Free The Bloodstained God (Book 2) by Tim Stead Page B

to itching annoyingly when he was in the least agitated. Over the months since he had lost his right he had become quite proficient with the left, and only occasionally made the error of trying to use the vanished fingers of his right to seize a cup or pen.
     
    Sheyani was downstairs in the bar, helping the barmen clean the glasses and tables. She smiled when she saw him, and came to him at once.
     
    “You must come with me,” she said, “and I forbid you to think for the rest of the day.”
     
    “You forbid me?” Cain smiled in spite of himself.
     
    “I do. Now come.” She tucked her arm around his and led him out of the Seventh Friend into the street, turning right, following the road that led towards the commercial heart of the low city, the King’s Loyal Market. It was the largest by far of several that sprang up like weeds in any open space in the city. It bore the name of a tavern, the King’s Loyal Servant, that had burned down at least fifty years ago and not been rebuilt. The charred timbers and broken slates had been cleared away and stalls had begun to sprout as if from the ground almost as soon as there was room. The council permitted it, or at least did nothing to close it down.
     
    The old tavern had been big, and now the market was equally impressive. The houses around it had adapted to the situation, and most of them were fronted with rickety stalls. It was a Market that sold everything; food, cloth, oil, candles, lamps, clothes, pots and pans, nails, parchment, wine, jewellery – some of it quite expensive; there were cook’s carts, too, selling a dozen different foods ready to eat, and entertainers in the aisles, jugglers, singers, and even a man who promised to paint your picture in ten minutes flat.
     
    Sheyani pulled him along the rows, stopping every now and then to admire a bolt of silk or a pretty scarf. She was enjoying herself. She bought a length of green silk that she said would make a shawl to cover her head, taking great pleasure in the sport of haggling the seller down. Cain knew that she overpaid anyway, but he didn’t say anything. He could afford it. They were rich. He was a lord.
     
    They stopped at a stall selling sticks of spiced beef cooked on an open flame, and he ate two. Sheyani shook her head at him, mock frowned. She would still eat no meat, but he would not adopt her ways. In truth she did not seem to mind. They took a cup of wine from a stall two down from the meat seller. The vendor swore it was Telan, but it would have been a poor vintage if it was. He enjoyed it anyway. There was something about the day that would have made the roughest country wine taste good.
     
    A couple of men greeted him. They were soldiers. The whole city was full of soldiers, and they saluted and bowed. He smiled at them, shook their hands, which startled them both, and wished them well. Cain could feel himself unwinding, a spring gradually letting out its tension. He was having fun, and he was not thinking.
     
    It was a pig that did it. One end of the market was devoted to livestock. Chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, even dogs and cats were sold here. They were walking past a nut seller, a man doing a brisk trade. Nuts were popular and cheap, and the man had stacks of empty and full baskets.
     
    A great commotion came from up ahead, from where the animals were sold, and they heard the pig before they saw it. A loud squeal, men shouting, laughing, women shrieking with laughter. A good sized pig, white with pink ears, came barrelling down the aisle, making a last run at freedom before it ended up as pork.
     
    Cain swung Sheyani to the side of the aisle, but in doing so could not avoid the animal himself, and tripped over its back as it drove past with all the determination of a Berashi cavalry charge. He twisted as he fell and struck the nut seller’s baskets, the full ones, with his shoulder, and it was like hitting a brick wall.
     
    Then the pig was gone, its noise rapidly distant,