by K. G. McAbee
"How flattering, Mistress Accascia," he chanced, his heart in his throat but mindful of Madryn's advice that others would believe him free if he did so. "I knew my size would have to be of benefit some day. Perhaps I can make enough to offset the cost of some new clothing." He looked down ruefully at his travel-stained gear.
Accascia rose onto thick legs and stamped forward, her face wreathed in a cheerful grin, her leather jerkin creaking at the sudden added strain. The urchins parted like waves before her flowing bulk. "Indeed, sir, and I hope you will not take the words of a poor woman amiss. It was merely admiration of your proportions, if you take my meaning, sir," she said when she stood beside the greater bulk of Daemon, patting him appreciatively. "One seldom sees such a fine figure of a man outside the arena or off the slave blocks in this town, you see, sir. Gentlemen of your prodigious proportions…" she admired her phrase enough to repeat it, "…prodigious proportions remain at court, no doubt, where their assets can be of more use to them."
"They do indeed," agreed Madryn. She patted Val on one thick thigh—and Val felt a tingle run up his leg to his center. "I thank the gods daily that the High Lord Valaren has agreed to accompany me, instead of spending his time at court with others of his ilk."
Accascia nodded in complete understanding, as if she too were some royal refugee. "Only pray remember, milady and milord," she repeated, "stay away from the Sailor's Delight. I have a cousin who runs a most reputable place, fit for such folk as you. It's near the docks—but not too near, if you catch my meaning—and it's called the Drunken Raven. You will receive the best of our local hospitality there, at the best of prices. And no questions asked, milady and lord."
"Tell me, mistress," asked Val, emboldened by his success, "how much do you receive for advising us of this most reputable place?"
The gatekeeper beamed up at him. "Why, sir, only a tiny bit, as a thanks, to be sure," she said.
Madryn laughed and shook her head at the portly woman, whose head was level with Daemon's belly. "We shall certainly try it, then," she said. "But our more important need just now is a blade for my friend here. Where can the finest blades in Karleon be found?"
Accascia ruminated for a moment as the urchins surged around her. Swatting at them as if at flies, she cocked her tousled head to one side and replied at last, "I have a nephew…"
"Somehow I thought you might."
"A nephew who does a thriving trade in all sorts of steel, from Tollino rapiers to the wide, heavy blades from Varaganisshe. And strangely enough, he can be found just south of the Drunken Raven, in the Street of the Artificers."
"What a coincidence," agreed Madryn, laughing. "And this nephew's name?"
"Baragin. A most likely lad, and I'm sure he'll be able to provide you with just what you wish."
"No doubt." Daemon shook his head and strained against the reins. "My horse is anxious for his supper," Madryn continued. "Our thanks for your assistance and advice, Mistress Accascia." A coin glinted in the air as it appeared between lean brown fingers. A flip, and it tumbled towards the burly gatekeeper. Accascia grabbed at it, but it slipped through her pudgy digits and tumbled into the dust of the road.
At once, a herd of shouting, whining children landed on the tiny bit of metal. As Daemon cantered down the dirty street, his riders could hear a diminishing tumult of angry voices, interspersed with the sounds of blows and slaps.
***
The Drunken Raven was a shabby place that reeked at low tide and promised to smell only faintly better at high. Composed of a single large chamber below, its upper floor was cut up into a maze of wandering corridors lined with meager rooms. But the gatekeeper had been right. It was cheap, relatively clean, and most important of all, no one bothered to ask anything of this newly arrived pair of travelers.
Val breathed a sigh of relief as the door to their musty room closed behind them. The strain of remembering all the myriad things that could give him away as a slave had begun to wear on him almost at once after they'd passed the gate.
Look people straight in the eye, not with head submissively downcast or through lowered lashes. Stand up proudly, head high, shoulders straight as a freeborn. Do not leap to do a service; wait to have it done. For all the practice that he'd done with Madryn on their travels, Val had never realized how difficult it was simply being free.
And he was beginning to suspect that it may well increase in difficulty instead of growing easier.
