‘Presumptuous?’
‘Anyone can fill silence with voices, kind driver,’ I said in reply. ‘We are most eager inventors, are we not?’
‘Ah, I understand. You suggest that religious conviction consists of elaborate self-delusion, that those who hear the words of their god telling them to do this and that, are in fact inventing their certainty as they go.’
‘I would hazard it all begins,’ ventured I, ‘with someone else, a priest or priestess, or the written words of the same, telling them first. The mission needs direction, yes? One serves a purpose, and in the god’s silence, who is it that presumes to describe that purpose? If all are lost, the first to shout that he or she has found something will be as a lodestone to others, and their desperation will become the joy of relief. But who is to say that the one who shouted first was not lying? Or mad? Or possessing ambitions of a far more secular nature – to wit, how much can I bilk all these fools for?’
Mister Ambertroshin puffed on his pipe. ‘You do indeed walk a wasteland, sir.’
‘And does yours look so different?’
‘We may agree on the rocks and stones, sir,’ he replied, ‘but not their purpose.’
‘Rocks?’ Tulgord said, eyes a little wild. ‘Stones and purpose? Aye, give me a rock, something for you to trip over, driver, but for me, something to bash in your head.’
Mister Ambertroshin blinked. ‘Why, Mortal Sword, why ever would you do that?’
‘Because you’re confusing things, that’s why! Flicker’s telling a story, right? By all meets he must now give voice to the evil whispers seeking ill of our heroes.’
‘I think he just did,’ the pipe-puffing old man said.
‘The knights hold to honour and purpose and the two are one and the same,’ proclaimed Tulgord Vise. ‘While the pilgrims seek salvation. Now, who else travels with the worthy ones? Someone diabolical, no doubt. Speak on, poet, for your life!’
‘I hesitate, good knight.’
‘What?’
‘Without the Chanters, there can be no proper vote, can there? And by their collective snores one can presume only that they are insensate to the moment. Lady Snippet, does your need devour all patience?’
She regarded me with some slyness. ‘Do you promise redemption, poet?’
‘I do.’
Sudden doubt in her eyes, perhaps even a trembling vulnerability. ‘Do you?’ she asked again, this time in a whisper.
I gave a gentle nod.
‘It would seem most honourable,’ suggested Apto, studying me grave and seriously, ‘that your fate, Flicker, now be made to depend solely upon Purse Snippet’s judgement. Should you achieve redemption of the woman in her tale, your life is secured. Should you fail, it is forfeit. This being said, and by all the nods I see it is a notion well-met, it would not do to string her along and so assure your survival. So I pose the following provision. Should she decide, at any time in your telling, that you are simply … shall we say, padding your narrative, why, one or both of the knights shall swing their swords.’
‘Wait!’ cried Calap Roud. ‘I am not nodding and this is not well-met – not by me anyway. Can we not all see that Lady Snippet is a woman of mercy? And not such a soul as would so cruelly condemn someone? This is Flicker’s devious mind at work here! He makes a promise he cannot keep, but only to win his life upon this terrible journey! Perhaps indeed they are in cahoots!’
At that the dancer straightened in perfect haughtiness. ‘Bitter words from you, poet, dredged from a poor and squalid mind. I have performed before the most fickle tyrants, when it was my life that was at stake. Of harsh yet true adjudication, I have learned at the feet of masters. Do you think I would dissemble? Do you think I would not cast a most hardened eye upon this man who so boldly promises redemption? Be it understood to all, that Avas Didion Flicker chooses – if he dares – the deadliest of courses in the days ahead!’
So stark and shocking this bridling that all were humbled, and as all eyes now fixed upon me, I knew the truth of this bargain. Did my courage quiver? Did my bowels loosen more than a stomach full of human meat warranted (and yes, Ordig was indeed most sour)? Shall I take this instant to weave the woeful lie? I shall not. Indeed, I make no comment whatsoever, and before that sharp wealth of regard, I tilted my head a fraction toward the venerable dancer and said, ‘I do accept.’
And to that she could only gasp.
Weariness soon landed on bat wings, ears twitching, flitting ghostly among us all, and this night was, by silent consensus, done. As I rose to walk watery into the darkness for a few moments of cold desert air and mocking stars, beyond all heat and light from the dying hearth, I drew close about me my threadbare cloak. It is the still moments in which doubts assail the soul. So I’m told.
