There was a mocking edge to the man’s tone that Krish didn’t like. He bristled but kept his silence. Anything he said could only betray him.
‘Not much of a talker, I see. Don’t worry, I’ve been told I speak enough for four men. But what brings you to our fair? Surely you can tell me that?’
‘I’m …’ Krish realised he should have been better prepared, but Dae Hyo had a way of rushing him into things before he’d had a chance to think them through. ‘I’m looking for some good men to join our cause,’ he said finally.
‘Good men? You may have come to the wrong place. But what’s this cause of yours?’
‘We – we’re rebuilding the Dae tribe. We’re recruiting warriors to take back the Dae lands.’
‘It’s a noble aim. But the Dae are dead and buried, aren’t they?’
‘Not all of them.’
‘No? How many survived? How great is this army you’re building?’
Krish held the other man’s gaze defiantly. ‘It’s growing. But you’re not really interested in joining, are you?’
‘No, I’m no soldier,’ Marvan said, though Krish could see the axes hanging from his belt. ‘I wish you luck in your quest, friend. I’m afraid you might need it.’
And as suddenly as he’d arrived, Marvan was going. Krish stared at his departing back as he weaved his way to the door. Several times, Marvan stopped to exchange words or handclaps with other patrons, but none of them looked keen to be in his company, as if he made them all a little uneasy.
He made Krish uneasy too. There was something too watchful in his eyes and too knowing in his smile. His questions had seemed innocent enough but Krish had sensed a meaning beneath them that he couldn’t decipher. Marvan hadn’t seemed to recognise him, but there’d been something more troubling than mere mockery in his gaze. The other man turned for a moment at the door, his dark eyes locking with Krish’s. When he turned back, Krish kept watching until he was sure Marvan was really gone.
By the end of the day, Krish had spoken to four more men and two women. But only one – a scrawny, black-skinned youth – had agreed to meet with him and Dae Hyo the next morning. He didn’t think he could call his mission a success, and his head felt light and his body heavy from all the ale he’d drunk. He placed his feet with extra care as he navigated the winding streets towards the tower with the raven flag. It loomed ahead of him, now to the left, now to the right, the ochre tiles shaded crimson by the setting sun. Finally it was directly ahead of him, across a square filled with music and dancing.
A tall tribesman elbowed Krish as he passed and three women dancing in a circle cursed as he forced his way through. For a brief moment he thought he glimpsed Marvan through the crowd, his crafty eyes watching Krish over his long nose. Then the dancers moved and the other man was gone.
The music was deafening and not quite tuneful. The bass beat of a drum underlay a tortured wailing and low, musical farts from what looked like a hollow log. Everyone seemed to be drunk or angry or filled with lust or all three. A woman tried to draw Krish into the dance, pressing him against her sweating chest, but he blushed and pulled away.
Finally he saw Dae Hyo waving to him. The other man was leaning at his ease against one of the slender pillars supporting the raven tower. As Krish approached, he realised his companion had been drinking – and when he was right beside him he knew he’d been drinking a lot. Dae Hyo’s face was flushed along his planed cheeks and his hair, normally secure in its topknot, was loose and tangled round his shoulders. His shirt had slipped to reveal a collection of red bruises on his neck.
‘I think I’ve found one,’ Krish said.
Dae Hyo frowned as he breathed spirits fumes into Krish’s face. ‘One what?’
‘Someone to join the Dae.’
‘Oh, yes. That’s very good, but Svarog’s cock, brother, we’re in Smiler’s Fair! A man only gets to see the place a few times in his life, so stop being so serious and think about having some fun.’ He slung an arm over Krish’s shoulders and drew him away from the tower towards one of the buildings on the left. It was one of those with a board showing a naked woman on the outside and many barely clad women on the inside. Krish dragged his heels as they drew close and Dae Hyo raised an eyebrow at him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘What is that place?’
‘It’s a whorehouse. Women sell their bodies to men who have the coin.’
Krish thought suddenly of his mother, her face blank as she gave herself to buy his freedom.
