It is fortunate that I have had very few chances to learn with what terrible ease gentleness finds my heart. I give thanks for my good fortune every day. Oh yes, I do.
THE FOX
Pigeons. Lift up my nose, no ceiling, no rafters between us. Close my eyes and see rumblysoft pigeon dark, juicy wing-beats filling the air with dust and grain, fluffy little under-feathers drift down. Much talking, much shifty-shuffly on their nests, restless with me. Close their pretty eyes like drops of blood, they see me, too.
Down here, hoho, down here all sorts of shifty-shuffly going on. Very crowded room, so many people trying to take other people’s clothes off. Boy backs toward the bed, one hand holding Nyateneri’s hand, other trying to open Lal’s shirt. Lal helps him, breaks fingernail, swears. Boy’s legs tangle all up with bed legs, he sits down. Lukassa kneels on bed behind him, laughing. Nyateneri turns, looks at me. We talk.
Do not. Do not.
Must.
Will not hold. Cannot hold.
I know. Must. Help me.
Window open almost wide enough. Tree goes crick-sish, one thin branch points up to pigeons’ nice little bedroom. Nyateneri. Help me. Lal reaches out, draws her down.
ROSSETH
Lal has dimples in both shoulders. Lal’s collarbones are as proud and velvety as the spring antlers of a young sintu. The back of Lal’s neck makes me cry as she bends her head down to me.
Lukassa smells of fresh, fresh melons and peppers and spice-apples on market stalls. Her breasts are softer and more pointed than Nyateneri’s breasts, and the insides of her forearms are transparent, truly—I can almost see little blue fish sculling serenely in and out between her veins. Putting her hand on me, she finds Lal’s hand there already. She turns her head and smiles, so simply.
Nyateneri. I cannot see Nyateneri. Her hands move on me, too, and she bites my mouth until blood comes, but I cannot see her face.
NYATENERI
No. No. I cannot let this happen, cannot. For everyone’s sake, all sakes, no. But such sweetness—such friendliness. When was the last time anyone kissed you as that boy does— kissed you, not your bow or your dagger, the things you can do, the things you know? When did hands caress you as wisely as Lal’s hands, or with such welcome as Lukassa’s? And you are so tired, and so lonely, and everything has been so long.
I cannot be letting this happen. It will not hold—he knows. I try to push Rosseth from me—but it is not Rosseth, it is Lukassa catching my aching hand and drawing it into herself, over herself, over Lal as though she were dressing her in my touch. The river-surge of Lal’s belly against my mouth; the dear clumsiness of Lukassa’s knee bumping me somewhere, Lal’s broken fingernail scratching my hip. No, no, it will not hold. Lukassa. Lukassa’s hair on me. No.
LAL
Someone’s hands are under me, someone’s mouth is on each breast. My eyes are wide open, but all I can see is someone’s hair. Rosseth breathes my name; Lukassa whimpers, oh, oh, oh, oh, each soft cry a burning blessing against the scar on the inside of my thigh. I start to tell her who put it there, but someone else is murmuring, “Lal” into my mouth, kissing the old agony to oblivion. I put my arms around everyone I can reach, throwing all my doors and windows wide to let the wild comfort enter.
THE FOX
Almost wide enough—maybe wide enough? Maybe for a little, little fox with soft fur? Along the wall, hurry, front paws on the ledge—nose, whiskers, ears can fit through. Hello, pigeons.
One quick look back, no one sees me. Hard to see Nyateneri, all those legs. Crying, laughing, poor bed thumps and grunts, last bottle breaks on the floor. Too noisy for a fox, much more peaceful somewhere else. Squeeze down small, push very hard—one paw, two paws, one shoulder, now head, now other shoulder—and here’s one whole fox on nice broad tree branch, laughing, so clever in the moonlight. There is a Fox in the moon.
If Nyateneri called me, come back. Might come back.
Moon-Fox: Too late. Too late. Nothing holds. Go see pigeons.
Nyateneri’s voice: joy, pain, despair, who cares? Not for me, no call for me. I run up the moonlight to the roof, toward lovely fluffy window, lovely bloodrustle that wants me there.
ROSSETH
It must be Lukassa. I cannot see her face—the bedside candle has long since been kicked over to smother in tallow—but the smell is Lukassa’s, and the hair in my mouth, and the small, sharp teeth set in my wrist. Not right, not right, it should be Nyateneri—Nyateneri’s wounded hand guiding me oh unbelievable, Nyateneri’s long legs folding me in, keeping me fast. But everything is moonshadow and wine bottles, except for this, and Nyateneri has slipped from me, though I can smell her so close, as though my head were still in her lap and a few feet away those two men, a few minutes dead. And I can hear Lal laughing, low and beautiful—if I reach one hand to my left, so, I can feel that laughter on my palm. Between this finger and that, Lal’s whisper: “Rosseth, boy, so strong in me, so kind, so lovely in me. Rosseth, Rosseth, yes, like that, yes please, my dear, my dear.” The name Karsh gave me, the name I have always hated, so beautiful, my name. If I could hide in the way she says my name and never come out again.
But I am not in her, not in any way, even in this dancing darkness. It is Lukassa welcoming me—Lukassa arching back to kiss me, who never speaks to me, giving me her breath for mine—Lukassa’s buttocks searing my incredulous hands. Too stupid even to bumble my way into the woman I most desire, how can I possibly be joining and joying two others at once? There are legends about such men, but I am only Rosseth—no knight, but only Rosseth the stable boy, such wits as he had flown to the moon, leaving his imbecile body tossing in this bed like a toy boat on the wild Bay of Byrnarik, that I have never seen. Someone was going to take me there, someone was going to take me to play all day on Byrnarik Bay bay bay, where Lukassa is taking me now. It was a song. There was a song.
Someone’s hand is on my back, my hip, caressing, insistent, pushing hard, then yielding as I yield, moving with me on Byrnarik Bay. Lal’s voice, a sudden shrill whisper, the way her sword must sound springing from its cane lair. “Rosseth? Rosseth?”
NYATENERI
In the end, it was my hair that betrayed me, as I really might have expected. Rosseth’s hair is all tight curls— mine is as coarse and shaggy as his, but fatally straight beyond any deception. Once Lal’s fingers clenched in my hair, it would have been all over even if, by some chance, the magic had held together.