CHAPTER 21 — END GAME #2
I scrunch my nose, head tilting. Then my eyes widen. “Wait. No. No—Roarg? Where… what does a pizell stick come from?”
Roarg gestures to a pair of oxen being walked past us. “A bull. This,” he tries to hand my kabob back to me, but my hand stays limp, my fingers refusing to close around the handle. “Is a bull’s pizell. Goat pizells taste more like venison, if you haven’t tried one before.”
“A bull’s pizell,” I repeat weakly. “We’re all eating bull penises?”
Roarg bobs his chin. “Bull kúkrs.”
Pizell sticks. Are. PIZZLE sticks.
Very firmly, I pinch the kabob stick midway up the kabob shaft and press it, also firmly, back at Roarg. “I’m done with this. Thanks.”
Roarg frowns. “What’s that expression?”
I gesture at my face. “This? Oh, this is what I look like when I’ve been eating beef dicks.”
Roarg gives me a puzzled look, but I turn from him, on a mission to find a food to wash the bull dick from my mouth.
I buy chocolate. The bar of fudge helps me forget what bovine phallus tastes like. And then I buy a chocolate cookie, because I need comforting after I ate half of a dick without my knowledge.
And then I buy four of every chocolate thing for sale.
Because it’s imperative that Namak?ga, Ulda, and Joktepitha understand where I’m coming from whenever I bellyache that I miss it.
I pass them out and urge them to try the treats.
“Go on. It’s better than what you’re all snacking on, I promise you. ”
“What is this?” Joktepitha exclaims in wonder, licking the chocolate frosting off of a chocolate cupcake.
“Heaven,” I tell her.
Ulda, one bite into hers, turns to the Elf who is selling chocolate bakery goods from the back of his bison cart. “I want to purchase the ingredients to make this.”
“Yaaaay!” I wave my hands in the air. “Success!”
“More like I’m buying a guarantee that someone will stop inhaling the jam as fast as we can preserve it,” she claims. But she’s smiling.
“You like chocolate!” I gloat.
“Shut up,” she tells me. To the Elf, she says, “Do you have anything with a treacle’s stickiness?” She waves at me. “Something we can feed this one that will fasten her mouth shut.”
Roarg looks at his cupcake with skepticism, then pops the whole thing in his mouth.
He chews once and stops dead. He spits it back onto his hand to stare at it.
“Uck!” I say. “What are you doing?”
“What the hellfire,” he starts, “is this sorcery?”
“Wasted,” I answer. “You wasted—”
He pops the whole thing back into his mouth and finishes chewing it. He licks the smear of spit-covered chocolate off of his hand. “It tastes divine.”
I stare at him, agog at his manners.
“What?” he asks, completely unbothered. He holds my kabob up. “Are you certain you won’t want the rest of this?”
“Roarg, I never want to see a pizell again, but thanks.”
He stares at me for a beat before he relaxes. “Ah! You tease.” He grabs me by a braid and hauls me in for a kiss.
I’m really not, but the kiss is good. Even if he does taste like a mix of cake and bull kúkr.
When he lets me go, Namak?ga taps him on the arm, and when she has his attention, she hands him the bottom half of her cupcake.
He frowns. “Where is the topping?”
“The frosting,” I correct.
Namak?ga wrinkles her nose and shrugs. “That, I ate. I found the rest of it isn’t to my liking.”
“Woman, you’ve stolen half of it. The best part, in fact. There’s no topping,” Roarg mutters, eyeing the once-bitten cupcake bottom.
“Do you want it or not?” she asks. “Because otherwise I can throw it away, but that will be a slight waste of your coppers—”
Roarg promptly stuffs the bitten cupcake into his mouth.
Shaking her head, Namak?ga looks at me, and sighs. “He’s so predictable.”
A half an hour later, we’re standing at a booth filled with handmade jewelry, beautiful pieces we’re oohing and aahing over—even Roarg, who is still mostly opting to grunt his responses whenever questions are posed to him.
“I think Roarg’s secretly enjoying himself,” I whisper to Joktepitha. “All that dragging his feet for nothing.”
“He’s ‘okay’ for now because he loves all things food and metal,” she whispers back. “But he’s a beast about everything else. Just watch. You’ll get to see him deteriorate as we spend money and he ‘bleeds coppers.’”
That might be true. But there’s something Roarg really does like about this outing: he’s got four women and three babies on his arm. As he strides past all the sellers and shops, he’s commanding and tall and proud of his family.
Other Orcs look on, especially the men. And I’d make a joke about them being green with envy, but as I’ve learned, Orcs are very anti-covetous, anti-jealousy. I assume envy might fall too close to verboten, so I keep my amusement to myself.
