14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
The feeling stayed with him through the day, and then through the walk into the center of the capital from the outskirts and the academy walls.
To save money, they ate an evening meal before they left, but got toasted almonds from a street vendor to share among Rafi, Laure, Katoh, Cambray, and several of Cambray’s friends and younger students who took any chance they could get to visit a wine shop.
Some of the group drifted away once they moved from the shop that served mid-tier merchants and business owners to a louder and cheaper pub.
The wine tasted the same to Rafi’s tongue despite the lower price, but Laure assured him that was normal, that his father had told him that after the first glass, most people couldn’t tell the difference.
The pub was the kind frequented by students and even some lower-ranking nobles. Probably more unwanted, unnecessary children, but with money and a great deal of free time.
Rafi had assumed the place would be noisy and full of hotheaded idiots looking to fuck or duel, and he wasn’t wrong, although Laure was so steady in nature, and Katoh so uninterested in fighting that if anyone had attempted to start an argument with them, it had failed.
Rafi was quiet even with drink in him, and a nex, and he had long suspected that no one bothered to duel with nex because no one thought they were of enough importance to make it worth the risk to life or honor.
Nonetheless, they all wore swords, spada, as was expected in the capital, for status and supposedly to warn away thieves.
Rafi thought having swords so readily available encouraged more dueling, but maybe…
maybe nobles wanted that; a passive way to reduce their numbers and all the hot-tempered youths without any current wars to spend them on.
Rafi didn’t recall being this cynical the last time he’d gotten drunk in the capital. Which might have been his last nameday, or when Katoh’s mother had visited and taken them to an inn where they’d eaten in a private room.
“I’m being too serious,” he informed Katoh, which was easy to do since he was leaning on her shoulder.
She patted his head. “That just means you need more.”
Laure evidently took that as an order, because he got up and returned shortly afterward with a new bottle. Katoh gave him a peck on the lips for it. Rafi politely turned away to allow them their moment.
He must have also sighed, although he was nearly certain he hadn’t, because Laure said, “You know, there are pubs closer to the river where the theaters are. People visit the pubs before and after the plays. Sometimes during if the plays aren’t good.”
“Ooh, all the actors go there too. My mother says actors are a step above courtesans but get paid less. They really are always so pretty, though.” Katoh pulled away from Rafi to study him and then awkwardly smooth down his curls. “You’re pretty too. Don’t be sad. We can walk.”
“What?” Rafi looked from her to Laure, but Laure was already standing up. “Are we leaving? The river? That’s a long walk for….” Even with the room spinning, he didn’t want to say what for. Who for. “We don’t have to. It’s probably a fool’s errand.”
“The cooler air will be nice,” Katoh returned, taking Rafi’s arm so he’d rise with her. “And it will be an adventure of the mildest kind. A quest, like something from an old poem.”
“They’re always questing in the name of love in those poems,” Laure affirmed, grabbing the bottle to take with them.
“Two souls so alike they should not have been parted,” Rafi quoted through lips that were slightly numb, “afraid and alone, left to die broken-hearted.” The line was originally from a play, or so Viau had said.
It was spoken by the chorus. But then a poet had used it in a poem to make a statement.
Viau had also said that poem wasn’t particularly good, but at least Rafi had understood the words.
“Exactly!” Katoh waved across the room and then walked Rafi outside. Cambray tumbled out the entrance after them, along with several other people, some Rafi recognized, some he didn’t. They might have been Trianon students but he wasn’t sure.
Cambray didn’t even ask where they were going.
Rafi wanted to pet him for it, despite his burnt-toast scent.
Not how Viau petted Rafi, but similar enough.
Cambray would go where they went without hesitation.
That was loyalty. Rafi didn’t know what they’d done to earn it, but Cambray should get petted anyway.
Fortunately, Cambray would probably find that in someone’s bed before the evening was over so Rafi didn’t actually do it.
The streets were full of people, for it was a lovely night to be outside when houses were still warm from a day of summer sun.
They emptied the bottle slowly as they walked, and stopped to pet a dog, and to allow Laure to buy a flower for Katoh, who put it behind her ear, and listened to Cambray’s new friends ask where they were going, and Cambray answer that they were going to find Rafi’s sweetheart.
