by Lee Benoit
"So you think maybe in our future there will be many mouths and few vessels to feed them?"
To his chagrin, Matti laughed. "Oh, Devi! You're even grimmer than Adiún! Perhaps this card in this position means there will be bounty, and many to share it."
"We shall see, I suppose," Devi conceded.
"That we shall," Matti said. Devi had another surprise as Matti ran his hand over Devi's shorn hair, then touched his own short curls with a rueful smile. "We shall see, all of us together," he said.
***
Devi's first impression of Keoded was distorted by the fear and shame of wearing a slave collar.
"It's not a slave collar, tiba," Sauda muttered as Devi's face burned. Adiún had shown the gate guard the three freedmen's tokens along with his own badge from the Mummer's Guild. Each bore the device of Gydha's troupe, as she had been the one to buy and free them, Matti from a brothel where he took her fancy more than a year past, Devi at Adiún's behest, and Sauda because Devi wouldn't be parted from her. No non-Norvander entered the city without some token of legitimacy.
The gate guard casually handed over three worn leather straps, and made clear that the tokens were to be affixed to them and displayed at all times. "Can't account for what happens to you if you don't," he warned.
It should have been wondrous. The city sprawled over the river delta, and it struck Devi that he had seen very little commerce upon the river until now. There had been little coracles here and there, not unlike the skin-covered barks of his home. But here rope-drawn ferries crisscrossed the estuaries like a spider spinning a web, powered by men with arms like trees and shoulders smooth and solid as river stones, hand-over-handing thick rafts back and forth across the rivers' narrower places. Barges swayed up and down, punted in both directions, bumping against the many makeshift jetties where the punters hawked wares with shouts and songs. No seacoaster would ever consider a water-borne market, and to see it here on the river filled him with the beginnings of awe and delight.
At least it did until he felt the weight of the metal token at his throat and remembered that freeing him and Sauda had been the beginning of the end for Adiún's new life with Gydha's performing troupe. To be sure, he knew the troupe's pardon and return to the Norvander homeland would have come with or without him, but his guilt pressed upon him nonetheless.
If Devi were honest with himself, he'd realize the guilt he felt was for leaving his home village in the first place. When the meager crop failed again after years of decline, and the fish avoided the villagers' nets all winter, Devi had watched helplessly as his neighbors struggled valiantly to preserve something of their way of life. He also watched as young people of other villages traveled through theirs in the company of Norvanders who had, he learned much too late, bought them for small prices, sums that seemed lordly to the villagers, for whom coin and even barter were exotic ideas. He wanted to help, but his skills didn't feed anyone. Telling stories saved no one. Melle was frustrated, too. But it was Devi who acted, Devi who was bold, Devi who found a way, one night in the furs of a Norvander traveler, to help his village by leaving, making his way to the towns, trading his skills for the new, important, coin of the Norvanders. He'd intended to return to the coast, but things had happened so fast he'd been unable to assure Adiún and Melle of that. The mab rhi, Adiún's hearth-father, was a practical man. He could easily count one less mouth to feed. He agreed to let Devi go.
And Devi let himself be swept away, breaking all three of their hearts in the process.
Who could have known that very winter would take the life of the story-mother, his and Melle's hearth-mother, robbing the village of half its memory?
Who could have known that Melle would perish on a child-bringing tide, leaving the old story- father to whom she was apprenticed the last of their kind?
Who could have known Adiún would mourn him so, would act so rashly when spring came and Melle had died?
Who could have known what salt Devi's good intentions would evaporate into?
Who could have known what a fool Devi turned out to be?
Sauda, less than gentle at the best of times, nudged him sharply in the arm.
"So?"
"I will go forth," he announced, "begin looking for lodging." His words trailed off, a little helplessly.
"I will accompany you." Sauda was dressed as a boy, in castoff clothing they'd acquired in trade for the meat of Adiún and Matti's boar sow. She made no attempt to bind her small breasts, but even so, no one would take her for a woman.
"We stay together." Adiún's voice brooked no argument, which perversely made Devi bristle.