"Well," said Madryn as she dried her freshly washed face on the grimy bit of cloth hanging over the washbasin. "Not the most elegant of accommodations, but with any luck, we won't be here for long. A blade for you, passage for us both and Daemon, and we're shut of this filthy little village and the Drunken Raven as well. Are you ready for a trip to visit a certain nephew, Val?"
Val nodded. He didn't trust his mouth to form discernable words. Madryn had removed her jacket; the thin silk of her undershirt stuck to her lean body and outlined her taut breasts in a way that sent the blood pounding in his veins. He wondered, and not for the first time, what Madryn thought of his obvious and unmistakable desire for her.
Did it excite her? Amuse her?
Did it disgust her?
"Val?"
Madryn had an amused look on her face. Val had returned from his momentary reverie to find her eyes on his flushed and burning face, her mouth stretched into its usual crooked grin. Embarrassed, he nodded, and then watched as she slid the saddlebag into a cupboard and shut its door. Rusty hinges gave a shriek of protest. Then, with a jingle of coins, she donned her jacket and strode to the door.
"Let's find a blade, then see about passage."
***
The Street of the Artificers was a grand name for a muddy length of narrow passageway that stretched between shabby buildings, some inhabited, some gutted by fire or age, some looking as if they'd been abandoned to their fate far in the distant past. Rows of stalls lined the already too narrow path, providing little more that a winding corridor, open to the sky and clogged by humans and animals going in all directions.
Val watched in silent curiosity as Madryn made her careful way, nose buried against one arm, around a vendor with baskets of flowers, including roses of all hues. He followed her, remembering how she'd had Frague remove roses from their room at the Toad.
An exhibit of special squalor and despair greeted Val at one point on their journey down the twisting, humanity-laden pathway. On a platform set against a filthy, tumbledown heap of stones, slaves were linked one to the other with a single chain. Trails of dried and fresh blood leaked from the leather collars that were the badge of their caste; they were being offered for sale.
"Slaves, best to be had," whined the slavemaster, his bored voice sounding as age-old and world-weary as the chant itself. "Slaves for sale, finest in all the lands."
Val tried to fight down the cold chill that went through him as he passed the platform, even though he was sure that the scars from his own recently removed collar were not visible under his shirt and jerkin. Eyes drawn against his will, he cast a curious glance at the selection. A motley crew of dirty, scabby and flea-bitten wretches, the refuse of a dozen towns and villages, cast out or born to the life, or sold to pay their debts. A lone child, a scrawny thing of no determinate gender, watched with red-rimmed eyes the antics of a tiny monkey at the next stall.
"Sir," called the slavemaster, his practiced eye seeing that Val's gaze had lingered a bit too long on his string of merchandise. "May I interest your lordship in a slave? Someone to cook your food, to care for your attire, to provide for your needs?"
"No," Val snapped as he tried to hurry on. Madryn had almost disappeared into the crush in front of him. Then, thinking that the slavemaster gazed at him with a curious turn of the head, he paused and looked harder at the selection. "No," he said, in firmer if politer tones, "not today, I think. But I congratulate you on your selections; they are most impressive."
"Most impressive, says the lord gentleman," repeated
the slavemaster in a loud, singsong voice. "Come one, come all, to see my most impressive selection of slaves, recommended by a gentleman and lord of the highest birth and quality."
A toothless slave, his collar loose about a scrawny, withered neck, offered Val a smile that looked like the entrance to a dark cave.
Val pushed his way forward to catch up with Madryn.
***
Madryn stood waiting for him at a storefront that was set back from the street, actually inside one of the scabrous buildings that lined the thoroughfare. The glitter of polished steel, bronze and copper gleamed from within the shadowy depths of the store.
"Slave shopping, Val?" Madryn asked.
Val gave her a sickly grin. "An odd sensation," he whispered, sure she would not be able to make out his words.
But she did. "I know the feeling," she replied cryptically.
