Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  The sound of his landing a hundred feet below was muted by the earth and Krish sobbed in mingled relief and horror. When he looked down he saw that Edmund’s body wasn’t moving and he knew that he’d killed a second time.

  He dragged his eyes away and forced himself into motion, following the ledge as it wound to the top of the hill. He couldn’t go to the village now. If word had reached this far, he couldn’t risk any contact. His ma had been right: he must leave Ashanesland entirely to be safe, at least until he had soldiers of his own. And as for food, he didn’t have much appetite for it after what he’d just done.

  When the ledge spilled him out on to the top of the hill, he spent longer than he should looking at the corpse below. He could have called for help, Krish reminded himself. Edmund could have summoned the rest of the village and then Krish would have had no chance to escape, but greed had guided him. He’d been willing to sell Krish for a few gold wheels and Krish owed him no pity. Krish’s prow god was still clenched in his hand and he wiped the worst of the blood from the white rock, stowed her in his pack and walked on.

  14

  Lahiru slipped out of Eric’s bed at sunrise to return to his wife’s. He pressed a kiss against Eric’s cheek, a slower one to his throat, and then he was gone. The door shut behind him and Eric had only his posh clothes and soft furnishings for company. He sighed and rolled to his side, hoping for a little more sleep, but it wouldn’t come.

  An hour later the first servant entered. Eric had been trying his very best smile on him every day for the last seven, but couldn’t tempt a return smile. The lad was as grim-faced as ever today. It was hard to enjoy his morning bath when the person soaping his back looked like he wanted to stick a knife through it. He climbed out as soon as he was clean and took the towel from the servant when he would have dried Eric. There were parts of himself he only wanted his lover to touch.

  When he’d finished, a sour-faced girl brought Eric his breakfast. He didn’t understand what their problem was. He didn’t eat much and he’d overheard two of the grooms yesterday saying they’d never seen their lord in such a good mood. Shouldn’t they be grateful to Eric for that? He knew Lahiru was smiling because of him. The soft ache in his arse and the love bruises on his neck and chest proved he’d been more than doing his duty on that front, and enjoying every moment of it too.

  He wished he could take one of the gold wheels lying casually around the shipfort, as if money wasn’t worth as much as his spit, and pay it to the Worshippers to pray to Lord Lust for him. They’d set him right with the Ashane god, make sure he didn’t get in a dudgeon about what Eric and Lahiru did in their bed, and maybe they could put in a word with the Hunter too, who guarded all the Moon Forest folk. But the Worshippers were far away and over the mountains by now, lost to him with Smiler’s Fair.

  There was no point brooding about it, though. It would only give him frown lines. He slipped on his favourite green trousers and shirt, then headed out of Smallwood, across the bridge to Lahiru’s gardens. He loved it here, even though it was the middle of winter and nothing was in flower. He could still see the potential for colour in the ranks of poles where, in a few months, jasmines would be twining. The trees were bare of leaves but buds had formed, waiting for their moment to burst. In the spring there would be flowers and in the summer fruit. They were still eating the dried remains of last year’s crop, wonderfully sweet, especially dipped in honey. And there was grass underfoot, and quiet. Wherever Smiler’s Fair went it brought the mud, but he could be happy here.

  Just when he’d lost all feeling in his nose from the chill and was starting to think of going in, he heard the clatter of footsteps over the bridge and then a high, piping voice shouting his name.

  ‘Over here, lovely!’ he called.

  It was Lahiru’s little daughter, whose name he now knew was Liyoni, but everyone called her Yo-Yo. Someone had tied her long hair back in bunches and they flapped as she ran, the red ribbons already half undone.

  ‘You’re a little terror, ain’t you?’ Eric said, kneeling to redo the bows.

  ‘I’m very naughty,’ Yo-Yo agreed happily.

  ‘So what we gonna do today, little Yo-Yo?’

  ‘Bake a cake!’

  He laughed. ‘Maybe, but you ain’t gonna do that with me. How about a swim?’

  ‘Brrr!’ She made an exaggerated shivering motion.

