The Blacktongue Thief

39 The Moon-Wife

“Well, your ladyship, I wish I’d known I was traveling in the company of Ispanthian fucking nobility. Were you planning on telling me you were highborn?” I said to Galva back at the inn.

Galva had just had her bath, and I swear the woman looked an inch taller since she’d let slip she’d a duke for a father, and a famous duke at that, one known outside his country. Even I knew Rodricu Braga lost half his fortune on dead horses but still had more wealth than any but the king’s family. Braga had the finest pasturelands in Ispanthia, which means the finest in Manreach, and they’d been mounted knights going back five hundred years. The Braga crest, as you may know, is a horse rearing over a skeleton. Ironic. And how sad for the duke to lose his horses and all his sons and to see his daughter and heir in love with death. Fit for a troubadour to sing about on a warm Sathsday in the month of Flora with a maiden’s head in her lap.

That the Guild had attached me to her now took on new meaning. Galva was after the supposedly mad infanta, the Spanth princess who’d been married off to the king of Oustrim. Galva had said she was going to rescue a princess, and being a liar myself, I assumed it a lie. But now it seemed a certainty. What was the Guild’s interest in Mireya, who had led Oustrim to outlaw the Guild? Kill her? That made sense, but the Guild was greedy, and a queen was a valuable thing. Kill the birder and ransom Mireya? That rang true. But you never knew with those fuckers. My head was reeling.

“Why should I have told you who I was?” Galva said.

“I’d have picked my nose less often and pissed farther off in the trees.”

“No. You have would jested about my family and forced me to hurt you. That my brothers have died and left me heir to my father’s title is not meat for your japes, but you would have japed all the same. You cannot help yourself. Your mouth is like an old man’s bladder.”

“That’s just mean. There’s no reason for you to be mean.”

She grunted and poured wine for herself.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon. You’re going to die the yellow death from that,” I said, pointing at her cup.

“My death will be red, like my wine, or so I pray. Now tell me what you really know about that chodadu cat.”

“Other than that he’s good luck?” I said.

“Do not be evasive.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me the reason he is trying to open my side-pack.”

“Did you leave any cheese in there? He loves cheese.”

“There is no chodadu cheese in my pack. What does he want? He wants something.”

“Probably love.”

“He will find no love in my pouches.”

“Maybe he thinks your heart fell in there. You look so harshly at him. Why don’t you give his ears a scratch and make friends?”

She made a disgusted sound and left the room, leaving me alone with Bully Boy. Malk was prowling seaside taverns, looking for another ship, or a fight, or both. Norrigal had gone to the magic quarter to see how she might replace what she’d lost from her cases.

I looked at Bully Boy.

“What the hell were you doing rooting through her gear? You want her to wring your neck?”

Bully raoed like a simple cat, his face pointing three-quarters of the way toward me.

“Are you even in there?” I said. “Hoa, killer, are you there?”

The cat just sat. I didn’t know if Sesta was out of him or just sleeping, if she did sleep, I didn’t know much about harboring. But I was pretty confident she was gone, out roaming the city of Edth, filling the great hollow of her belly. So I picked Bully up by the nape and put him in my lap and scratched his ears, making him close his blind eyes and purr so hard, in and out, in and out, he might have been a busted bellows. “This is just for you, then,” I said. “This is just between us.”

Edth was a beautiful city. Three-hundred-year-old canals of greenish water cut through streets of white-gray brick, while terraced stone pyramids planted with frost roses, tulips and juniper, bear’s breath, plumvine, and goldenberry stood at crossroads. The Queen’s Trees defined the borders of the neighborhoods, witched to regrow picked fruit overnight. Any Edther could take a pear or apple at will, but taking two would earn a clout from the Queen’s Cudgels, who enforced the law here as chainsdams did in Holt.

Edth’s strong, pale lager and honey-sweet cider were shipped to Brayce and Holt and carted as far south as Beltia. To sell an Untherman beer was an expression for pulling off a real coup, and that’s exactly what Edth did. It was said Untherkind would only drink the beers of Unther and Edth and declare the rest not fit to piss in. Edthers drank Unther beer as well, and Gallard and Ispanthian wine, as well as Braycish mead and cider, Istrean grappa and whiskey from Norholt and Galtia—every sailor gladdened to learn their ship would dock at Edthport, for Edth had more and lovelier taverns than churches.

These taverns also had the best names—the Sotted Bear, Her Lover’s Poem, the Hook and Goad, Your Father’s Belt, the Quartered Sun, the Feathered Scold. This last was named for the Middlesea queen who upbraided parliament, saying donkeys were made to pull, not sit and bray. Five of those old men had her seized and covered her with glue and feathers, saying hens were for laying eggs, not singing. She became the lover of a great general, got the knights on her side, and disbanded parliament. She told the geezers she’d outmaneuvered that hens and donkeys had gone to war and that hens had won. The Hen and Donkey tavern is on Water Street. She then had the five who had feathered her lashed to a cart and made them pull her around Edth for all to see. The Five Men Bridled is on Castle Street, and that’s where I met Norrigal for supper.

