The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [39]
Name of the Sun was a glaring statue with a face of uniform tones. “All right, Nahid,” she said. “What the fuck. You’re just going to sit there in a trance” —with perfect fingers she pushed to one side the greasy leaf that had wrapped her food—“I’m going home.”
Remnants of meat crawled with tiny insects. Nahid tried very hard not to be afraid but this took considerable effort. Name of the Sun’s half-pint glass (with which they had initially used to toast) stood full. His own empty glass, along with several other empties, were stoic monuments. But to what? The future? For Nahid, it was impossible to conjure his future self, waking up in alleys, alone, going by himself to the ostracon, averting his eyes from every hemo he saw, cleaning up their shit.
He curled his lip. Why did he get involved with this girl? Smart, unmarked. Sanctimonious. He should have remained celibate or found a nice kholic. With his teeth exposed in a grimace and his heart skipping beats, he wondered if he would continue to get even higher or if this bud would start to level off soon. Terrified, he leaned back in his chair.
Hangman’s Alley thronged. The activity seemed to suddenly snap into place, vibrant and vital and loud. Vendors stood at booths, either side, trying to draw the attention of potential customers. No one paid much notice to the couple—the kholic and the hemo—sitting there, tiny among the looming structures, wreathed in grey fog. Mostly a forgiving place, backing onto the ostracon, Hangman’s Alley was a refuge not only for melancholics but for outcasts and criminals and deviants of all sorts. Local barkers had interest in getting passers-by to stop, purchase their cakes or cheeses or useless trinkets, and passers-by wanted to continue on, anonymous.
Beyond a nearby wall, someone began to kill a goat; the scream of the animal rose above the din of the city and Nahid smelled fresh blood spilling. He also smelled shit that the animal released upon death. He breathed his lungs full. “I’m thinking about last night. I’m thinking about the chatelaine’s face when she woke up.” Bands of steel winched tight in his lungs. “No one cares any more. The chatelaine is a disaster. The whole city is. You saw her, flailing away? How could we just walk in like that? To the chatelaine’s chambers. With no one stopping us.”
“What are you talking about? Would you rather go back to a time when I would get lashed for sitting here with you? Anywhere in Nowy Solum, let alone a place like this. And if they knew we had slept together? I’d be kicked out of the city. Or maybe drowned in the Crane. You would be dismembered.”
His fists clenched under the table. “You know, I’ve fucked other hemos before. You’re not the first.”
There was a moment of terrible silence.
“You’re such an ass,” she said. “I don’t care about any of that shit. For fuck’s sake, Nahid, tell me what we did, exactly? What did we accomplish? I’m tired. I’m going home.”
“You said that already.”
“Why are you being like this? What’s your problem?”
“Me? It was you all excited about the idea of going into Jesthe. You approached me in the first place! Don’t tell me you weren’t excited to go into the palace.”
“It was juvenile. I don’t know how you convinced me to go along with that. And anyhow, we went in there? Me and you? That’s not how I remember it.”
Then he understood. She thought he was a coward. He bridled. “I couldn’t go into that room. You know that.”
“Why not?”
“There are limits.”
“Can’t you even look me in the eye?’
He did, for a full second, but her request made him furious. “You don’t know anything about me. About any kholic. We’re not just tattooed versions of you. We can’t do the same things and we don’t fucking want to! We’re not the same.”
Name of the Sun sneered and managed to look both gorgeous and utterly out of reach at the same time. Her hair, messy and heavy with oils, hung before her face.
“You know,” he continued, “there’s always