An hour had passed since dawn had yawned over the sleepy ghetto, yet still the clusters of clay hovels slumbered deep into the day. There were snores of thatch roofs ruffled by sparrows, and the crackly breath of communal fire pits. The people themselves proved conspicuously absent. It happened every seven days, at the end of each Messaii week: the poor would travel north to receive the pastor’s service, save for the few dozen sunken-eyed families who hitherto refused the Messah’s brand. And the gods, Cain thought. They forsake them too.
Though he hated the white tyrants and the Impii race traitors, the old sacrifice reserved his deepest hatred for the Eemah’s unbelievers. The pastor, at least, fed his flock and put them to work. But the faithless—Cain hardened his heart against them. They filled the streets like filth, mourning their misfortune while their children starved, eying him enviously, as if his dirt floor was any warmer or his straw mat softer, as if his clothes were less roughspun, like his water trough was not filled from the same brown canal.
“Don’t they have any pride?” Cain pondered aloud, gazing from his doorway into the other houses. He listened as Jezebel unwound her gown, heard the gentle plop of folded silk at the foot of their bedding and the hollow trickle of water as she wrung a cloth over a half empty pail. “Those men,” he continued, “have you ever seen them work? Yet they have shekels enough to get drunk on kumasi. And these women. Do they think they can feed their children with tears?” The cool touch of wet hemp on Cain’s chest sent chills down his spine before he ever felt Jezebel’s arms wrap around him—or her bare breasts press hot against his back.
“That’s easy for you to say.” She dabbed at his chin and mouth and around his nose, her lips brushing his skin as she rasped, “You got to be the chosen one. But I suppose I was lucky too. None of the other men had gotten an audience with the witch. My friends were so jealous, and when Mother found out—”
Cain’s heart screamed, every fiber of him yearning as he turned and took his lover by the wrists. And she resisted at first, as he thrust her onto their bedding, but as he pinned her body with his, again he hesitated. She would not even look at him—instead rolled her eyes, indifferent, her limbs limp as if to say, “Go ahead then. Get it over with.”
Gods, what this woman does to me. Another part of her game, Cain knew, and knowing tempted him to take her anyway. That was until he spotted bruises forming on her arms. He had not meant for that, yet guilt clawed at his heart regardless. He turned from her and from his shame and retrieved his linens from the foot of their bedding.
“Why do you enjoy torturing me?” He could feel her smirk burn into his back.
“Because I can.”
“Another man might beat you for that.”
Jezebel crawled beside him and picked up a beige dress striped with scarlet. “Good thing you’re not another man, then.” She pulled the frock over her head and tied a matching sash around her waist. “Have you decided what we’re getting at market today?”
Cain’s hands went to massaging his scalp. “This again?”
“What?”
“You didn’t like what I picked out last time.”
“It’s not that I didn’t like it. I just—” Jezebel stood and brushed dust from her dress, considering how best to explain herself. “We’d had smoked goat for the past three nights. I heard there were shipments in from Pareo. Why not try something different?” She pulled Cain to his feet and snaked her arms around him. “I know you don’t like it, relying on them, but… just this once. For me.”
“You’re worse than the witch,” he replied. “And fine, we’ll decide when we get there.”
Another hour passed before they arrived at the market, every street beaten a golden-brown hue from incessant sand and sunshine. No structure went untouched, not the Messah’s rich, brick-and-mortar quarters, nor the crumbling clay storefronts, nor even the parish with its faded glazed bricks and cracked plaster façade. Though the church aged the same as the earthly houses around it, David’s flock seemed none the more dissuaded by its decay. In truth, the past decade had grown his assembly, so much so that Cain and Jezebel walked arm-in-arm as not to be pulled apart by the flood of Messah pouring onto the road.
The couple shoved through the crowd to a repurposed house owned by Eemah’s goldsmith. The stout, pink man was feeding a muddy kiln when they reached the doorway, never turning from his work as he bid them come in. Jezebel refused, complained the place was an oven, so her sacrifice trudged alone into a curtain of his own sweat.
“You have something for me, Imp?” said the sunburnt Messah. Cain tossed him the ring and he bit it with gilded teeth. “Fifteen shekels.”
“Thirty.”
He looked the band over and examined the engraving. “Tell you what. Be a good Imp and get me a steak from Shaka’s, and I’ll make it twenty-two.”
Cain stared. “Thirty.”
“Damned greedy Imp,” the goldsmith muttered. “Alright! Twenty-four, but you bring me that steak, or I swear the sentries will hear of it. And hurry up, before you scare away my patrons.”
Cain hated every pound of that Messaii pig and hated worse that he sat fat on unearned spoils. But that didn't stop him from swaggering outside with a thick purse in hand-only to find Jezebel vanished from the store front. His first thoughts were worried ones, yet as he scoured the crowd for stripes beige and red, his nerves relaxed and he contemplated going to Shaka’s butchery on his own. It would save him an explanation, and if he paid to have the steak sent over, he might return before she knew he was gone. As he was