Dae Hyo noticed his expression and frowned. ‘I tell you what, no Dae woman would do it, but these are foreigners with foreign ways. And when a man has needs and coin in his pocket, why not?’
They were among the women now. Their half-dressed bodies brushed against his as Dae Hyo led him through. His manhood couldn’t help stirring at the sight of those breasts and thighs, the silky hair and the red, pouting lips. The village girls had always scorned him. If his odd eyes hadn’t driven them away his reserve would have. He’d had nothing to offer them but a small herd he would inherit from a father who seemed healthier than he was. And none of them had ever shown as much flesh as was on display here. Krish wanted to avert his eyes – he knew he should – but instead he found them tracing the swell of a bosom or the curve of a plump young cheek.
‘See anything that takes your fancy?’ Dae Hyo asked.
‘I don’t … I can’t … ’
‘I knew it!’ Dae Hyo crowed. ‘A virgin! Well, don’t worry, I’ve paid for you already and she’s a fine-looking woman, hair the colour of a well-seasoned bow and lips as ripe as cherries. It’s painted on, of course, but why should a man complain when a woman’s willing to share herself with him for less than the price of a dagger? I call that generosity.’
Krish struggled to find something to say; he felt it should be a refusal, but it just wouldn’t come.
Dae Hyo peered at him in concern. ‘You do like women, don’t you? There are pretty boys here who look like knife women but they still have their balls. I’ve made that mistake myself once.’
‘No. No. I like women,’ Krish stuttered. He couldn’t imagine how a man could lie with another man, with balls or without. ‘I just … isn’t our mission more important?’
‘So speaks someone who’s never experienced the joy of joining. Don’t worry, brother, I’ll give you instructions if you need them but your body will know what to do.’ He looked down at the growing bulge in Krish’s trousers. ‘It’s strung and aimed already.’
They squeezed past groups of women who hoisted up their skirts to show their legs whenever someone looked their way and girlish boys who smiled falsely as they snuggled up to older men. Several reached out for Krish, but Dae Hyo pushed them amiably aside until they were climbing the narrow wooden stairs to the rooms above.
Krish knew what a man and a woman did together. He’d seen Dapple mount the nannies in the herd a thousand times and he’d heard the sound of his parents coupling as he tried to sleep. He knew what to do, but the thought of actually doing it filled him with terror, and his manhood wilted as his anxiety grew. What if it stayed like that and he could do nothing but stare at the woman? Would Dae Hyo laugh at him? Would she?
She was waiting for them in a small room at the far end of the corridor, lying on the bed. The room’s walls had been painted a dark red almost exactly the colour of the intestines that tumbled out of the man Dae Hyo had killed a week ago.
The woman herself was barely older than Krish. That made him feel a little better. Her face was thick with make-up, scarlet on her cheeks and lips and a lurid green above her eyes. It lent her an exotic look, but underneath her features were very ordinary. Her skin was only a little paler than an Ashane’s, her nose was too bulbous and her ears unusually large. That made Krish feel better too. She smiled at him and he managed to smile back.
‘Both you gentlemen together?’ she asked.
‘No no,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘Just my brother to be shown the ways of love.’<
br />
‘His first time?’
Krish blushed as Dae Hyo slapped him on the back and nodded. ‘As virgin as the new-fallen snow. You’ll be gentle with him, won’t you?’
‘If gentle’s what the gentleman wants.’ She was speaking Ashane, following Dae Hyo’s lead, but her accent said it wasn’t her native tongue.
‘What’s your name?’ Krish asked.
‘What would you like it to be?’ She sat up to let the sheet fall and expose her breasts, but laughed and settled back when she saw his expression. ‘It’s Kim. And yours, my fine lad?’
‘I’m … Dae Krish’
‘Well, Krish, they say I’m good, but even I can’t deflower you from ten paces. Come nearer and let’s get better acquainted.’
Krish took one uneasy step closer, then looked at Dae Hyo. Was the other man planning to leave? He hoped he was, but no, Dae Hyo sat in the room’s solitary chair, crossing his legs and taking a pull from the bottle of spirits he’d brought with him. He looked like he was settling in for the evening’s entertainment.
