Read Online The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy by Chris Bunch - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chris Bunch
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a shelter from the thundershower may hold a sun bear, and what then, my lad? All of these things I learned well, and they saved my life many times in the years that followed.
There were two other “skills” that are commonly thought of as soldierly that my father spoke little of, but I also familiarized myself with. One came naturally, but I failed at the other.
The latter was drinking. All men know soldiers are sponges, sops around anything fermented or distilled, and I fear it’s more than true for most. But not for me. The smell of wine or brandy turned my stomach as a lad, which is hardly uncommon. But the smell or taste never became more attractive as I aged. When young, hoping to learn the skill, I forced myself to drink with my fellows, once as a boy when we found a wineskin that had fallen off a merchant’s cart beside the track, and the second time at the lycee, when we cadets finished our first year of studies. I never made a boisterous ass of myself as others did, but became very sick early on and crawled off to be rackingly ill, and then had a sour gut and a huge drum in my head for two days as reward. Of course I never say I do not drink, since the world pretends to respect but actually feels uncomfortable around an ascetic, but I will carry a single beaker of wine for an entire evening without anyone noticing that I but touch it to my lips. I drink small beer by choice, and even water when I’m assured of its purity. There have been a few times as an adult I’ve gotten drunk, but they were the exception and even more foolish than when I was a boy.
The other soldierly virtue or vice is, of course, whoring. Sex came early to me, and was the hidden blessing of my tiny house in the jungle, since I was alone with no nurse, mother, or busybody of a servant to keep me chaste. Perhaps my father knew this when he gave me those two rooms whose memory I still treasure.
Village maids, more likely infatuated with the idea of bedding the son of the lord than having a real lust for me, would creep into my quarters at night and teach me what they knew. After some time and several girls befriending me, I was able to return the favor of instruction.
There would also be the girls and young women of the caravans. Once trading was finished, there would be a feast, and as often as not the end of the evening would find one of them slipping into the shadows with me.
I remember one such night when a young woman came out with me. Her husband, a great oaf of a silk merchant, had inhaled three wineskins and subsided into a snoring, blubbering pile not long after the sun went down.
She told me, and it might well have been a lie, she’d been sold to him against her will. I said nothing, for such was and unfortunately still is the custom in too many parts of our land.
She asked if I knew what could be done with silk, and I laughed and said I might be from the country, but was hardly that much of a fool. She smiled privately and suggested perhaps there were uses I was still unaware of, such as for wall-hangings and, she ran her tongue over her lips, other places in the bedchamber.
I expressed interest, feeling my cock stir against my loincloth. She disappeared into her wagon, and came out in a few moments with a pack.
No one noticed as we left the village square and went to my cabin, being deep in their own vices. She was, of course, telling the truth — there were many, many uses for the silkworm’s death I wasn’t aware of. I did know how coarsely woven veil, showing more than it conceals of brown flesh, with only a candle to illuminate, can dizzy the mind.
But I knew nothing until that night of the touch of a silk whip, nor how silken restraints can send a woman’s passion into flame.
We were resting, curled around each other’s bodies, sticky with love, when the tiger coughed.
Her body tensed against me.
“Can he get in?” she whispered.
To be truthful, I didn’t know. There were iron bars across the windows,
There were two other “skills” that are commonly thought of as soldierly that my father spoke little of, but I also familiarized myself with. One came naturally, but I failed at the other.
The latter was drinking. All men know soldiers are sponges, sops around anything fermented or distilled, and I fear it’s more than true for most. But not for me. The smell of wine or brandy turned my stomach as a lad, which is hardly uncommon. But the smell or taste never became more attractive as I aged. When young, hoping to learn the skill, I forced myself to drink with my fellows, once as a boy when we found a wineskin that had fallen off a merchant’s cart beside the track, and the second time at the lycee, when we cadets finished our first year of studies. I never made a boisterous ass of myself as others did, but became very sick early on and crawled off to be rackingly ill, and then had a sour gut and a huge drum in my head for two days as reward. Of course I never say I do not drink, since the world pretends to respect but actually feels uncomfortable around an ascetic, but I will carry a single beaker of wine for an entire evening without anyone noticing that I but touch it to my lips. I drink small beer by choice, and even water when I’m assured of its purity. There have been a few times as an adult I’ve gotten drunk, but they were the exception and even more foolish than when I was a boy.
The other soldierly virtue or vice is, of course, whoring. Sex came early to me, and was the hidden blessing of my tiny house in the jungle, since I was alone with no nurse, mother, or busybody of a servant to keep me chaste. Perhaps my father knew this when he gave me those two rooms whose memory I still treasure.
Village maids, more likely infatuated with the idea of bedding the son of the lord than having a real lust for me, would creep into my quarters at night and teach me what they knew. After some time and several girls befriending me, I was able to return the favor of instruction.
There would also be the girls and young women of the caravans. Once trading was finished, there would be a feast, and as often as not the end of the evening would find one of them slipping into the shadows with me.
I remember one such night when a young woman came out with me. Her husband, a great oaf of a silk merchant, had inhaled three wineskins and subsided into a snoring, blubbering pile not long after the sun went down.
She told me, and it might well have been a lie, she’d been sold to him against her will. I said nothing, for such was and unfortunately still is the custom in too many parts of our land.
She asked if I knew what could be done with silk, and I laughed and said I might be from the country, but was hardly that much of a fool. She smiled privately and suggested perhaps there were uses I was still unaware of, such as for wall-hangings and, she ran her tongue over her lips, other places in the bedchamber.
I expressed interest, feeling my cock stir against my loincloth. She disappeared into her wagon, and came out in a few moments with a pack.
No one noticed as we left the village square and went to my cabin, being deep in their own vices. She was, of course, telling the truth — there were many, many uses for the silkworm’s death I wasn’t aware of. I did know how coarsely woven veil, showing more than it conceals of brown flesh, with only a candle to illuminate, can dizzy the mind.
But I knew nothing until that night of the touch of a silk whip, nor how silken restraints can send a woman’s passion into flame.
We were resting, curled around each other’s bodies, sticky with love, when the tiger coughed.
Her body tensed against me.
“Can he get in?” she whispered.
To be truthful, I didn’t know. There were iron bars across the windows,
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