  ‘Oh, you don’t mean that.’ Eric scooped her up, giggling and screaming, and ran towards the lake.

  ‘I don’t wanna swim!’ she screeched.

  ‘Bollocks! It’s time for a dip, shorty!’ He’d reached the water’s edge now and he swung her backwards and forwards as if he really was going to throw her in.

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ she yelled delightedly.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ a much louder adult voice said behind him.

  Eric spun round – almost dropping Yo-Yo into the water as she wriggled in his arms – and found himself facing Lahiru’s wife, Babi. The woman looked furious. Her pretty face was flushed and her eyes snapping. Eric carefully placed Yo-Yo on the ground in front of him, partly to placate Babi and partly as a tiny shield.

  ‘We was just playing,’ he said.

  ‘Eric says I’m a little terror!’ Yo-Yo said and he couldn’t help smiling down at her, though he suspected she was making it worse.

  ‘Come here, Liyoni.’ Babi held out an imperious hand. Yo-Yo stamped her foot in annoyance, then sighed and moved away from Eric to take it. ‘Now go inside,’ her mother said. ‘It’s far too cold out here for you.’

  She waited while her daughter had crossed the bridge, the patter of her feet and the sighing of the wind through the bare trees the only sounds. Her silence was almost as cold as the weather and Eric felt compelled to break it. ‘She’s a proper little madam, ain’t she? A real heartbreaker.’

  Babi stared at him a long moment. He noticed for the first time the lines of tension on her face and the shadows under her eyes. He wondered if she found it as hard to sleep without her husband in her bed as he did.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said eventually. ‘I can’t keep you away from Lahiru, but you stay away from my children. I don’t want you speaking to them and I don’t want you playing with them. Do you understand?’

  And what could you reply to that? ‘I understand,’ Eric said.

  Later that day, when he knew Lahiru was due back from his inspection of the far pastures, Eric went to his lover’s room. He guessed that the morning’s incident would get reported and he wanted to get his explaining in first. When he reached the door, though, it was shut and he heard voices coming from inside.

  It was Babi, of course, who wasn’t stupid and must have been waiting here for her husband all along. Eric checked the corridor for servants, then pressed his ear against the door.

  ‘– absurd,’ Lahiru was saying. ‘Eric loves children.’

  ‘He is a child!’ Babi’s voice was high and tight and Eric could absolutely imagine her expression, and Lahiru’s too: pained and apologetic and infuriatingly stubborn.

  ‘Hardly, my darling.’

  ‘He’s barely older than your own son, Lahiru! It’s disgusting.’

  ‘What –’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t insult me by pretending I don’t know exactly what you get up to when you creep out of our room at night. For the love of the gods, there isn’t a person in Smallwood who doesn’t know!’

  And now Eric realised she was crying. It was muffled suddenly and he guessed Lahiru must have taken her into his arms, pressing her face against his broad shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was choked as well. ‘I can’t help myself. I’ve tried. But I simply … I love him, Babi. I do.’

  When she spoke again it was from the other side of the room, as if she’d abruptly pulled away from her husband. ‘You can help yourself, you just choose not to. You bring shame on your family – disgrace to your children if it’s ever learned of beyond these waters. And for what? Because you can’t cont
rol where you stick your – your – Because you refuse to control yourself!’

  Eric moved away from the door. He didn’t really want to hear any more. The conversation sounded like it had been going on a while and would continue for longer. The sun was near setting anyway, so he retreated to his room, asking a passing servant to have his dinner sent there.

  He lay back on his bed and watched the light in the window change from orange to red and then fade to black. He didn’t like the dark, so he lit all the lamps in the room. Then he took the clothes from his wardrobe and spread them on his bed. Back at the whorehouse, Madam Aeronwen had only ever given him three outfits at a time: one for relaxing, one for wearing with his current john, and the other to be in readiness for the next. Here he had a blue shirt, threaded with silver, nine pairs of trousers: five black, three grey and one a lovely grass green. He had suede boots, hats with feathers and hats without, and he had a string of pearls that looked very fine indeed with his blue and silver jacket.

