The Bloodbaths | Page 6

tomorrow.?
Kharrina skipped out of the back room, all smiles. Her father watched as she threw her arms around Crixus' neck for a chaste embrace. Crixus grinned, risking a nuzzle against her cheek, but he kept one eye on Alman. The man's expression remained neutral, controlled.?
"By Lestii, what a welcome," he said. Kharrina kissed his cheek. Her auburn hair trickled beneath an ink-stained rag tied around her head. Kharrina shared a slender frame and square jaw with her father, but her mother's fine features softened the effect to an exquisite balance. Even after a dirty day's work, her natural beauty shined through the ink and grease.
"That's not just for you, goose! It's closing time. Father," she said, turning, "the ink is packed up. Unless you want me to help with the sweeping..." She let her voice trail off, giving her father no leeway.?
The old man allowed a smile to creep through. "After the mess you made, I should think I'd be better off sweeping alone." She stuck her tongue out. "Go, young lady. Your friend is only in town for a few more days."
"Thank you, ser," Crixus said. "I'll take your daughter to the baths and clean her up."
"A wise choice," The man said without expression. "Off you go."
"To the baths!" Kharrina exclaimed, taking Crixus by the arm and dragging him down the street. He managed to wave goodbye to Alman, who returned the wave coolly.?
"I appear to have sprung a prisoner from jail," he said when the printing house was out of sight.?
"You have," she groaned. "'Sunlight is the printer's light,' Father says. Up with the sun, close with the sun."?
"'If it was fun, you wouldn't get paid for it,' is what my father would say, after turning his son into a bent-backed cripple with a day of hauling terracotta." Crixus aped a hunchback, making her titter. "The worst thing about my trade is that no matter how much arcane knowledge you master, you always have to carry something heavy."
Crixus bought apples at a nearby booth. They crunched the sweet fruit, savoring the tooth-cleansing quality with anticipation. It was a game for them, one with a delightful denouement: they tossed the apple cores into the gutter, nestled against the corner of a building, and kissed. He had been looking forward to that kiss all day, and judging from Kharrina's passion, so had she. She pressed against him on tip-toe and opened her apple-sweetened mouth to him. He felt her heartbeat against his chest, her small breasts through her smock, her strong arms gripping his neck.?
This is Restia, he thought. My new home.
She broke the kiss and gasped for air. "What was that about the baths?"
"Well, I thought we could celebrate today with a trip to the baths, then a stout meal, then..." He grinned at her. She grinned back. Kharrina was not shy.
"What are we celebrating?" She started them down the cobblestone street again.
"Nothing, actually." He chuckled. "Stada brought in a water shaman to interfere with our scouting. The Water Guild has little power here, it appears. I lost that battle."
"Oh dear." She squeezed his hand. "But isn't a blessing from the spirits important?"
"I suppose, though I've never seen evidence one way or another that it makes a sprig of difference." Crixus frowned, remembering the quivering dowsing rod.?
He guided her around a puddle of sewage. An overhaul of the wastewater management would be on his list of proposals for the city elders before Restia became the reeking sewer that Greater Rond was. "But I suspect the water spirits are happiest in actual water, not rock as dry as a grandmother's nether regions."
She punched him on the arm. "Crixus!"
Crixus snickered. "I'm teasing. But I stood over a perfectly good spring, on the other side of the hill, while the old fool poured sestrices into that swindler's purse. Next time I look for water, I'm bringing eunuchs and incense."
"I can be your dancing girl."
"Oh, no! I don't intend to share you at all." Crixus took her arm back, pulling her close. "Though you would be a sight for sore eyes after treating with these wrinkly old men all day."
"Yet we're going to the public baths? You're a glutton for punishment."
"I doubt I'll spend much time staring at them." He winked at her.?
"You're full of lies and contradictions." Kharrina nestled against him as they approached the bathhouse.
"Like Anoxiae the trickster. I'll steal your liver and replace it with a stone."
The Restia bathhouse compared favorably to common bathhouses in Greater Rond. Crixus paid their entry fee of two coptrices to an elderly woman who handed them linen robes and wooden sandals to protect against the heated floors. Crixus paused to thrust a hand under the lion-headed fountain in the fa?ade, playing with the water pressure until Kharrina hustled him inside.?
They separated to go to