‘Each of us has one day in the oroborus – no, don’t ask, they’ll tell you all about that too. This is all you’ve got to know right now: there’s thirteen husbands, thirteen days and one thirteenth of the Servants what’s looking to use your manhood on yours. They’re big on thirteen, in case you hadn’t noticed. Oh, and if they mention Mizhara, you just say something respectful and reverent and drop your eyes, got it? They’re big on piety, too.’
Eric’s head was spinning, filled with visions of a future like nothing he’d ever imagined. He stopped and after a few paces Bolli turned to face him. ‘Are you all right, mate?’
‘I’m to marry a whole bloody nation of women?’
Bolli laughed. ‘Don’t worry. It isn’t as bad as it sounds.’
His room was made of ice, of course. The bed – a solid slab of the stuff – was piled with furs. He stripped and crawled inside them, shivering. His own body warmed the nest eventually, but sleep wouldn’t come. As the day drew on, the sun crawled towards the horizon, the way it was meant to do. Except when it reached it, it just crawled back up again. Its golden light seemed to fill the walls and floors and they pulsed with an energy that made the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end. Or maybe that was just the thought of what awaited him tomorrow, whatever tomorrow meant in a place without any night.
He was to get married. He was to get married to a bunch of women who were scary enough to frighten Rii, and Bolli too, though the other man hadn’t said it. But Eric had seen it in the tense set of his shoulders whenever he talked about the Servants. And he was destined to betray these women too, or so Rii had dreamed. The thought kept him tossing and turning in his furs, slipping into a half-daze but never quite sleeping the long hours away.
He’d thought Bolli would come for him, but as the sun rose higher to send rainbow slivers of colour bursting from the ice all around him it was two of the other husbands who entered the room. Each had a pile of clothing in his arms and Eric raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m supposed to wear all that?’
The two men were so alike they might have been twins: blond and handsome and thin. Only their eyes distinguished them. Blue Eyes dropped a pile of silk on the bed, while Green Eyes laid out a row of shoes and stockings and looked down his sharp nose at Eric. ‘We thought you’d like to choose,’ he said.
Eric felt his loins reacting, though he usually preferred his men darker and older. But beggars couldn’t be choosers and it seemed the Servants had a taste for blonds. ‘Are there any other lads here?’ he asked Green Eyes. ‘Or is it just us husbands?’
‘Just the husbands,’ Blue Eyes said. Although he was as white as a lily, he had the musical accent of the mages of Mirror Town. Eric wondered what his story was. He supposed he’d have a long time to find out.
Eric picked out a beautiful turquoise shirt that he knew would set off his eyes, and there was a sapphire brooch to go with it. White silk hose and soft calfskin boots completed the outfit, with a big, fur-lined cape over it to keep out the chill. There was no mirror, so he turned to the other two men.
‘You look very handsome,’ Green Eyes said with a smile as Blue Eyes gave him a solemn nod.
‘So what have I got to do?’ Eric asked. ‘Stand there and look pretty?’
Green Eyes laughed. ‘That’s about it. It’ll be in their tongue, so you won’t understand it. Just look obliging and bow if you hear them say Mizhara’s name. They’ll like that. Honestly, there’s nothing to it, is there, Abejide?’
Blue Eyes – Abejide – mustered a small smile. ‘They know you don’t know their ways and they won’t blame you for your ignorance. They’ll start to teach you afterwards.’
Eric swallowed nervously. He’d been called on to service a woman from time to time, and he’d done all right by them, but he still didn’t know what these Servants were.
Green Eyes seemed to understand his anxiety. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a drink they give you, they call it the Tears of Mizhara. Don’t ask what’s in it, but they could sell it for all the gold in Smiler’s Fair back home. A few sips of that and you won’t have any trouble performing. It’s the next day that’ll be harder, when they start your lessons in Mizhara’s law, the Perfect Law they call it and they take it dead seriously. They’re very set in their ways, the Servants.’
