NO ONE HAS YET DEVISED a satisfactory agency for long-distance intimacy – but in every world, there’s at least one that tries.
With a protracted high-pitched scream, an enormous emerald-hued bird circled Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon in descending spirals as the vehicle made its careful way along the tamped-earth road between the villages of Bottle and Wardhaven.
At last, the cook-errant thought, and smiled in anticipation.
“WHO IS WISE?” ASKS THE old sage-monk – and answers: “One who learns from everyone.”
Prosatio Silban squirmed in his damp sleeping-berth for the hundredth time, then finally rolled himself out of it and onto his feet. ENOUGH, he thought, passing a hand over his sweaty face and rubbing his wet fingers. Perhaps it will be cooler outside. I hope.
SOME KNOWN THINGS SHOULDN’T BE.
Prosatio Silban glanced up at epicurean Pormaris’ massive dockside clock-tower, an accurate timekeeper and source of immense civic pride. A quarter-hour past fourteen, he thought. My customer should be arriving soon – and aha! here he is.
An almost-shabby youth clad in an academic’s robes shuffled his hesitant way through the makeshift lanes of the grand city’s fabled South Market, a packet of scrolls under one skinny arm. Seeing the Cook For Any Price, lodged between a fatberry-oil presser and seller of imported curios, he broke into a brief half-hearted smile and sat down at one of the two empty tables-and-chairs.
“WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO open and operate such a renowned dining-palace?” Prosatio Silban asked Hesto Panym, owner of many-harbored Soharis’ excellent and elegant Gull’s Wing.
“Honestly? I don’t quite recall,” the restaurateur replied with an emphatic shrug. “But if ever I decide to do so again, please: Take your largest pot of browned-onion soup – and drown me in it.”
“WHAT’S THE MOST ENTERTAINING THING I can do for the reader next?“
WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE TO enter into your world’s oldest and otherwise silent conversation?
The book was slim and hand-sized, pairing quaint movable-typeset Ancient Uulian with peculiar woodcuts, and its novelty was irresistible to Prosatio Silban after a long hour spent browsing Datria Axeol’s extensive and renowned secondhand-literature stall in epicurean Pormaris’ anything-for-a-price South Market.
‘Verses of Song,’ eh? he thought, raising an eyebrow. The artwork is charming, the text suggestive, and the price more than reasonable. I must have this.
WHERE AND WHEN PEOPLE GATHER, so do their secrets.
Prosatio Silban slapped hot water on his back with a wet towel and let out a satisfied sigh. Nothing like a good steam to wash away the accumulated grime and cooking-grease, he thought with a relaxed smile.
Although epicurean Pormaris, like the Uulian Commonwell in general, followed a strict (though fluid) class hierarchy, one place where those social rules were somewhat relaxed was the city’s many public baths. Everyone from the highest Heir Second noble to the lowliest marketplace-porter or beggar – in short, all who could afford the two-in-copper admission fee – might occupy any of four tastefully frescoed ablution-chambers: hot bath, cold bath, sauna, steam-room. It was in one of the latter that Prosatio Silban now luxuriated, reveling in the all-surrounding invisibility.
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