Page 87 of The Sun King's Noon

“Tell me,” Flint muttered, “you have some notion of what just happened.”

“We were talking, and they offered me somewhere to change?—”

“Oh, you dumb fuck.” Flint massaged his temple. “Get inside.”

He propelled Richard up the wagon steps, ducked in after and pulled the flap shut. The hanging lantern bathed the cramped space in soft light. Kaelen’s bedroll was empty—still practising with Boris—and Richard went to his pack for a dry tunic.

“Are you going to explain yourself?” Richard peeled the wet shirt off. “I had a plan in mind to learn information. Your interruption was ill-timed.”

Flint leaned against the dresser, arms folded. Richard expected him to gawk as he shucked off his trousers, but the bandit only looked confused, appraising Richard as if he was a puzzle to be solved.

“You stood there dripping before a group of horny men and women while they pawed at you and ‘offered’ you their brazier and their bed and their wagon-mate as garnish.”

Richard paused with the new tunic half-pulled over his head. “What?”

“They were propositioning you.” Flint rolled his eyes. “Together. Eager, since you were propositioning them first?—”

“I did no such?—”

“You’re walking through camp drenched to the skin, in a white, utterly see-through shirt, with your hair wet and throat bare. The whole of you on display like a fishmonger’s prizedtrout. Of course, they thought you were inviting them.” Flint held up both hands. “Now, if youwantedwhat they were offering, I’d have stepped aside and wished you a fine evening. Many of them are quite skilled, and Talia is, by experience, a wonder. But I don’t think it was what you wanted at all. You may thank me at your leisure.”

Richard finished tugging the dry tunic into place and started on the front lacings. His face burned.

“Their minds are in the gutters,” he muttered. “All of them. How can a simple question?—”

“Pleasure,” Flint said pleasantly. “Bodily pleasure is what is on most minds most of the time. That is the way of the world, and amongst circus folk, it is merely more honest about itself. They sleep three to a wagon and bathe in the same streams and watch each other do impossible things with their bodies for their suppers. It creates rather a lot of want.”

Richard scowled. Truly, it seemed as though people were no better than beasts most days. Was the urge for copulation so strong that innocent questions could be so easily misconstrued?

Flint passed by to settle into his bedroll. He propped up a knee and shuffled his cards lazily. “How is it you do not know this?”

“Know what?”

“This. Any of this. The whole grammar of it.” Flint’s gaze had gone shrewd. “You read the language like a man squinting at a foreign tongue—I noticed the same back at that tavern. You’re not a virgin, are you?”

Richard’s hands stilled on the lacings.

Flint’s eyes bulged. The cards stopped moving. “Oh. Oh, handsome.”

“Be silent.”

“You truly?—”

“Silence, Flint. I mean it.”

“Forgive me.” Flint’s grin was back, lopsided and delighted. “I am just—well,astonishedis too small a word. How?—”

“I have,” Richard said stiffly, “rather more important matters on my mind than to rut with other men and women. I would thank you to never mention the matter again.”

Flint laughed and shifted into a cross-legged position, the cards forgotten in his lap.

“Come now, there’s no shame in it.” He tilted his head and spread his hands. “If you’re curious about anything—nervous, even—you have only to ask. I’m a generous teacher. No fee for friends.”

“I am aware of the mechanics.” Richard yanked the lacings tight. “I simply do not want to?—”

His jaw snapped shut around what had nearly slipped out, and he headed immediately to his bedroll, busying himself with the blanket.Let it lie, let it lie, let it lie?—

“Don’t want to?” Flint repeated. “What does that mean? Don’t want to with men? Women?Anyone?”