5. The Wedding NightHair tied back, nose wrinkled against the stench, Mika wrings his rag out over the bucket and wipes a smear of feces from the inside of his father's thigh. The old man's shit was half-dissolved in his own urine when Mika and Patu noticed the smell coming from his room; it trickles like watery ink over his skin. He hasn't been this bad in months, normally even at his worst he can heave himself off his pallet long enough to open his bowels in a chamber pot. Now he can't even raise a hand to do Mika's filthy work for himself. The great tailor of Iyan-Aisa, reduced a pathetic lump of shit-smeared meat crying clots of mucus into his beard, soft sussurations of I'm sorry, I'm sorry issuing from his throat like swarm of oozing caterpilrs.

  You should be helping me right now, you disgusting pig. We could have finished Sir Kiran's suit this morning.

  Patu is on the other side of the room, the ruined bedsheets in a sulfur-smelling heap beside her, cursing as she hacks bits of stool-soaked straw from the pallet. His father moans again, and for an instant Mika imagines grabbing Patu's knife and ramming it into his father's head at the temple, his eye popping from its socket and the hot soft suet of his brain spilling into Mika's hands in a spray of blood and encephalic slime. The st mess you'd ever make for us. Did you make mother do this? Did you make her clean you like a baby?

  Instead he closes his eyes, fights back tears. The smell overwhelms him. With a gentle murmur he pushes his father onto his back and drags the rag, reeking of shit and the st soap they own, along his father's taint and up through the cleft of his nk, filthy buttocks.

  The bedding takes another hour. Mika and Patu scrub the brown smears with soap until she finally tells him, hoarse with stifled rage, to give up, and they stuff the cloth into the big wash basin behind the house and pour water and lime over it and leave it to soak overnight.

  Inside, hands scrubbed so raw and pink they're almost bleeding, they climb the stairs to their room, where Mika sits cross-legged on the floor and takes up sir Kiran's suit again. It was supposed to be ready this morning; the page looked like he'd kill them when Mika asked for more time. The morning of the wedding day—it will be ready then.

  The wedding day's tomorrow. The jacket's almost finished; he just needs to close up the right arm and bring in the sides. He takes a sip of the tea his sister made him—cold since they had to stop and clean their father up—and squints to thread the needle in the candlelight.

  "You know this is a joke, don't you?"

  Patu stands over him, arms across her chest.

  "Go to bed, Patu," says Mika.

  She ignores him. "You know it's a joke."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Sir Kiran asking you to do this!" Patu shouts. "If he really cared so much about his suit, he'd have had this done before he left Makara. He'd have gotten a new suit made for him! But he doesn't care. He's only marrying Lady Ersu because of where she lives. And you're not even doing that much to it! I'll bet you only have to change it just a little."

  Mika pushes the needle through the damask, careful to keep the line of stitches straight.

  "I don't have enough time for it, but—it's not that much work, no."

  "Exactly. It's a silly task. It's make-work. Yet he wants to overpay you for it."

  Mika finally stops sewing. He sets down the jacket and takes another sip of tea. It dries his throat and sets his stomach churning, but the smokey, pine-needle smell is good after his father's stink. His father always kept tea bricks for when they worked long nights; he thought Patu had traded all of them for millet months ago.

  "Why are you asking me about this, Patu?"

  "Because he wants something from you," Patu says. "More than this suit, I mean. He wants—he wants you, Mika. The suit is just an excuse."

  Mika looks down at the jacket in front of him, the fine redpurple silk, the sshed sleeves.

  "He's getting married," he says.

  "His marriage is just for show, too."

  "His money isn't. We need it. If he—if he wants—"

  He trails off. He suddenly wants to cry. He can't bring himself to tell Patu the thing they both know, that he wants it too, that he wants it more than anything, that he has to tell himself not to get his hopes up, not to think about it, because he wants it so badly that it scares him.

  "I've promised him my work," he says, finally. "I'm going to keep my promise."

  "Bugger your promise," says Patu. She sits down beside him, takes his hand as he tries to reach for the jacket. "Come live with me," she says. "Leave the suit, let father finish it and let sir Kiran cut his sick, stupid head off if he can't. You won't ever have to do any work, ever again. The only clothes you'll ever need to sew will be ours."

  "Dame Ro won't let me live with you."

  "She will! I'll persuade her."

  "Then give me your other dress."