‘Come here, lover,’ Kim said. ‘Don’t mind him. Give me a few minutes and a bit of skin and I’ll make you forget he’s here.’
Krish crept closer until he was standing beside the bed. When he made no further move, Kim sat up again and the sheet fell entirely away to expose every inch of her flesh. It was loose on her bones, with red creases round her middle that he guessed came from bearing a child. The hair between her legs surprised him by being like his: wiry and dark. He tore his eyes away from it as she unbuckled his leather jerkin and cast it aside, and then began to unbutton his shirt. Her fingers grazed his chest with the motion and his manhood sprang fully upright again. He didn’t know how he could be so terrified and so aroused at the same time.
‘Try touching her, brother,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘That’s generally how it goes.’
Krish reached out a tentative hand, looked to Dae Hyo for approval and saw that the other man’s eyes were no longer on him. They’d drooped shut and Dae Hyo began to snore, the nearly empty bottle slipping from between his slack fingers.
Then Kim’s fingers were at the ties of Krish’s trousers and his breath caught as they brushed against his member once, then again, and for a third time until he realised she was doing it on purpose. He wondered what she thought of his body, with its almost hairless, narrow chest. There were muscles in his arms that hadn’t been there weeks before, but he knew he wasn’t pleasing to the eye, or at least no girl in the village had ever thought he was.
‘Well, ain’t you a handsome one?’ Kim said. Her nails were long. He stared at them as she ran them up and down his chest, a feeling so ticklish it almost made him laugh. Then she ran them along his manhood and he shuddered and fell on top of her, pressing her down into the bed and putting his mouth against hers.
He’d never kissed before and it was awkward and messy, all tongues and teeth and his lips not quite knowing what to do, but exciting all the same. She hadn’t moved her hand from his member and now she used it to guide him towards her, the way he’d sometimes had to guide Dapple when the billy had been unwilling to mate with a nanny.
Krish wasn’t unwilling. He wasn’t thinking about much of anything, except how good it felt and how very soon it was going to be over. Kim urged him on, her hands against his buttocks. Her nails dug into him and he moved the way she wanted because it was what his body wanted as well. She made little moaning sounds and so did he.
He was very close. The room darkened and he thought it was the approach of his climax. But then he felt a waft of air against him and realised that someone else had entered. He turned his head to see a rough linen jacket, a feathered mask and an upraised arm, and then something struck the back of his head with agonising force and everything went black.
30
Eric’s stomach was hollow with hunger and his mouth like a desert from thirst. When he’d made his big decision, he’d imagined just slipping away. He hadn’t quite considered how unpleasant it would be to starve himself to death. He was contemplating allowing himself just one sip of water when he saw a shadow through the ice walls of his room and Bolli walked in.
The other man flinched very slightly at the sight of Eric’s bandages and then stuck a determined smile on his face. ‘What’s this, Eric? Not eating? We can’t have that, can we?’
His forced cheerfulness made Eric’s teeth ache. ‘I’m fine. No need to concern yourself.’
Bolli held out a ginger biscuit that he’d kept tucked behind his back and waggled it in front of Eric’s face. It smelled good, but he turned his head aside. He didn’t imagine eating would be too comfortable anyway, not with his face still swollen and half-numb. They’d told him he could take the dressings off, but he hadn’t yet. He was afraid to see what lay beneath.
‘Please, Eric,’ Bolli said. He perched on the end of the bed. ‘Look, I’m sorry for what we did. It was just the kind of prank a fellow plays on his mate. It didn’t mean anything, not enough for you to get yourself worked up into this sort of state. You can’t go not eating for days. It isn’t healthy.’
Eric looked him in the eye and only smiled when Bolli dropped his gaze. ‘I tell you what, mate. If all’s forgiven and forgotten, why don’t you give me a kiss just to show there ain’t no hard feelings. Then I’ll eat that biscuit you brought.’