‘I ain’t what you’d call a good student,’ Eric said.
‘Don’t worry, you’ve plenty of time to learn.’
Yes, Eric thought. Thirteen years.
They led him down a narrow corridor and then into a broader one, its walls carved with more circles and swirls and spirals but never any living thing.
Fifty paces ahead, the corridor ended in a wide space lit with the same golden glow that had kept Eric awake last night, as if they’d trapped the sun inside. His pace faltered and he ran a hand over his curls. ‘They really want to marry me?’ he asked Green Eyes. ‘Are they sure?’
Green Eyes squeezed Eric’s shoulder. ‘You’ve been chosen, Eric. Maybe not exactly the way the Servants thought, but they believe you’re special. They do want you and you’ll be everything they want, I promise. We all felt like you did when we got here, but it’s the best thing that ever happened to us. Did you want to die a – well, doing what you were doing? When Sarv left a week before you came, they loaded him down with jewels. Rii could barely carry it all. I know it seems like it’ll last an eternity. I thought that too, but I’ve already been here nine years. It’s worth it. Just do what they say – you’re used to that, aren’t you?’
He couldn’t argue with that. He ran his hand over his hair one last time, and then squared his shoulders and marched towards the golden hall.
The Servants were waiting within, lined up in ranks along the walkway that led towards a big block of ice at the far end. He’d expected … he’d expected something monstrous, he could admit that to himself now: a sort of two-legged version of Rii. He’d noticed the way the other husbands never said anything about how the Servants looked, and he’d assumed that was because they wanted to hide the horrible truth from him. Now he saw the way Green Eyes was grinning at him and realised it was the complete opposite. They’d meant it to be a pleasant surprise.
He knew the Servants. Well, not them, but someone like them. They were the spit of the pictures of the Hunter that had hung around the village of his birth. He couldn’t think what that meant. Like her they were almost human, but their skin and eyes looked like pure molten gold and their ears were too sharp to be quite right. Some of them even had the Hunter’s tight-curled hair and broad noses, the same as the mages of Mirror Town, though most looked more like his own folk, if his own folk had been painted all over the colour of the sun. They were beautiful, if you liked that kind of thing. He could do his duty with a woman like this, though there really were an awful lot of them: hundreds packed into this vast chamber.
Green Eyes took his arm as he hesitated and led him onward, past the ranks of solemn golden women. It felt like a very long way on very wobbly legs, but eventually he reached the front and the great lump of ice, which he guessed must be holy to them, because it certainly wasn’t pretty. There were just a handful of the Servants here – no, thirteen of course, when he counted them – in a circle round the ice. For one horrible instant Eric wondered if they meant to sacrifice him on it. But there didn’t seem to be any bloodstains, only a flat surface and two indentations that after a moment he realised were footprints, delicate and long-toed.
‘Kneel,’ Green Eyes whispered, and then he and Abejide backed away, leaving Eric alone with all those women. He bowed his head to the floor and did as Green Eyes had said.
After they’d finished their long, long ceremony and said all the words in their strange, clipped tongue, and bowed to him and watched him bow to them and never smiled, the Servants led him through a back door from the hall. It was here they gave him a golden flask and told him to drink its contents down. It must be the stuff Green Eyes had told him about, the Tears of Mizhara. It lit a f
ire in his loins that burned so strong his cock was immediately pushing out his hose. He felt a little ashamed in front of the Servants, who seemed awfully serious about everything, but they never even looked at him down there. He wasn’t sure if he pleased them or what they thought of him. Their faces were beautiful but blank.
His groin ached so badly it was almost a relief to know he’d need to service all these women, though he wasn’t entirely confident of his ability to spend into all of them. Did that matter to them? Was he here for their pleasure or just for making babies? It would explain why the Servants chose their husbands fair and pale, so the children they got on them would look the same. But maybe they wanted to enjoy the process too. Though he was proud of his bedplay, he wasn’t too sure he knew how best to please a woman. Kiss their cunny, he’d heard once. It wasn’t an appealing prospect, but he could do it if he must.