  She stares at him. He forces himself to meet her eyes as she pulls away.

  "Mama's dress is gone. I want another one."

  "Mika—"

  "Will Dame Ro let me wear it? Will she let me make one of my own? Will she let me keep my hair long?"

  "Mika, stop it. You're too old for this. I shouldn't have encouraged you—"

  "Encouraged me? You told me you'd teach me how to wash my hair like a girl would, if I could make your cramps go away!"

  "I didn't make you touch me. That was your choice."

  Mika's face fills with blood. He clutches his head in his hands.

  "Leave me," he says. "Take the bnkets and go sleep in the hall."

  "Mika—"

  "Get out of here!" he shouts, and his voice breaks as he does, colpsing from a boy's nervous cry into a deep, ugly sound, a coarse hairy thing bursting like the nightmare woman from his abraded throat. "Get out!"

  Patu recoils. She springs back so fast the hem of her dress almost sweeps into the tall fme of the candle—she yanks it back with a cry of arm. Mika stares at her, at the hurt in her face and the terror beneath it, the wide frightened eyes of a woman who isn't looking at a boy anymore. He catches a sob in his throat, hating her again, anew, for seeing him like this. He grabs the tea bowl from beside him and hurls it at her head, tea spttering across the door as it shatters on the lintel.

  "I'm the one who feeds us now," he says. "Not father, not you. If you want to sleep here then you can go make me some tea, you whore."

  Patu's eyes are full of tears. She holds his gaze a moment longer and in that moment all Mika wants to do is die. He wants to get up and throw himself at her feet and kiss the grimy splitting skin of her callused heels and suck the pus from her ingrown toenail, he wants to beg her to hurt him, beg her to hit him beat him choke him piss in my open mouth anything please Patu please—

  Patu sms the door behind her as she leaves. As soon as she's gone Mika cps his hands to his mouth, teeth gouging the heel of his hand as he forces himself not to scream.

  He loosens his breeches and shoves them down to his knees. Underneath, his legs are thin and bony, fine dark hair covering the scars of his thighs. He takes the needle from sir Kiran's jacket and sights it just above an old burn-scar and rams it through his skin, the blunt end digging into the bed of his thumb as he pushes it through the fat, hurting his hand as much as his thigh. With a sp he buries it completely, nothing showing but a bead of blood. Below it, two bck dots mark the st pins he buried in himself. Sharp pain fading to a more familiar ache.

  Hands shaking, he threads a new needle, slicking the fibers with tallow to keep them from unraveling against the eye. Soon the right sleeve is finished. With a few flicks of his hook he opens the lining at jacket's hem and reaches up inside to the shoulder, pulling it inside out until the side seam appears as a crumpled fabric flower blossoming from the inverted jacket. He's already taken the pins off the outside; he begins to mark the inside with a slip of chalk, carefully measuring out from the original seam with a ribbon twisted between two fingers. Sir Kiran's father must have been much fuller in the ribs than his son—he will need to bring the sides in more than an inch.

  The lining almost tears when he finally turns the jacket out again. He bites his tongue to keep from screaming. Patu left an iron for him on the brazier in their room; he takes it now, checks the temperature with a scrap of leather wound around his thumb, and carefully fttens the new seam inside the jacket. He raises the cpper, striking decisively below the shoulder. Then, hands steady, forcing himself not the sky begin to brighten, he opens the jacket lining at the back right hem, and begins to bring in the right side.

  *

  The dress is perfect. Maroon brocade with a square neckline, a gold and white chemise underneath. The skirt is open at the front, exposing the embroidery of his kirtle. He steps forward and back, tiny mincing steps, and twirls, giggling as the skirt swirls around his skinny legs in the multicolored light of the castle's sor. He keeps giggling as he spirals in front of sir Kiran, fingers lifted modestly to his lips. The knight smiles.

  "The maiden fair," he says. "Do you like it?"

  "Yes." Mika says. "Yes, yes."

  "You want to keep it?"

  "Yes."

  "Show me how fair you are then."

  The oily reek of his father's shit drifts up from the floorboards of the tailor shop's fitting room. He wonders how it got in here. Shame reddens his face as he bends over, as he stares at his hands on the floor—I must still have some under my fingernails. Behind him, sir Kiran's bare feet pat softly on the floor as he steps forward and spreads Mika's buttocks, pushing a fingertip against the puckered rose of his asshole.

