Chapter Seventy-Four: Jiggerypokery

Emre headed for the door, but they heard noises on the other side. Voices. One, elliptical and quiet—Rylan. The other was Mylo.

“You can’t be in here,” Osmund told Emre in a low hiss. “Hide. Now!”

There was nowhere that a grown man, even one slight as Emre, could conceal himself in this small office, but thankfully he was a dark mage—an illusionist. In the blink of an eye, Emre vanished.

Rather, he flickered, reappearing only a moment later. His face was pale. Something was wrong.

Mylo rattled the handle and was cursing as he rifled through his pockets for a key. They heard it jingling in his hand. Mind racing, Osmund dropped the incriminating book to the ground and kicked it under the desk. Then, with a silent prayer for forgiveness to Emre, Cemil, and everyone who was about to witness this spectacle, he grabbed Emre’s face with both hands and kissed him roughly on the mouth.

The door opened. Osmund and Emre parted violently, their “tryst” interrupted. “You bring a john back here, are you stupid, boy?!” raged an astounded Mylo. “Want to fondle each other’s pricks, you do it on your own hour! This is private property! You, piss off!”

Emre said nothing as he slunk out of the room. Osmund gave him a reassuring nod and watched him go.

When Mylo turned on Osmund, his eyes had narrowed to dangerous slits. “You’ve either got less wits than a fish, or you’re playing games with me. Thirty theckerils is a lot of change for a ‘working boy’. Anyone’s seen the sad souls who walk the streets around here, desperate men and women plying the skin trade. How come I’ve never seen you before? Who are you?”

“…He is as he says. I’ve seen him,” said Rylan suddenly.

Mylo thankfully missed, or did not know how to interpret, Osmund’s look of bewilderment. “’Course you did,” Mylo said after a huff. “Bloody stick-riders… I ’spose you’ve got your own places of ‘jiggerypokery’. Heh.”

He dropped the ledger back down on the desk, where it landed with a final fwap. “The last ships have sailed for the season,” said Mylo to Osmund. “Got no more work for you. Turn up again in a month or two, there might be something.” To Rylan he said, “You, I’ll see tonight. Get the key from him and lock up.” At the door he added, “And keep your trousers on while you do it.” 

Once he had gone, Osmund began swiftly stowing the books on the shelves exactly as they had been, hoping Rylan wouldn’t ask when he crouched down to retrieve the one beneath the desk. “Thank you,” he attempted. “I-I’m sorry you lied to cover for me. I…suppose this makes us even, then?”

From somewhere behind he heard, “Who was that man?”

What to say of Emre? “Not a client,” Osmund said awkwardly, mechanically gathering his few possessions, which had over the last few weeks lent the smallest air of homeyness to this space. This was already more than he should share, but he still longed to trust the other man. At least he felt he could trust him against Mylo. “I’m really not a prostitute,” he felt compelled to reiterate, for some unfathomable reason. “N-not that there’s anything shameful about the profession. Or with um, hiring one…?”

“I don’t pay for company,” said Rylan. After another breath, he added, “I’m not after casual sex.”

As usual, the man’s attempts at conversation were charmingly strange. Perhaps he suffered from a dearth of fellow homosexuals to confide in. “I used to get up to a fair bit of it, back on the Isles,” Osmund offered with a distracted smile. Rylan had begun helping him straighten the room without his asking. “Mostly noblemen and their courtly sons and retainers, ah, I was a nobleman’s servant if you recall. A serious relationship was quite out of reach, sadly…”

“Then why are you seeing ‘a man from an important family’?”

The question stayed Osmund’s progress a moment. He wondered suddenly if this was what the other man had wanted to say to him back on the pier. “That was him. He left you behind,” said Rylan, making a logical assumption.

It’s Emre we’re discussing. Emre! Osmund had to remind himself, betrayed by his own mind and the first face it had conjured. “If he’d stayed, he would have gotten me in even more trouble.”

“He’s ashamed of you.”

