Chapter 33
Richard had needed to plunge his shirt and trousers three times into the icy stream before the rabbit grease finally surrendered. The shirt now clung to him as he climbed the slope back to camp, water dripping off the cuffs.
His hair, at least, was clean. He raked it from his brow and shivered from the chill.
The sun had set as he washed, and now, the camp had quietened.
Cookfires had burned down to glowing nests, and the wagons were lit with lanterns.
Atop the bear wagon, the lyre player was strumming a mournful song that raised the hairs on Richard’s arms.
A few performers lingered, everyone else having retired to bed. Four men and two women, including the tattooed lady—Talia—stood by the firepit, passing a wineskin among them.
“—right up to the inner courtyard, mind you—”
“Don’t be daft, Pieter, no one gets to the inner courtyard. We’ll be in the outer yard.”
“That’s still more than most see in a lifetime. King Marius keeps that fortress shut tight. They’ll have us strip to our smalls at the gate, mark my words.”
“Worth it for the purse, though. A performance for the king. Not many troupes can claim that honour.”
Richard drifted towards the group with a casual swagger.
“Forgive my intrusion.” He offered a polite smile. “I had wondered where the circus would be staying before the performance? Surely not within the fortress?”
He and Kaelen would have to leave the troupe early, then. He’d certainly be recognised within the fortress itself, no matter how disguised.
The wineskin paused mid-pass. The taller of the two women—bearing multiple facial piercings—looked Richard up and down slowly. Another man, shorter, with a barrel chest and a beard plaited at the chin, smiled strangely. The whole group shuffled closer.
“Curious, are you?” the pierced woman said, her voice a low, lilting curl. “Curious is good. Curious is welcome.”
“Aye, very welcome.” The barrel-chested man chuckled. His hand grazed Richard’s back. “Come to the fire, friend, you’ll catch your death. Look at you. Soaked clean through.”
“Soaked clean through,” another of the men echoed, and there was a short laugh shared between the two women.
Richard frowned, unsure what he had stepped into. Had he been too forward?
Best to soften their guard. Lead them somewhere easier first.
“It is no matter.” Richard scraped back his fringe and scratched at his collar. “I had only wondered about Jeya. Why she lost her arm?”
The pierced woman’s expression softened. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and her pupils—Richard noted with mild bewilderment—were blown wide.
“Ah, the wee lass.” She tutted. “Jeya’s a sad tale, that one. Her mothers were pretty things. Parvati sang like a thrush, and Maple’s dance won awards. They raised Jeya together from a babe. Two years past now, weren’t it, Talia?”
“Two years come autumn.” Talia nodded in unison with her cat tattoo.
“We’d camped in the old wood at the Sylari border—shouldn’t have, in hindsight, but the road was washed out and we’d no choice.
Something came out of the trees in the night.
A chimaera, the beast-master reckoned afterwards.
Lion’s body, goat’s head, a serpent at the tail.
Attacked Parvati and Maple in their tent.
Jeya was sleeping by—woke to their screams.” Talia grimaced.
“Twelve years old, and she grabbed her ma’s blade and swung at it.
Cut its flank, even, but it caught her arm in its teeth. Tore it clean from the shoulder.”
“Boris and a few others got there to drive the chimaera off,” the pierced woman said. “But Parvati and Maple were long gone. Jeya almost joined them, but our snake-keeper saved her. Snake venom helped stop the bleeding. We managed to get Jeya stitched up after.”
Richard exhaled slowly. The Sylari border was the most guarded border of Ardenia. Lady General Ivelle worked hard to ensure creatures could not creep past. And yet, tragedies were always bound to occur.
“Jeya wanted to be a knight,” Talia said, quieter now.
“From the time she could toddle, that was her dream. Wooden swords, leaping off wagon roofs. Right-handed, she was, but now she’s got only the left.
What knight would ever take on a one-armed squire?
She’ll not get her dream now, the poor lamb. ”
The barrel-chested man hummed in agreement. He had inched closer, only a hair’s breadth away.
“Dreams die hard in young ‘uns,” the man rumbled. “Even in us lot. Sometimes, we ache for a kindlier comfort to bear it. You strike me as the kindly sort, friend. The sort who knows how to soothe.”
“He has the look of it, doesn’t he, Talia?”
“Oh, he does. He surely does.”
“A gentle hand.”
“A talented one, I’d wager.”
The pierced lady leaned forward to pinch Richard’s shirt. She tugged it away from his stomach with a click of her tongue.