  And Lahiru loved him. He’d said so, hadn’t he? Even though he’d said it to his wife and not to Eric, which hadn’t been his most tactful moment.

  Lahiru loved him and he loved Lahiru. He ran his fingers across the bruises on his chest and felt a twitch in his cock as he remembered how he got them. Lahiru set him aflame. And his lover was kind too, and clever. He was better than Eric deserved and yet he’d asked Eric to live here among his family, not caring what it did to his reputation.

  Eric blinked and was surprised to feel the trickle of a tear down his cheek. He’d always known it was too good to last, hadn’t he? Smiler’s Fair wouldn’t have gone that far and though he’d broken his bond with Madam Aeronwen he reckoned she’d take him back. The citizens of the fair tended to be forgiving that way. If Lahiru would give him a horse, he could catch up before they’d reached the great plains beyond the mountains. He realised he felt guilt about Babi crying because her husband was humiliating her and Lahiru didn’t even seem to care. At least at the whorehouse Eric had only brought people pleasure.

  He’d tell Lahiru he was leaving when he came to him tonight, after they’d had a tumble. He wanted one final warm memory to take away with him.

  He woke up as the bed shifted beneath him, and smiled. But the smile faltered when he felt the press of cold metal against his neck, and he opened his eyes to see a stranger looking down at him. The man’s face was scarred beneath his rough stubble. One eye was gone and the other looked a lot less friendly than Eric would have liked.

  ‘Get up and keep quiet,’ the man said, pressing the knife down harder to make his point.

  ‘Gag him.’ It was another voice, deeper and harsher, and Eric realised there was a second man in the room, lurking by the door.

  The first man rooted around in the wardrobe until he found a pair of Eric’s smalls and shoved them in his mouth. He was dragged to his feet and his hands bound, then a blindfold was tied round his head and after that he had only his ears, his nose being full of the rank smell of his kidnappers and unable to pick out anything else.

  They pushed him through the corridors of the shipfort, the knife pressed against his back to keep him well-behaved. Even this late at night, Eric hoped they might pass a servant or two, but if they did, no one challenged them and no one raised the alarm. He felt the change in the air as they went outside and the swaying beneath his feet as they crossed the bridge to shore. And then the men threw him over a horse’s flank, his arms and head dangling one side and his feet the other, and rode away.

  It had all happened so quickly, he was still struggling to take it in when they stopped and pulled him from the horse as roughly as they’d thrown him on it. They couldn’t have gone very far, a mile or two at most. He lay shivering on the hard ground and told himself that if they’d wanted him dead they’d just have stabbed him in his bed.

  They left him lying there a long time while the cold seeped through his thin nightshirt and raised goosebumps all over him. He heard a rumble of conversation, then footsteps approached and the blindfold was lifted from his eyes.

  He blinked up into the moonlight, seeing the silhouette of a head against it. It was only when she moved into profile that he recognised her face.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t think I had it in me,’ Babi said. ‘But my father’s a powerful man, the lord of Whitewood. When I was a girl, he used to call Smallwood his little caravan. I borrowed his men for this evening.’

  Eric tried to speak, but his own smalls were still gagging his mouth and he managed only an undignified mumble. Babi watched him struggle for a while, then reached down and removed the gag.

  ‘I was going to leave anyway,’ Eric said. ‘Honest, I was. Just let me go and I’ll be on my merry back to Smiler’s Fair.’

  ‘And I’m to trust you, am I?’

  ‘I’m a trustworthy boy, and I ain’t never done nothing to you.’

  ‘Aside from corrupting my husband.’

  I didn’t do nothing he didn’t want, Eric thought, but he didn’t see much point saying it. It seemed unlikely to win her over.

  She looked as if she was waiting for him to say something more, like she wanted to give him a fair hearing. After a few moments, when it became clear he wouldn’t, she turned her head to the side and called out, ‘Well? Don’t you want to examine the merchandise?’

  Another figure approached out of the darkness, but this one Eric didn’t recognise. He was a tall man with a blunt nose and crafty eyes.

