Shaman's Crossing (The Soldier Son Trilogy #1)

I crumpled up the paper and thrust it into my pocket. Now I had to go to Dark Evening, even if I had to walk all the way into the city’s center, for Epiny’s reputation would be completely ruined if she were to spend Dark Evening alone with Spink. I wasn’t sure that my presence could make it any better, but resolved that I would do what I could. Spink would be culled in the coming week, just as surely as I would. For Epiny to be out with him, and for him then to be dismissed from the Academy, would ruin both their names. I took my hoarded allowance out of its hiding place behind my books and left. I wrapped my muffler round my throat as I ran down the steps.

The path from the Academy gates to the cabstand had never seemed so long. When I reached it, there were no carriages, but an enterprising boy with a pony cart was waiting there. The pony was spotted and the cart smelled of potatoes. Given a choice, I never would have ridden in it. I handed over to the boy the ridiculous fare he demanded and mounted the splintery seat beside him. We set out through the chill streets. The cold wind burned past my ears as the pony trotted along. I pulled my hat down and turned my collar up.

The closer we got to the center of the city, the more evident the holiday became. Streets that would ordinarily have been deserted in the cold and dark were thronged with people. Holiday lanterns with cutouts of capering nightshades, the lustful and mischievous sprites said to serve the old gods, hung in the windows or beside the doors of almost every establishment. The intersections were jammed with pedestrians and the traffic thickened as every conveyance in the city seemed bound for the same destination. Long before we reached the Great Square, I could hear the noise of the crowd and see the haze of light that it put into the night sky. I smelled food cooking, and heard the wheezing notes of a calliope competing with a shrill soprano singing about her lost love. When our pony cart wedged for the third time into standing traffic, I shouted over the din to the driver that I was getting out and left them there.

I moved a little faster on foot, but not much. The crowd eddied and swirled around me, and I was often carried sideways with the flow of people. Many of the merrymakers were masked and wigged. Gold chains made of paper and glass jewels sparkled on wrists and throats. Others had painted their faces so extravagantly that the lights glistened off the thick layers of greasepaint. I saw all manner of dress, and a great deal of undress, too. Muscular young men, usually masked as nightshades, went bare-chested through the crowds, making suggestive remarks to women and men alike, much to the merriment of all within earshot. There were women, too, bare-armed even in the cold, their breasts bulging out the tops of their gowns like mushrooms erupting from moss. They wore masks with voluptuous red lips and lolling tongues and arched brows over gilded almond-shaped eyeholes. The crowd nudged and shoved me along until I felt like I was swimming through the morass of merrymakers.

A vendor bumped into me, rather deliberately. When I turned to confront her, she grinned wildly up at me with a garishly painted mouth and urged, “Sample my fruit, young sir? It’s free! Take a taste.” A domino mask of silver paper and her red-painted lips were her only disguise. She held her tray with both hands at chest height. Dark grapes, red cherries, and strawberries surrounded two immense peaches. She leaned toward me, thrusting the tray at me, jolting it against my chest.

I stumbled back from her, confused by her wide smile and aggressiveness and foolishly said, “No thank you, madam. The peaches are large but they are surely well past their season.” Everyone around me roared as if I had made a fine jest while she pursed her lips and then stuck out her tongue at me.

A masked man in a gilt crown and a cheap cloak of thin velvet, his nose red with drink, pushed past me to the vendor. “I’ll taste your fruit, my dear!” he bellowed, and to my shock, he lowered his face into the tray and made loud slurping and gobbling noises while the woman squirmed and laughed delightedly. A moment later my eyes made sense of the gaslit scene. The bodice and sleeves of her dress were painted onto her skin, with a collar and cuffs of lace to complete the subterfuge. The “peaches” on her “tray” were actually her powdered and painted breasts surrounded by wax fruit on a ledge of stiffened fabric. She was as good as naked. I smothered an exclamation of astonishment, yet could not help laughing along with the gawking crowd. The woman wiggled and shrieked, offering him first one breast and then the other. He gently pinched the nipple of one in his teeth and shook it playfully as she squealed delightedly. Never had I seen such a display of wanton licentiousness, nor witnessed folk gleefully encourage it. Suddenly I thought of Epiny in such a place and the smile faded from my face. A moment before, I had nearly forgotten Epiny in the pageantry of the Dark Evening holiday. Now I turned and pushed my way out of the knot of spectators. I knew I must find Epiny, and quickly.