“Would have come in handy a week ago,” I muttered to myself and Charlie gave me a sharp look. I just shrugged, I had told Anna I would keep it quiet, and it would be weird to bring up the whole almost-murdered thing now, over a week later.
Telgeth had wandered in to see what I was doing, and he laughed when he saw the knife. “Heh, so this is the special commission Tamoth was talking about!” He turned the knife over and pointed out the tiny etched signature of the underside of the hilt – Thraegath – his father’s name.
Then Charlie handed me a small wrapped bundle – his own gift for me. Inside the wrapping was a belt-pouch made of the same blue-green woven alpaca as my good robe. Inside that were seven coloured velvet pouches. Five of them, all except the white and black, were already filled with moss.
“Fiona told me about what you would be doing on your field-trip, so you can put your own blend in the white one. The black will have wait, I’m afraid.” He pulled out another box and handed it to me. It was small and plain, but of beautifully polished black wood, and on the underside he had had Jaseth of Jaelshead inscribed in silver lettering. Inside, the box was lined with dark blue velvet and in an indentation lay a beautiful little pipe, in the same glossy black wood as the box, with a generous bowl and a long, elegantly curved mouthpiece. “Happy birthday, Jas! Do you like it?” Bless him, he wanted my approval for his gift.
“Oh hell, Charlie, thanks so much, it’s lovely!”
He looked relieved. “Come on then, shall we go test it out?”
I went out into the hallway and knocked on Lolitha’s door to see if she wanted to come up to the roof.
“Er, I can’t come out!” she called from behind the firmly closed door.
That was odd. “Why not?” I called back.
“Um, it’s a bit… embarrassing…” She didn’t elaborate.
“What is it? Charlie’s given me a new pipe and we’re going to go take it for a trial run. Come on!”
“I can’t! I have a huge, hideous pimple, right on my… Nevermind.”
I hadn’t noticed any pimple this morning, but then again, I was a boy, and as Charlie had told me, boys have a different way of noticing things like clothes and hair and skin. Which is that we don’t.
Emma happened to be passing down the corridor on her way up to the common room and she saw my perplexed expression.
“Lolitha? Are you alright?”
“Apparently she has a huge pimple. She won’t come out,” I explained to her.
“It’s hideous!” Lolitha wailed from behind the door.
To my surprise, Emma laughed. “Seriously, that Jyѫ! Lolitha, let me in and I’ll take a look.”
“Okay, but Jas has to turn away!”
I complied and heard the door open a crack. Emma gasped and then giggled.
“Yep, that sure is a whopper. Look, come with me down to my room and I’ll show you this thing I know. It’s some basic Solastry all girls should learn.” Emma grabbed Lolitha’s hand and pulled her out of her room. Lolitha covered her face with her free hand as she ran past.
“Don’t look, Jas!”
Further down the hall they met Sallagh and Emma grinned at her Bloodkin. “Hey, Sall my darling, could you go see if you can find Sarah and Mantilly? We’re going to have a girls’ afternoon. Oh, and er, see if you can grab some wine if Yұieӣấ’s got any to spare.”
Since the incident on Samhain, Sallagh had been somewhat subdued, both at the Hall and in class, especially after Fiona had put her in her place so firmly. Even so, I thought she was going to protest about the intrusion of Lolitha in her room, but she just shrugged and walked past me and up to the common room. Soon she returned with Sarah and Mantilly in tow, each carrying a bottle of wine and five glasses between them.
Jimmy trailed behind, looking anxious. “Oi, what are you going to do to my Bloodkin?” he yelled as the women skipped ahead.
“Girl stuff!” Sarah called over her shoulder.
“Oh.” He looked even more confused. “Can I come?”
“Are you a girl?” giggled Sallagh.
“Well no, but—”
“Then no!” The three of them disappeared into Sallagh and Emma’s room and slammed the door.
I wondered briefly if I should be worried about Lolitha, but from my place in the hallway I could hear corks popping and lots of giggling and I realised I wanted absolutely nothing to do with whatever was going on in there.
“No ‘Litha?” asked Telgeth when I joined him and Charlie back in my room, and I shook my head.