Osmund looked up sharply. “That isn’t true at all. You don’t know him.”

“But he isn’t serious,” Rylan said, unyielding. “Most men aren’t. Double for the ‘important’ kind.”

Osmund might’ve asked, Serious? In what way? …But he didn’t need to.

The emperor had said, “Put your lover in a nice apartment in the Inner Gardens, and you may lie with him once, even twice a month without anyone batting an eye.”

Cemil had written, “You wrote of wishing our life could be simpler. There’s nothing I can do to change the fate I was given.”

Serious about me, Rylan had meant.

“You think I’m a lovesick fool,” Osmund mumbled, brushing dust off the spines of the books along the shelves as if this was something that needed to be done, and by him. “I’m not his toy. I know what I’m getting into. There are some things that are more important than just…than whatever I want.”

“…I don’t think you’re a fool.”

Osmund turned. Rylan held his gaze steadily. His ears had turned pink around the edges again, and the gold ring on its slender chain had emerged from his shirt, resting against the hard planes of his chest. “You could get hurt,” he said. “That’s all.”

The fight went out of Osmund like a doused ember. He suddenly felt incredibly tired.

Yes, he thought. A vision of a lonely life in the Inner Gardens conjured itself before him, sitting, waiting, just for a glimpse of Cemil. I know it will hurt to keep loving him in the selfish way that I do. I know.

“What is that?” Osmund found himself asking, loosely gesturing towards the metal which grazed Rylan’s collarbone.

Rylan reached up and touched the dangling ring reflexively. It was a plain thing—no gem or engraving, partly discolored from wear and handling—but it was well-formed, a sturdy, solid shape. “…It was my mother’s. Said I should give it to a nice girl one day.”

“She didn’t know you’d grow up to be a stick-rider, I suppose,” Osmund said gently. “Will you give it to a nice boy, then?”

“When it’s time.”

“I hope you find that worthy fellow. I’m…I’m sure you’ll make him happy.”

“I’m a serious man,” said Rylan, and he still wasn’t looking away. “I’ll try my best. If he gives me a chance.”

Osmund had to be the one to break their eye contact. He turned away, facing the table and pretending to put things in an orderly stack so Rylan couldn’t see the flushed panic on his face. Oh, heavens, when did this happen? he wondered guiltily. Did I give him the wrong idea somewhere? I’ve only tried to be friendly and get him to open up…

The worst part was that, try as he might to deny it, he found Rylan attractive. In fact, he was quite handsome, with his defined cheekbones and penetrating gaze, a kind of beauty that was easy to overlook with his quiet manner, and with his roughspun clothes and hair that was shorn crudely near the skull, as if he’d cut it himself, and with no mirror. He wasn’t as lovely as Cemil, but few people were. Cemil was like—like an aurora. A single glimpse, and you’d remember him for the rest of your life.

Rylan was—a sunset. More common. A sight that would be waiting for you without fail at the end of the day.

“Thank you again for your help,” Osmund said at last, heavy with shame; even these idle fancies felt disloyal. He set down the key on the desk rather than hand it to Rylan. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll make it to the festival tonight.”

Rylan was quiet. Then, “Ken will blame herself.” It wasn’t accusatory. Just an observation.

Yet another pang of guilt. “Tell her it’s not her fault.”

“She still will.”

A single step echoed in the space between them. Osmund remained hunched over the table, staring into its swirling woodgrain surface. “Are you afraid of Mylo? Is what why you won’t come?” Rylan asked.

“Th-there’s just…something I need to do.”

“Tell me. I’ll help.”

Osmund nearly rattled off the dutiful words. There’s nothing you can do, please don’t get involved, not for my sake. But he was tired, so tired of hiding the truth.

“I need to find a man named Pravin,” he said.

“A short merchant? Red hair?”

Osmund spun. “You know him?”

“He’ll be at the house tonight. With Mylo. And I’m going.”

