7. 6
The door opened and a gentleman stepped out of the Folly. He gave us a quick look before walking down the canal side, with his hands tucked into his pockets.
I stared at the taverna’s door, entirely taken aback. It looked like a respectable establishment in a nice area of town. It was also the last place Davian had seen his wife.
“Why have you taken me here?” I asked faintly.
Beside me, Davian frowned. “I suppose I want you to understand.”
I squinted up at him. “Understand what?”
Davian looked down at me, and then waved his hand towards the door. “Shall we?”
He took a step, but I grabbed his arm.
The man stopped abruptly, but didn’t pull his arm away, only staring at my hand like it was some offensive thing.
I dropped him, shaking my head. “I don’t understand any of it. This, you, every aspect of this.”
Davian paused before replying. “I know that. But I want your help, so will you let me talk to you about it?” He tried to smile, and it came out pained and uncomfortable. “You can leave whenever you want. Now, even.”
My hands clenched into a fist. I hated how he tried to put me at ease, and offered me the out. It only made me want to know more, acting as this lure to help him: fix him.
“We can talk.”
His eyes roamed my face, settling on my mouth. He motioned towards the door again, still keeping up that horrid impression of a smile which had somehow grown even tighter.
It wasn’t yet the evening and the inside of the Folly was relatively empty. The low roof beams made the space feel smaller than it was, and the carved tables had the wear of many years of use. Two pairs of gentlemen sat in the place, one pair smoking and the other locked in a game of dice.
Davian overtook my uncertain steps and hit his hand on the bar top. A woman appeared through an archway, polishing a glass with a rag.
She lifted her head in greeting. “Ale, Davian?”
“Two,” he said. “No Gurd today?”
The barkeep turned to pull down two mugs. “He’s getting a delivery.”
Davian glanced back at me, and gestured towards a table just in front of the bar. I was glad to have a distance between us and the other patrons in the corners. This felt public. Safe.
Though, I wasn’t sure any part of this was appropriate. Did devotees and noblemen invite female acquaintances into tavernas? I knew Yona would sometimes drink alone, but there was alone, and there was alone with a man I didn’t know very well.
I settled into the seat, trying not to admire the span of his shoulders.
He had pushed his cloak back as we entered, and to distract myself from watching the curve of his neck muscles, I found myself staring at the near-black curls at the back of his head below where the strap of his mask cut across.
I told myself it was a latent Ekrissian trait.
Ekris loved beauty. It was not a problem for me to appreciate that Davian was a good-looking man. It was merely an observation.
It was also only an observation to note how familiar he had been with the woman behind the bar.
Davian sat across from me, and placed a mug of ale in front of me.
I hadn’t drank anything all day, and it was only now that I realised how parched I was.
My hands even looked a little sunkissed as I raised the mug.
The cool liquid touched my tongue and I drank nearly half of it in one go.
It was the perfect temperature, and light enough to drink as easily as water.
Davian watched me, and then raised his hand to order two more ales. I smiled in thanks, and he tried to smile back and failed again.
I nibbled my lower lip, holding my half-full cup. “You come here often, then.”
“I didn’t, before,” he said. “But I keep thinking one day I’ll work it out.”
I watched his throat bob as he tipped his head back and drank deeply on his first ale. His skin was such a beautiful colour. He lowered his mug and I looked away before he could catch me staring.
“She just disappeared?”
He hummed. “It was late. We were all drunk, and we were about to leave.”
“Who is we?” I asked.
He stared at me, and I realised I had leant in. It could be read as friendly. But it felt conspiratorial. Secretive.
I leaned back and tried to relax.
“Myself, Fella, Camriel, and my wife,” he said.
I suppressed the urge to question him as the woman from the bar set two new ales down in front of us. Both of us still had half our firsts sitting before us, but she paid that no mind, and left with a pat on his shoulder.