  "Cough," he says. "Not so fair, it seems."

  Mika starts to cry. "I'm sorry," he blubbers, biting his tongue as sir Kiran shoves a finger inside him. "I didn't want to, the other boys, they made me—"

  "Lie down."

  Mika lies down in the snow. Still naked, but there are furs underneath to keep him warm. He writhes under sir Kiran, Mika's prick stiff as a spear between their bodies. Sir Kiran pins his wrists above his head. His lips caress Mika's ear, each word a tongue of fme against the helix.

  "I'm going to fix you."

  He kneels astride Mika in the snow, the heavy tailor's shears swinging open in his hand. He presses the point of one bde to the underside of Mika's penis, at the point where the bowstring meets the gns, and presses down, pushing the shaft against Mika's stomach.

  "Tell me you want it."

  Mika writhes against sir Kiran's body, fighting for impossible release. It hurts to be this hard, and the sight of it, the fat, ugly worm between them, makes him want to puke. He's afraid of how much it hurts, afraid how much worse the pain will get. But he needs it. He needs it more than he will ever need anything and the shame of his need wells in his throat until it bursts out of him in an ugly, choking sob, his voice nasal and and ragged and horribly deep.

  "I let them," he groans, but even the shame of admission won't soften him. "I let the other boys—I didn't fight—"

  "You can be good again," sir Kiran says. "You poor thing. Let me fix you. Let me make it better."

  His hand is on Mika's throat, pinning him to the fur. "Say it."

  The point of the shears digs deeper into Mika's skin. He wants to close his eyes, but he can't. He meets sir Kiran's gaze.

  "Make me good. Please."

  Blood sprays from the swollen vessels of Mika's cock, erupting onto sir Kiran's hand as he drags the bde of the shears down the shaft. Mika comes even as he does, a viscid white arc spttering over his stomach amid the shower of blood. Pain fres like lightning in his mind, blots out every thought as his mouth screams and sckens and sir Kiran leans down to thrust his tongue past Mika's lips.

  *

  "Mika? Get up, Mika. Please."

  For a moment he can't tell who is speaking. The voice is unfamiliar after so long; he almost can't believe the words. But there he is: his father, Karohyi Ilya, kneeling beside him on the floor, his beard neatly brushed, his filthy nightshirt changed for a long jacket of bck wool, and a shirt embroidered with red thread beneath it. Beyond him, Mika can see sir Kiran's jacket lying on the floor, the lining rumpled where he—

  His father grabs him by the shoulders as he lunges for the jacket, a sob bursting from his lips: "HisclothesIhavetoclothesthesewingthehavetofinishsewingtheclothes—

  "Mika, be calm. I finished it. Look—"

  He holds up the jacket. It's brought in perfectly. The holes in the lining, which he had forgotten to close, are invisibly sewn-up now, with loose, criss-crossing stitches that will shift with the knight's body.

  "It's good work," Karohyi Ilya says. "I'm grateful. Now we need to give this to Sir Kiran. He's downstairs. Here, let me fix your hair."

  Mika turns away from his father, keeps his head level as his father gathers his hair in his hands. He remembers wiping shit off his father's body mere hours ago, and he feels his anger rise again at the memory, but he doesn't pull away. His father's hands rest in his hair, one lock pinched and brushed between thumb and forefinger, and Mika almost tells him not to let go of it, to keep touching it, to comb it for him. Finally Karohyi Ilya gathers the hair tightly and ties it off with a piece of leather.

  Sir Kiran waits for them in the room below. When he tries on the suit the look of amusement on his face breaks into an open smile.

  "Excellent," he says, turning to Karohyi Ilya. "Your son has a good hand."

  "Thank you, my lord," Karohyi Ilya says, touching his brow.

  The knight presses a bulging purse into his hands.

  "You'll attend my wedding feast tonight," he says. "Both of you."

  Karohyi Ily stammers: "My lord, you're—too kind—we couldn't possibly—"

  "Nonsense," says sir Kiran. "What better way to repay you?"

  His eyes alight on Mika, lips twisted in a slight sneer.

  "Forgive me, but you both look famished."

  At the door he pauses, looking at his boots on the step below: "Mika, come help me with these."

  Mika doesn't hesitate. He steps down into the street and holds up the boots so sir Kiran can step into them, his ankles bulging and twisting through the leather. The knight smiles down at him.