“I was thinking,” she said, looking at me over her cider-cup and her plate of plummed quail and rosemary-bread, her eyes merrier than I’d ever seen them, “that you might fit for a time.”

“Fit what?” I said.

“Me.”

I’ve never been a blusher, but I’m fairly sure I colored.

I pulled a rabbit’s leg out of my stew and sucked the gravy off, trying for all the world to look like I was thinking only of gravy.

“We might make a moon-vow together, with all that means, but only if you agree to certain conditions.”

She tore her roast bird’s tiny wing and stripped the flesh off it with her teeth, sucking the bone in a way that somehow seemed more natural than lewd, though of course it meant what it meant.

Her lover for a month. Her husband, of a sort, for a month. This was old Galtish business, Haros business, older than Holt, older than the White Road and the Knock. It sang to my blood, and not just because I was young and full of want for her.

“I’m listening,” I said, smiling my best half smile at her.

“I’ll bet you are, you fond man. First, rub a bit of this on your cheek. That cheek,” she said, pointing at my tattoo and handing me a five-sided bottle of some coppery unguent. “Ask me what it is and I’ll take it back.”

I nodded. I rubbed a bit in, and it was warm. I was hoping it wouldn’t take the thing off—if I were spotted in some place or other without my penalty-mark and my debt not timely, I’d be in for trouble. The Guild might make it a fist rather than an open hand. They might have one of my thumbs. But I trusted her. Fothannon protect me, I trusted Norrigal Na Galbraeth.

“You know about magic tattoos, then?”

“More than a little.”

“Can you make them?”

“I can.”

“That’s proper strong magic. You never told me you could do that.” I stole a bite of blue carrot and onion out of my stew.

“And when did you ask? Now do you want to hear my conditions, or shall I find some other fellow? The new moon’s tonight, you know.”

I did know, but not for spell craft. Knowing how dark a night was going to be was a thief’s business.

I touched an ear.

I’m listening.

“First, you’ll do as I say to keep my belly flat. I’m not for making bairns to raise. I serve my craft and my kynd, and I’ll not do that so well with my knap in a pup’s mouth. This besides the world being no fit place to live.”

I remembered my fancy on the whale ship of breeding with her and released it. She watched me do that before she moved on.

“Second, you’ll not tell me your secrets nor I yours, none that you don’t want to share. We’re making a month together, not a life, and even life-wives have locked a door or two in their hearts.”

“Agreed,” said I, mindful of and grateful for the way she hadn’t pressed me on the matter of the cat.

“Last and most,” she said, “you’ll not change your manner with me. You’ve never been less than a friend to me, and you’ll not start when I share your bed, or I’ll regret it. If a man looks upon me, even a fair man, you’ll know he’s got at least a month to wait, and probably forever. And I’ll know the same of you with the girleens.”

“Agreed.”

“Oh, and there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“I don’t do that one bit.”

I looked around to be double sure we weren’t listened to and dropped my voice. “And what bit’s that?”

“You know.”

“Sure and I don’t. There’s lot of bits. Some don’t do some bits, and others think nothing of it. But those second bits the first ones do might shock the second ones who prefer to do the first bits.”

“Right, I forgot what an expert you are. But I know you know the bit I mean, you kark.”

“Killing crotch fleas with lamp oil?” I whispered.

She put her hand over her mouth and giggled at that, and it was her turn to color.

“Well,” she said, looking at me over her mug again. “Will you have me? Will you stand under the blind moon with me tonight and say some binding words?”

Before I could answer, my margin-eye noticed a shape coming up on my right, a weaving, drunken sort of shape.

“Barkeep!” he said.

Oh shyte, here it came. And a drunkie, too. The drunk ones were the worst, not only because half the time they’d miss and cuff your ear, but because it was twice as galling being cuffed about by someone you could thrash without trying. My luck felt chill. This wouldn’t be good. I ate my rabbit fast.

“Barkeep!” he said again, and this time the barkeep looked. “Anyone claim the mark on this one?”

I chewed and chewed.

“He’s minding his business, Johash,” she said. “Why don’t you mind yours? It’s not like you need another.”

Those at the bar laughed good-naturedly. Have I mentioned that I like Middlesea? Maybe being ringed in by larger, dangerous neighbors makes a nation smarter and kinder. They’re smarter and kinder there. Except for this twat, Johash, I mean. Nineteen years old if a day, big as life and dumb as bricks.

“Well, I claim him.”

Bite.

Chew chew chew chew.

He staggered close now.

Swallow.

“Will you stand up, or do you want it sitting?” he said as if he were offering to shine my boots for me. I noticed his barely grown-in mustache was damp, and I was disgusted.

“Just get it over with,” I said, mortified that my talk with Norrigal had to be cheapened by this shyte. I thought about taking another bite of stew and spitting it on his face when he struck, but the Guild wouldn’t have that. Made them look bad. I just had to take it—I knew it was a risk coming to a tavern.

