Not that Rojer was paying much attention. He walked slightly behind Leesha, so he could gaze at her without her noticing. Her pale skin was a sharp contrast to her night-black hair, and her eyes were the color of sky on a clear day. His eyes drifted over her curves.
Leesha turned to him suddenly, and Rojer started, quickly raising his eyes.
“Thanks again for doing this, Rojer,” Leesha said.
As if Rojer could refuse Leesha anything. “It’s hardly a chore to sit through a meal, even if your mother’s cooking could try a coreling’s teeth,” he said.
“For you, maybe,” Leesha said. “If I show up alone, she’ll plague me until I’m ready to spit over when I’m going to find a husband. With you there, she may at least cover her fangs. Perhaps she’ll even take us for a pair and draw off entirely.”
Rojer looked at her, his heart stopping. He slipped into his Jongleur’s mask, face and voice betraying not a bit of what he was feeling, and asked, “You wouldn’t mind your mother thinking us a pair?”
Leesha laughed. “I’d love it. Most of the town would accept it, too. Only you and Arlen and I would know how ridiculous it is.”
Rojer felt like she had slapped him, but his heart resumed beating, and with his mask in place Leesha noticed nothing.
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Rojer said, changing the subject.
“Arlen?” Leesha asked, and Rojer winced. “Arlen! Arlen! Arlen!” she said, laughing. “It’s just his name, Rojer. I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t have one, however mysterious he wants to seem.”
“I say let him seem as he likes,” Rojer said. “Arrick always said, if you rehearse an act you never mean the audience to see, sooner or later they’ll see it. All you need is one slip, and his name will be on every lip in town.”
“So what if it is?” Leesha asked. “The ‘Painted Man’ isn’t comfortable in town because folk treat him differently. Admitting he has a name might go a ways toward fixing that.”
“You don’t know what he’s left behind him,” Rojer said. “Could be some folk might get hurt if his name got out, or others might come hunting him with some account to settle. I know what it’s like to live like that, Leesha. The Painted Man saved my life, and if he doesn’t want his name out, I mean to forget I know it, even if it means giving up the song of the century.”
“You can’t just forget things you’ve learned,” Leesha said.
“Not all of us have as much space upstairs as you,” Rojer said, tapping his temple. “Some of us fill right up, and forget the old things we have no use for.”
“That’s nonsense,” Leesha said. Rojer shrugged.
“Anyway, thank you again,” Leesha said. “I’ve no end of men volunteering to stand in front of demons for me, but not one who’ll stand in front of my mother.”
“Reckon Gared Cutter would do both,” Rojer said.
Leesha snorted. “He’s as much my mother’s creature as any. Gared destroyed my life, and she wants me to forgive him and make him babies still, as if him taking so well to demon killing somehow makes him a catch worth having. She’s nothing but a manipulative witch, poisoning everyone around her.”
“Bah!” Rojer said. “She’s not so bad. Understand her, and you can play her like a fiddle.”
“You’re underestimating her,” Leesha said. “Men see her beauty and refuse to look past it. You may think it’s you doing the charming, but in truth she’ll be seducing you like she does every man, turning them against me.”
“That’s tampweed talk,” Rojer said. “Elona isn’t some corespawned genius bent on destroying your life.”
“You just don’t know her well enough,” Leesha said.
Rojer shook his head. “Arrick taught me all about women, and he said the ones like your mum, who were really beautiful once but are starting to show their age, are all the same. Elona was always the center of attention when she was young, and that’s the only way she knows how to interact with the world. You and your father have long conversations about warding that she’s no part of, and it makes her starve to be noticed, any way she can. Make her think she’s the center of attention, even if she’s not, and she’ll eat out of your hand.”
Leesha looked at him a moment, then barked a laugh. “Your master didn’t know a thing about women.”
“He sure seemed to,” Rojer replied, “considering how adept he was at bedding them.”
Leesha raised an eyebrow at him. “And how many has his apprentice bedded using these brilliant techniques?”
Rojer smiled. “Kissing tales aren’t the kind I spin, but a Milnese sun says they work on your mum.”
“Taken,” Leesha said.
“So the merchant tells Arrick, ‘I paid you to teach my wife to dance!’ ” Rojer said, “and Arrick, calm as dawn, looks at him and says, ‘I did. Ent my fault she preferred to do it lying down.’ ”
Elona burst out laughing, sloshing wine from her cup as she banged it on the table. Rojer joined her, and they clapped their cups together and drank.
Leesha scowled at them from the other end of the table where she and her father were talking. She honestly didn’t know which she dreaded more: winning the bet with Rojer, or losing it. Perhaps bringing him was a bad idea. The bawdy stories were bad enough, but worse was the way Rojer’s eyes kept flicking to her mother’s cleavage, though she could hardly blame him, the way Elona had it on display.
The plates had long since been cleared. Erny sat leafing through the book Leesha had brought him, his eyes tiny behind the thin, wire-framed glasses that never seemed to leave the edge of his nose. Finally, he grunted and set it aside for later, gesturing at the stack of bound leather books in front of Leesha.
“Only had time to make a few more,” he said. “You fill them faster than I can bind.”
“Blame my apprentices,” Leesha said, fetching the teakettle from the fire. “They make three copies for every book I fill.”
“Still,” Erny said. “I only had one grimoire of wards my entire life, and never filled it. How many is this you’ve made now? A dozen?”
“Seventeen,” Leesha said, “but it’s as much demonology as wards, and more comes from the Painted Man than me. Just copying the wards on his skin filled several books.”
“Oh?” Elona asked, looking up. “And how much of his skin have you seen?”
“Mother!” Leesha cried.
“Creator knows, I’m not judging,” Elona said. “You could do worse than bear the Deliverer’s child, even if he’s a horror to look at. But you’d best get to it, if that’s your plan. Plenty younger and more fertile than you will soon be vying for the privilege.”
“He’s not the Deliverer, Mum,” Leesha said.
“That’s not how everyone else tells,” Elona said. “Even Gared worships him.”
“Oh, and if Gared Cutter thinks something, it must be right,” Leesha said rolling her eyes.
Rojer whispered something in Elona’s ear, and she laughed again, turning her attention back to him. Leesha blew out a sigh of relief.