My mind swirled with everything I wanted to ask. Who was Fella? His friend? What was his relationship like with Camriel, his House Leader? Close enough to drink together? But all of it suggested I was invested, that his tactic to get me curious about her possible death had worked.
He hadn’t even told me his wife’s name.
“She left to go to the outhouse,” Davian continued. “After a few minutes, we all went to look for her but we couldn’t find her. We each searched for an hour at least. I think, anyway. The minutes blur together. Someone must have grabbed her.”
"You must miss her."
Davian's face clouded. "I do. I do, terribly. But our marriage wasn't… conventional."
"Conventional?" I parroted.
"It's hard to explain," he said. "It's not what you think."
I didn't even know what I thought. What was unconventional, to the House of Pain? There were so many questions on my mind. Instead of any of them, I asked the safe one. “Do you have a suspect?”
He studied me. “I’ll tell you, if you decide to help me.”
I was right, then. This was dangling bait, hints of the mystery with a promise of more answers, should I accept.
Davian drained his first mug. Then it was his turn to lean in. “Have you worked out what it is you want?” he asked. “What I could offer you in return?”
His closeness didn’t alarm me as much as I wished it would. Instead, my mouth watered, and I forced myself to stare down at my mug.
His offer yesterday of a roof over my head, should we solve it, was tempting.
But this was a devotee of the House of Pain.
His God venerated cruelty and his followers worshipped an embodiment of death itself.
If I ever hoped to get back in Robar’s good graces, or Ekris’, for that matter, I wasn’t sure forming an alliance with Pain would help.
And worse, I had no reason to believe that Davian would follow through with his side of the deal, and no recourse if he chose to distance himself from me after I had helped.
I wondered if I could ask for his assistance in winning my betrothed back. But as soon as the idea came to me, the mortification of asking for it reared up. I still had some pride.
“I haven’t,” I said, playing with the handle of the mug. I glanced up and checked if the woman from the bar was watching, and if anyone else seemed interested in our conversation.
Everything seemed fine.
“Is it a problem being seen with me?” Davian cut in.
I had to look at him, then. His intensity was too much to avoid.
His face was still undecipherable, and yet I feared I had offended him.
I forced a laugh. “I haven’t been an unattached lady in Dytho before. You tell me.”
He shrugged. “That depends. Are you hoping for an advantageous marriage?”
I flinched as if struck. “I was.”
A flicker of a grimace moved across Davian’s mouth.
“Now I don’t know what I’m hoping for,” I said honestly. My next laugh was far more shrill. “My life back.”
Davian’s solemn gaze was far more sincere than any of his smiles. “I don’t think I can offer that.”
An uncomfortable smile flashed across my face. “No. No one can,” I said.
I considered that that wasn’t quite true. Ekris had taken that life away, by my request. He was probably the only one who could reinstate it. Though, why he would consider it, I had no idea. I had snubbed him and disrespected his offering. The gods weren’t known to be forgiving.
Davian swallowed down more ale. “You liked it there?”
An expression close to a flinch spasmed across my face.
This was a familiar question from my patrons, who wanted reassurance that I was with Ekris willingly.
To them, I would say something affirmative with a welcoming smile.
But I wasn’t serving my God right now, I was having a conversation.
There was no role to play. So I said what I had always wanted to say. “Do you like your life?”
“I don’t know.” Davian looked at the table. Clearly, no one had asked him that same question every day of his life. “Sometimes.”
“Well, that’s how it was for me,” I said, a hint of exasperation creeping into my tone. “Being an Ekrissian wasn’t some pastime. It was my life. I liked it sometimes, too.”
Davian nodded.
In the awkward silence that followed, I took another sip of my ale. I wasn’t good with silence, as a general rule. I shrugged into the pregnant pause and spoke honestly. “I don’t know how to be any other way.”
Davian tilted his head. I could feel the weight of his study, and I wilted beneath it. He moved his cups and placed his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers together before his mouth. “So it’s mutually beneficial, then, the transactions with your patrons?”
