Anastasia didn't hide her gloating. I had never seen a wider grin on her face. Her eyes shone so bright, they lit up the storage room of the infirmary better than a thousand lamps. She didn't even check on the precious stack of her scrolls. Maybe she had stashed her poetry under her pillow for the night. Maybe what she wanted in life even more than a poet's fame, was to see me humbled. And she was getting that in droves!
"Gala's blessing!" She squinted her yellowish eyes, so she wouldn't miss a single detail of my disgrace. "Who would have believed a woman could fall so low so fast! Not even a week in the gutters and..."
She shook her head in pretend dismay. "Ah, what a pitiful, pitiful sight! I must pray for the Divines to guide all those less fortunate to a safe haven."
I was urgently in need of a vomiting bucket. "I'll pray that your piety is rewarded. May the fire ants find shelter in your bed with you, those poor hungry creatures."
Hopefully, Kozima kept his mouth shut about the scorpia assassin. He probably did, because the boy wasn't just a pretty face. He was smart. Plus, if he had told Anastasia about the scorpia, she'd probably be trembling. Instead, the woman struggled to rein in her happiness. She was so happy, she completely ignored my jab.
"I'm helping you on one condition," she said.
Kozima bit his lip and darted an apologetic glance at me.
She glared at him unnecessarily, since he didn't so much as stir a muscle, let alone spoke up.
He still bit his lip so hard, I was afraid it would start bleeding. The concern glued my gaze to the dimple on his chin. If the ruby droplets rolled down it, as a woman, I should alert this silly goose. He should break bad habits that could mar his beauty.
"My condition is that you seek out the pearl-and-coral seller Lydia and make her break the courtship to Kozima," Anastasia said.
My head whipped wildly in her direction. "What? Who?"
"Since you'll be working in the docks anyway," Anastasia explained. The word docks made her shrug one shoulder, a thin-veiled attempt to conceal how much she was savoring my downfall.
"Anastasia, please..." Kozima whispered at the same time as I squeaked: "Courtship to Kozima? A woman is courting him?"
Anastasia sighed with infinite patience. "Yes."
I had never before felt like someone had punched me in the guts with words. "But when?"
"Since two days ago. This Lydia came to the Temple to seek courtship and marriage with one of our wards. Her choice fell upon this young idiot."
The young idiot in question dropped his head into his hands. A head full of thick, jet-black hair just how mine used to be about an hour ago.
"Ahem... congratulations, Kozima. May Gala bless your loins with plentiful seed. Though if you want the courtship broken... no congratulations are in order?" I asked. "I'm confused. Why did you even agree?"
Providing we had an hour or two, Kozima might have whimpered something comprehensible in response, but Anastasia had even less patience in the dead of the night than she did during the day.
"The Head Priestess had asked him--it is a proper thing to do--and he had agreed. He agreed! Like a dumb pigeon! I thought she'd have an apoplexy on the spot."
I feared the same fate for Anastasia, to be honest, she was so worked up over Kozima's courtship. She treated me to another display of trembling cheeks, lips, curls and bosom. "It is a terrible match for him. Terrible. He'd be a second husband and Lydia already has three children."
"Any girls?"
"Boys. But if his seed quickens to boys as well, he'd be in an unenviable situation. Lydia's earnings barely put her in the tax bracket to keep two husbands."
Kozima's shoulder blades poked through his shirt, making me want to stroke his back. I had an inkling that Anastasia was berating him about it non-stop. Not that he din't act stupid, jumping on the first courtship proposal at seventeen, but still! He must have had his reasons. Though what they could have possibly been, I couldn't start imagining. Maybe he was proud of his virility and welcomed the challenge to give this woman daughters. Perhaps it was with reason? Though he looked like a virgin to me.
"If Kozima doesn't want to marry Lydia, he should just say he'd changed his mind and that's the end of it. He's young enough for it not to be seen as a flaw."
"Are you pretending to be ditsy on purpose?" Anastasia hissed. "Yes, he can do that, but if you make Lydia do it instead, he won't get a reputation of a flirt with a moody temperament."
It was probably too late to worry about his temperament. The man slept on the roof after all, because of his moods. I yearned to throw that argument into Anastasia's pink face, but sighed instead. He looked so downtrodden, I felt pity for him.
"Kozima?"
He didn't even stir. My newly softened heart whispered that bailing Kozima was the right thing to do.
"I'll do it."
"Of course you will." Anastasia looked at the paste solidifying round my head into a teal helmet. "Is it itching yet?"
"No." I gritted my teeth, because as soon as she'd asked, it started to itch like crazy.
"I hope you applied it all over," she added with a smile I could only describe as vile.
Oh, yes, I had applied it all over and the rest of my skin was even more sensitive than my skull.
"Thank you for your concern, dear Anastasia. I didn't forget anything, so my supple body will be smoother than a newborn snake by morning. All over."
Kozima stumbled to his feet, but he didn't go far. Just as far as the farthest corner he could get to. There he faltered, facing the wall, looking ready to claw through it. He must have wanted to escape the waves of disgust that emanated from Anastasia in my direction, and I couldn't blame him.
Meanwhile, Anastasia took her time first unlocking the medicine chest, then smothering the gum over my shoulder. She wasn't gentle about it. And I was getting tired of having sticky, stinky things rubbed onto my skin. But I clenched my jaw and endured.
"You would have died from the poison," she said casually after she was done. "And if you try to wiggle out of your end of the deal, you will. Lots of medicines here are poisons, when administered in high doses."
The threat hung in the air for a heartbeat. When I didn't react, she cat-stretched and yawned. "As much as I want to see you bald, Ismar, I'm getting a little sleepy. Make sure to clean up. I don't want to see a single horse's hair on my floors tomorrow."
At night, the gold-spun bounty of her hair spilled past her shoulders in tiny ringlets. It was messy and glorious, drawing attention to its beauty. Particularly next to a woman who'd just sheared a few pounds of coarse wool from her own head.
As much as I wanted to hit Anastasia with a sizzling rejoinder or just hit her with my fist, I wanted to be rid of her more. So, I held my tongue.
With a last gloating look, Anastasia finally left. There was a spring in her step. She might have hummed.
I told myself I didn't care. The medicine was already healing my shoulder. At dawn I'll be on a fishing boat, escaping the scorpia. Also, dealing with this Kozima's compilation. I sighed. "Whatever possessed you to get entangled with this stupid Lydia?"
The words were barely out of my mouth when I noticed his wan expression. The soulful shadow under the eyes, the bitter twist to the lips. Something other than the seawater I had swallowed churned in my stomach. And a bit lower, in the loins area. Then a bit higher, in the chest area.
Feverish guesses swirled through my itching head. I dug my nails as deep as I could under the dry cake, but I couldn't scratch my thoughts out. Kozima ran after me that day. Kozima boosted me up the wall. Kozima accepted a courtship offer without looking after I left... "Kozima?"
Unaware of the turbulence he had created throughout the core of my being, Kozima leaned on a broom in his corner. "You should wash the paste off now, but keep the gum patch on."
For a man with such pretty eyes, he loved to hide them from me.
"I left a change of clothing for you on the library roof. There are blankets and everything. You'll need to sleep there... ah, for your safety. I'll clean up here, so Anastasia doesn't throw a fit in the morning."
That must have been the longest speech he had ever given because he was out of breath by the end of it. And looking at me, waiting for my approval. He had such pretty eyes. And air. And hands. I even thought his long nose was kind of pretty too.
I picked up an empty copper jug with my good hand and twisted it around. "Safety is important to me. Maybe you can check on me after you are done here, Kozima. I had never slept on a roof before after all."