by M. A. Ray
Vandis looked back at them. “I guess this place is a little rougher than I’d remembered,” he said, his face wry.
“Maybe,” Kessa said, staring around.
Dingus didn’t reply; he stood rooted to the spot, just inside the doors, clutching the straps of his pack and trying to handle everything his senses shouted at him. The minstrel on the stage at the far left plucked doggedly away at a lute, even though nobody paid him the least mind. Probably better that way. He wasn’t very good, and the lute sounded a shade out of tune. The barman shouted at a barmaid; on the right, Dingus could almost smell a fight brewing: two men on their feet, staring each other down.
Vandis said, “Dingus. Are you under control?”
“I got this,” he said, closing his eyes briefly. Then he followed Vandis and Kessa across to the bar.
“Vandis!” the barman bellowed when they got close, turning away from the blushing barmaid, who escaped the moment his attention went somewhere else.
“Eth,” Vandis said. “Long time, no see.” He reached over the gouged bar-top to clasp wrists. “Got room for a couple of Knights and a Squire?”
“Well, now, that depends.” Eth the barman grinned all over his shiny, jiggling face. “Got stories? New ones?”
“What do you think?” Vandis asked Dingus and Kessa.
Kessa nodded; Dingus took in a deep breath. It didn’t steady him much, but enough. Besides, after telling his stories to the fishy eyes of the Masters at Moot, after going on with Francine and the guys, this ought to be cake. “How many you want?” he asked, and saw, out of the corner of his eye, Vandis beaming at him.
“How many you got?” the barman shot right back.
“I bet I got a hundred you never heard your whole life long.”
“Don’t undersell yourself,” Vandis said, without a trace of irony. His chest puffed up. “This is Sir Dingus, my Junior, and he has a hundred I’ve never heard, but he’ll give you—what do you think is fair, Dingus? Six? That’s two new ones apiece.”
“Sure.” Dingus wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t go wrong agreeing with Vandis.
“Ten new ones,” Eth said. “Three apiece, and an extra for you, lad, because you look like you can eat.”
“Seven,” Dingus returned. “Two apiece, and an extra for me, ’cause I can eat. I’ll do three now, then four for your supper crowd.”
He glanced at Vandis, who nodded. “I’ll give you some preaching in between if Kessa here can do one for practice.”
Eth sucked at his teeth. “I guess that’ll do.” He clasped wrists with Vandis again before bawling across to the minstrel. “Get off the stage, Colman, you can’t play a note! We’ve got Knights, Knights in the house!” To Dingus, he added, “Wet your whistle, lad, and get up there.”
Dingus slipped his pack, took the mug Eth slid across to him, and crossed to the far right of the bar to touch the carved medallion of the white oak leaf, brushing one hand over the stains of so many oily fingers before his. “Lady, bless my voice,” he said, like every time he’d told in a tavern, and walked to the stage, where the minstrel stowed his lute in its case with a mother’s tenderness.
“You’re tuned a little high,” Dingus said to him, real quiet, and he slammed the case shut and took himself off in a huff. After a long swallow of the beer—kind of sour, but wet, at least—Dingus set the mug on the boards, cleared his throat, and projected his voice. “If you wanna hear a story, listen up! Once upon a time…” and he gave them Lone Crow and the Witch, then Rose Daughter’s Shark, and finally the Periapt of True Seeing, which was a good long one about Brother Fox and Eagle Eye’s quest for a necklace that stripped away the veils of Glamor and gave its wearer the Sight, and how they’d used it to save Brother Fox’s betrothed from a hidden, magical prison. Grandpa had shown it to him once, the Periapt itself, a fat opal on a whisper of gold chain, and told him how the rainbows inside would stand out from the surface and dance when someone used it—back when.
He thought that one went over pretty well. He got some good silence out of it, a decent haul in tips, and some delighted murmuring from the barmaids when he described the Periapt. Nobody tried anything on Vandis. No matter what his Master had said, he’d kept a weather eye out the whole time he was up there. When he came down from the stage, promising to be back at suppertime, he crossed to Vandis and Kessa where they sat at a table surrounded by the remains of their dinner.
