’s not! Though your cowardice in that regard certainly merits discussion.’

  ‘Then just what do you want?’

  She took the time to circle the table with her gaze, catching each set of eyes for a moment so that they could see the seriousness of her intent. ‘I want nothing of you but what you’d want for yourselves: your safety and that of the fair. I came to warn of the army that’s poised to descend on you.’

  ‘An army, you say?’ That was the very unmerry cook. ‘Why comes it here? And how come you to know of it?’

  ‘It’s here in search of the Ashane King’s lost son.’

  Harnoor of the Worshippers, a broad and usually jolly woman, half rose out of her chair in anger. ‘This is nonsense, Olufemi – peddle it to the cullies if you like, but don’t bring it here, and don’t drag us from our business for it.’

  ‘It’s true!’ Olufemi shouted over the sudden hubbub and again, when they’d quietened, ‘It’s true, and you know very well that the King of Ashanesland did lose his son. Whether he’s what I claimed isn’t really important. What’s important is that the lost boy has been found, against all expectations, and an army comes in pursuit of him.’

  Harnoor slowly settled back in her seat, only a little mollified. ‘Maybe it’s so, but why come here?’

  Olufemi laughed and Adofo echoed her with a high screech. ‘Where else to look for a fugitive with no place else to go? They believe the prince has found his way here, and they may well be right. But it hardly matters if they are. They’ll sack the fair in their search for him and if you’re not ready you’ll be powerless to stop them.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Stanhild asked.

  Olufemi hesitated, but she needed their help. ‘Krishanjit, they say. He grew up a goatherd in one of the nowhere mountain villages at the border of Ashanesland. It’s why he was never found.’

  Stanhild nodded. ‘Krishanjit. Not a common name.’ She turned to the junior clerk taking notes at her side. ‘Search all of the censuses for him and bring him to me if he
’s found. If not, tell the Jorlith to watch for his arrival at the gates. We can’t have him wandering loose in the fair.’

  ‘Good,’ Olufemi said. ‘Now, I have some thoughts about your defences.’

  ‘Defences?’ Stanhild stared at her. ‘An Ashane army is heading our way. There is no defence against that.’

  ‘Well, it’s not truly an army, just an armed force, four hundred or so strong. It’s not the full might of the kingdom and there are no carrion riders among them. Most are simple farmers, few are trained and many are ill-armed. The Jorlith are a match for them.’

  ‘Perhaps, but why should we put it to the test? We have no business crossing King Nayan. In all our years we’ve never sought conflict with those who host us. We’ll simply hand over the boy and the fair will continue on its way.’

  There were mutters of agreement and not a single voice of dissent. Olufemi felt a panicked sweat start between her shoulders. She couldn’t allow Yron’s heir to be handed over now, not when he was so nearly within her grasp.

  ‘The force isn’t solely Ashane,’ she said. ‘They’ve recruited Brotherband raiders to their cause. Do you really want to let those murderers through the gates of Smiler’s Fair?’

  She could see that gave some of them pause, but Stanhild shook her head. ‘No. All the more reason to give them their prince and be on our way.’

  ‘You think it will be so easy? Do you really believe the Brotherband will come to our door and turn away without the chance to pillage and rape? It’s the promise of rape and pillage that bought their loyalty to the Ashane cause!’

  ‘I think they’re more likely to leave us be if we give them no reason to harm us. Smiler’s Fair has always had safe passage. The Brotherband are still part of the Fourteen Tribes, and they know there’s no better way to unite the rest against them than to attack us. We benefit everyone, harm no one. That’s the way of the fair.’ Stanhild smiled patronisingly at Olufemi. ‘You’ve been wandering the outside world too long, mage. It’s no wonder you’ve forgotten it.’

  Rage built inside her, made mostly out of fear. ‘I’ve forgotten nothing. My people never forget. We were here when the Fourteen Tribes wrecked their ships on our shore at the beginning of their exile. We remember when there were fourteen tribes, before the Geun perished and the Seonu were lost. We were here when the Four Together were still the Five Together and when Ashane was just a man and not the land he named for himself in his pride.

  ‘We remember when Smiler’s Fair began at the Five Stars, when it was nothing but a few wagons and candied apples on a stick. We were there when King Balkar summoned the fair to Ashfall and began its travels, and when the War of the Sons drove it from Ashanesland to cross the Blade Pass and meet the tribes for the very first time.

  ‘We were here before all the other peoples of the land, before the Moon Forest folk and the Ashane and the tribes. We were here before you brought your gods with you and we remember the gods who came before. We witnessed the war fought by Yron and Mizhara so vast it broke the land itself. Why do you think you found it near empty when you came? Mizhara killed her brother then but now he’s been reborn. Yron’s power is back in the world and you would dare to oppose it?

  ‘We saw Smiler’s Fair burn to ash in the Star Fire and again on the borders of the Moon Forest. And if you don’t listen to me – if you don’t heed my warning – the fair will burn once more. Turning the Ashane king’s son over to his pursuers won’t save you. Only he can save you, but you have to align yourselves with him. Yron’s heir is your only hope.’

  A long silence followed her words. Some of the delegates looked frightened. Harnoor seemed both impressed and a little amused, as if she’d watched someone perform a very clever trick. But Stanhild was blank-faced. She rested her chin on her knuckles and regarded Olufemi through narrowed eyes.