“Will you not catch a chill in this, friend?” she said, peering up at him from beneath her lashes. “We’ve a brazier in our wagon. Talia and me. Plenty warm. Plenty of room, too, if a man wanted to be rid of his wet things.”
“Ben’s not too keen on men, but Lamrod would not mind,” Talia said with a glance to the barrel-chested man, who grinned.
“Lamrod would not mind at all.”
Richard blinked. He felt, distantly, that some piece of this conversation had escaped him, but he could not quite locate which.
“I suppose we can continue to converse there?” He mimicked the friendly smile Kaelen usually wore to others.
“Converse?” Lamrod chuckled. “Yes, friend. Plenty of opportunity to waggle our tongues.”
Richard’s smile widened. This was a good opportunity to delve deeper and gain more information not only about the circus’s route but also about his new charges. “Then, by all means, lead the way—”
“There you are, handsome.”
Flint slid into the cluster smoothly, his hand landing on Richard’s elbow and his grin sweeping the gathered six.
“You menaces. Trying to poach my wagon-mate already? On his second night? Have you no shame?”
“None whatsoever, Silex,” Talia shot back, laughing. “We thought we’d offer the man a warm bed. Yours seemed crowded.”
“Crowded and contented.” Flint’s bangles clinked as he wrenched Richard backwards. “Find your own pretty thing, the lot of you. Off with you. Shoo.”
There was good-natured grumbling, a wink from Lamrod, and a kiss blown by Talia. Flint steered Richard away, weaving between two wagons towards his own. His smile dropped once they were out of sight.
“Tell me,” Flint muttered, “you have some notion of what just happened.”
“We were talking, and they offered me somewhere to change—”
“Oh, you dumb fuck.” Flint massaged his temple. “Get inside.”
He propelled Richard up the wagon steps, ducked in after and pulled the flap shut. The hanging lantern bathed the cramped space in soft light. Kaelen’s bedroll was empty—still practising with Boris—and Richard went to his pack for a dry tunic.
“Are you going to explain yourself?” Richard peeled the wet shirt off. “I had a plan in mind to learn information. Your interruption was ill-timed.”
Flint leaned against the dresser, arms folded. Richard expected him to gawk as he shucked off his trousers, but the bandit only looked confused, appraising Richard as if he was a puzzle to be solved.
“You stood there dripping before a group of horny men and women while they pawed at you and ‘offered’ you their brazier and their bed and their wagon-mate as garnish.”
Richard paused with the new tunic half-pulled over his head. “What?”
“They were propositioning you.” Flint rolled his eyes. “Together. Eager, since you were propositioning them first—”
“I did no such—”
“You’re walking through camp drenched to the skin, in a white, utterly see-through shirt, with your hair wet and throat bare.
The whole of you on display like a fishmonger’s prized trout.
Of course, they thought you were inviting them.
” Flint held up both hands. “Now, if you wanted what they were offering, I’d have stepped aside and wished you a fine evening.
Many of them are quite skilled, and Talia is, by experience, a wonder.
But I don’t think it was what you wanted at all. You may thank me at your leisure.”
Richard finished tugging the dry tunic into place and started on the front lacings. His face burned.
“Their minds are in the gutters,” he muttered. “All of them. How can a simple question—”
“Pleasure,” Flint said pleasantly. “Bodily pleasure is what is on most minds most of the time. That is the way of the world, and amongst circus folk, it is merely more honest about itself. They sleep three to a wagon and bathe in the same streams and watch each other do impossible things with their bodies for their suppers. It creates rather a lot of want.”
Richard scowled. Truly, it seemed as though people were no better than beasts most days. Was the urge for copulation so strong that innocent questions could be so easily misconstrued?
Flint passed by to settle into his bedroll. He propped up a knee and shuffled his cards lazily. “How is it you do not know this?”
“Know what?”
“This. Any of this. The whole grammar of it.” Flint’s gaze had gone shrewd. “You read the language like a man squinting at a foreign tongue—I noticed the same back at that tavern. You’re not a virgin, are you?”
Richard’s hands stilled on the lacings.
Flint’s eyes bulged. The cards stopped moving. “Oh. Oh, handsome.”
“Be silent.”
“You truly—”
“Silence, Flint. I mean it.”
“Forgive me.” Flint’s grin was back, lopsided and delighted. “I am just—well, astonished is too small a word. How—”
“I have,” Richard said stiffly, “rather more important matters on my mind than to rut with other men and women. I would thank you to never mention the matter again.”
Flint laughed and shifted into a cross-legged position, the cards forgotten in his lap.