“You’ve named your tits?”
“Why not? They’re my friends.”
“As in … bosom companions?”
Her eyes thinned. “Oh,” she said, “I never thought of that one before. Thanks. Now, let go of them so I can get this tunic off, so you can see what she did to them. To make them just like the statue’s tits.”
“I thought you said they already were.”
“Almost, but now, aye, they are, Mancy.”
He watched while she turned her back, as if suddenly succumbing to modesty, and shrugged and tugged her way out of the heavy, stained tunic. Then she turned around.
Her breasts had no nipples. Instead, in place of them, were mouths, with soft, feminine lips painted bright red. As he stared, both tits blew him a kiss.
“They got teeth, too,” Feloovil said. “And tongues. But they can’t talk, which is probably a good thing. I think it’s a good thing, at least. Watch while I make them lick their lips.”
Emancipor spun round, staggered to the nearest corner of the room, and threw up.
“Hey!” Feloovil shouted behind him, “that was half a pot of my best stew, damn you!”
Spilgit leaned away from the wall. “She yelled something,” he whispered. “And then started berating him. Something about thinking he was a man of the world, only he isn’t. And then there were footsteps and someone trying to get out of the room.”
“Only Ma’s locked it,” Felittle said. “He can’t get out.”
Spilgit frowned across at her. “She’s done this before? What’s she doing to him? She locks men in her room? Why do they want to get out? Well, I mean, I would, but then I’d never go into her room in the first place. But he did, so he knew what was coming, more or less, didn’t he? But I swear I heard him gag, or something. It sounded like a gag-wait, is she strangling him or something? Does she kill them, Felittle? Is your mother a mass murderer?”
“How should I know?” she demanded from where she sat on the bed, her lizard cat sprawled across her thighs, the creature watching Spilgit with unblinking, yellow eyes. “Maybe I’ve seen her bury a body or two, out back. But that happens. It’s an inn, after all, with people in beds and old men trying to die smiling, and all that.”
“She’s buried people out back?”
“Well, dead ones, of course. Not like Ackle.”
“Ackle wasn’t dead.”
“Yes he was.”
“Not a chance. The noose strangled him bad, that’s true, and probably killed bits of his brain, which was why he looked dead to everyone. But he wasn’t, and that’s why he came back. Gods below, I can’t believe the superstitions you have here in this wretched backwater. No, you’ve not treated him well since then, have you? It’s a disgrace.”
Felittle blinked at him. “Backwater? Are you calling Spendrugle, where I was born, a backwater? So what am I, then? A backwaterian? Is that what I am to you, Mister Big Smelly City?”
Spilgit hurried over, recoiling at the last moment to Red’s savage hiss and raised hackles. “Darling, of course not. Every dung heap has a hidden gem, and you’re it. I mean, if I didn’t find you lovely and all, would I offer to help you escape? And,” he went on, still trying to get closer but Red was now on its feet, dorsal spines arching and ears flattened and mouth opened wide, “if you didn’t think this was a backwater you wouldn’t want to get away, would you?”
“Who says I want to get away?”
“You do! Don’t you remember, my sweet?”
“It was you who wanted to steal me away, and I listened and all, and so you convinced me. But maybe I like it here, and once Ma lets me start working with the other girls, I’ll-”
“But she won’t, Felittle,” Spilgit said, looking for something he could use as a weapon on the cat. “That’s just it. She’ll never let you do that. She’ll see you stay a virgin, a spinster, all your life. You know it, too.” He found a brass candlestick on the dresser and collected it up.
“But then you said you weren’t going to let me have lots of men in the city, so what’s the point of me going with you anywhere? You’ll end up just like Ma, chaining me in some cellar! What are you doing with that?”
He advanced on her, hefting the candlestick. “Is that how you really want it? You want me to hire you out for the night, to whoever’s got the coin?”
“Oh, will you? Yes, please! What are you doing with that candlestick?” she backed up on the bed. “How many bodies have you buried behind the tax office, that’s what I’m wondering now!”
“Don’t be silly. Tax collectors want people to live forever, of course. Getting older and older, so we can strip from them every single hard-won coin.”
“Put that thing down!”
“Oh, I’ll put something down all right. Count on it.” He raised the candlestick.
Red leapt at his face.
He swung with all his strength.
Emancipor Reese clawed fruitlessly at the lock on the door. Behind him, Feloovil laughed a deep, throaty laugh. “It’s no use, Mancy, we’ve got you for the night, and when I say we’re going to cover your body in kisses, I do mean it, don’t I? Kisses and bites and nips and-”
“Open this damned door!” Emancipor snarled, spinning round and reaching for his sword.
But Feloovil had raised one hand. “Shh! Listen! I hear voices in my daughter’s room! Voices! Gods below, it’s Spilgit!” She collected up her tunic from the floor and began pulling it on. “That’s it, he’s a dead man for this. And I’m calling in his tab, too. Can’t pay, can’t leave, ever. Can’t pay, it’s the back yard for you!”
Edging away from the door as Feloovil produced a key from somewhere beneath her tunic, Emancipor drew his shortsword. “Good, open it, aye. Before things get ugly here.”
“Ugly?” She barked a laugh. “You’re about to see ugly, Mancy, like no ugly you’ve ever seen in that miserable, sheltered existence you call a life.” She unlocked the door.
They were startled by a loud thump on the wall, followed by broken plaster striking the floor beside Feloovil’s bed.
Something had come through the wall, halfway to the ceiling. As the dust cloud cleared, Emancipor saw a lizard cat’s head, its nose draining blood, its eyes blinking but not synchronously. It seemed to be winking at them.
With Feloovil standing motionless, staring at the cat’s head, Emancipor made his move, pushing hard to get past her and into the corridor. Without a look back, he rushed for the stairs. Behind him he heard Feloovil bellow, and someone else was now screaming. Reaching the stairs, Emancipor plunged downward-and coming fast behind him was another set of footsteps. Growling a curse, Emancipor looked back over one shoulder. But it was Spilgit who was on his way down, with Feloovil thundering after him.
Reaching the ground floor, Emancipor ran down the length of the bar to the door.
It opened then, revealing Hordilo, who pointed a finger at Emancipor and said, “You!”
Despite the bitter cold, the half-frozen sand Whuffine turned over with his shovel stank of urine. He’d already excavated a decent hole, and had begun to wonder if his memory had failed him, when his shovel struck something hard. Redoubling his efforts, he quickly worked the object loose, and lifted into view a pitted and suitably stained stone idol. Grunting, he heaved it out of the pit and set it down on the sand for a closer look.
It had been a few years since he’d buried the thing beneath his piss trench, but the chisel work now looked centuries old. Come the spring, after the winter’s hard weathering, he could load it onto his cart and take it into the village. If anything, this one was better than the last effort, and hadn’t Witch Hurl paid a bagful of silver coins for that one? For all he knew, Fangatooth might be just as happy to kneel in worship before an idol from the Ancient Times.
The creation of true art had a way of serendipity, and if he hadn’t snapped off a nipple on the final touches with the last one, he’d never have found the need to rework it into a mouth instead, and then do the same to the other nipple, inventing a whole new goddess of earth, sex, milk and whatever. This time, he had elaborated on the theme, adding a third mouth, down below.