  "You're better than my page is," he says.

  *

  They bring the mbs in living. Blood showers the Iyansenixi butcher's apron as she drags her knife through the throat of a milk-fed mb, six months old, and sptters on the fgstone floor of the great hall at House Ersu. From the righthand trestle Mika watches the Iyansenixi cut and carve, servant boys running to mount the spyed carcasses on metal spits above the many fires. A few flies buzz in the air as acrid, oily smoke coils up towards the ceiling. Outside, the sun is setting—long beams of red snt through stained gss windows onto the bloody floor.

  "Must we be made to watch this?" says the ban, seated on Mika's right.

  "You know how it is," says the woman on his left, a scribe. "A wedding needs a dy and a mb. Blood on the floor and blood on the bed. Though if it comes to a bedding, I reckon he'll come off worse, don't you?"

  The ban smirks, disgust and amusement flickering across his face. They ignore Mika, awkwardly pced between them. Servant boys bring them roast snipe for a first course while the fresh mb sears and spits over the fires. At the top of the hall, on the dais, sir Kiran and dy Ersu sit beneath tall windows, the dy's vast body wreathed in a heavy gown of silver-blue brocade, hands moving only to sip a little tea from her bowl, while her new husband pinches tiny morsels of tripe and slivered testicle from his pte. His suit is subdued, compared to what some of the other knights of the queen's army wear—jackets embroidered with golden wire, colrs bursting with ce—but there, under the window, the dark damask conforming to every curve and arc of his long, lean body, he is the most beautiful man Mika has ever seen. The evening light fshes on the garnets in his ears.

  He could have anyone, the way he looks. Why would he want me at all?

  Smoke thickens in the air, a fly buzzes around his head. As he tries to take a sip of his wine it falls into the drink, six legs thrashing helpless in the sour liquid. He pinches it out, flicks it away. He looks for his father again—finally back from the privy, taking his seat at the opposing trestle, beside the gzier's son, Lyen Ara. Lyen Ara's not so pretty anymore—his nose broken in a fight, a short beard curving along the broad sb of his jaw—but at the sight of him Mika has to look away, his eyes suddenly full of tears.

  The year he danced with Lyen Ara was the year a man from the woods had been coming into town to rape the daughters of farmers while their mothers and fathers were at work in the fields. The women of Iyan-Aisa kept their daughters locked up the night of the summer dance; some of their brothers wore dresses in their stead. He remembers helping Lyen Ara, so skittish and unsure of his own heavy limbs, daub blood and beeswax on his lips. He remembers how they walked to the dance, arm and arm, elder sister and younger, and how the men caught them by their hips and pulled them around like children's tops, like little wooden horses with rollers on their feet, and sent them spinning and whirling into the firelight. That soft, strong touch.

  Afterward: the smell of lics and hay, the wet grasses tickling their naked limbs. The other boy's powerful, reticent hand daring to brush a lock of hair from Mika's face, a blue scarf still wimple-wrapped, as if in shame, over his own shaved head.

  Can I kiss you?

  A little ugh.

  We're supposed to be girls.

  Close your eyes. Pretend I'm both.

  Mika wipes his fingers on the cloth beside his pte and gulps down the thin, sour wine, washing the memory from his mouth. The scribe sitting beside him grins and bites into the wing of her snipe, hot grease dripping from her chin into her p.

  "See someone you like there, nanny-boy?"

  "No," Mika mutters, tearing the crust of his trencher, pinching a morsel of hare and wood-ear stew to his lips. The scribe sneers, wiping butter on the skirt of her gown.

  "You're the one who made sir Kiran that nice suit. I reckon you loved it, measuring those brawny legs, looking him down from his cods to his calves—"

  She thrusts her hand between Mika's legs, and he recoils so fast he almost he almost topples from the bench, his body crashing against the muscled bulk of the ban. Not fast enough to keep her fingers from pressing his cock where it strains against his breechcloth. The ban ughs, cpping a filthy hand to his mouth: "Aren't you women supposed to be chaste?"

  "Don't worry," the scribe says, the stained stumps of her teeth on full dispy. "This one wouldn't go for cunt if the Great Mother of Heaven got down on her knees and begged him like a bitch in heat. Think the shrike will give you a little poke to thank you for your work, baeddel? Or maybe you'd be happy to let his bannermen take turns."

