“I’m glad you understand,” I mumble.
“So you come back. When you’ve finished with him.”
Lifting some of my cloak up, I lean in. “Do you not know what this is?”
“Of course I do. It’s a Pox cloak.”
Measuring the power of his body, and his long, flowing hair, I shake my head and think of the way Sallae Mae and the other women stared at him with hunger that hadn’t been faked for effect.
“Whyever would someone such as yourself pay for something… like me.”
His nostrils flare as he breathes deeply, and when he closes his eyes, his head falls back a little, as if he’s savoring something. “Meadow flowers. Sunshine. And… a fresh, mineral spring in a basin of crystal stones.”
He relevels his face, and his voice is something altogether different now. It caresses me: “You smell of a freedom I once had, a long time ago. How could you not be beautiful.”
Before I can respond, he extends his hand. The copper piece he put on the table downstairs is in the center of it. “Take this. And come back.”
In the pause that follows, the loneliness that’s always defined me mixes with a need I’ve never felt before. I’m a virgin, utterly untouched, and up until now, my spinsterhood has always been the least of my concerns. Standing with this stranger? I suddenly find myself wondering what the sexual act is like.
And I decide that just once, I might want to share my body, especially with him—
“No,” I say sharply. “I’m not coming back here.”
“Why?”
I blurt, “I don’t know you.”
“You can call me Merc.” He bows. “And you are…?”
“As in mercenary?” And no, I don’t want to know what he’s called. He’s already too close, no matter the physical distance between our bodies. “Your name is your job?”
“Precisely. So what does that make yours?”
“I am Sorrel.” I lift my chin even though my face is hidden under my hooding. “That’s my name.”
His voice softens again, and I feel the syllables he speaks flowing over my skin. “Like the horses that run wild and free by the ocean.”
My eyes flare wide. “What…?”
“I have been to all the corners of Anathos. And some places no one should go. The most beautiful sight ever I saw was of the coastline where the wild horses hoof over the surf, and the ocean spray becomes their mane and tail.”
My dream. The one I have told no one about.
Abruptly, my head aches, and for reasons I’ll wonder of later, I stammer, “Sometimes I have visions in the night of horses that run on the beach… theirhooves pound through the surf and their manes tickle my face while we race along the ocean’s edge…”
He holds the aged penny between his thumb and forefinger, the stub of his pinkie cocked. “They have no black upon their coat, nor white. They are pure copper, and when the sun shines upon them, they gleam as this coin did when newly forged.”
And then he speaks my name: “Sorrel.”
When I refocus, he’s right in front of me, having moved without sound. I want to meet his eyes so badly I shake, but I keep my stare locked on his throat.
“Take this.” He presses the copper into my palm and curls my fingers into a fist. “For your services down below. We will see about what comes later.”
As I unfurl what he’s wrapped tightly around the coin, I’m confused. It was tarnished, but now the metal gleams as if freshly minted… exactly like the coats of those horses I visit in my dreams, and struggle to recall during my waking hours.
“What magic is this,” I whisper.
“There is no magic.”
