Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (13 page)

‘She left a note for us, Mercellus. In it she claimed a rather special woman as her mother …’

Mercellus’ eyes narrowed a little, then he exhaled. ‘Justina Meiros,’ he admitted. ‘She told me she’d left such a letter – I thought it unwise at the time.’ He looked from Muhren to Alaron and back again. ‘But if it has set you on her trail and you can see her safe, then perhaps not so unwise.’

‘Did she tell you aught else of why she wished to go east?’

Mercellus was clearly loath to admit not knowing what Cym was doing, and Alaron guessed he must be galled to have a daughter he could not control. ‘She is a good girl, but she goes her own way,’ he repeated. He didn’t mention the Scytale.

‘How did you come to have such a child, Mercellus?’ Muhren asked.

Mercellus sighed wistfully. ‘How does a poor Rimoni trader come to woo the daughter of Antonin Meiros?’ His eyes glazed over. ‘How indeed?’ He looked at Muhren, a smile playing about his lips. ‘I have told few this tale, my friend – not for shame but for respect of others’ privacy. But I feel you should know this. It may help you, if you follow my daughter into the east.’

Alaron took a hasty sip of wine and leant forwards. He wondered if his ears were flapping. He even managed to put aside noticing Anise and the way her hips swayed when she walked.

For now, at least.

A fond smile stole over Mercellus’ face. ‘It was 911, after the Noros Revolt. My role in that conflict had brought the attention of the Inquisition, so I thought it wise to leave for places the empire would not look. For a time, my caravan dispersed into Metia and Lantris and I myself took to the road alone. I went east. I wanted to see the great
Bridge, and the land called Javon, where thousands of Rimoni had settled during the early Moontides.

‘The Bridge was far below the ocean that year, of course, but there were windships, and I managed to gain passage as a windshipman. The work was hard, working the sails in twelve-hour shifts, as even the largest windcraft have small capacity and cannot bear many crewmen. But it got me to Hebusalim. I had little money, but I was a young man and I had the dances and music of my people.’ He grinned. ‘Later, you will see our dances. We will even teach you, if you are willing. I was a fine dancer and a fair singer, though I say so myself. I met Simos, who was very good on the jitar, and together we played the taverns, trying to make enough money to buy passage to Javon. We were good, Simos and I – very good. Very popular, especially with the ladies, si?’ He winked broadly.

Muhren chuckled and the Rimoni grinned toothily. ‘We had a reputation, and it got us into fights sometimes. Other times it got us into the bedrooms of well-to-do women. Most were unwed; some were not so.’

Muhren shook his head knowingly and Alaron found his eyes straying back to Anise. She had a faint pout on her lips that vanished the moment their eyes met. She began to rock her shoulders a little, as if a slow dance were spreading through her limbs. One sleeve fell off her shoulder and she pulled it back up while pretending not to notice him.

Some dancing later, huh …

‘Eventually we attracted some unexpected attention,’ Mercellus went on, interrupting Alaron’s thoughts. ‘A servant in finer clothes than most masters wear came to call. He offered us a soirée at a private residence, for more than we’d earn in three months, so of course we accepted.’ He shook his head as if in disbelief, even after all these years. ‘The next evening we were taken to a fine house where the walls were entirely of marble. In Hebusalim, the women and men live in different parts of the house: the women tend the kitchens and have their own bedrooms. When the master desires –
ahem
– congress with his wife, she is summoned to his private rooms. The
women’s quarters are known as the zenana. To our surprise it was to the zenana that we were summoned.’ He laughed throatily. ‘At that point we knew we were in for a memorable night.’

Alaron felt his cheeks go red. He glanced at Anise again, telling himself it was to distract him from this story, which was clearly going to become distinctly risqué, but it didn’t work. In fact, the way she was swaying across the grass with the other girls made it worse.

‘The house belonged to a Rondian woman named Alyssa Dulayne, a pure-blood mage, very beautiful, with hair like clear honey and skin like milk. She greeted us in a dress of blue gauze, almost completely see-through. I was three-legged, my friends – we both were. Simos was all eyes, and she didn’t care.’ He took a sip of wine to moisten his tongue. ‘I should tell you that magnificent specimen though I am, Simos was an Adonis. He couldn’t dance for shit, but he had curling hair and puppy eyes, and a horn the size of a horse. The girls all went for Simos first and I got the leftovers, but they were no less pretty. It is no bad thing to have a handsome best friend!’

