Menagerie - Martin Day [5]
'Clear off!' shouted one woman, a doll-like white mask cracking into a grimace. 'We'd trust you this far,' she said, spitting towards his feet.
Defrabax replaced his hat. 'Times must be good for you, ladies. When I was young, whores were not so choosy.' He turned his eyes from them, and continued his walk towards the castle.
Cosmae pushed open the keyhole-shaped door and pressed a crude switch. The room was instantly bathed with a yellowish glow, and his companion gasped in surprise.
'Come in,' said Cosmae proudly.
The girl followed him with some degree of hesitancy.
Only when she was safely within the main room of the shabby little house did she liberate her long brown hair from the rough confines of the grey hood. She looked around.
'Electrical lighting . . .' she said in wonder.
'Only in this room,' admitted Cosmae. 'And only for special occasions, or when my master wishes to read late into the night.'
'Your master is richer than any mystic I have known,'
commented the girl.
'Well, he is cleverer than the others, that I'll grant you.' A broad, uninhibited smile broke across the young man's features. 'I might never be as wise as my master, but I am twice as devious.'
'And you are sure he will not return for some time?'
Cosmae pulled curtains across the room's few windows.
'Have you ever heard of the Knights of Kuabris dismissing someone in minutes?'
The girl shivered. 'He has been summoned to the knights?'
Cosmae nodded, feigning nonchalance. 'So he said.'
'Then he might not return at all,' stated the girl slowly.
'Well, that'll give us more time together, eh?' The boy's eyes glistened.
The girl, still clinging tightly to her hooded robe, strode up and down the room, inspecting its contents slowly. The bowed walls were dotted with cheaply-framed etchings and esoteric charts. She saw that some were of the pathways of the celestial bodies, and some seemed to detail the inner workings of creatures. What furniture there was — a thin table, ample chairs of frayed leather, a couple of footstools
— was covered with dirty plates, strange objects and sheaves of old paper.
The pale light in the ceiling coloured everything with a gentle, hazy luminescence. A moth circled the lamp at dizzying speed. A strange smell hung in the air. It reminded her of the smell of the men that came to take her father's corpse away. It was a falsely-clean smell, a pungent attempt to cover something up.
She tried to suppress another shiver as she turned back to the young man. She'd learnt long ago not to let anything bother her.
'I'm glad you sought me again,' she said. Her full lips glistened in the dappled light, and Cosmae's gaze was drawn to them like a doomed insect.
'I'm pleased you remembered me,' he heard himself saying as if from afar.
'You're gentle,' said the girl simply. 'I always remember that in a man.'
Cosmae sank into one of the grandly-comfortable chairs, still watching the woman closely. 'I've not been able to get you out of my mind,' he suddenly blurted out.
The girl, staring at a complex diagram of interlaced lines and irregular boxes, snorted in derision, but then caught a glimpse of the boy's pale, intense face and regretted her scorn. She stared down at the table while she spoke. '
'Twould be better for you to forget. And there are plenty more like me. My sister fared no better after my father's death.'
'I haven't been with anyone since my first night with you.'
The girl blinked, and a forced rigidity bound her face.
'Scant money?' she asked as cruelly as she could.
'No!' exclaimed Cosmae angrily. 'I've been looking for you.'
'I've been busy,' she said, turning the pages of a small book.
'I want to —'
She turned round and fixed his flushed face with a resolute stare. 'Listen to me,' she said firmly. 'Just for a moment. I do not care what you think of me. You have some money, and I need it. That's all I want from you.'
The young man looked so crestfallen that for a moment she thought