  ‘When you lived among us, you were a Worshipper,’ Stanhild said. ‘You gave your prayers to every god and your heart to none. When you left to travel the world, I thought it was just another way to rob the cullies of their coin. It’s clear I was wrong. You’ve fallen into the worst error a citizen of the fair can – you’ve started to believe your own lies. But I won’t make the same mistake. The Ashane king’s son is nothing to us. I won’t risk a single street of Smiler’s Fair for his safety.’

  Despair settled over Olufemi like a shroud. They’d been too cowardly to save Vordanna and now they were too foolish to save themselves. ‘Then you’re doomed,’ she told them. ‘And all the Worshippers’ prayers won’t save you.’

  Stanhild smiled. ‘When this is over, you may remind us you said so. In the meantime, the congress has spoken. The Ashane will have their fugitive, and we will keep our peace.’

  Marvan woke before Nethmi. The day was ending but enough light still shone through his one window for him to study her. She was very pretty: a perfect mouth, small nose and rich brown skin. Even her hair, unwashed as it was, still somehow contrived to be lustrous. It shouldn’t surprise him the pleasure he’d found in lying with her, and yet it did. For months now, the only time his prick had hardened was over a cooling corpse.

  She’d enjoyed their fucking too, he was sure of it. Fat Vera of Smiler’s Mile had taught him a trick or two to please women and he’d deployed them to the best of his ability. But it was more than her body: he enjoyed her company. He looked forward to speaking with her, to showing her his world. He’d never felt that way about anyone else. They were all less than him, that was the thing. They moved and talked and smelled like people, but in truth they were little more than puppets. You could pull their strings. You didn’t mourn when they were cut. Nethmi was different; he’d known that the moment she told him about killing her father. There was so much he wanted to tell her too, but he hadn’t yet found the courage.

  She stirred and opened her eyes a crack.

  ‘Hungry?’ he asked.

  She murmured something unintelligible and he took it for a yes. But he had no food in the room, nothing fit for her. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he said, bending to kiss her brow before throwing on his breeches and shirt. He’d find her something sweet to end her day.

  He went to Damith’s place, thankfully only three streets away and always the best for honey pastries. It had been set up next to a cobbler, and the smell of leather mingled pleasantly with the scent of fresh bread as Marvan leaned against the counter and clicked his fingers for attention.

  Damith was a remarkably slim man for his job, only his cheeks looking rounded and well fed. ‘Did you hear the chatter?’ he asked, as he always did.

  Marvan shook his head, impatient to return to Nethmi, but Damith wasn’t to be deterred.

  ‘An army descending on the fair,’ he whispered. ‘What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say it’s nonsense. What cully told you that?’

  Damith looked affronted. ‘No cully. It was Olufemi of the Worshippers told the whole congress not but an hour past.’

  ‘Your news is fresh.’

  ‘Hot off the stove, just like my cakes. It seems the Ashane king’s missing a son and wants him back.’

  ‘Then let King Nayan have him.’

  ‘Aye, but is that our way? Seems to me the bloody Ashane have been demanding a lot from us of late.’ Damith’s face twisted with contempt. Though pure Ashane blood ran through his veins, he was a Smiler’s Fair man in his bones.

  ‘I don’t recall them asking us much,’ Marvan said. ‘No more than any other host.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t listen, Marvan, that’s your problem. Nalin Nine Eggs tried to demand five thousand gold wheels for the trade lost when the congress chose not to pass his way. The taking of Jinn and Vordanna, snatched from their beds in the Blade Pass, surely you remember that? And then those messengers came from Winter’s Hammer insisting we turn over Lord Thilak’s murderers. Accused Jinn and Vordanna themselves of the crime – the cheek of it! Said they’d conspired with his own wife or some such nonsense and offered a thousand gold wheels for her r
eturn.’

  The words hit Marvan like a lance. He clutched a sudden hollow in his chest and asked, ‘Thilak was killed?’

  ‘Aye, and the high-and-mighty shipborn lord thought the culprits were sheltering here. So what if they are? Smiler’s Fair is a refuge, always has been. If they’re here, good luck to them and the Ashane lord can keep his money.’

  ‘Won’t you excuse me,’ Marvan said, ‘I have a lady waiting.’

  Nethmi had dressed herself while he was gone. She perched on the edge of his one chair, running her fingers through her tangled hair. Her expression when she saw him was hard to read. He thought there might be a little shame in it, but also some triumph. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked.

  ‘To get pastries.’ He nodded to her and then moved quickly to his arms chest.

  ‘Well, where are they?’ she demanded after a moment.

  ‘I forgot them. Come here.’

  There was a tense edge to his voice and he could see she sensed it and it made her uneasy. But after a moment she crossed to the chest as he raised its lid. His fingers closed round the scabbard of a fine, jewelled sabre. She backed away a step when she saw it, but he handed it to her still sheathed. ‘I had that from the Ahn warrior I killed in a duel three years back, when Smiler’s Fair skirted the Silent Sands.’

  She ran her fingers round the largest ruby in the hilt. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  Next he passed her a serrated knife. ‘That was a Moon Forest man. I took the blade from him in the fight and slit his throat with it. This axe here belonged to a Maeng. You see that scar to the left of my ear? He gave me that before I gutted him. The trident I had from Ishan of Fellview. And this one …’

  His hand shook as he took out the final trident from its velvet nest. He saw that she was shaking too as he gave it to her. ‘This I had from my brother. He was the first man I killed. Like you, I started with my family.’

  She backed away another step. ‘It’s not the same. My father was dying. I’m not a murderer.’