"We have nowhere to stay, and Gydha and Jürn told us how dangerous the city is for... people like us." He gestured between himself and Sauda and Matti. The helplessness of it, the vulnerability, loosened his tongue further. "I can make my own way. I don't need you to protect me."
"I'm not trying to... oh, tides, Devi! Once we're past the inner walls, we can take our time.
Together is safer."
"You are mab rhi, to act for my safety, Adiún?" Even as he said it Devi knew he was wrong. He glanced from companion to companion. Adiún's eyes were stormy, confused. Sauda shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, obviously anxious to keep moving. Matti was smiling.
Adiún noticed, too. "Matti, it's not funny."
That made Matti laugh out loud. A few passersby turned their heads (most had nothing to be gleeful about, entering Keoded as refugees from the Norvander colonization). "Devi's right, Adiún. That we need to split up. We need to sell the things we have, gather enough coin to stay somewhere safe until we decide how to proceed."
Adiún smiled back. Devi saw no argument there, just the usual fondness his lover had for his friend. "Who's mab rhi now, ma keneil?" Devi liked Matti, felt a kinship to him, but he couldn't help but fret a little at the intimacy -- and the endearment -- between Adiún and Matti.
"We know from your Norvander friends that women are banned from the market. I may dress as a boy, but some might see me for what I am."
Devi opened his mouth to protest that she made a more convincing boy than he did, but was quelled by a dark look from her as she continued, "So if we split up I must search for lodging."
She pursed her lips with distaste. "Women can spend coin but not earn it. Huh. The market women of my home would be surprised to hear that."
"I will go with Sauda," Devi offered. "Matti knows the worth of the goods we have, and he needs--"
"Careful, Devi!" Now Matti was laughing at him. "You didn't like it when Adiún tried to protect you, but now you think I will welcome it?" Any sting there might have been in the man's words eased when Matti slung a slender arm around Devi's neck and rubbed his hair. He made a small kissing noise near Devi's ear, then spun away with a wink.
"To market, bodyguard," he cried, and even Sauda smiled.
It was relatively easy to find the quarter of the city where innkeepers served "strangers." Devi thought it strange that he, who had lived in this land all his life, was now considered strange by the Norvanders who occupied it.
They found the coin they had was more than enough, and if Matti was correct about the value of the truffles, they'd have plenty to set up housekeeping for the season. Winter was coming, and travel -- even if they'd somewhere to go -- would soon become foolhardy if not impossible. After a quick mug of broth from the innkeeper, Devi and Sauda set out again, to find Adiún and Matti in the market quarter and bring them to their temporary home.
Keoded looked strange to Devi, in the bright but uncertain light of endings and beginnings. He walked slowly, forcing Sauda to tug at his pace.
The canals, the bridges, even the crowded roadways, all looked beautiful to him, even as he tried to ignore their rot and menace.
At the floating market, Sauda made him laugh. Flirting and charming, even capering with Kibi, she jollied the brightfruit seller into parting with his wares at a price he himself clucked at when Sauda pressed the co
ins into his gnarled hands. Devi gaped; he had never seen this side of his friend, even when she was ordered to charm a mark in the brothel.
"Two such pretty lads are sure a menace in the market." The fruit seller pressed a leathery orange-stained palm to each of their cheeks murmuring blessings on the "day-child" and the "night-child" in turn.
Thus fortified, Sauda took up the net bag of heavy brightfruit, halving a small one and passing the thick-rinded seed pod to Devi with a white, white grin. She clasped his free hand in an exuberant gesture, swinging their joined hands between them as they shopped for the other things on their list of necessities.
"You look happy, tiba," Devi ventured with an answering, if more tentative, smile. "Are you not fearful of what lies ahead?"
"Gast!" She echoed Matti's customary curse, and her look hooded slightly. "Not when I fear what lies behind far worse."
Chapter 3
Adrift
"Oi! You there!
Matti looked around sharply and cursed, not for the first time, his small stature relative to Norvanders.
