CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
C HAPTER T WENTY- E IGHT
An animal pulled a cart toward her, its driver waving erratically, gesturing for Yennes to move from its path. She jumped aside and collided with Baltisse, who grabbed her shoulders and guided her onto the cobblestones.
“Stay off the road, sweet,” Baltisse ordered. It was one of many orders she had uttered since their arrival in this bizarre settlement. Pitched roofs surrounded them, some thatched and some made of tile or timber. The narrow lanes were filled with dust as the wagons and carts trundled by, their drivers spitting and cursing, or else tipping their caps as they passed. There were children everywhere. Mothers with babies riding in slings. Stalls filled with food and goods set up on every corner.
Everywhere, people shouted. Sometimes they called to her. “Pickled cabbage!” or “Stewed goat!” followed by “Make haste, miss, they’ll be gone within the hour!”
It muddled her, had her spinning in all directions. Every noise made her jump, made her quail.
Baltisse took her arm, sighing in a long-suffering way, and led her around a puddle of what Yennes figured was human muck. “…like leading a fawn, jumping out of her skin.” Baltisse then pulled her to a halt as murky water dropped from above, splattering on the stones before them. Yennes looked up to see a paunchy woman hanging out of her window holding a bucket. “Watch it!” the woman shouted, as though Yennes was intersecting the water’s path.
“Mother above,” Yennes muttered, keeping her eyes skyward as they continued. “What is this place?”
“This is the Mecca,” Baltisse answered. “It is as close to the palace as you ought to come.”
Yennes almost walked headlong into a crate of birds who squawked indignantly as she skirted them. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because it seems you need your fill of all Terrsaw has to offer, despite my better judgement,” she said, then nodded to where a statue loomed high over the rooftops on the right. “We’re here as tourists.”
Baltisse led her down one alley and the next. The paths became cleaner here, less haphazard and mired road dust. The people were swathed in a wider variety of colour too. They met in quick conversation with one another and parted smiling. Their arms were laden with more food than seemed possible, baskets of breads and produce. There were musicians that played strange instruments and doors adorned with signs she could not read. Yennes marvelled at it all.
Ahead, a large stone structure stood. It was remarkably carved into the shape of two people. The first seemed to be the image of a man, though his face was worn and cracked. There was a crown atop his head and a staff in his mighty hand. Beside him was the kneeling form of a woman. Her hands rested benignly on her thighs, her posture deferential, and she stared at the King with almost religious zeal. Even in stone, the woman’s eyes showed a depth of feeling. Yennes tilted her head and looked at the structure in wonder. She thought that whoever this woman was, she must have been in love.
“Who were they?” Yennes asked as they approached. She had never seen something so big carved into something so beautiful.
“King Kladerstaff,” Baltisse said, in a voice at odds with Yennes’ regard, “and his wife… Queen Yerdos.”
Yennes frowned slightly, looking at the woman named Yerdos. “But she is not crowned?”
“No,” Baltisse mumbled. “History is often forgetful.”
“She was beautiful.” There was no denying the fact. The woman’s hair was wild yet fell in hypnotising waves down her back. “She must have loved him.”
“It depends on your perspective. Some say she kneels before her King, marvelling at him…”
Yennes turned to look at the mage, frowned, then turned back to the monument. “She does kneel before him. What could others possibly say?”
Baltisse smiled sadly. Then she pulled Yennes around the monument, until they were looking over Yerdos’ stone shoulder, seeing what she saw. “Some say it is not a marvelling we see in her eyes but a longing for something lost.”
From this angle, Yerdos’ eyes seemed to look not at King Kladerstaff, but past him. They appeared aligned with the mountain in the distance, its height disappearing into deep cloud cover. Suddenly the young queen’s lips did not seem parted in awe, but in sorrow. Her eyes did not glimmer in reverence, but in heartbreak.
