Chapter Three
The ribbon seller takes one look at Baldr and forgets how money works.
She taps two fingers against the stall. “Two copper.”
I hold up the bundle of green ribbon. There are six lengths in it. The dye alone cost more than two copper.
“For all of them?”
“For you, my lady.”
Ah.
I turn to Baldr. He’s standing three paces behind me with his hands clasped at his back, exactly where I put him after the wool merchant tried to give me half her stall.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Standing?”
“Looming.”
He glances over one broad shoulder. The lane behind him is clear. It has been clear since he stopped there.
“I’m not looming.”
“Nobody can walk around you.”
“There’s room.”
A man carrying a basket of eels reaches the end of the stall, sees Baldr, and chooses another lane.
I point after him.
Baldr watches the man go. “He may not like ribbon.”
The seller covers a laugh with her hand.
Traitor.
I set the green bundle beside a blue one. “Could you pretend he isn’t here?”
Her eyes move to Baldr and back. One is brown. The other is also brown, because she’s human and doesn’t have one of Baldr’s distracting eyes.
“I can try.”
“Good. How much?”
“Two copper.”
“You didn’t try.”
“I did, my lady. It didn’t take.”
Baldr makes a thoughtful noise behind me.
I turn around. “Go buy something.”
“What?”
“Anything. Preferably from very far away.”
“You asked me to take you through the market.”
“I didn’t know the market would surrender.”
His grin reaches his eyes. “I warned you the ribbon sellers had suffered.”
“At my hands. This is different.”
The lower market fills three stone terraces between the hall and the harbor road. Canvas awnings snap above the stalls. Fish, tar, wet wool, hot bread, and salt all get into the wind and fight for control of it. The sea wins. The sea always wins.
Three days since the dinner, and this is the first afternoon Baldr’s pried himself off the harbor long enough to walk me down to the market himself.
The other two times were Asta and four guards, and we came back with three balls of yarn, a jar of buttons, and a carved spoon nobody remembers buying.
Today it’s Baldr, one guard keeping far enough back to preserve the illusion of privacy, and a blue wool basket hooked over my elbow.
So far Baldr has carried the basket twice.
I’ve taken it back twice.
The handle is currently leaving a red groove in my arm, but this has become a matter of principle.
Two stalls down, a human man has taken off his shirt. It’s freezing.
This seems unwise.
He sits on a padded bench beneath a painted board showing one enormous arm curled around the words STRONGEST FEED ON THE LOWER TERRACE. The painting has given the arm six muscles I don’t think real arms possess.
The man comes close to matching it. His shoulders are wider than the bench, his chest is covered in dark hair, and every part of him looks built for moving ships without assistance. Both his eyes are brown. Human.
A second human sits behind a narrow counter with a coin box, two cups, and a sandglass. A Skorvaer man stands between the donor’s knees. Both his eyes are gold.
Baldr huffs a laugh beside me.
“What?”
He nods toward the painted arm. “They’ve put the price up again.”
“Because he’s enormous?”
“Because humans think the more muscular they are, the better the feed.”
I look at the bare chest. “Isn’t it?”
“Muscle is only what strength looks like from the outside.” Baldr shifts closer so a pair of sailors can pass behind us. “We take what keeps the body standing.”
At the stall, the gold-eyed man holds out one hand. “The full measure?”
The donor nods. “The full measure.”
The woman behind the counter turns the sandglass.
The Skorvaer sets his palm flat against the center of the man’s bare chest. His other hand closes around the man’s forearm.
Both gold eyes brighten.
The donor’s breath catches.
Then he comes apart, slowly. The muscles across his stomach give first. His shoulders drop. His knees fall wide around the Skorvaer between them. His whole face goes loose and grateful.
The front of his trousers tightens.
So does the Skorvaer’s.
Right.
I look at the sign instead.
That works until I run out of sign.
“Is that part of it?” I ask, more or less at Baldr. “The feeding, I mean. Or is that its own thing.”
Baldr follows my gaze without any of my trouble. “The drain feels good. So does taking what you need.”
“That wasn’t the question and you know it.”
“Some people find the exchange sensual.” He doesn’t drop his voice to say it. “Some arrange it that way.”
I make myself look. Properly.
I know exactly what I’m seeing. Bare skin, wide knees, the man’s hand fisted in the Skorvaer’s shoulder—plain want, all of it.
It does nothing to me.
The last of the sand goes.
The woman taps one finger on the counter, and the Skorvaer lifts his hand. The donor sways. The Skorvaer holds his shoulder until his eyes settle, and the smile stays, loose and easy. He got what he came for.
The Skorvaer sets his coin on the counter and turns to go.