The question surprised me. It shouldn’t have. The patrons might touch me, or even use their mouth on me, too, but they couldn’t bring me full satisfaction. But for serving them well, Ekris would bestow that gift upon me after. Through them, I was able to gain further intimacy with my god. “Yes.”
This pause felt different to the one before. His study had fallen on the red of my cheeks, and my quick intake.
“Even if you do not wish to help me, could I call upon you?” Davian said. “As a patron, of course.”
I clenched my hand together under the table.
After his comment before, how he would have gone through with it the other night, I had been trying not to let it sink in.
Mostly because he was far more attractive than my usual patrons.
Second only to Robar, I decided. But I was used to being in control in Ekris’ chambers, even if the patrons believed themselves in charge. Around Davian, nothing felt controlled.
I could hardly admit that. He was a devotee with money to spend.
I ducked my head in a hasty nod. “As you wish.”
Davian wetted his lower lip, his fingers still by his mouth, his elbows still on the table as he focused on me entirely. “You would accept?”
I wished he would stop pressing. “It is my job.”
Davian sighed and lowered his hands back to the table. “Still. You have a choice. If I chose to ask for your company, you could choose to make some excuse. That is your right.”
The guilt shuddered through me as I stated the truth. “I would not make an excuse.”
What’s more, I didn’t want to make an excuse.
Davian was attractive to me, and in Ekris’ care I would have welcomed such a fair partner.
I would have enjoyed all of it. I suspected heavily that I would enjoy him very much, even now.
But after trying to see Robar today, it felt like betrayal.
I should have found some other work whilst I tried to win him back.
But I had no money, and no other skills.
Robar wouldn’t fall for a woman scraping some meagre existence by begging on the street.
He had fallen for me as an Ekrissian. I had to think he would accept me as a courtesan, too.
I had entertained other patrons as he courted me.
This was no different, in that respect. But it was.
Because I hadn’t wanted any of them. I wanted Davian. That was the betrayal.
Davian’s voice lowered. “I’m sorry if I have overstepped.”
“You haven’t,” I said quickly, still looking into my skirts. Because truly, he hadn’t.
I was a courtesan of The Curved Eclipse. I wasn’t anyone’s betrothed. I wasn’t a lady of Dytho. If anything, I was a peddler, a lower tier of the merchant class. He had enquired politely about purchasing the body I willingly sold.
It was work I enjoyed. Work I thought I would do until my death, until I was united with Ekris.
And now, any time I thought about the sexual arts, I could only think of Robar and the life I thought I might have, and the Ekrissian life I had scorned.
Neither existed right now. In time, I might win Robar’s love back, but there was no guarantee of that. There was no guarantee of anything anymore.
Davian cleared his throat, and I snapped my chin up.
He studied my eyes, and I swallowed back the thickness in my throat. “I fear I have taken too much of your time. I’ll escort you out.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he had already stood. And in truth, I was exhausted from the day. The words of Ion, Robar’s father, still ran in circles in my head, unravelling all of my hopes.
So I followed him out of the Folly in silence. Outside, the evening air had cooled considerably, with the promise of a summer’s rain in the clouds above.
Davian faced me by the entrance. “I’ll walk you to the Eclipse.”
“It’s not far,” I said.
“All the same.”
His face gave nothing away, and yet, I could guess. His wife had gone missing here, after all.
I agreed.
Our evening walk was just as quiet, but not uncomfortably so. We kept to the lit canal side, and walked far enough apart that our hands did not risk brushing.
At the door of the Eclipse, Davian swept into a low bow and pressed a kiss to the back of my hand. It was so swift and smooth that I barely had time to react, feeling the warmth of his lips and the cold touch of the metal in the same heady and contrasting breath.
He raised back up to his full height, and his silver eyes twinkled in the amber light of the brothel behind me. “You know where to find me.”
He turned on his heel and strode away. His broad shoulders carved into the night, and then he was gone: another black cloak in a darkening city.