“Tonight?!” It seemed all he was capable of spouting now were these witless interjections. “Rylan,” he began hesitatingly.The house. He needed to get there at any cost.

“I understand,” Rylan said. “I can bring you there. But.” He scratched his nose. “On a condition.”

“What’s the condition?” Osmund hugged his arms uncomfortably. He prayed the other man understood his hints, and wouldn’t force him to turn him down verbally.

“…The festival first. With everyone.”

Back at the governor’s manor, Emre was waiting for him with a pack slung across his back. Osmund explained the new circumstances in a rush, ignoring the nervous fluttering of his heart.

“So we’ll get a shot at Pravin tonight after all,” Emre concluded. “Alright. This changes things. Let me think.”

“Changes what?”

Both men turned. Sakina approached them in a black wool coat, her black coils of hair bouncing along her shoulders. She, too, was clearly dressed for an excursion.

“Cemil’s told me I’m to go with you to Elmaluk.” She held a letter up between them. “I’ve just heard from Emre that General Nadir is with Safet potentially making more of those cursed—things. ‘Undying weapons’, as my magisterial mother terms them. So please tell me, what’s so important that it can delay our ride until tomorrow?”

“The counterfeiters,” Emre said evenly when Osmund faltered, thankfully thinking on his feet. “We’ve got a strong lead on those responsible.”

“Y-yes!” Osmund seized upon it eagerly. “There’s this man—Mylo—he’s been giving false coins to my coworkers to distribute around town. It’s to his house that we’re going.”

“Fine work, but you know this is outside our purview,” she chided. “Osmund, report what you know to the lieutenant governor, Taranuz. She’s the one Cemil charged with investigating that matter.”

Osmund shook his head. “I don’t have the location yet,” he replied. “First I have to meet up with my coworkers. And attend a festival…”

“A festival?” She couldn’t hide the way her face lit up. “Now that you mention it, I’ve heard there’s to be something interesting in the Tolmish Quarter tonight. Something with masks? And street vendors selling them, I’m sure…”

“And food,” Osmund tempted her. “And music. And things to see.” He nudged Emre.

Emre coughed. “It’ll, uh, be a nice walk.”

Sakina sniffed. “Well, there’s no harm in the three of us checking it out. I’ll brief Taranuz first.”

Osmund smiled fondly as Sakina all but skipped away. How quickly she had changed her tune.

He had a mind to tease Emre about the festival—perhaps put it forward that this was a fine place to talk to a woman, if he needed the extra hint—but was instead flummoxed by the the small vial Emre produced from his pocket and pressed urgently into Osmund’s hand.

“Basilisk poison,” Emre said in a low voice. “Impossible to detect with enchantments. Bit of a distinct smell, but few who know it. It kills its victims quickly. In other words—”

“I need to slip it to Pravin and get out of there as quickly as possible.” Osmund swallowed. “I understand.”

Seconds passed, and Emre’s expression soured. “…Actually, give it back.”

“What?!”

“Changed my mind. It’s too risky. Sakina had the right idea—just lead us to the house, and we’ll leave the rest to Taranuz. If Pravin’s incriminated in the mess with the counterfeits, I might be able to have him quietly killed in prison.”

Osmund’s hand closed over the vial, and he held it high out of Emre’s reach. “No.”

“‘No’?” Emre looked stunned. “Were you listening to me?”

“If an opportunity opens up, I need to take it,” said Osmund, shocked by his own boldness, the forceful thrumming of his heart underscoring the words. “I’m never going back, Emre, and I won’t wait around until he succeeds in killing me first.”

Emre drew his hand away. He must’ve learned by now how futile it was to pry Osmund away from one of his desperately suicidal plans. “Do something reckless in there, and I’ll fucking kill you,” he growled.

“If I mess up that badly, you probably won’t need to.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, you idiot.”

Sakina returned. She looked perplexed. “It’s the strangest thing,” she said. “The lieutenant governor left on some urgent business. She isn’t here.”