  ‘Well?’ Babi said again as the stranger leaned over Eric.

  ‘Almost as pretty as you described,’ the man said grudgingly. He hooked a finger inside Eric’s lips and lifted them up, inspecting his teeth as Eric squirmed futilely in his bonds. ‘Hmm … not bad. Disease?’

  Babi paled. The thought obviously hadn’t occurred to her. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Easy enough to tell,’ the man said. Then his fingers were at the ties of Eric’s nightgown, undoing them and pulling it open. He slid gloves over his hands before picking up Eric’s cock, which had shrivelled to the size of a baby carrot with cold and fear. ‘Yes, he seems clean. I don’t suppose you can get it up proud for me, boy, so I can see the size?’

  Eric glared at him and the man laughed.

  ‘I suppose not. Still, big enough, I’m sure. Very well then, I’ll have him. One hundred and twenty gold wheels, did we agree?’

  Babi shrugged. ‘That will do. Just so long as you take him and he never comes back.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t be coming back from where he’s going, you can be sure of that. Come then, boy. We’ve a long journey and we may as well get started.’ He threw a heavy purse to Babi, then pulled Eric to his feet by the ropes binding his hands.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Eric whispered to him, too scared to be defiant. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he asked Babi.

  ‘You know why. As for where you’re going, I didn’t ask. Just when I had a problem I needed to be rid of, this man appeared, hoping to catch your filthy fair as it passed by and purchase a suitable boy whore. I told him he could spare himself a further journey as we happened to have one of its finest with us. And so here we are – and there you’re going. I’ll tell Lahiru you ran away; it won’t be hard to believe, especially with the missing money. He can return to my bed and everyone can forget this ever happened.’ Her voice was brittle and too fast. Eric guessed it was a speech she’d been rehearsing.

  ‘You’re no better than me,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t do nothing evil. I just made him happy.’

  ‘I know. That’s what makes it so much worse. Now I think it’s time for you to be leaving. I gather you have a very long way to go.’

  15

  After he’d finished with her, Thilak rose from Nethmi’s bed to return to his. She suspected it wouldn’t be empty. That woman would be waiting for him there.

  She felt … numb. She’d been dreading their first night together but it hadn’t been as painful as she’d expected. He’d been kind, in his way, try
ing to ensure she was ready when he entered her. But his caresses made her skin freeze and when he’d tried to kiss her she’d turned her head aside. After that he just got on with it. She could still feel the product of their coupling dripping out of her.

  A baby might already be growing inside her. The thought horrified her more than the memory of his hands on her body and the dispassionate way he’d taken her. If she had his child it would bind her here for ever. The only hope she had was that she might prove barren and he’d be forced to set her aside.

  Suddenly, the thought of spending another second in that bed, surrounded by the smell of their congress, was more than she could bear. There were no windows in her room, and he’d come to her when she’d been sleeping, but she guessed it must be the middle of the night. It didn’t matter; she wouldn’t be sleeping again.

  It was freezing outside the bed. She slipped on her fur-lined boots and wrapped two of her blankets around herself, then took one of the lanterns from the wall to light her way. She caught her own reflection as she passed her wardrobe, hair tangled and shoulder red where Thilak had bitten her as he spent himself.

  The corridors weren’t entirely deserted. Thilak seemed always to be expecting trouble, and guards stood at every junction. They looked dazed with tiredness in this dead hour of the night and only watched her through bleary eyes as she walked past. She didn’t pay them any mind. She was the lady of this place. They owed her their obedience and she knew that Thilak would see that she got it. His own reputation and the security of his heir were dependent on a recognition of her legitimacy.

  She didn’t know where she was going until she found herself walking down the narrow wooden stairs. The stench of the place brought bile to the back of her throat, and she knew that the guard here wouldn’t be half asleep.

  ‘Lady Nethmi,’ he said, smiling guilelessly at her approach.

  It was In Su. She clutched the blankets tighter around herself, unable to bear the thought of him seeing the mark Thilak had left on her shoulder.