“She was a mage, before she was a queen,” Baltisse said, so quietly that Yennes looked about them, as though she might find onlookers lurking by their shoulders. “And she did not fare well as a royal. Power is alluring, Yennes. Those leading a kingdom will covet it, try to use it. Magic like ours ought to stay hidden so that it might remain our own.”
Yennes couldn’t help but glance back at the monument as they walked away, and once more she saw a woman desperately in love with a man.
It made her blanch.
In a tavern tucked away by the town square, Baltisse led Yennes to a table. She bought her food and water and grinned at the way Yennes’ face lit up. “You are a strange sight to behold,” she told the Ledge woman. “It’s only lamb.”
Yennes shoved the food between her teeth and paid the mage no mind. No food had ever tasted so good, arriving on platters as though she had summoned it from the air.
She drained her cup, then looked around for more. “What is it they drink?” she asked abruptly, pointing to the tall tankards of men milling about the tables.
Baltisse’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing you ought to try.”
Yennes sat back in her chair, compliant. Then something sloshed into her lap and forearms settled on her shoulders as someone heavy leant over her from behind. “Never mind yer matron,” the rough voice growled, the heat of his breath cloying in her ear. “Open wide, lass. Have a sip.” He held a tankard to her lips.
Her muscles coiled, ready to grasp the back of the man’s neck and pull his forehead down to crack against the table. Her body screamed at her to act. But her mind froze. Her lips trembled. She stiffened beneath his weight rather than fight it off.
The tankard came to her lips and a bitter, warm liquid filled her mouth.
“No,” Baltisse said icily. And suddenly, the weight was gone. Yennes fumbled for the tankard as the man seized on the floor, flailing wildly, then went limp.
The mage’s eyes churned.
“What ’appened to ’im?” another patron asked, having been knocked to the side as the great lout fell.
“Drunk,” Baltisse said, blinking innocently.
But the patron clearly saw in her eyes what Yennes could see – that ethereal glow, the blossoming gold. He turned back to his party quickly without enquiring further. Smart man.
Yennes considered the unconscious man a moment longer, and then the tankard he’d left her. It was amber, filmy and pungent. She brought the cup hesitantly to her lips and drank. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it coated her tongue and throat in a satisfying way. “What is this?”
Baltisse looked foreboding. “As I said,” she answered dryly. “Nothing you ought to try.”
“You brought me here to experience all that Terrsaw has to offer, did you not?”
“There is nothing at the bottom of these mugs that will help you see clearly.” Baltisse stood abruptly. “Come. We’ll take our leave whilst your legs are still beneath you.”
But Yennes had begun to feel a pleasant buzzing in her mind. It ousted the echo of the voices. She looked about the tavern, at the lazy smiles and the free-flowing liquid that exchanged hands with a strange ease. “I wish to stay,” she told the mage.
Baltisse muttered something beneath her breath, and it sounded like a curse.
Within the hour, Yennes had consumed several servings of the ale – lager, the patrons called it. One man in particular seemed intent on delivering fresh mugs to her table whenever she ran low.
With the arrival of Yennes’ fourth drink, Baltisse stood. “I’m leaving. You should join me.” She was a beacon for attention with her obvious beauty. It seemed she could no longer suffer the advances of every male in the dank room. “Last chance,” she told Yennes, donning her shawl.
“Why not stay?” Yennes slurred. Words seemed harder to string together.
“Because this is not a place for women to linger beyond nightfall,” she said. “Come with me, Yennes. Heed the warning. No good awaits you in these dark corners.”
But Yennes had never felt more welcomed. “I won’t go back to that bay.”
“Then I’ll await you outside,” Baltisse said. “Until you’ve had your fill.”
Yennes laughed. How could she ever hope to have her fill? How could the bay ever bring her the lightness she felt now? She never wanted to see or hear the ocean again. And the Ledge… Soon it would feel like a nightmare, easy to disregard. “Do not await me,” she said, lifting her lager to salute Baltisse. “This is where we part ways.”
