now here, don’t let a bit of a stammer bother you! A well-favoured lad like you doesn’t have to worry about fine words when it comes to winning a lass’s heart.’ She gave Branoic a sly sidelong wink. ‘As for you, my handsome friend, it looks like our Avra’s sitting all lonely over there.’
By the fire a tousle-headed blonde in a gauzy shift was lounging on a cushioned bench and eyeing him with some interest. Branoic left the prince to the practised attentions of the young whore and made his way across the room in a hurry, before someone else could claim her. As he approached she sat up and gave him a slow, sleepy smile. The shift was stuck to her back and breasts with sweat. For some reason, that night, he found the sight utterly arousing, and he sat down next to her and kissed her without saying a word. From the sweet taste of her mouth she’d been chewing cinnamon.
‘Oh, I do like that,’ she said, giving him another smile. ‘A man who’s got his mind made up. Can I have a sip of that ale?’
Grinning he handed her the tankard, which she took in both hands so she could gulp like a thirsty child.
‘Hot in here tonight.’
‘Too hot.’ She handed him back the nearly-empty tankard. ‘It might be cooler upstairs. Want to go see?’
For an answer he set the tankard down on the floor and got up, holding out his hand to catch hers and haul her to her feet. Moving carefully through the packed crowd they made their way to the back door and out, where a wooden staircase listed against the outside wall and led up to a doorway and a spill of light from lanterns hanging from the ceiling. At the top, just inside the open door, a toothless old woman, her hair dyed sunset-orange with henna and her gnarled fingers covered with cheap rings, sat on a high-backed chair and made a desultory pretence of spinning wool.
‘Take him down to the end, Avra love. The one with the window’s free,’ she said, yawning. ‘Gods, things are busy tonight, eh?’
Soot-stained wickerwork partitions cut the top storey of the building up into a warren of tiny cubicles that reeked of spilled ale and sweat and other humidities, but somehow the squalor matched the whore’s sweaty breasts and tousled hair, as if they were all ingredients in some strange but potent sexual spell. When she pulled aside a dirty blanket to reveal a tiny cubicle with nothing but a straw mattress on the floor, he ducked in after her, caught her round the waist and kissed her hard, his hands digging into her back.
‘Oh, this could be nice,’ she murmured. ‘I like a man who’s a little bit rough, if you take my meaning, like.’
When he slapped her across the buttocks, she giggled and reached up to kiss him in turn.
‘Avra!’ It was the crone’s voice, as harsh as a crow. ‘Avra, you come out here right now, you little wench! There’s Caer the blacksmith here, and he swears you stole a silver out of his pockets!’
‘May a demon shit in his eye!’ Avra yelled. ‘Did naught of the sort, you old harpy!’
‘He’s threatening to bust up the place, he is! You get your ugly ass out here now!’
‘You’d best go.’ Branoic was wishing he could strangle the old hag and be done with her. ‘I’ll wait. You look worth waiting for.’
‘My thanks, and I’ll say the same for you. Open the shutters for a bit of air, will you, love?’ This last as she was leaving: ‘I’m on my way, sow-tits!’
Shrieking at each other they moved off down the hall, where their voices were met by an angry masculine bellow. With some care for the rotting leather hinges, Branoic opened the shutters and stuck his head out to breathe the night’s cool. Down below in the stableyard, in pockets of lantern light men were standing around, drinking, singing, or merely laughing together at some jest or another. When a woman giggled behind him he pulled his head in, hoping for Avra back again, but the sound was coming from the other side of the rickety partition to his right. Although he could hear a woman plain enough, the man with her was talking in a rumbling dark voice, and he couldn’t understand a word.
‘I learned it from a Bardek sailor,’ she went on, giggling. ‘And you’ve never felt anything like this before, I swear it. Oh come along, five extra coppers can’t be much to a man like you.’
The rumble sounded sceptical.
‘Because it’s not so easy on a lass’s back, that’s why! First you’ve got to …’ Here her words were drowned by mutual giggling. ‘And then I squeeze a bit, like. They call it coring apples. What do you say?’
Judging from his snigger of laughter, he was agreeing to the extra expense. Branoic paced over to the doorway and pulled back the blanket to look out, but there was no sign of Avra. As he was considering leaving to find her, the couple next door began giggling and grunting in turn, as if whatever exotic trick she was showing him took a great deal of coordinated effort to bring off properly. Branoic did make an effort to do the honourable thing and ignore them, but he was, after all, only human, with the stock of curiosity normal for that breed. He went back to the window, hesitated, then bent down to peer through the tiny holes in the partition, which proved to be clogged with old filth.
‘Ooooh ye gods,’ the wench next door snickered. ‘Well, let’s try again, shall we?’
Her piece of work agreed with a long bellow of laughter. Cursing his own curiosity, Branoic looked around and discovered that the wickerwork stopped somewhat short of the ceiling about two feet above his head, and that the windowsill stood about three feet off the floor. After one last attempt to ignore this perfect confluence of circumstance, he gave in and hauled himself up to totter on the sill and look over the top of the partition. Unfortunately he’d forgotten that he’d been drinking ale for hours on a hot night, and the effort made his head lurch and swim. Without thinking he grabbed at the flimsy wickerwork to steady himself. It buckled, he grabbed harder, the couple beyond yelped and swore, and his foot slipped on the mucky sill. With a yell of his own that was half-a-warning Branoic pitched forward, all fifteen stone of him, and crashed into the partition. In a tangle of broken wicker he swooped down and landed on the half-naked pair.
Shrieking and screaming the woman writhed around and got free just as the next partition over went down from the impact, and knocked the one beyond it, too, into the one beyond – and so on all along the round room. Stammering out a stream of apologies of some sort – he never could remember exactly what he said – Branoic rolled over and staggered to his feet just as the fellow jumped up, pulling up his brigga and struggling to belt them, a big burly man and too furious to swear. The blazons on his shirt showed him to be a member of the Black Sword troop.
‘Who are you – a cursed silver dagger! I’ll have your ugly head for this, you young cub!’
‘I didn’t mean – my apologies –’ Branoic was gulping for air out of shame, not fear.
Although the fellow started to draw his sword, his brigga slid down to his knees and forced a brief moment of peace as he swore and fumbled round for his belt. Just to be on the safe side, Branoic reached for his own hilt and was rewarded with another bellow of rage. The lass started screaming just as Aethan came ploughing into what was left of the doorway.
‘Put that sword away, Branoic you asshole, and come with me!’
The fellow was so stunned that he merely stood there, hiking his brigga, as Aethan shoved Branoic bodily ahead of him, down the collapsed corridor. Judging by the shrieking and writhing under the pile of broken wickerwork the brothel had indeed been busy that night.