Vandis stood and clapped him on the arm. “They’re good and softened up,” he said, and made his way up to take Dingus’s place. His gritty voice rolled out a moment later: “Now hear this…”
Dingus grinned. This was familiar as home. So far he enjoyed being a Junior. He didn’t have to cook every single night or set up and break camp—even though he did help Kessa most every night, seeing as he was supposed to help teach her the basics—and Vandis expected him to bullshit and handle jobs that weren’t quite as routine, like paying for their room and board with new stories.
Soon a barmaid came ’round with Dingus’s dinner. “If you need anything more, just shout,” she said, giving him a pretty smile. She brushed his arm with hers when she set the trencher of goat stew in front of him. “You have a really good voice, you know. I could almost believe in that necklace.” She busied herself clearing up the dirty dishes.
“You should,” Dingus said, taking out his spoon and knife. “It’s a real necklace. I’ve held it in my own two hands.”
“Oh, come on.” She propped a hand on one hip, the other on the table. He tried not to look at the way it made her breasts shift under her bodice.
“You calling me a liar?” He smiled, trying to let her know it wasn’t meant to be fighting words.
She laughed. “No, I’m calling you a flimflamming, tale-spinning Knight with nothing better to do than twist stories around until nobody recognizes them, and then spit them out as your own.”
“Yeah, I am.” That pleased him no end to say. “Anyways, it doesn’t have to be exactly true to be truth.”
“So I guess what your Master’s spouting up there is true, too.” She nodded at Vandis, who held forth onstage with Why the Moon Bleeds.
“True? Who knows. Maybe that’s not how or why it happened, but it’s truth. Jealousy. Revenge. Punishment.” He opened his hands. “Fear. That’s truth, don’t you think?”
“Now you’re philosophizing. I’m no scholar, Sir Knight.” The barmaid laid a hand over her heart. “I’m just here to wait on people.”
“Where you’re from, what you do, that stuff doesn’t matter. Look at me. I’m just a sheep-shit hillbilly far from home, but I know truth when I hear it.”
She tossed her hair, laughing again, so the silver hoops in her ears caught the low tallow-dip light. “You’re not just a flimflamming, tale-spinning Knight. You’re a preacher, with your trust-me face and your voice like sin. Finally, a preacher I could stand to listen to all night… if he talks that long.”
“Well,” Dingus said, “I don’t know about all night, but I got more stories for suppertime if you wanna hear—ow!” He glared at Kessa, who’d chosen that moment to kick him in the shin. She tilted her head toward the barmaid, waggling her eyebrows like it was supposed to mean something.
“All right, Longshanks, I’ll hear you later.” The barmaid sashayed away shaking her head.
When she’d gone, he demanded, “The hell was that for?”
“She likes you, dumbass!”
“What?”
“She said ‘all night’!” Kessa hissed, leaning close.
“People say that,” he explained patiently. “Those are words. People say them.”
“Yeah, but she meant all night!” At his blank look, she let out a disgusted huff. “As in, you could do it to her all night! You are so oblivious.”
“I’m not. She wasn’t—”
“Yes, you are, and yes, she was coming on to you.”
“C’mon! Why’d she wanna do a thing like that?”
“That, right there,
that’s why you’re oblivious.”
Dingus shook his head, picking up his cutlery, and tucked into the stew. Kessa huffed again and settled back in her chair, arms folded, until Vandis finished preaching and came to fetch her to take her turn on the stage. Like Dingus had figured she would, she did Margaret Dragonslayer, and it went down real well even if she used her hands in some of the wrong places and almost lost her spot when the place started to fill up with her story only partway through.
Vandis ordered a whiskey from the same pretty barmaid. Dingus, looking at his palms, asked for one, too.
“Anything for you, Preacher,” she said, and he flinched and flushed when she trailed her fingers across his shoulders. Her footfalls receded, and he stole a glance at Vandis, whose eyebrows looked about to disappear into his hair.
“It’s for Eagle Eye and the Worm,” Dingus mumbled.
Vandis’s mouth curved up. “You can have whiskey if you want it, Preacher.”