Then she nodded toward the storefront. Above the entrance was emblazoned a sign, embroidered in dingy orange silk, which shouted 'Swords for the Discerning Buyer' in three languages and the runic glyphs of the sacerdotal saragins of Syercyh. Beneath the sign in sprawling letters the name 'Baragin' was gouged into the dry wood over the low doorway, by someone who had not made any use of the sharp blades whose images littered the outside walls. Each tilting letter looked as if it had been chewed into the ancient wood and stone.
"This appears to be our destination," Madryn said as she studied the display for a time, then entered the open door.
Val followed close behind.
"My lady and gentleman!" called a high-pitched voice in dulcet tones. A reed-thin figure, dressed in trailing robes of clashing and particularly virulent shades of green and orange, swirled into view from the back of the shop, making a careful way between tables heaped with daggers. The inside walls were hidden beneath scabbards, some empty, some filled out with sword, rapier or saber.
"How delicious to see such discerning folk on this dreary, depressing day," continued the figure in lisping, pleasant tones as it made its way towards them. It stopped, peered up through shortsighted eyes. "Pray, what can I offer you that would match your elegant albeit distressingly monochromatic outfits?"
The figure, in the somewhat brighter light near the door, was revealed to be a slight man with a face like a ferret. His tiny feet peeped coyly from beneath his silken robes, and wafting waves of heavy scent did little to hide an underlying odor of unwashed body. "I am the unworthy Baragin, a poor purveyor of the finest steel in all Karleon. Are you in the market for a sword, a dagger, perhaps an axe or three?" The man's words trickled and fell from his mouth like endless drops of water breaking the surface of a still pond. "I have the best selection in a hundred league radius, as well as the best prices. Not," Baragin interrupted his flow, twisting his hands obsequiously, "not, of course, that that would make any difference to customers such as you, certainly. You are, it is most obvious, well provided with more than your share of the riches of the world." This last was offered in a sad little voice that fairly seeped with unshed tears.
"We need—that is, my companion needs a sword, Master Baragin," Madryn began, trying and failing to hold back a smile.
"Well, of course he does," Baragin agreed, as if they argued the fact and he must convince them. "Such a strong arm cannot do without an even stronger blade. A heavy and wide steel, I think, tempered with just the faintest touch of copper for strength, and a hilt wrapped in the finest leather and studded—studded, mind you—with nails of silver." Baragin gave Val a gentle shove with one unwashed finger toward an errant sunbeam that had managed somehow to find its way into the shop from the street outside. "By your leave, my dear lord, but just allow me to measure your length of arm and breadth of shoulder. A professional such as my humble self would never deign to offer you anything that would not be of a correct and proper size and weight, naturally. Why, I have been the purveyor of the most desired and treasured blades for years, aye, and my father before me and his mother before him."
A strip of coarse linen, marked off in regular increments, appeared from under Baragin's grimy robe. Val good-naturedly allowed himself to be positioned by the meager shopkeeper in the brightest section of the shop. Slender dirty fingers handled the ribbon of measured linen as if it were a thing alive, whipping it across Val's shoulders and along his arm. These swift movements were accompanied by mystical mutterings, interspersed with cries of wonder and amazement.
"Remarkable. Astounding. Incredible," chirped Baragin as he whirled and spun about, his scent thick in the cluttered, musty room. Madryn gave a disapproving sniff and stayed as far from the little man as she could.
At last, the measurements were done to the master's satisfaction. Baragin stood back, gazing in unabashed admiration at Val.
"Sir, I think that I have the perfect weapon for you. Pray step to the back with me, so that you may see it and judge for yourself. Also," he added with a wink, "there's a bit more room, so that you may swing the blade and give me your expert opinion as to its weight and heft. Sir, my lady. If you will follow your poor servant?"
Val threaded his careful way past the multitude of obstructions in the shop, followed closely by Madryn. Their diminutive host twisted and turned, his flowing robes keeping clear of sharp and pointed metal by some familiar magic of its own.
The back door of the shop opened onto a wide, debris-littered alley that smelled of fish and garbage. Still, there was an open area just outside that was wide enough—just—to swing a sword.