“She’s doing girl stuff with the others.”
“Ew, I bet they’re talking about periods or something.” His face was a dramatic grimace of horror. “Bollocks to them, us men can go start your birthday celebrations by ourselves!”
We collected Jimmy, who was still looking a bit lost and sorry for himself. “I was first in my class in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender module,” he complained as we dragged him up the stairs. “I could handle girl stuff!” We grabbed the other boys from the common room and all squeezed out onto the balcony.
“Some Gold?” Charlie asked me and I grinned and nodded. I pulled out my gold pouch and carefully packed the bowl of my new pipe. I tried to hand it to Charlie so he could light it, but he shook his head. “It’s your pipe, JJ, why don’t you do the honours.”
I had never lit a moss pipe with Hầұeӣ before, and I felt a second of nerves, doing it in front of all my friends. But I concentrated on the moss and grabbed my Hầұeӣ and poked it in and—
“Oh, cock and bollocks.” The moss had exploded out of the pipe and landed in a little smoking lump on the table. Everyone clapped and cheered mockingly. “Yes, ha ha, very funny.”
Charlie grinned at me and gathered up the moss, poking it back into the bowl. “You’re not supposed to get it your first time. Try again.”
This time I used way less Hầұeӣ, moving the particles of the moss cautiously until there was a little puff of vapour and the Πiầ caught and held. This time the cheering was genuine and I passed the pipe around. We chatted and laughed for a good hour up on the balcony, mostly at stupid boy-jokes and Telgeth’s off-colour remarks. But the wind soon grew too chilly and the clouds hovering about the city threatened rain, so we moved inside.
“Right, I’m going to have a bath and get ready. Are you lot going to tell me what you have planned?” I asked the others. Telgeth laughed and Charlie tapped the side of his nose.
“All in good time, birthday boy. Go on, enjoy your bath.”
Downstairs, the sounds of female hilarity were still emanating from Emma and Sallagh’s rooms. Unwilling to even guess at what was going on, I went and ran my bath. I relaxed in the tub with one of Charlie’s rather trashy novels until the water grew cool. Jumping out, I dried myself off and thought, what the hell, it’s my birthday, so I dressed in my good robe, over some of my new alpaca underwear.
All the other guys and their Mentors had also gotten ready for a night out, and they were gathering in the hall.
“So? What are we doing?” Surely they would tell me now.
“Charlie grinned, wickedly. “We’re taking you to the Gilded Rose!”
he what? Like, Aliakh’s Gilded Rose? But that’s a… That’s a brothel!”
“It’s not a brothel!” Jimmy told me. “Well, it is, but it’s not just a brothel. There’s a lounge and a bar and they do really good food. And there’s dancing. You know, dancing dancing.”
“Nudie dancing!” offered Telgeth helpfully.
“But… But what about the girls? They won’t want to—”
“The girls won’t want to what?” demanded Lolitha as the door to Sallagh’s room burst open and the five women piled out into the hall. They all looked flushed and giddy, and although I looked carefully I could see no sign of a pimple anywhere on Lolitha’s face.
“We’re taking Jas to the Gilded Rose for his birthday!” Telgeth told them.
“Ooh, but that’s a whorehouse!
” yelped Mantilly, and she hiccupped and giggled.
“Nah ‘Tilly, it’s… It’s a titty bar!” Sallagh cried, then covered her mouth to stop the giggles.
“Oh cool.” Mantilly turned to us seriously. “I’ve never been to a strip-club before,”
Holy Lilbecz, post-‘girl time’ the women were keener to go than I was, and after a couple of bottle of wine and who knew what else, they were more than ready to party.
Myn Eve wished me a happy birthday from behind her desk in reception, then Lolitha and Mantilly grabbed an arm each and steered me out of the door.
I was immediately grateful I was wearing the gifts my mother had sent me. It was bloody cold, and an icy drizzle had begun to fall from pendulous clouds. Luckily, the shades in the Quarter that kept out the sun in the summer also served to keep most of the moisture away from the streets, but nevertheless we were damp and chilly by the time we had wound our way through the Quarter to its very northern edge. Here, it bordered the wealthy residential part of the Human area of the city, and not much further north the hills began to climb away from the flat land beside the lake.