But still, a cullion like this paddling me.

He upped his sleeve with some ceremony. He nodded at Norrigal—a gentleman to the last. She winked at him, I couldn’t guess why at the time. He swung his meaty hand at me, and it hit me, and it stung and rung my ear. A big, heavy stack of coumoch, that Johash.

But he wasn’t done hitting. The same hand that hit me now swung up and Johash slapped himself across the cheek, harder than he’d hit me.

I barked a laugh before I could stop myself.

“Uh!” he said, too drunk to know what was happening. He backhanded himself now for good measure, and said Ow more quietly than the blow deserved.

I looked at Norrigal.

She shrugged.

“Haw!” a girleen near him said, amused by the spectacle. The hand of Johash immediately reached out and slapped that lass, though Johash hadn’t even been looking at her. That woman’s friend put an arm on Johash’s shoulder, saying, “See here, now,” so the hand of Johash fetched her a mighty slap, too, wrenching Johash around. I think it hurt his shoulder, because he went Ow again. Now the first woman punched Johash, Johash kicked at her, the hand of Johash slapped another woman, that woman elbowed Johash hard like a soldier, and he staggered, and pretty soon Johash was on his knees getting the shyte beaten and kicked out of him.

Norrigal took my chin in her hand and wheeled my face back around to make me look at her. “You never answered my question,” she said.

“Yes. Of course it’s yes.”

“Good. First, I’ll have you wear this,” she said, hanging a cord around my neck. From that cord dangled a pretty, pearly-gray half of a stone that had been cleaved in twain. It was small, just about the size of half a plum pit. She put the other half around her own neck.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A clovenstone.”

It was a delight to behold. It had been split right where a brown flaw winked like a tiny eye. Her half had a speck of the flaw in it, too.

“Feels like it’s got magic in it.”

“Oh, it does.”

“What’s it do?”

“Lets me call you, or you me.”

She didn’t get to show me how yet, though.

Now a man yelled, “Johash is witched! That one there witched him!” he pointed at Norrigal. Hard gazes fell on us.

“That’s right, I witched him,” Norrigal said, standing. “I am the handmaid of Guendra Na Galbraeth of Galt, Queen of the Snowless Wood, called Deadlegs, the witch of the Downward Tower. I enjoy her protection as this man enjoys mine.”

That paused the crowd, but irked the barkeep.

“She’s away in Holt,” she said, coming from around the bar with a truncheon, “and this is my tavern. Out with you.” She pointed the truncheon.

I grabbed what was left of my stew.

“Leave the bowl.”

I turned it up into my mouth and slurped what gravy I could, taking what remained of the rabbit leg in my hand. It had cost me two pretty Middlesea maids, finer than the marks they minted in Holt, and I wasn’t losing my whole supper just because karking Johash wanted a karking free lager.

Norrigal turned with some dignity and walked slowly for the door. I set the stew-bowl down, wiped my face with my sleeve, and went with her, but didn’t turn my back, as I rightly suspected the crowd was against us. Several of them came, but not to do us injury, just to toss us out the faster. We were roughly grabbed and jostled, myself more roughly, for they fancied themselves gentlefolk and were scared of Norrigal besides, and we soon found ourselves facedown in the mudded wheel ruts outside the Five Men Bridled, the rabbit leg in the mud as well, an alley dog now making bold to snatch it and run back.

“Better him than the potwash boy,” I said, laughing, and she laughed, too. We sat up like children making mudcakes and laced our fingers together, looking up into the black, cloudless sky, looking toward the gray-black disk that was the blinded moon.

She took my face in her hand, and I took hers in mine as was the custom.

“Kinch Na Shannack, as the new moon is your witness, will you take me as your moon-wife and do me one month’s good in bed and out of it?”

“I will. Norrigal Na Galbraeth, will you do the same by me?”

“You know I will.”

And we sat in the mud and kissed dirty, cold, and careless, her tasting the beer and rabbit of my mouth and me tasting plum and cider on hers, this until an oxcart rumbled up and we stood to walk together. She ran ahead of me, then turned to face me, putting the clovenstone in her mouth.

“What’s it, a whistle?” I asked.

“Zust wed,” she said, meaning, Just wait. One of the marks of loving somebody must be that you can understand them with their mouth full.

“Wait for what?” I said.

“Zgudda morm op.” Gotta warm up.

She kept walking backward, looking at me. In just a moment, my stone lifted like an iron slug toward a magnet, floating up on its cord, which tugged gently at the back of my neck.

“Stay still,” she commanded. I did so. She now ran around to my right, and the stone followed her. She made a circuit of me, and so did the stone. She spat it out of her mouth then. An instant later, the stone began to drift down, slowly, in pulses, like a man’s pillock after a tumble.

Which wasn’t far from my mind, between her kisses and watching her mouth that stone.

“Will it do that if you put it anywhere else?”

She smiled, open-mouthed, said, “Anywhere that’ll warm it up.”

We all but ran to the public baths.