  "At least one of them would want me," Mika hisses, his face burning. "You couldn't pay a man to fuck you, you barren hag."

  The scribe's face darkens.

  "Arrogant little cockroach," she says. "You think they want you? You'll end up right where all you sodomites belong—mounted over market street with a pike up your ass!"

  The ban is ughing so hard other people are looking at them now. He steadies himself, one hand pressed to his belly, and resumes eating, gravy dripping down a haunch of rabbit to stain the ce cuff of his robe. "Holy Sister," he says to the scribe with mock piety. "If you're going to pick a fight with a baeddel, have the good sense to cut his tongue out first."

  He touches Mika's hair, as if his wife weren't sitting less than three feet away. "You really are pretty, you know. I'll pray they don't make a conscript of you—it would be such a shame to ruin a face like that in the melee."

  Mika sits on his hands and waits for the ban to go back to his ruined trencher.

  The mb is finally fit to eat. The servant boys come to fill their cups and set cuts of smoking meat, pink and bloody under the charred and crackled skin, on their trenchers. With a loud, wet pop the ban snaps off a rib, striping the flesh with his teeth, while the scribe kisses gravy and pearl onions from her fingers. At the far end of the hall there's a sudden flurry of activity as a group of servants rush in, bringing more food from the kitchen. One of the generals at the high table—Sir Imre, Mika thinks he's called—cps his hands and stands up. As the servants walk past Mika sees the tray they're carrying: an enormously fat suckling pig, two mirrors fitted where its eyes should be. The servants set it before Lady Ersu, whose hands have still not left her p.

  "A gift!" says sir Imre. "A gift to her dyship, Ersu Oe!"

  No one speaks. Mika hears the ban's wife inhale sharply; the ban himself looks torn between horror and delight. For a moment Mika watches sir Kiran's expressionless face, and wonders if he will cut the offending general's head off.

  Instead, he tilts his head back and ughs, a bright, cold, cruel ugh ringing up to the iron chandeliers and the clouds of oily smoke beyond the rafters, and soon all the sons of heaven are ughing with him. Lady Ersu smiles politely. She lets the servants cut her a little—just the thinnest cut of skin—daubs her lips, takes her leave. Beside her, sir Kiran receives a mbs-head on a silver ptter, and with a fsh of his fingers he pinches the creature's eye from its socket and pops it into his mouth.

  *

  Mika gets up when the ban tries to stroke his thigh under the table. His food he leaves untouched, the blood and fat of the mb dripping down through the bckened skin, flies buzzing over the ruined trencher.

  The privies are crowded and smelly so he goes out to the courtyard to relieve himself. The moonlight shines on the brick patio of the inner court, cresets burning on the walls above, the empty skin of Lord Ersu hanging like rotten sackcloth from a pennon spear. He's about to squat in the shadow of the keep when he hears someone retching.

  Lady Ersu's gown ripples in the moonlight, her skirt and kirtle clutched in one hand, her face half hidden by the sleeve of her other arm. She leans against the wall, struggling to breathe. Her vomit is mostly water; the light shimmers on the acrid pool at her feet, a little piece of pigskin floating, unchewed, at the center. The hem of her skirt is stained, along with the soft patent leather of her shoes.

  "But you hardly ate," Mika says, stupidly.

  "The tea," Lady Ersu mutters. "I shouldn't have—"

  She gags, vomits again, yellow bile mixed with mucus spilling in ribbons from her nose and lips. She tries to push herself off the wall and sways. Mika takes her arm, meaning to help her stand, and almost topples to the ground as the weight of her body shifts against his own, the vast folds and rises of her abdomen spilling against him through the blue silk of her gown. He suddenly wishes he could have something of her—her dress, her poise, her wide hips and her heavy breasts—anything other than his own small and scrawny awkwardness. But as soon as the wish comes he despises it.

  I'd rather be a pretty boy than a woman as fat as you.

  "So galnt," Lady Ersu murmurs, pulling her arm from his hand. Her voice drips with sarcasm. "Practically a chevalier."

  "Forgive me, my dy—"

  "Oh, shut up, little Karohyi. Tell me: do you love him?"

  Mika shrinks away: "What do you mean?"

  "Do you love Sir Kiran, Karohyi Mika?"