Katoh’s laugh was as silvery as the moon. Laure laughed too, but at Rafi’s little growl and then shocked gasp as Rafi realized he’d growled.
“And we’ll find him,” Cambray insisted, trusting that Rafi’s growling wasn’t a threat or maybe misinterpreting what had Rafi upset and wanting to make him feel better.
Rafi had never had a nicer nameday, not even as a child when the housekeeper had made small cakes for him.
“I am glad you’re with me,” he told them all as they neared the river, which smelled of rotted piers even in the soft summer breeze. His nose was tingling. His lips felt like buzzing bees. “But he’s not my sweetheart.”
Laure challenged this in a pleasant tone. “Katoh, do you think you could track my scent through the entire academy to find me if you needed me? At least, if your aedis was near, could you?”
“Yes. Why?” Katoh half stumbled, bringing Rafi in to her side since their arms were linked. “Oh.” She gave Rafi the most obvious wink he’d ever seen.
“That’s….” Rafi fell silent after failing to think up a retort.
The crowds around them grew thicker, music and loud laughter coming from several directions.
They passed a small theater with people slowly leaving its wide entrance as if a play had just ended, and then approached the much larger King’s Theater. Its entrance was dark, the play that had been performed there over some time ago.
Rafi turned to a side street, following the source of the noise and not a particular scent. Not even in aedis could anyone have tracked one scent among so many, especially not with the stench of the river so strong.
His gaze fell on the corner building painted a red vivid enough to be seen at night, with a sign above the door naming it the Post and Lintel.
An odd name for an actors’ pub, if it was.
But then again, the post drawn on the sign might as well have been a cock, and the lintel cradled it in such a way that Rafi’s lips parted in surprise.
Cambray saw the sign as Rafi did and almost fell over laughing.
“That one?” Katoh prodded Rafi, as if Rafi was interested in the pub for some reason other than its suggestive sign, and started off toward it.
“He said he was supporting a friend. Not that he’d be anywhere around here.
” Rafi’s feet continued to lead him toward the pub.
Bellai’s plays were performed at the King’s Theater, but Viau could have been anywhere: his room in the palace, in Bellai’s rooms. Bellai and Viau might have been friends as Viau was friends with Rafi; Rafi hadn’t asked.
“No one could smell flowers in this,” he continued as they all approached the door, where either their similar dress or the swords at their hips drew some looks.
Nobles, soldiers, and swersoldi wore swords.
Not most who lived in the city and certainly not the actors once off the stage.
But no one barred their entry, and Rafi slipped in behind Laure’s tall form, taking in all of the first level that he could see.
The Post and Lintel had small tables, chairs, and benches like any other pub, and then decorations and seating that looked to be abandoned stage props and scenery.
Some patrons sat in the prows of tiny ships, or on faded velvet cushions.
Patched curtains, pinned open, separated each room from the others.
The walls held wooden swords and painted crowns.
Katoh was delighted and swooped toward an empty table immediately, clearly planning to stay.
“Aw, he’s not here,” Laure remarked, probably about to say something about sweethearts now that he was fairly pissed and enjoying the chance to be romantic.
“I’ll go buy us a bottle,” Rafi insisted before Laure could try, then left in search of a bar before Laure managed an objection.
Once there, he looked over the first floor of the pub again as he waited.
He couldn’t see up the stairs. Downstairs, he saw strangers, and his friends, and Cambray’s new friends, who were in a different corner, boisterous and loud.
They were only a year or two younger than Rafi but he shook his head before turning away from them.
He’d told Katoh searching for Viau was a fool’s errand, but this pub would do as well as any other for the rest of their night.
“That is not a wooden sword.”
The husky-voiced, amused remark came from a stranger who slid into place at Rafi’s right.
A nex, older than Rafi by a dozen or so years, with long dark hair braided at the crown like a farmer set to milk a cow might wear theirs.
There were traces of paint on the nex’s cheeks, but not the prettying kind nobles and some courtesan used.
These looked like streaks of color accidentally left there and then forgotten.
The clothes were jewel-toned but hardly silks.
Not a farmer by any means. Possibly an actor.