“Alright, now you’re just wrong. In a purely objective sense, you are wrong.” I took another long swallow, nearly choking on its potency. “The, ah,” I coughed, “the thread count, of his tunics? I heard it was so high, they felt like air.”
“He—”
“The finest fabrics, the finest dyes!”
Gareth watched me upend my drink, overspill trickling from my mouth. “You alright there, miss?”
I slammed my mug down and stared into its empty depths. “I heard his clothes were stitched by blind monks. Who’d gone blind while embroidering. Because they were so good at it, and therefore so in demand. I heard all that.”
“That seems . . .” His brows sank with the effort of thinking. “Bad?”
“No.” I gestured for another mug, my arm whacking a passerby. “Sorry. No, no they love to embroider. It would be cruel to stop them. They”—I hiccuped—“they need it. They need to embroider.”
He scratched at his beard and grimaced. “Let’s talk about something else.” Wood screeched as he slid his chair closer to mine. Had I briefly hoped the sound was a construct?
Gareth’s plump upper lip rose in a leer. He had spittle on his beard, I noted, as a thick arm wrapped around my shoulder. Ah, this was what I’d done to Glenda . . . poor Glenda.
“Listen.” His stinking breath steamed in my ear. “We’ve gotten to know each other, had a few drinks. Why don’t you touch my beard now.”
I toyed with my empty mug, thinking. I’d badly miscalculated this entire interaction. If Gareth was the sort to meet rejection with violence, there might not be a clear way out. I had been in situations like this before, and it was not unsurvivable . . . momentary discomfort passed, memories faded. Even so.
“I think I’ve drunk too much,” I said truthfully. “I’m sorry, but I’d like to leave.”
“A deal’s a deal,” the knight rumbled, and the arm around my shoulders tightened, pulling me in like a hooked fish. His red-cheeked face descended on mine, lips parted, and—
“Excuse me,” came a stiff, haughty voice. “That happens to be my . . . my sister.”
The scrawny sorcerer looked ridiculous in the dim bar, with his silver buttons and stupid hat.
I jumped to my feet, Gareth’s arm unwinding from my shoulders like a slain python, and eagerly skipped over to the mad sorcerer. We had the attention of other bar patrons now, all wet glowers and snickers.
“Alright, brother, time to leave.” I grabbed at his arm, clumsy from the drink, and pulled urgently. “I’ll uh, touch your beard another time,” I shot at Gareth, who responded by upending his mug and draining it in one gulp. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
After the stagnant warmth of the tavern, the cool dusk air was a balm on my skin. Merulo glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, marching us away at a hurried pace. “Is that what your best behaviour looks like? Drinking with—with scoundrels? In abar?”
We’d only gone a few feet when it all caught up to me. Tears and snot cascaded down my face, dripping to dampen the front of my new dress. “I-I j-just wanted a pretzel,” I said between sobs.
“Must you always choose safety second to the pursuit of baked goods?” The sorcerer guided me to a grassy incline and motioned for me to sit. “Did he hurt you?”
It was the same place I’d seen the knights lounging before, a gentle slope that culminated in the rising stone fingers of church spires. Evidently it had rained again while I was in the pub; the damp grass chilled me through my dress.
“Why do you care? You hurt me all the time,” I said,wiping gobs of snot from my face. “Don’t act like it’s different because I’m a woman.”
“If you’re uninjured, then tell me what’s wrong.”
Behind the sorcerer’s head, the sun was setting, as if too embarrassed to stick around for what I had to say. “I’m, I’m . . .” I couldn’t get the words out, breath heaving in my throat. “I’m unpopular.”
“Is that it?” At my renewed wails, Merulo flinched and knelt before me in the wet grass. “Listen . . .” The sorcerer gripped my shoulders, and I blinked up at him tearfully. “Listen. Of course you are. Cameron, you are extremely annoying.”
Surprise knocked the tears out of me. As the sorcerer smiled—was that meant to be in reassurance?—I closed the distance between us and pressed my mouth to his. Merulo tensed, but didn’t immediately pull away. For a moment his face softened beneath mine.
“This is extremely odd,” he said, the nearness of his words tickling my cheeks. “And you are intoxicated. And possibly a masochist.”
“Shut up,” I growled, and pulled him down so that we sprawled in the grass. One hand clenched in his oily hair, my other guided his grip to my chest. His mouth moved frantically against mine with all the hunger of a lonely sorcerer virgin, and something hard pressed against my leg.
Alas, our writhing was not to be. “So thish ish how it ish?” a bellowing voice slurred from above. “Couldn’t find yoursh own womensh? And yoursh ownshishter?”
Swearing, Merulo made to push himself off me, and was assisted by meaty hands gripping the back of his coat. The sorcerer was half thrown and half fell down the incline,where two of the knights who had previously been lounging with Gareth waited.