The blade that Baragin had seized on his way, in a sleight-of-hand fashion that Val was barely able to notice, was a wide bladed beauty that glittered like silver in the sunlight. Its hilt felt comfortable in Val's grip, as welcoming as an old friend. He swung it with pleasure, happy to have a weapon to hold again. His days as a gladiator had been far from happy—what slave ever had happy days?—but there were some few pleasant memories. The studies in the vast, dim libraries, full of tomes on ancient and modern methods of fighting—for gladiators were the princes of slaves, all taught to read early in their training, to increase in yet another way their knowledge of mayhem and destruction. The daily training with every sort of weapon and with bare hands, the satisfaction to see abilities and knowledge grow day by day, the joy in remaining alive when others about you are dying, some by your own hand…these things had brought some small measure of pleasure.
Val cut at a pole that protruded from the side of the building, giving it a glancing blow that rang the steel in his hand like a bell. He nodded in satisfaction and grinned at Madryn.
"It seems that you have made a sale, Master Baragin," said Madryn. "How much for such a magnificent blade?"
Thus, Baragin and Madryn entered into the time-honored bargaining phase of the transaction. Val continued to swing and turn with the blade, testing its strength and weight against his own. The murmur of offer and counter offer died away behind him as he gazed at the shining steel with admiration and a kind of gloating satisfaction. A slave would, could never be in possession of any kind of a blade, no matter how small, unless fighting in the arena for the entertainment of his or her betters. The sheer exhilaration of simply holding such a blade as this spread through Val like a drug, singing along his sinews, echoing through his muscles. The memory of feints and parries, cuts and thrusts, came back to his arms and shoulders, reoccurred to his dormant hands like the memory of old lovers.
"Val, my dear?"
Before he could stop it, Val felt his mouth fall open at the endearment. He turned, the sword forgotten in his hand. Baragin was grinning like a mouse at a heap of cheese, a pile of silver and gold coins in one dirty hand. Madryn was watching Val, her head cocked to one side, her long mouth quirked upward at one end.
"Master Baragin has offered us both a new dagger, to finish the deal. Will you pick them out for us? I surrender to your greater knowledge."
Val tried, but could not remove the grin that he felt plastered across his mouth. He knew his eyes must be sparkling with delight.
&nb
sp; Well, he thought. I'm supposed to be her friend, am I not? I'm supposed to be Lord Valaren Starseeker. Why don't I thank her properly for my gift?
Without further thought, Val ran over and scooped Madryn up into a hearty hug, his cheek pressed against hers, the sword hanging loose but not forgotten in one hand.
Baragin surveyed the two with satisfied eyes.
Val's face was smothered against Madryn's tawny hair. He could smell a faint scent that lingered there, a gentle reminder of fresh air and green grass in this odorous, slimy alley. The feel of her lean, firm body against his brought on that sudden and totally irresistible heat, the desire that he had been unable to control from the day he'd first met her.
But this time, for the first time, a joyous and remarkable thing occurred. Val felt and answering heat in the body pressed to his, heard a faint gasp of pleasure—or was it pain—from the mouth that was almost against his own. Was that Madryn's heart, pounding, sending tremors through both their frames, or was it his own?
Madryn gently disentangled herself. Her face was flushed, her violet-gray eyes narrowed.
"I'm so glad you liked your present, Val," she murmured—in that arrogant, condescending tone that was icy water against his passion. "But pray, let us get our daggers and be gone."
Chapter Five
The rest of the day was strained and difficult for both Val and Madryn…until they were attacked that evening after supper.
The trip back through the crowded streets from Baragin's shop was strangely silent for both of them. Val spent the time wondering what Madryn must think of his clumsy, hasty way of thanking her; wondering if she were insulted at being touched so by a slave; embarrassed by his blatant desire for her. He had not…he had never intended to make it so obvious, so apparent.
And he had never expected, never dreamed to find that Madryn returned his desires, even in the slightest and most unconscious degree. Perhaps that was what had angered her? The silence that came over the two of them in Baragin's shop continued throughout the rest of the day, and even Val's pleasure in the shining sword that swung with such reassurance at his waist, the sturdy feel of the specially chosen dagger that rested in one boot, could not assuage his unease and his discomfort.