The Rose was an elegant building down a private alleyway. Red glowbes lit the doorway and the wooden sign that hung above it, decorated with a delicate red rose picked out in gilt. Inside, a cosy reception area awaited us. Plush velvet couches nestled around a fire and a grand desk filled the rest of the space. Aliakh looked up from behind the desk as we walked in.
“Oh, you’re all here, good. Happy birthday Jaseth, welcome to the Gilded Rose!” She smiled at me and stood. “I’ll just get one of the other girls to watch the desk for me.” She popped through a door leading to a back room and returned with a Human woman in her late twenties, her black hair pulled back severely. “Lavakhlah, would you mind the desk for me?” The other woman nodded and sat, barely looking at us as Aliakh beckoned me forward. “Come on Jaseth, let’s go through.” She pushed through another door and we all followed her into the lounge of the Rose.
In the lounge the ceiling was low and intimate, dripping with red and purple glowbes. A long bar ran down one wall and on an adjacent one a large stage was set up, complete with poles and a large silver cage. We had arrived before the entertainment had begun, it seemed. Small groups of tables and chairs were set up facing the stage and the other two walls were lined with generous booths, purple velvet benches faced large, semi-circular dining tables and each had red velvet curtains that I presumed could be pulled for privacy.
Aliakh settled us in one of the booths, and she turned to me with her best dimple-cheeked smile.
“I’ll tell the chef you have arrived. I hope you like steak, Jaseth.”
She moved off to an entrance behind the bar, beside displays that held a glittering array of expensive liquors, gleaming different colours in ornate bottles.
She returned, bearing a tall, thin bottle of a bright green liqueur, a waitress following her with a tray of glasses, a bowl of sugar cubes and an odd, spoon-shaped device.
“Have you ever drunk absinthe before?” Aliakh asked me as we looked on in interest as she poured the drink. She rested the spoon on top of each glass in turn and placed a sugar cube in its slotted hollow. Then she poured the absinthe over the sugar and warmed it briefly with Hầұeӣ. “Gently now, this stuff will take your head off,” she cautioned as we raised our glasses.
“To Jaseth! May your next nineteen years be safe and prosperous!” Charlie toasted me.
“To Jaseth!” Everyone else cheered and I took a sip of my drink. Sweet Lilbecz, Aliakh hadn’t been lying about the potency of the brew. The sugar had taken the edge off slightly, but it still felt like a kick in the throat when I swallowed.
Telgeth coughed loudly. “Fyar khanall Aliakh, are you trying to poison us?” he gasped.
She laughed. “I told you to take it easy Telgeth. Oh, here comes the chef now.”
The chef, assisted by the waitress, handed around plates of our dinner. We had a beautiful, tender piece of steak, perfectly medium-rare, smothered with mushrooms and a slice of tangy blue cheese. It sat on a bed of creamy potato and garlic mash and the whole lot was drizzled with a rich red wine jus.
“Oh gawd, Jimmy. You were right about the food!” I exclaimed as I wiped up the last of the sauce with my finger.
“I’m glad you approve,” Aliakh smiled at me. “Ah, and here’s Anna and Fiona. Perhaps it’s time to start the entertainment.”
Anna and Fiona had entered the lounge, glancing about for a second before noticing us and waving, then going to order drinks from the bar. Two of Anna’s bodyguards slipped in unobtrusively and went to sit at one of the tables. She had probably left the other one outside, I guessed, the poor bugger clearly having drawn the short straw for the evening.
Off to the side of the stage, musicians began to play, swirling, complex, Nea’thi-style music, but with a definite hint of sensual rhythm. A girl, possibly slightly older than us, appeared on the stage from behind a curtain and began to dance. She was wearing a Nea’thi-style robe, but it was slit down the front and belted closed. As she danced, her fingers played with the belt, teasing it open slowly.
“Oh man, I’m definitely going to have to sit closer. You coming, Jas?” I waved Telgeth away, I could see just fine from the booth at the back. He went to sit at a table right in front of the stage, Sammoch and Donnick following immediately, and Dunkerle, after he hesitated a moment.