The musicians struck up a slow rhythmic strumming on their jitars, and the girls began to move about them, hands together, gracefully reaching skywards, their chests curving outwards tantalisingly. Alaron hastily looked away and took another sip himself.

‘Well, this Alyssa clearly was going to eat Simos alive – but she did have a friend. If Alyssa was the golden Sol, this woman was the moon: her hair was like the curtain of night, glittering with stars, her face as white as snow, with blood-red lips and dark eyes. We were not told her name, but I named her
Moonchild
in my mind. Unlike Alyssa, she was not dressed as a wanton, but in a demure velvet dress that concealed her body entirely, yet hinted at the curves beneath. But she was little interested in the pleasures Alyssa planned. She was sucking on a hookah and her eyes were glazed. I began to think that maybe only Simos would be fortunate that night.’

Anise was looking at him over her shoulder, Alaron realised, her eyes flashing.
I’m dancing for you,
her look said, and he couldn’t look away, even as he became aware that the Rimoni boys were beginning to notice. They were all wearing knives. Something in the wine or the
music or something else entirely made him feel bold.
I’m a mage
, he reminded myself.
Think you scare me?
Then he frowned. The thought tasted ugly, like something Malevorn Andevarion or Francis Dorobon might think.

He looked away from the girls and concentrated on the story.

‘To cut to the chase, Simos played and I danced, and because I knew Alyssa wanted Simos, I danced as if the other woman, my Moonchild, were the only one in the room. I leapt, I strutted and pirouetted like one possessed, all for her. We played our whole repertoire, and then suddenly the jitar stopped, mid-song, and when I looked back I found that Alyssa had pulled it from Simos’ hands and placed herself in his lap. I looked away, at a loss what to do, but when I turned back my Moonchild was standing right before me. I almost jumped from my skin, she moved so swiftly and silently. Right at that moment, she frightened me. Her pupils were so large I could see no whites in her eyes. Her mouth was slightly open and her teeth were as vividly white as her lips were red. I remembered legends from Sydia of blood-drinking corpses. Then the dress slipped from her body and she stepped into my arms and kissed me.’

Mercellus stopped speaking, and stared at his hands. ‘I need tell you little more. She kept me with her for one night only. She was not a virgin, but she was nervous and awkward. I never found out her name until much later. Simos and I travelled on to Javon and stayed there together for a year, then he met a local girl and married her. He lives there still, if he lives at all. I returned, not liking the place – there was too much hostility between Rimoni and Jhafi – but no sooner had I arrived back in Hebusalim than that same servant sought me out, for quite a different errand.’

‘A child?’ Alaron blurted.

‘You are a bad audience, boy,’ Mercellus chided him wryly. ‘Yes, a bambina. I had got Justina Meiros with child and in the year I was away, she had given birth. But she was an indifferent mother; she did not want the little bambina, so when she was told I had returned to Hebusalim, I was summoned and given the child. She had not even named her.’ He shook his head. ‘Justina was utterly indifferent to
me throughout the interview. I was told I was the only man she’d lain with before conception so there was no doubt whose child she carried. I would have taken the girl for nothing, to get her away from her cold-hearted mother, but in fact they paid me generously.’ He blinked slowly, as if to banish the memories back to the back of his mind. ‘And so that is my tale, and now I have a daughter like no other.’

Alaron swallowed. ‘I was in love with her,’ he blurted out before his brain could intervene.

‘Clearly,’ Mercellus said, his voice both fondly amused and warning.

‘She doesn’t love me though,’ Alaron added quickly. ‘We are just friends.’

‘I know. I cannot
control
my daughter, but I
know
her.’

These past weeks Alaron had been carefully taking all the feelings he’d had for Cym and packing them away. He could feel them, rattling in the trunk, demanding release, but quite deliberately, he ignored the temptation. Instead, he turned to watch the dancers again.

At a small gesture from Mercellus, the rhythm changed. While he had been talking, the middle of the circle had been gradually cleared of tables and more and more of the women, the older ones who had been cooking, now entered the space. They brought a different feel to the dance: wider hips, bigger bosoms and knowing faces. Wives made eye-contact with husbands as the men formed a loose cordon about the dancers, clapping and swaying in time to the music. There were no nervous looks or giggles from the married women, just hot looks at the circling men. One of the matrons of the clan made a loud whooping cry and spun towards a man who wore a sash of the same material as her skirt; she planted her feet and jiggled her breasts while fluttering her hands provocatively. Her husband ululated wildly and began to dance around her, thrusting with his hips.