  She smiles, and even in the dark Mika can see that her teeth are smaller and yellower than they should be. "He brought you here to humiliate me. Don't think he loves for it."

  She vomits again—nothing but spit this time, but the force of the spasm knocks her to her knees, and Mika runs to her side, crying out for help. He hears the doors of the hall bang open, hears shouts and running footsteps. Lady Ersu looks up at him, her face suddenly glowing in the light of a torch.

  "I wish I could give your mother back to you," she whispers.

  Her dies-in-waiting are here now. They heave her upright and lead her away. Sir Kiran watches from the door, trying to hide a smile.

  "So much for the bedding," he says. "But I didn't care for the prospect of being smothered on my own wedding night very much, if I'm honest. Now, come with me. I have a surprise for you."

  *

  They leave House Ersu through the south gate, Lord Ersu's skin fluttering in the night wind over their heads. Mika's father walks behind them, his cloak drawn close against the wind, while sir Kiran rides ahead on his bluebck mare, wearing only a long jacket over his suit. Two of his knights—Sir Haxi and Sir O—ride beside him.

  Ahead, the path opens onto a clearing, where votive mps burn in a stone shrine to the Great Mother at the base of a ancient pine, prayer tags hanging from its boughs. Dame Ro is there, as meagerly dressed as ever, a moth-eaten wimple on her head and felt-stuffed pti on her feet, and beside her, in her best yellow gown, is Patu, running to meet him as soon as see each other. She throws her arms around his neck.

  "Mika," she says. "I didn't know what happened. When I came home you and father weren't there—I was afraid—"

  He clutches her body to him, drinking the sour smell of her unwashed hair, her musty clothes. Tears sting his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry, Patu. I'm disgusting, Patu. I'm disgusting I'm wicked please punish me for what I said—"

  "That's enough, children," dame Ro says. Her voice is quiet, almost gentle. "We should do this soon, before the mps go out."

  "What do you mean?" says Mika. He turns to his father. "Father, what's happening?"

  Karohyi Ilya looks at his son for a long time. Then he turns towards sir Kiran. "I can't say I approve of this, my lord. I think it's a mistake. But, if it is your will—"

  "It is!" says sir Kiran. He dismounts his horse and stands before Mika, a smile on his face.

  "You're going to be my new page," he says.

  Mika can't speak. His mouth moves wordless in the cold. In front of him, sir Kiran beckons yet more men from the edge of the clearing, men Mika did not even see, and they approach, carrying parcels on shoulder poles. They show his father what they are carrying: rolls of silk in royal gold, blood red, murex purple, pis blue. Then, from the breast of his suit, sir Kiran pulls a little slip of beaten tin, which, at the press of his thumb, pops open, revealing itself to be an impossibly small box. Inside, two circles of ground gss rest inside a frame of carved tortoise shell, two hooked arms unfolding from the frame as his father picks them up.

  "What is this?" Karohyi Ilya says.

  "They're called spectacles," sir Kiran says. "Put them on, Master Tailor. Like so—"

  With a little help, Karohyi Ilya puts the spectacles on. When he has, he stares down at his own hands, astonished. As if he sees them clearly for the first time in many years.

  "There," sir Kiran says. "Now, do you think you'll be able to sew again, if you wear these?"

  "Yes—yes, my lord—"

  "Then keep them. I will send a lens-grinder to make sure they correct your vision perfectly. You'll have your work again, Master Karohyi. You'll have new journeymen, a new apprentice. So—do you think that's enough? To make up for the bor you'll lose, giving Karohyi Mika to me?"

  Mika meets his father's eyes, watches his father's astonishment, his fear, his shame. His father can see him now, with those little lenses on his face. He can see Mika seeing him.

  "My son's too old," he says, finally. "He'll never learn to fight."

  "He's only a year or two older than I was," says sir Kiran. "Anyway, I don't need him to fight. I need a boy who can sew and iron, and take care of a horse, and take my boots off without breaking my ankles."

  "We're commoners."

  "So are many pages. And, as recall, you cim as your mother Dame Nemeti of Tzoake—"

  "That's a lie!" Patu shouts, startling Mika. Before either of the men can react dame Ro has grabbed her arm, hissing at her to be quiet, but sir Kiran raises a hand to stop the healer.

  "What do you mean, young woman?"

  "We never cimed descent from any Dame," Patu says. "Grandmother was just a soldier's widow, she brought a spear with her when she came to Iyan-Aisa because she was afraid men would accost her on the road. We're filth. We deserve nothing from you.