With a groan, Dingus dropped his burning face into his hands. Vandis laughed—not too hard, but he laughed.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy. I know Point A, which is flirting,” Vandis said, putting a fingertip on the table, “and I know something about Point B, which would be… you know.” He put another fingertip a little ways away. “But in between? You’re on your own, kid.”
“Aw, hell!” Dingus knew Point B, all right, but he’d never even been to Point A, not as far as he knew.
“Guys a lot dumber than you have figured it out. You can, too.”
“Thought you were the Master here. Aren’t you supposed to know everything?”
Vandis was still laughing when the barmaid came back with the drinks. “You were pretty good,” she said to him. “I like how you tell those old stories. You had some truth.” She darted a smile at Dingus, who pretended interest in a knot on the tabletop.
“I can preach, or I wouldn’t be where I am,” Vandis said.
“True enough, but you don’t have—”
“Oh, look, here’s Kessa,” Dingus said, popping up from his chair. Kessa was just coming down the steps, but he grabbed his drink and headed for the stage, passing her on his way there. He shut his eyes, breathed, and imagined the Masters’ stares. She won’t be a problem, he told himself, and refused to look the barmaid’s way.
He gave them Grandpa’s absolute, bang-up, best stories, saving Eagle Eye and the Worm for last. His fire-breathing dragon trick went down in a storm of gasps and applause, which for sure he’d like to get used to, and he had to do it again twice before he could go have his supper. Thank the Lady for Vandis, who’d ordered it for him so the food already sat steaming in front of his chair. He didn’t see her anywhere.
She caught him coming back from the privy after he’d eaten. Her arms locked around his neck and she pulled him down. Instead of cool and smooth, like Moira’s, her mouth was hot, and so soft, so slick his knees about buckled; instead of sweet, she tasted of beer.
Dingus went up in sudden flame. Sensation rushed down his spine and settled, glowing, in his groin—like when the red came on—and like when the red came on, he wanted, just wanted. His hands gripped at her flesh and she yielded, swayed against him. His pulse beat in his ears: take, take, take, and he felt as if his skin bound and trapped him. He straightened, shaking.
Her fingers stole under his hood and wound in his hair. She yanked him back down. “You don’t kiss,” she said, “like a preacher.”
His breath rasped. He forced his hands into fists at his sides, tight, even though they twitched to open and touch. “Don’t, please don’t. You don’t know what—”
“I know you want to fuck,” she whispered, shifting her hips to press against his hard-on.
“I’ll hurt you.” He tried to pull back, but she had a fierce, one-handed grip on his hair, and she laughed at him.
“You’re hung, Preacher, but not that hung.” She rubbed up between his thighs—right where it counted. Fire and wanting slashed through him. If he didn’t get away, he’d do something terrible.
He lurched back so hard he landed on his ass and left her with what felt like half his hair.
“You have got to be shitting me.” She stood there, fingers curled over one out-thrust hip, looking down on him while he drew in choking gasps, and then crouched. “I’m offering you free cunt, and around here, nobody gets it for free.” She reached for his crotch and he scooted away. “What about it? Are you stupid, or are you going to act like a man?”
“Fuck off my brother before I wreck your face,” Kessa said, sweet as you please. Dingus almost groaned with relief—and a healthy dose of humiliation—to see her looming tall behind the barmaid.
“Your brother’s a mess,” the barmaid said, straightening. To Dingus, she added, “What a waste of a big dick,” before she strutted back into the tavern.
“Whore,” Kessa said. He took the hand she offered. “You know you couldn’t hurt her with a rafter, right?”
Dingus sat down hard again. “What?”
“I heard you. I went to pee. At first I thought you’d, you know… but on my way back, I heard you.” She shrugged. “You wouldn’t hurt her, that’s all.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” He stood.
“Then what did you mean?”
He paused in the middle of brushing down his pants to look her in the eye. Since they’d met, he’d grown taller, so they weren’t quite eye-to-eye anymore. “It felt like I was going to berserk.”
“Aw, Dingus…”
“Please don’t tell Vandis.”