“Yen–”
“I do not wish to return with you, Baltisse,” Yennes said, her voice reminiscent of her former self – fierce and unyielding, albeit slurred. “I thank you for your help.”
Baltisse shook her head to the ceiling, but seemed to decide against arguing. “You will find yourself in need of me,” she warned, placing a silver ring on the table. It was thick-banded and marred by divots, holding a simple, unimpressive onyx stone. “This will help you trace your way back.”
Yennes felt a lick of resentment unfurl up her spine. It made her sit taller. “I survived a lifetime on the Ledge and a shorter one in Glacia,” she said icily, her knuckles straining against her hold on the mug. “I do not need your help to survive a kingdom that sits on its hands.”
Baltisse nodded. “Then good luck to you, Yennes. I truly hope it’s everything you wish it to be.” Then, she left.
Soon after, Yennes was accompanied by a group of three men who seemed intent on competing for her attention. The drink had replenished her confidence, removed the incessant anxieties that plagued her so. She felt renewed. The lager was becoming easier to swallow.
One of the men at her table was hollering his tales, though Yennes hadn’t kept track.
“And then I said to ’em, ‘Yeh’ve lost yer bleedin’ mind! I didn’t steal no horse! Tha’ one there’s mine!’ And – I swear to the Mother this be the truth – the guard looked me in the eye an’ said, ‘That’s a donkey yeh rode in on, and it belongs to Mrs Habberdish!’”
The men all roared with laughter and Yennes grinned like a fool.
“Did they lock you up in the keep?” one of the lads asked – a handsome one. His eyes kept skirting back to Yennes, slipping to the opened buttons of her blouse.
“Aye, just the night.” The storyteller slapped the table dramatically. “That’s when I heard all tha’ chatter, yeh know? ’Bout the Queen Consort. The guards kept blitherin’ on ’bout how she’s taken ill.”
“Queen Cressida?” another asked, joining the group. “I heard the very same just this morn’. The smithy’s wife says she’s got some kind of fever that won’t break. Infection maybe. Says the word is Queen Alvira sent for every healer in the kingdom!”
“Aye,” the donkey-thief nodded. “She’ll be dead by week’s end, I’d wager, the way them guards were talkin’.”
“Good riddance to her,” the handsome one said, his eyes locked with Yennes. “Perhaps we’d all be saved from having to bow our heads to that sneering face. I’d much rather kneel to a pretty one.” He took a sip of drink, watching Yennes over the tankard’s rim.
Yennes smiled back.
“I don’t disagree. That woman’s been lookin’ down ’er nose at the likes o’ workin’ folk fer too long.”
Yennes tilted her head to the side, her eyes seeing four hands instead of two. She chuffed, slightly hysterically. “Your hands don’t look like those of a working man’s.” She tapped the storyteller’s knuckles with her fingers. Indeed, his hands were unmarked by any measure of labour Yennes had ever seen. There was a ring around his second finger on his left hand. “Is it your wife who carries out the chores whilst you steal donkeys and tell your tales?”
The other men guffawed, surprise lifting their eyebrows.
But the lout with the smooth hands looked at her with an ugly smile. “Why?” he said. “Yeh lookin’ fer a husband?
Yennes rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Only a man could turn an insult into an invitation.”
“An invitation, ay?” said the man darkly, but the rising colour of his cheeks detracted from the malice, and in her uninhibited state, Yennes was unafraid. He was just another man, incensed by the gall of truthful women. “I ain’t got a lick o’ interest in a virgin. Yer cunt’s likely as uptight as yer countenance. Yeh couldn’t take me.” He turned from her, a sneer covering his indignity.
Yennes let loose a bark of laughter. It wasn’t true mirth, but drunken, unfettered incredulity. How cruel fate was to have her survive the unimaginable and be accused of frigidity. Yennes met the man’s ruddy complexion with a glare of her own. His face swam before her. “Even if you’d summoned a god to bless you with something to impress me, I promise you, that cock of yours would never make measure.”