“Oh, I can just imagine what my mum would say if she knew I was here. Och, bloody spectacles have gotten all steamed up!”
The rest of the tables and booths filled up slowly. There were groups of expensively dressed men, as well as some women, I was a bit surprised to see, who watched the show from behind fluttering fans.
No matter how slowly I sipped my absinthe, I had begun to feel decidedly tiddly already. After we had eaten, Sallagh had gone to find a bathroom, but now she was back and she slid into the booth beside me, almost sitting on my lap. Her leg pressed into mine as we watched the girl on stage. This was weirdly intimate behaviour, but I was well into my second glass of the green liqueur and I couldn’t bring myself to care.
The dancer had shed her robe and revealed long, long legs, covered in silky stockings with towering strappy shoes, heeled like knives. A corset cinched her waist in tight, and as she slung her hips and bent over to give the crowd an excellent view of her lacy knickers, she toyed with the buttons on a satin bolero that barely covered her bosom.
“Take it off!” yelled a man at one of the other tables. The girl paused and waggled a finger at him mock-sternly, like a teacher at a naughty little boy, and then flicked open the buttons. She turned and slid the jacket over one shoulder, then the other, then pulled it off altogether, revealing her back, bare save for the corset and the strap of a thin brassiere.
She turned to show the crowd, who whistled and cheered. Her bra barely covered her nipples, and as she squeezed her arms together to show off her breasts I was sure they were going to pop out completely.
Oof, was it just me or was it getting very hot? I took another sip of my drink and almost spluttered as I felt Sallagh’s hand rest lightly on my knee. She hadn’t shown any interest in me since that first night at the Shivering Thistle, and she had flirted with Sammoch on and off in the intervening months, though I didn’t think anything had come of it. But this new attention was definitely a surprise. I tried not to think of her hand, now lightly stroking my knee, but the girl on stage was now completely topless, playing with the crowd, teasing them by covering herself with her hands and grinding her hips. I chanced a look at Lolitha, who was peering at the stage, cheeks pink, as interest warred with embarrassment.
Charlie had gone to talk to Anna and Fiona at the bar. I realised, glancing over, that Anna was studying him thoughtfully, looking away whenever he caught her eye.
“Hey ‘Litha, look,” I whispered, pointing at the bar.
“What?” She dragged her eyes away from the stage and looked where I was pointing. “Oh�
�� Ohhh. Heh, cute. Looks like I planted the seeds, eh?”
Indeed she had. There was definitely a new sort of tension between the two. Fiona left them and drifted over, carrying another bottle of absinthe, Lilbecz help me.
“Ugh, I don’t know what’s going on with those two, thought it would be more fun back here. Having fun, Lolitha darling?” She grinned wickedly and Lolitha flushed an even darker red.
“Um, yeah, I suppose.”
Fiona chortled. “I bet. Aliakh has some lovely girls who would just adore you!”
Lolitha ducked her head and her response was drowned out by the roaring of the crowd. The dancer had dropped her hands and her breasts with their hard chips of nipples swung free. Sallagh’s hand was creeping higher up my leg and I gulped. It was going to be very hard to walk soon if she kept this up.
“Hey Jaseth, did you like your present? I helped Charlie pick it out.”
“Oh yes Fiona, thank you. Um, can I use it here?”
Fiona laughed. “Oh yes, the smoking of moss is permitted. Aliakh is Nea’thi-Blood you know. Just no tobacco inside, it makes everything smell nasty.”
Fortunately the pocket with my pipe and moss was on the other side of the leg Sallagh was touching. “Uh, Red anyone?” I packed my new pipe from the red velvet pouch, then sparked it myself as it passed it around the booth.
The dancer finished to a loud round of applause, and she scooped her discarded clothing off the floor of the stage and disappeared through the curtain with a final cheeky grin for the crowd. The music continued and the dancer was replaced on stage by a willowy Nea’thi youth, demurely covered for the moment.
“Ooh, Nea’thi strippers, brilliant! Look, ‘Litha!” Jimmy elbowed her and she grimaced.
Bloodkin (Jaseth of Jaelshead) Page 22