She snorted. “Are you kidding?” Then she stuck her fingers in her ears and sang, “‘La la la, if I don’t hear about it, it doesn’t exist, I can’t hear you!’ Let’s not squish his illusions.”
Dingus couldn’t help snickering at that. He stuck his hands in his pockets, relaxing a little. How’d he forget how great she could be?
On the way back up to the inn, she bumped his shoulder with hers. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said, bumping back.
In spite of Kessa’s kindness, Dingus tossed and turned for hours in his bedroll, monstrously horny and unsatisfied. It’d been so long since he’d thought he might find someone willing to have him, and when the opportunity presented itself, what did he do? He choked, that was what, like a little boy getting a first glimpse of tit. He could promise himself not to do that again, but even if another one came along, he doubted he’d make any better showing. He sighed, and the next time he thought anything at all, Vandis was shaking him awake.
The Plain
The yard of the Jackalope bustled, even before first light, and Vandis, with Kessa at his side, wove among the shouting carters, running porters, and stoic donkeys toward his friend Farid. They’d set it up the night before: in exchange for sword arms and stories, Vandis and his two would travel with Farid’s caravan up to Seal Rock. Dingus trailed at a distance, and though he hadn’t said more than a few words that morning, he carried an air of cranky disquiet that annoyed Vandis no end.
“Vandis!” Farid called, before he could even open his mouth, and charged across the yard to kiss him on both cheeks—the standard greeting in Hayed. Vandis had met him there a few years back; he was in his mid-twenties now, and as garrulous as Dingus was taciturn. “Come on, Vandis, you haven’t met my Aisha! I got married, I’ve got kids now, did you know that?”
Vandis returned his grin. “And you brought everyone along for the ride.”
“I wouldn’t dream to leave them behind. Are these your guys? Of course they are. Kessa, isn’t it?” Farid beamed and stretched up to kiss her on both cheeks, making her blush. “And you, I can’t remember, is it Dennis?”
Vandis’s boy submitted to the cheek-bussing with bad grace. “It’s Dingus,” he said, and Farid burst into laughter.
“Oh no, oh no, I shouldn’t laugh. That’s not a Hayedi name for sure, friend—I can’t call you that, no. What about your se
cond name, what’s that?”
He made a face. “Dingus suits me fine.”
“No, you’ve got to tell me. I can’t give the guys that name for you, they’ll tear you apart. In Hayedi,” Farid said, slinging an arm around Dingus’s shoulders to pull him close for a whisper and ignoring the tension that rippled through his body, “it means road apples. Horseshit.”
“Parsifal,” Dingus said hastily.
“Much better, that’s a good name. We’ll just forget your other name until we get where we’re going, okay, Parsifal? Okay?” he added, glancing at Vandis and Kessa. “Try to call him Parsifal. I don’t want my guys ripping on him. It’s bad business. Let’s go introduce you around.” Farid took them over to the stables and told them the guards’ names; Vandis filed away as many as he could, picking out characteristics to match them to later, and the same with the merchants.
“I saved the best for last,” Farid said, and guided them to his wagon to meet his new wife—at least, she was new to Vandis—and three little ones: two girls about four and two, and a baby boy. The girls stared up at Dingus and Kessa, round-eyed.
“You are tall,” said the four-year-old, and Dingus’s eyes lit.
“Not always.” He fell into an easy crouch. “See? I’m—Parsifal. What’s your name?”
She swished her body back and forth, giving him a shy smile from beneath long lashes. “Jamila.”
“That’s awful pretty. It’s nice to meet you, Jamila.”
“Parsifal is a pretty name,” she offered, and Dingus affected a grimace.
“You think so? Can I tell you a secret?” Her maiden braids bobbed when she nodded, and Dingus leaned close, cupping a hand around his mouth. “I think it’s horrible,” he stage-whispered.
She squealed a giggle, tugged his sleeve so he’d bend an ear, and stage-whispered something back. Vandis couldn’t make out the words, but Dingus laughed.
“I’m sure he’ll be a wonderful uncle, when Kessa gives you children,” Aisha said to Vandis, smiling.
