A Scoundrel's Song

7

The wagon rattled on, down the trail until they reached the road that led southward, but Niico remained on top of the roof, laid down and staring back they way they came. They had let them go with far too much ease. The 'sisters'. He never trusted people that called other, unrelated, people 'sisters' or 'brothers'. It sounded too much like cult behaviour and, if Niico had never learned anything in his life, he had learned to avoid cults. They tended toward violence over talking. Or talking that led to violence. Or violence that led to talking which, in turn, led to more violence.

"Can I get dressed now?" The plaintive voice drifted up from the inside of the wagon and Niico felt tempted to deny the request. "Only, I don't want to be naked when we let the man and the boy out of hiding."

"You can dress, pleasure boy." Pel always spoiled Niico's fun, easing the wagon along the road with practised ease. "But the others must stay hidden a little while longer."

Old Filario had used this wagon many times over the years. A smuggler by trade, the old man had carried many a discrete package beneath the floor of the wagon, but, in his advancing years, had moved toward more legal methods of making money. The favour he had owed to Pelenia had furnished them with the perfect method of transporting Akafa and Herit and it had also rid him of something that could have pointed toward his old, nefarious career.

Only large enough for Akafa and Herit to lay, side-by-side, beneath the floor of the wagon, the smuggler's hole would not make the most comfortable of hiding places, but Niico didn't doubt Akafa would suffer the indignity in silence. The boy had surprised Niico, however. Keeping him silent so far had proven difficult, with his probing, innocent questions that drew stuttered explanations for things a child his age should not know. Not for a few years, at least.

"Whatever made you think of having Antioni naked in the back?" Niico shuffled around on the roof, the horse whip still gripped in his hand. He still didn't want to leave his prime observation spot. "I'm not complaining, mind you. The more a man like him is naked the better, as far as I'm concerned."

"I heard a rumour that the Sisters of the Lady of Bearing were the ones looking for our two friends." Pel clicked her tongue, cracking the reins on the war horse's flanks, urging the creature up a rise. "Considering what goes on in their temples, they are known prudes. Especially where men are concerned. Women are beautiful, divine almost, while men are, to put it mildly, filthy and useful for only one thing."

"Wars. Of course." She couldn't see, but he gave a wise, knowing nod. Wars tended to keep most men occupied. He frowned as he thought about her words. "What goes on in their temples?"

"The Lady of Bearing? Diaste Kha? Patron of Fertility? Don't you know anything?" Pel took her eyes off the road ahead for a second to see Niico shrug. If it didn't involve earning coin, it wasn't worth knowing. "People go to the temple to receive the boon of fertility. To do that, they have to fornicate with a sister or a brother. It's just a more acceptable form of prostitution, if you ask me."

"There's nothing wrong with prostitution! It's a perfectly reasonable service that I may, or may not, have participated in in my younger days." Again, Pel looked to him. He never said he had told her everything about his life. "It was a way of earning a lot of coin for doing something I enjoy. I had to stop, though. Too many men begging me to allow them to rescue me from a depravity that I didn't need rescuing from."

Now Pelenia shook her head, returning to watch the road. Niico had had enough of laying atop of the wagon. He hadn't seen anybody following them. Not on foot or horseback. If these 'Sisters of the Lady of Bearing' were following them, they were brilliant at it and he stood no chance of seeing them. With care, he lowered himself back to the seat beside Pel.