Pre-TerraFae
Sabrina Zbasnik
Copyright 2012 Sabrina Zbasnik
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Matteus
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Glistening sweat froze in the plummeting temperatures of the late Riatan winter. Bare feet skidded across cracking tiles trying to support the weight, as a man clad in nothing more than a bit of chemise he could grab from the floor before making his daring escape through the fluttering shades made his treacherous way across the shadowed rooftops.
Behind him, Matteus heard the shrill shrieks as his momentary paramour tried to stop her bull of a husband from climbing out the window after him. The cold night hung in the air of Falcrine like a heavy cloak buffeting the typical city clamor. Only the splinter and creak of tiles slipping from their place and plummeting to the ground broke through the silent streets.
Skittering, he paused at roofs edge looking helplessly across an alley and salvation a neck-breaking jump away. Matteus dropped to his hands and peered down, hoping, but not expecting, to find a ladder. And the night had started so well with a full purse, a full mug and the promise of a very active bedroom.
It was the scar upon his cheek; far more alluring than any amount of coin, honey drizzled poetry, or strapping backside (not that he was lacking in that department). As soon as a woman spotted his scar, she’d already written a back-story inside her delicious head before he need utter a word. The trick was letting her tell him what it was so the dashing rogue who saved carriages from runaway babies could sweep her off her delicate toes.
And it would work so well too, if husbands would bother to remain at the brothels for as long as they normally visit.
He tested the tensile strength of the rather useless bed curtains with his hands, the seams giving way almost instantly. No use as a rope unless he was in the mood to meet the Raven Lady tonight.
As he stood up something whizzed past his head, the aim off thanks to his sliding unpredictably upon the iced roof.
His head cracked around in time to watch a bear rear up and hurl another rock, this one missing even more in the bluster of emotions and cracking even more tiles that insurance would refuse to cover under act of asshole.
Gods damn them all, husbands were supposed to be weak things with runny eyes and wrists the size of noodles not this hulking monstrosity more animal than man bearing upon him. What a time to leave his sword, and bow, and knickers behind.
Matteus backed up as the man-bear approached, steam pillaring from his rampaging nostrils lighting up the frozen air. He half expected flames to shoot off the sides of his face. If there was one thing Falcrine’s did well it was overreacting.
He tried to hold his arms up in a “now, now; mistakes were made but this is no reason to resort to murder,” but his foot slipped and he pin wheeled his arms trying to retain a semblance of balance and not meet with a broken jaw.
Unfortunately, to the good people of Falcrine (and a small island nation off the coast of Duneclaw), this was considered a grave offense on par with waving ones bare buttocks upon a great-aunt.
The man-bear roared, he actually threw his head back and roared, stomping his feet up and down like a bull about to charge. Matteus glanced towards the window and the silhouette of the woman watching with rapt attention, most likely hoping her husband would squash the man she brought to her bed like an olive.
Stepping back once more he crossed the roof’s crest and stood precariously like a cockerel about to announce the dawn. Trying to find footing, he stood carefully and, as the wronged man began to charge, he raised his fist up to punch back.
That was all it took to throw off his narrow balance. Iced tiles gave way, and his feet lurched forward sliding free from their narrow grasp of friction.
“Shit,” was all Matteus got out before his chin hit the roof and his face met with shattering terracotta. His head bounced along the grooves, while his naked body slid down the roof like a sled upon a wintry hill before running out of roof and settling for smashing his body upon the street below.
Man-Bear peered down over the roof, trying to spot his downed prey, but could only see the tracks left by him in the missing tiles. Matteus thought about moving, rolling, even breathing; but that all seemed as likely as the Emperor deciding maybe beheading everyone who dared to wear purple wasn’t such a nice way to spend Modranicht after all.
Terracotta lay shattered and smashed around him, outlining his bruised and bleeding body; but the important thing was that he was still alive, until Man-bear figured out there was a ladder on the other side of the roof. Moving would be a good idea, suggested one part of his brain, while another made the rude gesture back at it.
Once again, a preternatural amount of luck shined down upon the naked man bleeding upon the cobblestones as the familiar scent of tobacco cut with orange and clove wafted into his nose. A man approached, his long nose poking through a fur-lined hood and billows of smoke from his disgustingly preferred blend framing him in the wintry air. His gentlemanly air was slightly betrayed by a limp from better-forgotten younger days.
“What mess have you found yourself waded in this time, compagno?” the voice was the only warmth upon the frozen street but even it cracked along the edges like broken roof tiles.
With a mouth full of miraculously unbroken teeth Matteus lightly picked his head up and said, “You know me, Cosimo, all the bastards are spending their evenings reclining naked upon the frosty ground. You should truly try it some time, it opens up the humors wonderfully.”
Cosimo unbuttoned his cloak and draped it around the naked shoulders of his oldest friend. Aging fingers tried to peel the man up from the road, but his slight frame offered little help. Instead Matteus gritted his teeth and tried to get himself vertical.
It took a few rolls, a few slips back, and a large rush of very obstinate blood to his head but eventually he stood in the waning lamp light trying to cover as much of his shame as he could with the small cloak while looking upon his savior.
But that was always Cosimo’s job; while the other three whored and thieved their way into enough trouble to single handedly keep the bribery economy booming, he was always there to break them out or chase off angry fathers/guardians. No one was certain why he’d joined up with their little band of cast off bastards, but he was as steady as the northern wind and could be just as cutting.
“I should leave you for the guards to find, assuming Lady Winter did not claim you first,” the man leaned up against Matteus to give him support and lead him slowly down the street.
“Yes yes, you always say that, yet you never do,” despite the blood seeping from his forehead Matteus still grinned upon his friend, who struggled with the newly added weight.
“Let me guess, it was a shapely ankle that lead to your sprawling unclothed across the night’s ground?”
“Not just an ankle, there were entire delicious sections of her that would make marble masters weep for days.”
Cosimo sighed; it was always the same with him. The passage of time, which had done little to affect Matteus’ visage, also seemed to leave his character unchanged as well. Their fellow compagno’s had both succumb to a dangerous case of the stupids years ago, one from trying to outrun a centaur and the other raving while the pox ravaged him.
Only Cosimo, through years of careful planning and saving, managed to find for himself an unexpected semblance of civility against his birthright, “One day it will claim you, you know, and you’ll find yourself bed or grave-ridden.”
Matteus smiled, “And how is Domitilla?”
“Off visiting with her parents. You are very lucky indeed, for she’d toss you back out upon the street.”
“Such a loving, gentle woman,” Matteus joked, it unnerved him to think of his old friend as married, settled,
decaying in that tiny inn he owned until the end.
Cosimo resigned himself to the hell he would get later from his wife, “Come, let us wash and bandage you up. I believe there are still a few old healing potions left in the basket.”
“Clothes would be nice too, perhaps something in velvet.”
“Do not look a gift mercenary in the teeth.”
Pre-TerraFae Page 1