As the men laughed raucously and the lout turned puce, Yennes drained the rest of her cup, then she swung her legs from the bar stool and stood. She said nothing more to the men, but she stopped to look over her shoulder at the handsome one. She had the pleasure of watching a blush creep up his neck before she turned away.
It only took moments for Yennes to find herself pressed against a badly papered wall in a badly lit hallway. The back of the tavern was quieter, but she was still surrounded by the cacophony of clinking and laughing and singing. She found that she liked the volume of it – so much louder than any sound within her mind.
Lips ran over her neck, then down to her collarbone. Hands gripped her waist tightly, then ventured to her bodice. Practiced fingers pulled at the strings that held it taut, then tugged it downward until her bosom was free of it, encased only by the borrowed blouse of thin, flimsy make. A hand took the weight of her breast, kneading it pleasantly. She moaned.
She could not see the man, could no longer remember what his face looked like. It was difficult to remember how she’d found herself here, in this corner. But the lips pressing to her flesh were warm, the touches were pleasing. Yennes didn’t much care to stop. She found she could easily replace the smells and touches with the memory of another.
“ God, ” the man groaned, pressing his hips into hers and grinding them. She could feel the extent of his arousal pressing against her and she arched her back slightly.
“Touch me.”
He obeyed enthusiastically, slipping his hands between their stomachs and downward until he could find the split in her skirts. He pushed them aside and brought his fingers to her thighs. “You gonna repay me?” he asked, caressing closer to her sex, where all her nerve endings seemed focussed, waiting.
Yennes’ vision was uneven, her hearing dulled. She did not know if she’d answered him, only that his fingers were suddenly on her, making gentle circles, and her breaths were coming heavier. Without a mind to, she brought her leg up to rest on his hip, and felt his fingers sink inside her. “More,” she told him, letting her fingernails bite into his shoulders.
His lips were everywhere. She could not keep track of them, could barely feel them. She let him take of her what he wanted, so long as he kept touching her, kept making her feel. When he wrenched the seam of her blouse over the peak of her breast she welcomed his mouth, not caring that someone might interrupt them.
The volts of pleasure coursing through her were quickening, consuming her. She bit her lip to keep from groaning. She chased its inevitable combustion, moving her hips against his hand. “Fuck,” he growled against her flesh, hastening the precise strokes with which he coaxed her nerve endings, bringing them to the edge of bliss. “That’s it,” he panted in her ear, pressing his lips to her neck. “You taste divine.”
Yennes’ eyes snapped open. Divine, she heard in her mind. It echoed back to her again and again, in the voice of another.
She halted in her movements, her hips stilling against the wall. Her lips trembled.
She felt suddenly too hot. There was not enough air to breathe. Her body was trapped between a man she did not recognise and the wall behind her and it made her bones scream, made her lungs ache. “Get off me,” she expelled on a breath. The words came broken, shaky.
The man kept moving, unperturbed by the change in atmosphere. Could he not feel how the air had been sucked from the room? “Get off me!” she said again, louder now, panicked.
His hand stilled. His face came before hers. It was difficult to make out. His features distorted. “ What? ”
“Let me go,” she panted. She sucked at air that did not find her lungs. “Please. Stop.”
His hands left her completely. She felt herself fall to the floor, her knees bouncing off the hardwood on impact, but if there was pain, she was spared of its bloom. There was already pain within. It had her lungs in a vice.
Yennes heard the enraged cursing of the man above her and she held up a hand to ward him off. But the man only muttered some more, then meandered away, swaying as he went.
Later, she would count herself lucky he hadn’t stayed.
The liquor was finally overcoming her. A wave of sudden nausea impeded every other sense, and she stumbled for the back door behind her, opening it in time to heave onto the threshold.
Cool air hit her face. It lifted the coils of hair away from her cheeks and she gulped it in.
“Mother above,” she panted, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Mercy.”