The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [143]
My eyes strayed up to a balcony not much above my head. There stood a woman, how old I could not say, though she was red-haired and older than I, wearing only a thin cotton shift so sheer that I could see every line of her body and even the dark nipples of her breasts.
“…two young gents…”
I swallowed. No wonder Bostric had flushed.
He didn’t look at me, but his steps flagged, and he halted. “Here. The street of…ladies…”
“Street of harlots, young fellow…we know what we are.”
I didn’t see the woman whose hard voice made the statement, since my eyes, in turning from the redhead on the balcony, had fallen across a blond woman wearing nothing but a robe, unbelted enough to show small high breasts quite fully and that she was a blond in all aspects, and that those aspects were all well-formed.
I think I forgot to breathe; my eyes blurred, and in shaking my head I looked down the way where a brunette, wearing only a filmy skirt, was drawing the man in blue silk inside a doorway.
In the open and unglassed window of a house closer than where the brunette had enticed the dandy lounged another semi-clothed woman, this one with impossibly-formed breasts, also uncovered, and with the tiniest of waists.
“Your pleasure here, young fellows…two or more, if you wish…” That voice came from the left, where my eyes flickered almost despite themselves, alighting on the low balcony opposite the redhead. This one was black-haired, with long flowing tresses that swirled over the creamy skin of her otherwise uncovered breasts and shoulders.
I swallowed again, feeling my trousers suddenly far too tight, as I viewed that hair across the impossibly beckoning breasts of the raven-haired harlot.
Bostric…he wasn’t as silent as I was…his breath so loud that it penetrated my daze…partly.
“…one of the woodcrafters…I think…”
The identification was so whispery I almost missed it, but the words sent a chill across my neck, enough of a chill that I sent my feelings toward the black-haired wench.
“Ohhh.” The heavy and squat woman beneath the illusion radiated not only chaos, but a coiled illness deep within, like an ooze-green serpent. My senses shifted to the redhead above and caught not only her scrawny leanness, but the long knife along one hip, and the vacant smile. What my eyes saw, my senses refuted. My guts twisted, and I had to re-swallow bile and whatever else remained from breakfast.
Underfoot, the polished marble turned into rutted and cracked stone and clay, littered with certain items from the interiors of sheep, as well as other items. The odor of flowers was overlaid with other, less desirable odors.
Bostric stood like a statue until I jabbed him in the ribs and took him by the elbow.
We both stumbled out into the avenue, though he merely looked dazed. If I looked the way I felt, morning fog would have looked more substantial.
“See…” Bostric said. “See…”
I said nothing, just forced my feet to carry me toward the market square, breathing deeply and trying to get the odor of rotten roses out of my nostrils and my memory. Shaking my head and squinting, and asking myself who had recognized me…and why.
I shivered, and reached out again, this time to Bostric, recognizing the slender thread of suggestion planted upon him.
While it would have been the effort of an instant to snap that thread, despite the ugliness of that tie, I could not. So I infused Bostric with some additional order and let him shake himself free.
“Wheee…ewww…”
“Yes,” I added. “Let’s see about that cloth.”
“Cloth? You can think about cloth after that?”
“It’s a great deal safer.” I tried to keep my tone wry.
“Safer?” Bostric’s eyes flashed in my direction. “Lerris…?”
I knew what he was thinking. “Yes.” My voice was tired. “I do like women. Healthy, young, and unmagicked women.”
“Unmagicked?”
I ignored his last question as we walked past another half-living guard stationed by the gate to