The donor’s hand lifts after him. Wanting the next one already. Then he catches it—rolls his shoulders, scrubs a hand down his face, and settles back against the bench, bare chest to the cold, a working man waiting for the next buyer to sit down.
It only makes me sad.
When I look back at Baldr, the laugh’s gone out of him too.
Baldr looks down the lane. “There’s a baker at the bottom terrace.”
“Very far.”
“He has the little pastries with apple in the middle.”
I look at him.
“And the sugar on top,” he adds.
This is a difficult moral test.
“Two.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He leans down and kisses my cheek.
Right here.
In the market.
The ribbon seller becomes deeply interested in rearranging ribbon that was already arranged.
Baldr walks away before I decide whether to smile or throw the green bundle at his back. Smiling wins. It isn’t close.
I face the stall again. “How much now?”
“One copper.”
“He’s gone.”
“I saw what he did.”
“That should make the ribbon cost more.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m distracted.”
She considers this. “Three copper?”
“Perfect.”
I buy the green and the blue.
The seller wraps both in brown paper and ties them with a scrap I suspect I also paid for. I tuck the parcel into my basket, nearly lose the basket when the wind catches the paper, and trap the handle against my hip.
Three stalls down, Baldr stops beside an old fisherman mending a net.
The fisherman has one grey eye, one clouded eye, and no interest in bowing. He points a thick needle at Baldr and says something I can’t catch over the wind. Baldr bends to hear him. The man points toward the harbor.
Baldr’s head turns toward the north piers.
The north mooring chain. Roof braces for two storehouses. Tools for the lower shipyard.
He remembered every piece at dinner. I did too.
The fisherman talks with both hands now. Baldr listens until the needle stops moving. Then he takes a narrow writing stick from the edge of the stall, turns over a scrap of sailcloth, and writes three short lines.
The fisherman reads them.
He grunts once and goes back to his net.
Baldr leaves a coin beside the writing stick.
The fisherman throws it at him.
Baldr catches it without looking.
I laugh.
He looks at me across the lane. “You sent me away.”
“I was shopping.” I lift the basket as proof.
“You’re spying.”
“You were blocking the whole lane back there.” I nod up the lane. “Nobody could get around you.”
He spreads his hands. “I was three paces behind you.”
I look at his shoulders. “That’s still the middle of the lane, at your size.”
He tucks the coin into the fisherman’s basket. The fisherman sees him do it and swears.
Baldr keeps walking.
The old man sees me watching.
“Take him with you next time.”
“I tried.”
“Try harder.”
“I’ll use rope.”
He nods and pulls another knot tight.
Baldr returns with two warm pastries in one hand. Sugar dusts the tops. Apple has leaked from the edge of one and stuck to his thumb.
He offers me that one.
I take it. “You ate some of mine.”
“It attacked me.”
“The apple?”
“Very aggressive.”
I take a bite. The crust breaks everywhere. Sugar falls down the front of my coat, onto my basket, and probably into my boots.
Baldr brushes the largest piece from my collar.
“I had that.” I reach for it too late.
He nods at the mess down my front. “You were wearing half the pastry.”
“That still counts.” I brush at my coat and make it worse.
I tip my head back to look at him. “You’ve become very bold since dinner.”
His hand stays at the edge of my collar. “Have I?”
He kissed me outside my room three nights ago.
He kissed me outside my room the night after that too, though I had just finished telling Asta I was going to read and absolutely wasn’t waiting to hear his boots in the passage.
Last night we stood there until the lamp beside my door burned out.
So yes.
He has.
I look at his hand. “Terrible.”
“Should I stop?” His thumb touches the bottom of my chin.
“I didn’t say that.”
He tilts my chin up. “Good.”
The guard at the top of the lane turns his back.
Baldr kisses me.
It’s quick. Warm. He tastes of apple and has sugar on his mouth, which means I probably do too. I catch his sleeve when he starts to pull away and kiss him again.
That one lasts longer.
I take another bite of pastry. “Everyone knows.”
“You mentioned that.”
“They know more now.”
“Terrible.”
I narrow my eyes.
He wipes sugar from his mouth. “Should we leave the country?”
“That might help.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
Boots strike the stairs above us.
A young steward hurries down from the second terrace with one hand on the rail. I recognize him from the courtyard. He brought the light shipment and the letter from Myrkvier, though he looks less worried today.
That lasts until he reaches Baldr.
The warmth leaves Baldr’s face. His hand settles against my back and guides me to the side of the lane before the steward reaches us.
“Dróttin.” The young man bows, breathing hard. “A reply from Myrkvier.”
He offers a folded letter sealed in dark wax.
Baldr takes it. “When?”
“The rider came through the east gate a few minutes ago.”