  "You are too modest," sir Kiran says. "I'll judge what you do and don't deserve myself."

  "My lord, please—he's effeminate—"

  Dame Ro turns to Patu and strikes her so hard across the face that the blow echoes in the clearing. Mika imagines grabbing the old bitch and pulling her away, ramming his thumbnails through her irises and tearing her ears from her skull. Imagines how soft and papery her nose would be, crushed in his teeth. He doesn't move.

  Sir Kiran shrugs as Patu picks herself up off the snow. "I'll make a man out of him, then," he says. He turns to Mika, mplight flickering across his fine, strong face, and draws his sword. "Karohyi Mika, come here."

  Mika shivers as he walks towards the shrine. He still feels terribly cold inside, even with his wool cloak drawn close around him. He forgot to pee in the commotion outside the great hall; his bdder is painfully swollen between his legs. He falls to his knees before sir Kiran, the snow instantly soaking through his loose breeches, his thin hose.

  "Do you, Karohyi Mika, vow to serve me, Sir Kiran Té, in peace and in war, in sickness and in health, from this day until the st day of your youth, or the st of my life?"

  "Yes, my lord," says Mika. "That is my vow."

  Sir Kiran holds out his sword in both hands.

  "Kiss it."

  Mika presses his lips to the cold metal. He can feel the edge of the shashka just beneath his lower lip, daring him to cut himself, to shed blood down the front of his embroidered tunic, ruin himself where his father and sister and sir Kiran's knights can see him do it, the red of his split mouth running down into the snow. Dame Ro's quill fshes across the surface of her scroll, recording their oath, binding their words to the body of heaven's w.

  Mika turns to his father and sister. There's a bruise blooming on his sister's cheek; she's trying not to cry. "Please be safe," she says, embracing him again. "Promise me you'll be safe—"

  His father doesn't touch him. Mika almost wishes that he would, even as he hates him for standing there, surrounded by his new wealth, his vision magically restored. He wants to take the lenses from his father's face, smash them under his foot, shout at him: Don't you want me?

  Dame Ro's face, at least, a comfort. He almost smiles when he sees the hatred in her eyes.

  I'll bet you wish you'd made me cut my hair when you had the chance, you bitch.

  Sir Kiran's hand is on his shoulder.

  "I'll hold the reins. All you have to do is be calm. Umbra will sense it if you panic."

  He hoists Mika into the saddle of his mare—Umbra—and climbs up behind him, reaching around his body to hold the reins. The whole world is visible up here, the mare's dark body pulsing and trembling beneath them. At a nod the other knights canter ahead into the woods. Mika looks over his shoulder. His sister is crying in earnest now, his father holding her pathetically with one hand.

  His throat itches. The minkfur colr of sir Kiran's cloak tickles his face.

  "We're not going back to House Ersu?" he asks.

  "Too many eyes there," sir Kiran says. "There's a hunting lodge not far from here; a few of my men are guarding it."

  "What about your wife?"

  "The whale? Forget her. I'll get a child on her some other night."

  Mika's pulse quickens. Still cold inside, under his cloak, even against the saddle of the mare and the damask and furs of sir Kiran. He can feel the knight's manhood pressing hard against his tailbone, feel his own turning rigid against the horn.

  "Your dress is there already," sir Kiran says. "You'll be my wife tonight."

  Mika can't breath. His mouth hangs open, useless, as sir Kiran's head curls towards his neck, hot breath gusting against his skin, teeth sinking in his flesh.

  Be calm, or you'll frighten Umbra.

  The knights hands are locked around Mika's waist. He holds the reins in his left as his right slips between Mika's legs, tugging the strings of his breeches. The knots come undone; the loose legs sag around Mika's hips. Cold air against his skin. Fingers pushing past his breeches, stroking the underside of his cock.

  Be calm.

  "Tell me you want this," sir Kiran says, his teeth sinking into the helix of Mika's ear, tongue pushing into the conch. Below, his fingers curl around the shaft between Mika's legs. A pleasure hateful and divine. "Tell me."

  "Yes," Mika breathes. "I want this."

  He reclines into sir Kiran's chest as the knight strokes him, the knight's lips bzing on his spine.

  A wife, he thinks. I'm going to be a wife.

  "I want it."