To my surprise, it isn’t long before Joktepitha suggests we split so we can each pursue our interests in the time we have available (our outing ends by dinner time whether we’re ready to call it a day or not, because we have many animals who will be expecting us back by evening chore time).
Roarg gives us each a stern kiss and turns us loose.
And with a wave to each other, the sisterwife troop breaks apart, each traveling our separate ways to sightsee.
I’m surprised, but I’m happy to explore by myself, wandering down every crowded street.
The further into town I go, something… something is pulling at me.
I’m drawn around tables, tents, and wagons, waving around tall green bodies until I find myself at the mouth of a tiny alley I’ve never seen before.
I’m just about to investigate when a gruff voice behind me barks, “Kwa?ara!”
Roarg. My heart puffs happily in my chest as I spin around. “You’re lucky,” I call back playfully, “that most husbands don’t have a fourth wife. What would you do if a dozen kwa?aras had answered your bellow just now?”
His eyes narrow further at my teasing, which makes his already imposing tusked face look downright severe. His arms are crossed aggressively over his chest and something about the way he’s holding them is odd, but I’m too busy grinning at his glowering mug to take much notice.
“I suppose I’d have used your name instead,” he replies. “Or I’d just wade through all the unspeakable wealth until I reached my unspeakable wealth. Take this,” he orders, and he thrusts a kitten at me.
“Ohhhh my gosh! A cat! An adorable baby cat!” I snatch the orange ball of fluff from his clawed hands and hug her to my chest. Then I stare up at Roarg. “Why are you giving me a cat?”
He growls bad-temperedly, but the kitten starts purring, uncaring that he sounds so grumpy. He jerks his chin at her. “She followed me. She seemed lost.”
“Awww.”
He purses his lips, tusks jutting. “I tried to find her owner, but I was told she’s a stray, and I was advised to take her home.” He bares his teeth, supremely unhappy. “Now she’s your problem.”
I grin up at him, nuzzling her under my chin. “Thank you! I like cats. And she’s beautiful.”
At my words or maybe just my smile, some of Roarg’s irritation melts. He gives me a slightly mollified but still out-of-sorts look. “You’re welcome, kwa?ara.”
I place my hand on his arm, get up on my tiptoes, and wait for him to lower his head so I can kiss his cheek.
But Roarg’s not having any of that. He grabs me by the hair, hauls me up, and plunders my mouth.
When he pulls away, we’re both breathing hard, and he’s not even pretending to look angry anymore. He stares at me and declares, “I need to find three more kittens.”
I can’t help it. I laugh.
Roarg’s eyes narrow, and his hand slides down my hip to cup my ass, giving it a firm squeeze that steals my breath and turns my brain to mush.
He smirks at my reaction, rumbling, “If you see a kitten you think Ulda, Joktepitha, or Namak?ga might like, and if it has a price, have the merchant start a tab for your husband.” He gives me a warning look.
“Don’t use your coppers to buy the kittens. That’s an order.”
My hand rubs up and down his muscled arm, fingertip tracing his leather bracer. “What’s a good price for a kitten?”
“Free,” he growls.
I smile up at him. “And if the kitten is not free? What can I spend?” I ask him.
He sniffs and shakes his head. “No more than what I paid for you.”
I smirk, thinking of my buying day. “All right. Thirty coppers, got it.”
A weird light enters Roarg’s eyes, and he slowly cranes his head, chin pointing straight down at me. “What was that?”
I frown up at him. “Thhhirty…” I bite my lip as realization strikes. “Uh-oh.”
Roarg’s eyes pin me in place. “Namak?ga told me she only paid thirteen.”
My hand flies up and I make a desperate grab for the lapels of his shirt, but he’s moving too fast. I catch his belt, which actually does a much better job of capturing his attention. His eyes go heated, and one of his big hands covers both of mine over his buckle.
I talk fast. “Forget the number you heard.”
His hooded eyes flare and his head cocks in disbelief. “Never.”
I nod to myself. “Right, you really do have the weirdest hang-up about money.” I squint up at him. “But wasn’t I worth thirty coppers?”
He stares at me. Then he drags me up and gives me a bruising kiss before he snarls, “Don’t you dare pay thirty coppers for a kitten. Fifteen is the most I’ll agree to—but only if it’s one of those odd little cats with the sooty faces and creamy bodies.”
“Siamese?”
“That is not the name we know them by here, but it sounds as if you know the look,” he agrees, nose in the air. “Now I need to go and beat my wife.”
“You can’t beat her,” I tell him, trying to suppress my smile.
“I can, and I will. Once I find her,” he promises.
“She’ll probably like it,” I point out.
He sighs. “She will.” He raises his hand from his buckle I’m still grasping, and passes it raggedly over his face.
***