"Can you see who's yelling?" he asked as he turned to Adiún.
Adiún rolled his eyes, but didn't say a word. A large hand had fastened itself to the back of Adiún's neck. In a flash, another wrapped itself around Matti's upper arm.
"Gast!" Matti cursed and tried to pull free. "Let go! Thief! Thief!"
Usually a cry of "thief" brought all and sundry to witness, if not visit justice, on the ill-doer.
Matti had seen a pickpocket go down under a wave of citizens and not get up again. This time, all that happened was a tighter grip on his arm, and a cruel laugh, somewhere above and behind his ear.
"They're guards, ma keneil," Adiún hissed. Matti was grateful he used their kinship-name for each other, and not his public name.
"Slaves ain't to be sellin' at market," Adiún's guard growled. "Nor free Alperai."
"Nor dogs," the second guard barked, shoving a frantic Kibi away with his foot.
"They're all dogs, you ask me," cried a stall-keeper. Matti's heart sank. If the ordinary folk turned against them, they might as well be thieves.
A thick finger insinuated itself under the cord around Matti's neck and pulled uncomfortably.
"I'm free, Itron," Matti croaked.
"Not for long, if you can't pay the fine."
"Fine?" Adiún asked.
"Selling without a badge. Value of your goods plus fifty percent."
Matti slumped in his captor's grip. "All our coin is with our friends," he argued.
"What's in the pack, then?"
Matti caught Adiún's eye, and when his friend nodded, he bellowed, "Your mother's balls!" and jumped as high as he could given the hold on his arm, clipping the guard in the chin.
There ensued a brawl the likes of which would have had Kino and Joh hooting with joy. Alperai dogs they might be, but he noticed no seller or citizen made to stop them once the guards were down under the flashing kicks Adiún dealt them. Matti knew his own blows weren't enough to fell the big guards for long, so as soon as they fought free he scooped up the sack of truffles and cried, "Run!"
Adiún whistled up Kibi and run they did, directly into Devi and Sauda.
"Wha--?" Devi began as soon as they barreled into him.
"Guards! Run! Go!" Adiún panted, dragging Devi and Sauda along with him, threatening to overbalance them all.
His heart in his mouth, Matti turned off his brain and let his legs pump madly until they cleared the market, then the commercial quarter, and followed Devi and Sauda to the foreigners' precinct.
The mean little inn their friends had secured was the most welcome place Matti had been since his first night with Gydha, newly freed from the procurer who had mutilated him.
***
As it happened, the innkeeper bought Matti's truffles for a song. Not literally. Matti bartered as best he could for their night's lodging, food, and a bath -- they would need back the coin Devi and Sauda had spent on the room, now that it was clear Keoded could not become their home.
The scene in the bathhouse adjacent to the inn was a glum one, filled with desultory conversation and morose silences. Their deal with the innkeeper had secured them a private bath, with a tub of hot, spring-fed water set deep in the floor, big enough for twice their number. Each took turns washing behind a screen that concealed a sluice, pots of soft soap, and ocean sponges for scrubbing.
Devi would have liked to share a few moments behind the screen with Adiún, washing him, slipping together under the tepid flow, easy and intimate as when they were boys discovering new uses for surf. Despite their fierce coupling on the riverbank before Gydha's troupe departed for Norvand, or perhaps because of it, Devi felt unaccountably shy around his dearest love. Town dwellers tended to think of "coastal brats" as concupiscent in the extreme, ready and willing to fuck anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Certainly those had been the expectations in the brothel. Sexual openness and forced promiscuity were as high and low tide -- indistinguishable to a stranger, but all the difference in the world to one who lived at the whim of the sea.
Devi, damaged in heart and spirit by his time among people who didn't understand him, was like a virgin boy. A bath with his love, a kiss, a caress; the very ideas caused his belly to flutter and his blood to heat. He'd lost so much, squandered his greatest treasures, when he'd so rashly fled his village.