His head was terribly fuzzy, though. The same fire that had ignited in his cock seemed to be burning all sense out of his brain. The Servants led him through a low arch into a chamber that was nothing but bed.
He was naked and lying on his back without quite realising how he’d got there. And the Servants were … They were still chanting those bloody mantras that had made the wedding itself last an age, as if this was just another part of the ceremony. One of them was on him now. He felt he should be doing more than lying back, but his body seemed entirely out of his control. He watched her rise and fall, in rhythm with the chanting. She was chanting too, and he wondered what it meant and if they’d ever tell him.
He reached up to touch her breasts, which he’d also heard women liked, but she gently pushed his hands down. And then it seemed to be over, though he felt nothing, nothing at all, and the next one was on him and then the next. It wasn’t pleasant exactly, or unpleasant either. It was almost like a dream. The part of him that thought and wanted drifted away and left the animal body behind to perform its duty.
23
The stew was terrible, but Nethmi was ravenous and she only had a few coins. She spooned the lumpy liquid into her mouth and tried not to wonder what had gone into it. Two days wandering the featureless plain with no food had left her desperate. When she’d seen the black blot on the horizon, she hadn’t cared what it was. It could have been guardsmen from Winter’s Hammer and she would have thrown herself gladly into their arms. But it had been Smiler’s Fair.
She’d re-entered the place dazed with hunger and disbelief. It was strange that what had seemed frightening when she’d first visited now felt like a haven. She’d given a false name at the gate and no one had questioned it. The jostling crowds would hide her from pursuit and the shopkeepers and barmen would take her money until it was all gone. After that, she didn’t know what she’d do, but worrying about the future seemed futile. Everything she had ever believed about it had proven to be wrong.
When the stew was gone she leaned back in her chair and looked around. The table was outside, on the perimeter of a large square. It reminded her a little of the place where she’d first heard Jinn speak, but she knew it wasn’t the same. That had been surrounded by houses of ill-repute, whereas this was ringed by gambling dens. Banners showing dice and spinning tops; a hand splayed for luck flapped above doorways and the clatter of the games was all around.
It was said that you could never return to Smiler’s Fair. When she was a child, she thought it was because the fair somehow magically disappeared after you’d visited it. Her father had laughed and explained that the saying meant both you and the Smiler’s Fair would change, so that you’d be a different person and it would be a different place.
The fair certainly did seem to have changed. The streets were crowded with almond-eyed tribespeople, not darker-skinned Ashane. The beaded clothes on the stalls catered to their new hosts’ tastes and the food was flavoured with herbs Nethmi had never tasted before. Some of the buildings had clearly been repainted since the mountain crossing and the babble of voices spoke an entirely different mix of tongues.
In its essence, though, Nethmi wasn’t sure Smiler’s Fair had changed at all. It still wanted its visitors’ coin – and maybe their virtue – and proposed to give as little as possible in return. And the tribespeople wore the same amazed and often scandalised expressions as the Ashane had three months past. Last time she’d seen two fist-fights and one duel. Now a wrestling match was getting under way in the centre of the square, drawing an interested crowd.
As for herself, she did feel that something had altered inside her, something fundamental, but she didn’t know what it was and she wasn’t sure if she liked it.
The fair had found its pitch only two days ago and Marvan was already restless. His house was near the outskirts this time, just off Maidenhead Alley. His window faced the plains and he looked out over the grass and sighed. Now that they’d passed through Ashanesland, the circle was complete. Every view he saw would be a view he’d seen before. He remembered this land and he knew that it stretched for leagues upon leagues south and north. He’d better get used to the sight of blue sky and silvery grass and the unlovely faces of the Fourteen Tribes who lived on it.
His axes would be the right weapons for this place. He hooked two into his belt, slid a stiletto into his boot and turned to examine himself in the mirror. He didn’t very much like what he saw: the usual long, beaky nose, smiling mouth and messy brown hair; but his eyes had a feverish glint that, had he seen it in another man, would have led Marvan to avoid him.
