A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (15 page)

He snorted, lifting his shoulders and curling his mouth until th
e effort flattened him.
‘No.  No one forces me and yet mortals die, Siofra say the world depends on me, you say I have a choice and yet the tru
th is I have no choice at all.
Do I, Moonlady?
’

The woman bent down close by his face as he lay there and he fell into a night sky and stars a
nd wisps of palest grey cloud. ‘Think of curios, Finnian.’ Her soft voice soothed. ‘Curios, curiosa, curiosity.
And remember m
ost urgently that time passes. Isolde gets closer and closer.
And remember this,’ she ran her delicate fingers through his hair and his eyes closed as he heard her melting tones,
‘I saw her stare on old dr
y writing in a learned tongue….
and move a hand as if that writing or the figured page were some dear cheek.’

Finnian’s dreams tore at his sanity – unmitigated images of Poli as the merrow slit his belly, of the screaming babe being tossed from one hoof to
another until it was lifeless.
And then softer images of the scribe in her grey clothes, her hand reaching to smooth a wisp of black hair behind her ear and then the same hand trac
ing the words she had written.
Finnian moved closer in his dream and reached out to touch her shoulder, the very action filling him with warmth and desire and she turned and stared at him and then
back at the papers before her.
He looked over her shoulder and there in brutal colours were
drawings of Poli, of the babe.
He lurched back but woke as he moaned an
d thrashed about on the divan.
Sweat drenched him
, his breath jagged and short.
He lay sucking in the deadly mist until he relaxed and drifted again, sleep dragging him from the fear and violence of his thoughts.

Much l
ater a hand shook his shoulder. ‘Effendi, you should wake.
Your time is up.’

He opened eyes that ached.
His mouth was filled with the taste of stale vomit and his body smelled of putrid sweat and other excrescences.

‘Pay for more?’
The grubby hand held out a black tablet.

Temptation pulled at his limbs, desire for releas
e incarnate tugged at his mind.
The word
coward
whispered in his ears.

‘Effendi?’
The voice hung disembodied about him.

At the other end of the room someone spok
e, an incomprehensible garble.
The voice turned toward the sound
and grumbled, a mean whisper.
‘Dungheap fool – he’s almost done for and then
another
body must be dumped, another couch to sc
rub and clean.’
He turned
back and grimaced at Finnian. ‘Effendi?
You pay?’

Finnian pushed himself up, unable to mask the screaming pain of longing as he groaned.
‘No, no more.’
He pulled his soiled clothes around him as he stood, his legs caving, the room tilting.

‘Effendi,’ the hands belonging to the wheedling voice steadied him, th
e tone whining and persistent. ‘A little to function?
Maybe half a Madonna?’

Finnian pushed the voice roughly and lurched toward the curtained partition.

‘Stinking co
ward.’
The voice followed him.
‘Coward.’

The dark alleys smelled fresher than the opium den as Finnian leaned ag
ainst the crumbling mud-walls.
Vomit rushed into his mouth and he retched till his sides ached and there was
nothing left but yellow froth.
People shuffled past, stepping out of the way of the mess, turning their heads, cursing him for the fool he was and h
e cringed under their insults.
He grabbed at the arm of a hunched old man, his grimy fingers leaving a streak on
the dirty robes of the beggar. ‘Hammam? Where?’
His voice rasped and he felt as if he floated and looked down on himself.
Help me.

‘Poor bastard,’ the beggar stepped back fro
m all that Finnian represented.
‘Here,’ he held out a cup of ha
lf eaten rice from a distance.
‘
Eat it and you’ll feel better.
The hammam is
in Fahrouk’s Street, that way. It’s public and free.’
He shuffled off and shame burned Finnian’s already dry skin as he held the beggar’s offering in his trembling hands.
He scooped the paltry rice into his mouth, chewed and swallowed the glutinous lump, nausea almost forcing it back up again but it settled in his belly, a tiny mound as heavy as the self-loathing that hovered about him. Pushing away from the wall with what little strength the rice proffered, he walked toward the baths, following the beggar’s directions, touching the walls with one hand like a blind man. He could not bear to think. Every second, a little door opened in his mind and the demons pushed but he pushed back. He wouldn’t think, not yet.

As he entered, people stepped back to hold their noses or put hands
over their mouths.
He approached a young attendant and with a mesmer to blind the boy’s evident distaste
, he asked for a private room.
Passing gelt over, he requested the boy buy him clothes, serviceable
cotton ones in a plain colour.
The boy showed him to a chamber divided into three spaces and then left to do Finnian’s bidding, leaving him to stand in the steam, swaying weakly and incapable of thinking what he must do next.

‘Effendi.’
A male voice spoke through the mist and a tall, solidly built man approached, shiny with an oil
slick and smelling of lemons. ‘Effendi, shower first. Over there is a tap. You need to wash.’
He led Finnian by the hand and pushed him gently under the shower, urging him to pu
ll off the evil-smelling garb.
He caught up the clothes in a bag and vanished through a door, reappea
ring with a bar of plain soap. ‘Here.
Wash.’

Finnian rubbed at his body, the creamy lather pushing at the foul coating of vomit and excrement so t
hat it slid away in the water.
He hadn’t the strength to scrub hard but he washed every inch, some
semblance of clean appearing.
The fellow reappeared again through the steam and passed him a thin piece of co
tton to wrap around his waist.
Taking him by the hand again, he led him to the first partition, the warm room, where he could sit and perspire.