Alaron gaped, and nearly dropped his wine cup.

Muhren clapped him on the shoulders. ‘Go on lad, join them.’

‘No way!’ Alaron spluttered.

Mercellus laughed. ‘This boy is eighteen?’ he asked Muhren, as if Muhren was Alaron’s father.

‘Nearly nineteen,’ Alaron growled. His birthday was in Noveleve.

‘And he is not already married?’ Mercellus raised his eyebrows.

‘No takers,’ Muhren said dryly. ‘He’s an argumentative little cuss. But he’s mellowing a little.’

Alaron glowered at him.

‘But a mage, si?’

‘Quarter-blood.’

Alaron took in the calculating look on the gypsy chief’s face and his face burned hotter than he had thought possible. A sixteenth-blood mage could not breed more magi with a human, but a quarter-blood could, with better odds of conception than a purer-blooded mage. He began to feel like a horse being assessed for stud. ‘Ah, look, I’m quite tired. It’s probably time I found my bedroll and—’

Muhren stood up and gripped his shoulder. ‘Boy, it’s time you learned how to dance.’

*

Rimoni dancing was like fencing, Alaron decided sometime after his fourth glass of wine. There were set movements that flowed into each other, leading from the shoulder or the hip: thrust and give ground, let the other person counter as you spin away. It was sparring, with eyes for blades. The melody was a trick, a feint to deceive, but if you followed the beat tapped out on the wooden box of the jitar, you stayed in step.

One thing ten years of waving a practice-sword around had taught him was how to move, balanced, precise and poised. He’d seen the way the gypsy men were looking at him, prepared to jeer, but he managed to keep them quiet, for all their dismissive gestures and smirking. He struck another pose, akin to a bow, and moved on to the next girl.

Anise.

She was definitely following him, positioning herself in the same eight as him each time, and whenever their eyes met, she smiled. The other girls remained aloof and retreated to their mothers after one song. But it didn’t look like Anise’s mother was present. Whenever the dances paused, she would retreat to sit with a younger boy with
the same big eyes. This time, though, she backed away from Alaron, her look both bold and coy. He felt like everyone here was watching them, but he couldn’t help staring back. It was as if his brains had floated south as he danced.

‘Who is she?’ he asked Muhren when the watch captain appeared at his side.

‘Anise? She’s an orphan. She and her brother were raised by their grandparents, but they both died a few years ago.’ He poked Alaron in the shoulder. ‘Rimoni girls who are not virgins when they wed lose their dowry,’ he said pointedly. ‘So do those who wed outside the clans.’

Alaron’s cheeks burned. ‘We’re only dancing.’

‘I know. I’m just making conversation. Furthering your education.’

Alaron glared at him. ‘She keeps chasing me.’

‘To her, you’re a rich Rondian mage. She may think you’re worth losing a dowry over.’

His eyes strayed back to her, trying to work out if her flirting was based on money or attraction. All this talk of virgins and dowry was doing nothing for his composure. ‘Ah, I should probably go and get some rest,’ he muttered.

Muhren nodded sympathetically. ‘That’s probably wise.’ He glanced at Mercellus, who was laying down the law over something with one of his men. ‘Our packs and bedrolls were supposed to be put in the lee of one of the caravans. We’ll set up beside the stream. I’ll join you after I’ve had a chat with Mercellus.’

*

Alaron fumbled his way through the twilight to get his and Muhren’s packs and bedrolls into place. An older Rimoni man with a grey ponytail had helped him find them, and though neither spoke each other’s tongue, after much gesturing and smiling he’d been shown a good camping spot, set amidst a stand of willow beside the small stream. The old man shuffled off, and Alaron lit a small gnosis-light and erected the two small tents. He’d become practised at the task over the past weeks and now he did it without having to concentrate. Then he extinguished the gnosis-light and sat on the banks, bathing
his feet in the cool water, listening to the gentle rippling of the stream. Overhead, the giant half-moon told him that the month of Julsep was racing towards its end. He pictured Cym in the skiff, high in the skies.