‘Eric … ’ Bolli reached a tentative hand towards Eric’s bandaged one but he slapped it away.
‘I ain’t your mate. I ain’t a nob, I ain’t a husband and I ain’t a father. You can pretend to be whatever you want, Bolli, and I won’t make trouble for you. But I know what I am. I’m a molly and a whore of Smiler’s Fair. I’d rather die as that than live as anything else.’
Bolli looked down at his own hands for a long moment. Then he rose and left the room.
Later, Eric’s wife came to see him, the one he’d knocked up. At least she didn’t try to smile and look all cheerful the way Bolli had, but she was after the same thing.
‘You have refused food,’ she said.
Eric nodded.
‘Drink as well, even water.’
He nodded again.
‘A human such as you can only survive three days without food or water, and you’re already weak.’
‘Then I should be out of your hair pretty soon.’
She tilted her head, puzzled. He wasn’t sure if she didn’t understand his meaning, or understood and didn’t grasp why he could mean it.
‘Just leave me be,’ he said. ‘I done my duty by you. You don’t need me no more. It’s not like I can put a second baby inside you on top of the first.’
‘I don’t wish you to die,’ she said. ‘If I had wished that, I would have left you on the ice.’
‘Might have been better if you had.’
‘Why are you unhappy?’ She looked, in as far as a Servant’s calm face was capable of showing it, like the idea made her unhappy. ‘We have been blessed by Mizhara. We should give thanks.’
‘Yeah? Give thanks for my new face? What does it look like, anyway?’ When she didn’t answer he banged his hand down on his bedclothes with an anger than startled him as much as her. ‘Give me a mirror, then, if you ain’t gonna tell me. I want to see.’
She watched him carefully for a moment and then nodded and left the room.
While she was gone, he unwound the dressings from his hands. It was awkward and he had to use his teeth, wincing at the bitter taste of whatever ointment the Servants had used on him. But finally they came free and he looked down at what was left of him.
His wife had lied. She’d said only the tips of his fingers were gone, but the littlest had been chopped off near to the knuckle, and his middle finger had lost almost two whole joints. He stared at the stumps, not quite able to believe it. It seemed like one of the magic tricks the Snow Dancers favoured. Someone should wave a cloth over them and then the missing fingers would reappear, only that was never going to happen.
He’d ripped the remaining
bandages from his face by the time his wife returned. She made the beginning of a disapproving noise, but he snatched the mirror from her hand before it could turn into words and held the glass in front of him.
At least she hadn’t lied about his nose being whole, even if half of it was black. His left ear was a different matter. It looked ripped off, as if the ice had teeth that had chewed away the top of it. The rest of him was red and swollen in places, bruised in others.
‘It will look far better when it’s healed,’ she told him.
‘Will my ear grow back?’
She sighed and sat in the same spot on the bed Bolli had chosen. ‘This is hard, I know, husband. It will grow easier with time. We cannot permit you to die before you have accepted the fate Mizhara has chosen for you.’
‘What’re you gonna do – force food down my gullet?’
She didn’t answer and he shoved the covers away and rose to his feet, though walking was still difficult on his mutilated toes. He’d shuffled like an old man every time he went to relieve himself. He pulled his furs out of the chest at the foot of his bed, and then some spare ones just in case. He might want to die, but he didn’t want to die cold. He’d had enough of that.
‘Where are you going?’ his wife asked.
‘Going for some air, ain’t I? It’s close in here.’
There were Servants labouring in their pear orchards, but he gave them a wide berth. The sun was at its highest point in the sky and he frowned up at it. What did the Servants love so much about it anyway? You couldn’t even look straight at it without going blind. Rii was right: the moon was prettier.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a shadow on the snow ahead suddenly took wing and the smell of mouldy cinnamon enveloped him as Rii dropped heavily to the ground beside him, half-burying him in snow.
‘Watch it!’ he said, no longer caring if she took his tone amiss. But despite his irritation at getting his warm furs iced, he was glad to see her. At least she never smiled and tried to be comforting.
Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods Page 37