The notion was untested as soft arms closed about my waist and two full and generous breasts spread across my back. A breathy voice then murmured in my ear, ‘You’re a clever one, aren’t you?’
Perhaps not so clever as I believed, as my right hand dropped and stole back to find the outside of her thigh. What is it with men, anyway? To see is as good as to touch when seeing is all we can manage; but to touch is as good as to explode in milky clouds in the spawning stream. ‘Oh,’ murmured I, ‘sweet Relish. Is this wise?’
‘My brothers snore, do you hear them?’
‘Alas, I do.’
‘When they’re snoring, you can drop rocks on their heads and still they won’t wake. I know. I’ve done it. Big rocks. And when they wake up with knobs and bruises, I just tell them they all knocked heads together last night, and so they get mad at each other and that’s that.’
‘It would seem that I am not the only clever one here.’
‘That’s right, but then, maybe you ain’t so smart after all. She’ll see you killed, that bitchy dancer, you know that, don’t you?’
‘It is indeed quite possible.’
‘So this could be your last night left alive. Let’s make it a fun one.’
‘Who saw you leave the camp?’
‘No one. I made sure everyone was bedded down.’
‘I see. Well, then …’
Shall we titter and wing gazes heavenward now? Shall we draw the veil of modesty upon these decorous delicacies? Is it enough to imagine and paint private scenes in the mind? A knowing smile, the flash of bared flesh, a subtle editing of grunts and pinches and shifts as elbows prod and jab? Dreamy our sighs, delicious our ponderings? What’s wrong with you?
She straddled my face. The meaty flesh of her thighs closed like the jaws of a toothless leg monster, oozing with suffocating intentions. My tongue discovered places it had never known before, and partook of flavours I wish never to revisit. After some frenzied mashing of orifices that made the bones of my skull creak ominously, she lifted herself clear with an ear-crackling sucking sound, twisted round and descended once more.
There are places in the human body where no man’s face belongs, and this fact found its moment of discovery for hapless Avas Didion Flicker at that precise instant. Well, once her fullest intentions were made evident, that is. The heave with which I freed myself was of sufficient vigour as to throw her over my feet and flat on her face upon the stony ground. Her grunt was most becoming. She endeavoured a vicious kick which I deftly dodged as I rolled up and onto her back, forcing both knees up between her legs. Twisting, she flung a handful of sand and gravel into my eyes. Ignoring this ambiguous gesture I took hold of her meaty thighs and lifted them off the ground, and then impaled her most mightily.
She clawed furrows in the hard ground as if swimming for shore, but the riptide of my lust held her fast. It was, assuredly, do or drown for Relish Chanter. Her gasps gusted clouds of dust round her face. She coughed, she hacked, she moaned in the manner of mothers behind the pantry door, and with her hips she bolted like a cow before the bull, only to lunge backward with small animal cries. I leaned forward and wrapped close my arms, hands finding her breasts. I took hold of full nipples and tried to twist them off, failing but not for want of trying to be sure.
As all know, lovemaking is the most gentle art. Sweet sensations, tender strokes of desire, the sudden nearness of hovering lips, a brush of cheeks, the sharing of wine breaths and so on. Clothes peel off languorous and sultry, shadows tease and warmth invites and then drips, and about all the bedding closes to enfold soft and fresh.
Lacking such amenities of the seductive, let the dogs howl. Beneath savagely cold stars, in beds of wiry stunted bushes, broken branches, rocks and buttons of cacti, this was the scrape and gouge of seed’s wild spill, a life’s banking in a dubious vessel of potential posterity, when said vessel is all there is on offer. Burgeon proud seed! Steal vigorous root in sweetest flesh! Bay with life’s triumph! I held her very nearly upside down as I unleashed my hungry stream, and if she didn’t weep white tears it is no small miracle.
The reparations that followed were conducted in sated silence. She combed through her hair to remove the bark, pebbles and saliva. I rubbed my face with sand and would have cut off my own left arm for a bowl of water. We hunted down our wayward clothing, before each in turn staggering off to find our bedding.
Thus ended the twenty-third night upon Crack’d Pot Trail.