The hunger was gnawing at him. He hadn’t fed it for two months now, not since the fuss after Jaquim disappeared. The fair had been in an uproar. Some hysterics thought the worm men had taken him, though everyone knew they never struck when Smiler’s Fair was in motion. Others had cried murder, and although interest had soon refocused on the far larger scandal of Jinn and Vordanna’s kidnapping, Marvan had seen doubting eyes on him. And everywhere he turned, there was that bloody clerk Lucan, watching him with eyes that held no doubt. Lucan knew full well what he’d done. Marvan could swear the man had actually taken to following him about the fair. It was enough to spoil anyone’s appetite, no matter how strong.
There was another reason to stop, too. He’d wanted to prove to himself that his peculiar hunger wasn’t his master, but his experiment had forced him to the opposite conclusion. Today he had to satisfy it. His cat, Stalker, slid between his legs and he bent to stroke her head and then left the house to hunt.
Smiler’s Fair was a different place here in the plains. The Four Together loved to gamble and some of them liked to drink, but they mostly stayed away from the whores, except the few who fancied themselves in love with the floozies and tried to lure them away, to a life on horseback.
The dollies and sellcocks seemed to cope well enough. The Fine Fellows had chosen their pitch near the Drovers this time, and when Marvan crossed the boundary he saw that the houses of ill-repute had transformed themselves into dens of a different vice, their pictures of blowsy women and fresh-faced lads replaced with images of dice and spinning tops. The whores served drinks to the gamblers lounging around the outside tables and smiled at being treated with respect for once.
Marvan knew those men would be no good to him, too caught up in their games to let him provoke them. He passed through the narrow alley between two erstwhile whorehouses and found himself in Cockermouth Square, where the cheapest sellcocks usually plied their trade. The sagging buildings lining the open space, filled with dingy rooms that hired out by the hour, usually drew in the cullies. Today, though, the crowd was in the centre of the square, on the brown-green slush that had once been fresh grass.
Marvan recognised beaded shirts belonging to many different bands and hearths of the Four Together. The tribes must be gathering nearby for their spring festival, else the men wouldn’t have left their herds even for the pleasures of Smiler’s Fair. The elder mothers had stayed in their camps, but long-haired girls and knife women in colourful scarves rubbed shoulders with warriors made taller by their turb
ans and prouder by the battle scars they wore from skirmishes between the bands.
It was a sweeter-smelling group than usually inhabited Smiler’s Fair. Where normally such a crowd would be rank with the odours of piss and old sweat, here Marvan scented only a confusion of flowers from the oils they rubbed into their hair. The tribespeople were tightly packed, but parted amicably enough as he pushed his way through until he found himself at the rim of a clear circle.
Now he understood. The Four Together loved to wrestle almost as much as they liked to gamble their winnings on the dice. It let the bands compete without a cost in blood. It was said an elder mother of the Dogko had learned the sport from a Wanderer and taught it to her tribe after her son was killed in a raid. When her son’s murderer had been captured, he’d expected death, but instead the elder’s other son had wrestled him into the mud and forced him to eat his pride. He’d walked away with his life, greater wisdom and a bad back. It was a pretty story, and maybe even true.
Today, they’d marked out the edge of the arena with white rocks and the crowd was pressed close, watching the fight. The two men in the ring looked like they’d done this often before. One was wiry rather than muscular and quick as a ferret. The other seemed nothing but muscle, as immovable as the first was lithe. It hardly seemed an even match, but Marvan was no expert.
The thinner man circled the larger, his eyes darting as he searched for an opening in defences that looked impenetrable. The thickset wrestler stood with a slight smile and a gaze that seemed focused on the horizon, as if the man in front of him was barely worth bothering with. But when the small man moved he responded quickly enough, blocking the grab for his groin and returning a jab to the gut that left his opponent on his back and gasping for air.
Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods Page 27