"Are none of you angry?" Devi wondered quietly. He was watching with detached fascination as Sauda turned back into a girl. For all their time together in the brothel, Devi had never seen Sauda's body nude. One of her few luxuries was a wrap of colorful cloth she said was like the clothing of her home. Passed behind her back and crossed over her breasts, it left her dark brown shoulders and legs bare. It also would have provoked a fair bit of unwelcome notice in the streets of the city, but proved perfect for maintaining her modesty during their soak. Devi and Adiún and Matti had slipped into the tub while she was changing, for the same reason.
Devi couldn't stop the dark chuckle that escaped him. At the others' narrow looks he shrugged.
"For four whores, we're the most unaccountably modest people you'll meet in Keoded."
Matti smiled the open, impish smile Devi could barely credit, knowing what he did about the young man from across the sea channel. "It's something we can control, eh, Devi?" Devi nodded and smiled back, trying not to look too sad.
Adiún broke in. "Just as well none of the inn girls would consent to bathe us. Now we can do as we like."
In what had become a nightly ritual, in or out of the bath, Matti slid behind Adiún and unwound his club, letting the long hair trail into the water. "You didn't wash it yet, did you ma keneil?"
Matti reached over and undid Adiún's club, letting his hair unfurl into a dark net in the water and slowly massaged his scalp. Adiún groaned with pleasure, and Devi's head came up. His look, like Adiún's, was almost fevered. Sauda sighed and shook her head.
Adiún shook his head, his eyes already slipping shut as Matti's slender fingers worked their way in toward his scalp.
"Help me, Devi? Get the soap?"
"I'll get it," Sauda said, levering out of the tub with her strong arms. "Looks like there will be boy-fun soon."
Devi reached to accept the pot of soap from her and couldn't resist the urge to poke the lion.
"Don't you want some love, too, tiba? Won't you stay?"
Matti snickered and Adiún smiled from their corner of the tub. Sauda threatened to tip the soap over Devi's head, grumbling, "I will wait until my fancy is struck." She walked out, warning them she'd only keep their supper for so long before eating it all herself. At the mention of supper, Kibi made to follow her, but a sharp hand gesture had him hunkering down again with his muzzle on his paws.
"Come here, Devi," Matti said, softly. Adiún's arms were open, though his eyes were still closed as he leaned back against Matti.
Devi carried the soap over and set it within Matti's reach, then slid back
a ways, unsure what to do next.
Matti whispered something in Adiún's ear, and Devi felt his earlier anger surge back in full force. "Tides, Adiún! You flaunt your new love before me! You didn't used to be cruel."
Adiún's dark eyes snapped open, and the water sloshed as he sat up. "I'm as thick as ever, though, love, just like Melle always said. Matti is... I love him. And I'm too stupid to make you understand what we three can be... what I hope we can be... to each other."
Devi boggled, and Matti stepped into the breach with his usual, gentle smile. "Truer words were never spoken, ma keneil. Devi, listen. Adiún's trying to give you time to come around to loving him again and I--"
Devi interrupted. "I never stopped! We even..." He waved his hand between himself and Adiún, trying to indicate without words what they'd done on the riverbank mere days past, the coupling that visited his dreams. "And now he's..." He stopped full, appalled that a fully trained story father such as himself would have such difficulty finding the words for what lay in his heart.
In the next instant, Matti was at his side, arms around him before he could protest. He cast a desperate look at Adiún, who merely shrugged and smiled apologetically.
Small hands dug into his damp hair and tugged his face around to meet Matti's golden eyes.
"You had a great fuck by the river. Yes?" Devi nodded miserably. "Such a thing is easy. Loving again, with your soul as well as your body, that's hard. I haven't managed."
Matti blinked wet lashes at him, and looked away. In that instant, Devi wanted nothing more than to enfold the younger man in his arms and make the hurt look disappear. He looked over at Adiún. "Love?"
"He sang an orasz for you every night we searched," Matti whispered.
"I never forgot," Adiún added. "I want us to be healed." He blushed as his eyes rested on Matti.
"Our spirits, anyway. Devi, please?"
