‘Have you fallen for one of them?’
‘That’s just it. I haven’t had a chance to.’
Tehol glanced over at Bugg, then back to Ublala. ‘You haven’t had a chance to. What a strange statement. Can you elaborate?’
‘It’s not fair, that’s what it is. Not fair. You won’t understand. It’s not a problem you have. I mean, what am I? Am I to be nothing but a toy? Just because I have a big-’
‘Hold on a moment,’ Tehol cut in. ‘Let’s see if I fully understand you, Ublala. You feel they’re just using you. Interested only in your, uh, attributes. All they want from you is sex. No commitment, no loyalty even. They’re happy taking turns with you, taking no account of your feelings, your sensitive nature. They probably don’t even want to cuddle afterwards or make small talk, right?’
Ublala nodded.
‘And all that is making you miserable?’
He nodded again, snuffling, his lower lip protruding, his broad mouth downturned at the corners, a muscle twitching in his right cheek.
Tehol stared for a moment longer, then he tossed up his hands. ‘Ublala! Don’t you understand? You’re in a man’s paradise! What all the rest of us can only dream about!’
‘But I want something more!’
‘No! You don’t! Trust me! Bugg, don’t you agree? Tell him!’
Bugg frowned, then said, ‘It is as Tehol says, Ublala. Granted, a tragic truth, and granted, Master’s nature is to revel in tragic truths, which to many might seem unusual, unhealthy even-’
‘Thanks for the affirmation, Bugg,’ Tehol interrupted with a scowl. ‘Go clean up, will you?’ He faced Ublala again. ‘You are at the pinnacle of male achievement, my friend – wait! Did you say it’s not a problem I have? What did you mean by that?’
Ublala blinked. ‘What? Uh, are you at that pinnacle, or whatever you called it – are you at it too?’
Bugg snorted. ‘He hasn’t been at it in months.’
‘Well, that’s it!’ Tehol stormed to the hearth and plucked out what was left of the matted reeds. He stamped out the flames, then picked the charred object up and set it on his head. ‘All right, Bugg, let’s go and get her. As for this brainless giant here, he can mope around all alone in here, for all I care. How many insults can a sensitive man like me endure, anyway?’
Wisps of smoke drifted from the reeds on Tehol’s head.
‘That’s about to take flame again, master.’
‘Well, that’s what’s good about rain, then, isn’t it? Let’s go.’
Outside in the narrow aisle, water streamed ankle-deep towards the clogged drain at the far end, where a small lake was forming. Bugg a half-step in the lead, they sloshed their way across its swirling, rain-pocked expanse.
‘You should be more sympathetic to Ublala, master,’ Bugg said over a shoulder. ‘He’s a very unhappy man.’
‘Sympathy belongs to the small-membered, Bugg. Ublala has three women drooling all over him, or have you forgotten?’
‘That’s a rather disgusting image.’
‘You’ve been too old too long, dear servant. There’s nothing inherently disgusting about drool.’ He paused, then said, ‘All right, maybe there is. However, do we have to talk about sex? That subject makes me nostalgic’
‘Errant forbid.’
‘So, where is she?’
‘In a brothel.’
‘Oh, now that’s really pathetic.’
‘More like a newly acquired raging addiction, master. The more she feeds it, the hungrier it gets.’
They crossed Turol Avenue and made their way into the Prostitutes’ District. The downpour was diminishing, the tail ends of the storm front streaming overhead. ‘Well,’ Tehol commented, ‘that is not a desirable condition for one of my most valued employees. Especially since her addiction doesn’t include her handsome, elegant boss. Something tells me it should have been me weeping in a corner back there, not Ublala.’
‘It may simply be a case of Shurq not wanting to mix business with pleasure.’
‘Bugg, you told me she’s in a brothel.’
‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’
‘Now I’m truly miserable. I wasn’t miserable this morning. If the trend continues, by dusk I’ll be swimming the canal with bags of coins around my neck.’
‘Here we are.’
They stood before a narrow, three-storey tenement, set slightly in from the adjoining buildings and looking a few centuries older than anything else on the street. The front facing held a carved facade around two square, inset columns of dusty blue marble. Decidedly female demons in bas-relief, contorted and writhing in a mass orgy, crowded the panels, and atop the columns crouched stone gargoyles with enormous breasts held high and inviting.
Tehol turned to Bugg. ‘This is the Temple. She’s in the Temple?’
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘I can’t even afford to step across the threshold. Even Queen Janall frequents this place but a few times a year. Annual membership dues are a thousand docks… I’ve heard… it rumoured. From someone, once.’
‘Matron Delisp is probably very pleased with her newest property.’
‘I’d wager she is at that. So, how do we extract Shurq Elalle, especially since it’s obvious she is where she wants to be, and the Matron has at least thirty thugs in her employ who’re likely to try and stop us? Should we simply consider this a lost cause and be on our way?’
Bugg shrugged. ‘That is up to you to decide, master.’
‘Well.’ He considered. ‘I’d like at least a word with her.’
‘Probably all you can afford.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Bugg. She doesn’t charge by the word… does she?’
‘She might well charge by the glance, master. Our dear dead thief has blossomed-’
‘Thanks to me! Who arranged for her overhaul? Her dry-dock repairs, the new coat of paint? We had a deal-’
‘Tell it to her, master, not me. I am well aware of the lengths you go to in appeasing your own peculiar appetites.’
‘I’m not even going to ask what you mean by that, Bugg. It sounds sordid, and my sordid self is my own affair.’
‘So it is, master, so it is. Good thing you’re not the nostalgic type.’
Tehol glared at Bugg for a moment, then swung his attention once more to the Temple. The oldest brothel in all the land. Some said it was standing here long before the city rose up around it, and indeed the city rose up around it because of the brothel itself. That didn’t make much sense, but then few things did when it came to love and its many false but alluring shades. He tilted his head back to study the gargoyles, and the scorched reed hat slid off to splash on the cobbles behind him. ‘Well, that settles it. Either I stand here getting my hair wet, or I go inside.’
‘As far as I can tell, master, my rain hat was a tragic failure in any case.’
‘It’s your over-critical nature, Bugg, what’s done you in. Follow me!’
Tehol ascended the steps with proprietary determination. As he reached the landing the front door swung open and the frame was filled by a huge, hooded man wearing a black surcoat, a massive double-bladed axe in his gauntleted hands.
Appalled, Tehol halted, Bugg stumbling into him from behind on the lower step.
‘Excuse me,’ Tehol managed, stepping to one side and pulling Bugg along with him. ‘Off to a beheading, then?’ He gestured for the man to pass.
Small eyes glittered from the hood’s shadows. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said in a raspy voice. ‘You are most courteous.’ He strode forward onto the landing, then paused. ‘It’s raining.’
‘Indeed, almost finished, I’d wager. See the blue overhead?’