‘Effendi,’ the tellak said, eyes filled wit
h gentleness and understanding. ‘You have been to the dens. I recognize the signs.
Sit here and swe
at for a little, not too long.
My name is Ibn and I am your
bath attendant.
I will come back shortly.’

Finnian watched the fellow turn and leave through th
e steam as if it were a dream.
His legs folded and he sat on the stone step next to the wall, leaning back, closing his eyes and allowing the warmth to enfold
him.
He slept a dreamless sleep, exhaustion blotting out everything.

Ibn’s h
and shook his shoulder gently. ‘Effendi, ten minutes only. It is enough.
I think you are t
oo weak to go to the hot room.
Come to the cooling room, and I shall give you your treatment.’

The cooling room had a narrow stone slab on which Finnian lay as Ibn proceeded to wash him with warm water and to scrub his limbs with a
hard little square of toweling.
‘Ibn’s br
other is an opium addict, sir.
It
is wise if you do not return.
My family is distraught that their son is a den wraith and they have begged Sidi Hamou of the Djinns to protect him but
I believe it is all too late.
The drug has him in its grasp and
he has lost the will to fight.
I tell you sir, as Lalla Rekya Bint El Khamar of the Bathhouses is my witness, if I can persuade just one person never to return to the clutches of the Black Madonnas, then I shall die happy.’

‘Then die happy, my friend,’ croaked Finnian, ‘for
I
am not going back.
I want to but I shall not.’

‘Oh eff
endi, you gladden my sad heart. But you see how you crave it?
So strong is the kiss of the Madonna,
one kiss and you desire more.
She is like your Lian Shee of Tre
vallyn, have you heard of her?
Because I can see you are perhaps a Trevallyn man and not a Raji like myself.’

Finnian nodded.
He was Færan; of course he knew of the Lian-Shee.
Aine, I don’t just know
of
her, I know her
– the beautiful seductress who, like the veela, seeks mortals, loves them and leaves them doomed to pine to death, desiring the affections of that shallow black heart.

Ibn poured oil on his palms and began to massage Finnian’s body, the touch of the hands anchoring him when he had thought he
might float away for eternity.
The tellak pushed deep into the muscles, into soft tissue, reversing
the damage of the sickly drug.
This time, pictures and words traveled through Finnian’s mind, of stars and the moon and a woman’s voice saying,
‘Every choice shall give you freedom’.
But then thoughts of Isolde dropped into his consciousness like the heaviest paperweights and he moaned.

‘Too hard, sir?
But you see I loosen the tautness which allow
s the poison to remove itself.
Trust Ibn, I will have you feeling halfway
to your good life in a moment.
Better that you let me massage deeply
even though it hurts.
Sometimes there is no gain to
be had without a little pain.’
The tellak kneaded away as if he worked at bread dough, pushing and pulling, and Finnian succumbed to the ro
ugh tenderness of the massage.
Nothing was said as the sound of hand on body, the drip of water, the hiss of steam and the occasional groan fr
om Finnian filled the sanctum.
Finally the tellak cov
ered Finnian in warmed towels.
‘When you are ready sit up but do it slowly my
friend, for you are very weak.
I shall send in the boy with tea
and with rice-cakes and honey.
Eat and drink, put
a lining back in your stomach.
Everything
will seem less traumatic then.
Oh, and the
boy has the clothes for you.’
Ibn turned to leave and Finnian called to him.

‘Thank you.’

Ib
n salaamed.
‘It is my job, effendi,’ he said as the boy laid a tray on the step with a pile of clothes alongside.

Finnian unfolded the neat pile and pulled on rough calico trousers and a kurta, the clothes plain and str
ong and with no embellishment.
He was glad there was no mirror, he knew the sight of the dissolute face would be too much – he could not yet face himself.
Value, worth –
the words bullied him with no mercy because he knew he was worth nothing and so he quickly poured a tea, the peppermint refreshing him with its astringence, the rice-cakes with honey creaming down
the side tasting like a feast.
Finally he knew he could no l
onger postpone the inevitable.
He must examine all that had passed.

Of Poli and the infant he could barely think, offering a prayer to Aine the Mother-Creator to protec
t the grief-stricken families.
But he began to examine his
opium-filled dreams in detail.
Perhaps th
e illusory Moonlady was right.
He cared not for
self-worth and why should he? Who cared anyway?
What had he ever done of value
, who would he be valuable to?
Only his avaricious grandmother
, that was the obvious answer.
Even then it would merely be for what he might have in his possession.

Isolde.
Is it true that she h
as no way of seeing what I do?
Am I really free of her?
He could well believe she made the young Finnian paranoid, carving up his self-esteem like a butcher dressing a side of goat but he couldn’t believe the old woman had no innate scrying skill, that even now she must surely see him sitting
in the hammam taking his time.
He looked over his shoulder but there was nothing, only his shadow on the wall.

He laid his head back in relief, his muscles loosening as he wondered about those he had met most recently – about Gio, about the generous beggar.  And about Ibn who like the others was mortal and who had shown him sympathy when he deserved none.
So curious. 
He would never see them again and they owed him nothing. 
So why do they have a care for me?
  He gazed at a golden drop of honey on the tray, no feasible answer presenting itself for where in his life would he ever have learned of care for care’s sake?