‘What in the Core is she doing in there?’ he grumbled.
‘Communing with Everam,’ Sikvah said, beginning to clear the bowls.
‘Dicing,’ Rojer said.
Sikvah seemed offended at his tone. ‘The alagai hora are no game, husband. Your Jiwah Ka consults the dice to help guide your path.’
Rojer tightened his lips, not entirely liking the sound of that, but he said nothing. He found himself craving a cup of wine badly, though he doubted there was any to be had. Alcohol was one of the first things the dama abolished in the hamlets. He imagined what his master Arrick’s reaction would have been to that. He might have wept, or saved himself the trouble and tied his own noose.
Just then Amanvah’s door opened. You could tell a lot from how a person opened a door – every Jongleur who ever worked a stage knew that. Amanvah did not open it in the tentative way of one chastened, nor the aggressive way of one in full fume. It was a calm, decisive action. She had her mask in place, and still wore her white robes.
Corespawn it, Rojer thought, putting his Jongleur’s mask on as Amanvah came to sit across from him, her eyes calm but piercing. He shifted slightly to feel the weight of the medallion on his chest.
‘This is what it means to be a Jongleur?’ Amanvah asked. ‘To dance on a ball and pretend to fall on your face to get peasant children to laugh?’
Rojer kept his face smooth, though the words made him want to bare his teeth. It was no more than he had heard from self-involved Royals in Angiers, looking down their noses at his kind even as they hired them for their balls and parties, but the words cut deeper coming from his own wife.
Night, what have I gotten myself into?
‘You didn’t seem to mind performing for the Sharum and dama in Everam’s Bounty,’ Rojer noted.
‘That was in the Deliverer’s court, praising Everam before honoured guests and loyal Sharum!’ Amanvah hissed. Sikvah moved quickly away, busying herself around the room. ‘Your honour was boundless that day, husband, but you cannot mean to compare it to debasing yourself playing the fool for khaffit and chin.’
‘Khaffit,’ Rojer said. ‘Chin. These words have no meaning to me. All I saw in that square were people, and each and every one of them deserves a little joy in their life.’
Amanvah’s mask was a good one, but Rojer caught the pulse of a vein in her forehead and knew he had niggled her. Point to me.
Amanvah stood. ‘I will be in my chamber. Sikvah, tend to Rojer’s bath.’
Sikvah bowed. ‘Yes, Jiwah Ka.’ Amanvah swept out of the room.
‘Shall I draw your bath, husband?’ Sikvah asked.
Rojer looked at her, incredulous. ‘Of course. And cut my stones off while you’re at it.’
Sikvah froze, and Rojer immediately regretted it for the frightened look on her face. ‘I … I do not …’
‘Forget it,’ Rojer cut in, getting to his feet and putting on his motley cloak. ‘I’m going downstairs a bit.’
Sikvah looked at him in concern. ‘Is there something you need? Food perhaps? Tea? I will fetch whatever you wish.’
Rojer shook his head. ‘I just need a walk and a few moments alone with my thoughts.’ He gestured towards the bedroom. ‘Warm the bed for me.’
Sikvah did not seem pleased with the instructions, but Rojer’s command was clear, and he had learned she would not refuse such a tone without good reason and a nod from Amanvah, of which she had neither. ‘As you wish, husband.’
He left the room, finding Enkido and Gared just outside in the hall. The gold-shackled eunuch stood straight and stiff before Amanvah’s door, giving no reaction as Rojer exited the room.
In contrast, Gared lounged on a chair tilted on its back legs, tossing cards at a hat a few feet away. His weapons rested against the wall in easy reach.
‘Ay, Rojer. Figured you were off to bed by now.’ He winked, and then laughed as if he had just made a clever joke.
‘You don’t have to stand watch all night, Gar,’ Rojer said.
Gared shrugged. ‘Don’t, but I usually wait till you’re off to bed before I sneak off to find my own.’ He nodded at Enkido. ‘Dunno how that one does it, standing like a tree all night. Don’t think he sleeps.’
‘Come downstairs with me,’ Rojer said. ‘I’m off to rummage under the bar and see if anything stronger than tea escaped the local dama’s glare.’ Gared grunted and stood. Rojer collected the cards with practised speed, snapping and shuffling them as he headed down the stairs.
The taproom was empty save for the innkeep, Darel, who was sweeping the floor. As at all the inns they had visited on the Messenger road through Everam’s Bounty, the other guests had been ejected for the night to accommodate Leesha’s caravan. She and her family, Gared, Wonda, Rojer, and his wives were all given their own rooms, as were the full dal’Sharum and their wives. The women, children, and kha’Sharum slept in the carts circled outside.
Darel was a fit man, but well past fighting age, with more grey in his beard than his natural sand colour. ‘Honoured masters.’ He bowed. ‘How may I serve you?’
‘Cut that demonshit, for starters,’ Rojer said. ‘Just us chin here.’
The man relaxed visibly, heading behind the bar as Rojer and Gared took stools. ‘Sorry. Never know who’s watching, these days.’
‘Honest word,’ Gared said. ‘Like worrying you got a ward wrong somewhere.’
‘Got anything real to drink?’ Rojer asked. ‘I’ve a powerful thirst, and not for water. Been so long, a bottle of disinfectant will do.’
Darel hawked into a clay spittoon. ‘Dama smashed all my wine casks the day they came to town. Used the stronger stuff to make a pyre to burn everything “sinful” in town. Took my granddaughter’s stuffed doll. Said its dress was indecent.’ He spat again. ‘Girl loved that doll. Lucky they din’t take her, too, I guess.’
‘It bad as all that?’ Rojer asked.
The innkeeper shrugged. ‘First week was rough. Dama came with a paper from the demon of the desert that said the town belonged to his tribe now. Some folk disagreed, and the Sharum put ’em down hard. Most fell in line after that.’
‘So you just let ’em take over?’ Gared growled.
‘We ent fighters like you Hollow folk,’ Darel said. ‘I saw the biggest man in town have his arm broke like a twig by a dama half his size, just for refusing to bow. Needed to look after me and mine, and couldn’t do that dead.’
‘No one’s blaming you,’ Rojer said.
‘S’not so bad once you learn the rules,’ Darel said. ‘Most of the Krasian holy book is the same as in the Canon, and like us, some of them are preachier than others,’ he cracked a smile as his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘and some are hypocrites.’ With that, he produced a small clay flask and two tiny cups. ‘You boys ever try couzi?’
‘Huh-uh,’ Gared grunted.
‘Heard stories,’ Rojer said.
Darel chuckled. ‘For all their talk of the sin of spirits, them sand folk brew a drink that’ll take the varnish off your porch.’
Rojer and Gared took the cups he offered, looking at them curiously. Even in his crippled hand, Rojer could hold his easily. The one Gared held looked like something a child might use to serve tea to a doll. ‘It’s barely a mouthful. Do you taste it or toss it?’