The Multitude, стр. 33

The man sneered. “Hasn’t the king enough whores of his own?”

They locked eyes. A crow squawked somewhere in the distance. Gusts of wind sent a tumbleweed rolling up against the stone fountain. Finally, the giant wavered. “Take the whore and leave.”

The woman rushed up from behind, grabbed Quintus’s free wrist, and whispered in his ear. “I’ll need my belongings.”

“You can buy new things in the next town.” He kept his eyes fixed on the giant. The battle could still shift if the others saw the opening and came to life.

“Please!” She pointed toward a makeshift tent some distance from the fountain.

The silly fool seemed bent on getting them killed, but he couldn’t disregard the urgency of her plea. Women had always been a great mystery to him. Every trinket in their possession served some vital if incomprehensible purpose.

“Let’s go.” He shoved his adversary forward, then raised his voice to a shout. “The rest of you can move on. I have more than one bullet left in this gun, in case you’re wondering.”

The three of them—Quintus, the woman, and a bear of a hostage—marched to the woman’s tent. The others scattered, but he didn’t trust them not to rally for an ambush. He gripped the pistol so tightly his hand ached.

The woman disappeared within the folds of her tent and came out a few moments later with far less than anyone should have bothered retrieving.

The monk laughed. “You sell your flesh for these simple things?”

“Shut up.” Quintus held his pistol to the man’s head and waited an eternity for the woman to stash her things into a pack, fold the cloth tent, and stuff it in with the rest. Then he backed with her to his horse and got out of town as fast as he could.

After two miles riding behind him in silence, the woman eased her clenched grip around his waist. “My name is Adala.”

“Quintus.”

“I’ve dodged death before.”

He doubted she had. Her voice still trembled.

“But never through the courage of so handsome a soldier.”

He cringed at the compliment—most likely the opening gambit of a gypsy’s campaign to get her fingers into the money pouch at his hip.

“I can repay you for saving me.” She slid a soft hand from his neck down into his shirt, tightening her other arm around his waist to stay steady on the horse.

He refused to be stirred. “Have you considered a worthier occupation?”

“Don’t be like those monks.”

“I’m nothing like them.”

“You assume the worst of me, just as they did.”

“Tell me the best.”

“I sing, I serve wine, and I sketch. Which would you prefer?”

“Let’s be honest with each other, Adala.” The all-important belongings she’d retrieved from her tent consisted of no more than a pitcher, a sketch pad, some charcoal, and three pencils—hardly as marketable as the charms beneath her dress.

Adala turned stony silent until they reached a fork in the road. “I’m heading south,” she announced.

She’d almost been killed earlier when trying to fend on her own. Quintus arrived at the same decision he’d made in the town. Every woman deserves a champion, no matter her station. “The capital is two days east. You can sing to me and pour wine from your empty pitcher to pay your fare.”

She scrambled off the horse. “I’ve been to the capital.”

“Suit yourself. The town of Portus lies two miles south. Go pitch a tent and sell your charms.”

She glared at him. “There’s a brook nearby. Do you hear it?”

“What if there is? My canteen is full.”

“Is it filled with wine?” Adala turned on her heel and strode toward a row of low bushes.

Women and their mysteries. He dismounted and followed her.

They came upon a shallow creek snaking a bubbling path around scrub brush and scattered rocks. Adala knelt on its bank. She filled her pitcher and held it up with both hands. “Drink and doubt me no longer.”

Quintus noticed a butterfly tattoo on the underside of her wrist. The marking stirred a vague memory he couldn’t place. He’d seen this image on another woman’s neck, hadn’t he?

“Drink!”

He accepted her offering, but an inexplicable whiff of wine stopped him short before he brought the pitcher to his lips. The liquid inside was far too golden to have come from the stream. “What manner of sorcery is this?”

“A superstitious man would call it witchcraft, and a religious man the hand of God.”

He set the pitcher on the ground beside her. “I’ve seen these tricks. You spiked the water with powder from a vial.”

Adala stood, lifted her head, and laughed at the burning sky. She planted her feet wider, raised her arms. “Search me for the empty vial.”

“Save the chamber games for your customers.”

Adala was on him in an instant, slapping him hard enough to ring his ears. “Save the insults for your whores.” The fury in her eyes said he’d misjudged her from the beginning.

Both of his cheeks burned although she’d struck only one. “I apologize.”

“No need.” Adala rummaged through her pack and pulled out the sketch pad he’d seen earlier. She tossed it to him. “Behold the mistress who turned me into a whore for a single night.”

He flipped through the drawings but found nothing notable—landscapes, flora, a few sketches of men and women.

“Are you familiar with the bridal pool in the capital?” she asked.

“Who isn’t? The sale of slaves fills the king’s coffers.”

“Do you know how harshly these women are treated before they’re sold?”

He clenched his fists. He’d been powerless to stop the ruthless debaucheries of his brother’s rule. “Where are you going with this?”

“Keep turning the pages.”

He flipped one more and froze at the sketch of a woman he’d seen before. But where? An overpowering sense of déjà vu buckled his knees.

“Her name is Maynya,” Adala said.

No. He knew the maiden by another name.

But how could the recent, intoxicating companion in his endless series of midnight dreams be real?

“She’d been suspected of helping other brides escape,” Adala said. “So they put her in the stocks for a day and a night without food or water.”

The