Page 45 of The Concubine King
“Oh yes, Your Divinity, what a good eye!”The merchant quickly, but carefully, took the fabric down and held it out for inspection.“Silk thread on cotton-and-silk muslin, a beauty of delicate, painstaking labor.You’ll never find another like it.”
“How much?”Poyut asked.
“Eight kith.”
Ethyr gaped, choking on his disbelief.
“Five,” Poyut said.
“Six,” the merchant countered.
Poyut nodded and untied the satchel from her belt.Ethyr watched in horrified awe as she counted out six gold coins and handed them over.The merchant tucked them away into her own bag and set to work folding and wrapping the fabric into a neat bundle, first with a fine linen, then a stronger, coarser one, and tied not with string but a blue silk ribbon.Poyut accepted it but handed it off to another guard.
“Thank you, thank you, please do return, Your Divinity, you won’t find quality quite like mine.”
Poyut pulled him away from the stall before he could respond, not that he knew what to answer with.
“Six kith!”he whispered to her, agonized.“You shouldn’t have bought it.What will I even do with it?”
“Edora will make something for you,” she answered, not at all distressed that she’d handed over a small fortune.“If you see anything else you like, let me know.”
She laced her fingers together and lowered her hands for Ethyr.He glanced back at the stall, then sighed and let her push him back onto the saddle.
With the realization that he might buy their wares, silent staring turned into loud pandering for his attention.Poyut and the guards continued forward as though deaf, so Ethyr tried to do the same.He didn’t dare make any indication of interest, lest it prompt Poyut a second time to give away enough money to buy his entire commune.
They wound down the mountainside, but stopped before they crossed the bridge where less extravagant wares were being sold.Poyut got down from her ride again, and this time only three guards followed.They tied their horses to the others’ saddles and Poyut once more incited Ethyr to dismount as well.
“Is something wrong?”he asked Poyut uncertainly.
“No,” she chuckled.“I thought you might like to browse.It’s easier when you’re not looking from the back of a horse.”
He looked around.Here, instead of stalls interspersed between houses, the entire street was a market, the bottom levels of buildings open to the air and selling such a variety of goods that Ethyr didn’t know where to look first or what to concentrate on.Between the buildings were even more stalls, or little set ups of entertainment, bards or actors or trained animal routines.
“I-I really don’t want anything,” Ethyr insisted.“There’s no need to buy anything else.”
“We don’t have to buy anything,” she reassured him.“But it’s fun just to look, isn’t it?”Ethyr hesitated before nodding.“Then let’s go!”she said cheerfully, and started into a building.He hurried after, glancing around at the guards as they took position to his sides and behind him.
He had to admit he preferred being on the same level as everyone else.It was strange, unnerving even, to be sitting high above them as they passed through the streets.But above or at level, it didn’t stop the stares and murmurs and merchant solicitations.Someone even reached out as he passed by, not grabbing him, but to let their fingers brush his shirt and arm.Ethyr leaned away but the guard at that side had already taken hold of their wrist and shoved them away with a barked, “Hands off!”
Despite the apparent lack of intimidation people felt, the crowd still made way for them wherever they went.As soon as they approached a shop or stall they were given space to reach the front, and the seller was quick to bring out their most expensive item and extol the quality of it.Ethyr looked at ribbons, lace, jewelry, fabric, ready-made clothing, tapestries, belts, pelts, fruits, games, coin purses, sweets, carved trinkets, knives and axes that looked more like art than tools, and more, more than he’d known was possible to exist in one place.Anything that someone might need or want could be found in one of the buildings.He had to wonder if anyone here ever lifted a finger to make their own things.
Over the next few hours, the only things bought were little pockets of bread filled with meat for a quick meal, and a small sweet that Poyut insisted on Ethyr trying.It had a brittle casing that burst open in his mouth to a delicious pool of honey.At the very least the food wasn’t exorbitantly expensive, though it was certainly more money than Ethyr would have ever paid himself.
They were at a stall selling accessories, ignoring the owner’s ranting—Ethyr had gotten good at that—when a set of jewelry he had seen several times by then drew his eye.Two little pieces, sometimes precious gems, sometimes metals warped into a design, but always sold together.These two had the same hooked metal top that seemed ubiquitous for the jewelry, but dangling from them were slender, teardrop stones Ethyr had never seen before.They were almost the color of pearl, but even more iridescent, and where light hit them they rippled soft blue and pink and orange.
“What are those?”Ethyr asked Poyut, pointing.The merchant pounced before she could reply.
“Do you like them, Your Divinity?”he asked, lifting the little cloth they were attached to.“You have excellent taste.They would certainly shine best on you, against your dark hair and skin.”He paused.“But your ears aren’t pierced, Your Divinity.”
Ethyr stared blankly at him.
“They’re earrings,” Poyut explained.“You can pierce your earlobes with a needle, and they go through the holes to hang from your ears.”
He had seen people with things hanging from their ears, but hadn’t thought they wereliterallyhanging from them, only attached superficially somehow.
“They are quite popular these days,” the merchant said.“And you won’t find earrings as beautifully, delicately crafted as my own.”
Every vendor said the exact same thing.Ethyr ignored him.“Does it hurt?”he asked dubiously.
