Page 53 of The Court of Venus

“You don’t have to.”

“I’d like to,” he said calmly. “I want you to understand.”

The memory bobbed along the current of his mind, and all I had to do was reach out with my own and grasp it. “Come now,” he teased. “You aren’t a little bit curious to see where I come from? What made me who I am?”

I took a breath and tentatively, softly, touched his memory. I was on a narrow street lined with crooked buildings, washing hung overhead. A young Roland fiddled with a ball on a stoop, tossing it up and catching it to amuse himself. The door behind him opened. The woman standing in the frame was breathtakingly beautiful, but her features were blurry—Roland could not recall them. He only remembered her as an ideal.

She was Elizabeth Daymour. His mother.

“Come, my love,” she said, and he followed her inside. The apartments were cramped, but every surface was covered in fine red velvet. Women luxuriating on cushions rubbed flower petals and oils over their skin.

She pulled her son close, kissed his head. When she was with clients, he would wait up for her, so afterward she could run her hands along his face and sing to him. Otherwise, he couldn’t sleep.

“Darling boy, I need you to help me one more time.”

And so he did for her what he hated doing above all else—what she asked him to do almost every night now. He pulled a thread of attraction between her and the man she pointed to, a well-dressed courtier who sat quietly on a chair. He had a gray beard and smelled of horses. This man already wanted his mother, but she relied on Roland to feel the same, even if it was false, because then she wouldn’t detest the next few hours quite so much. This arrangement had replaced the dependency on ale, had replaced simply shutting her eyes and enduring it. Until Roland severed their ties, she would find this man the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most kind, even if he was ugly and rotten, and Roland did this for her because he loved her. Even as he shook with unease and terror, he wanted to make her happy.

When Roland was finished, when the magic was stretched taut between them, Elizabeth’s eyes glazed over, and she took the stranger’s hands in her own, guiding him up the stairs, laughing girlishly and whispering into his ear. Roland watched them disappear around the corner, then took his ball and returned to the stoop to draw in more customers. Shame burned in him, but he didn’t understand it. His mother called him magic. Her magical, irresistible boy. She said his gift made him special, raised him above everyone in this alleyway, and because of his cleverness they’d have enough money to move to a nicer building soon. Maybe she could become madame herself one day.

A few men passed by his stoop, but they all had such violent desires he let them continue on. Shadows sank, and so did the city’s teeth. Roland was so busy chasing his ball that he didn’t notice a man striding down the alley, leaping over puddles of lingering rainwater and waste. He wore a feathered cap and a golden coat, the fabric so expensive it would’ve cost Roland and his mother a month to afford an inch of it. His eyes were a shock of blue, the hottest part of a flame. He had no lust to satiate; instead, he was looking for a boy who lived in this corner of the slums, rumored to read desire and embellish beauty. And he had found him.

Roland threw his ball against the wall once more, and the stranger’s hand darted out, caught it in midair. Roland frowned. “Who are you?”

The stranger returned his ball with an amused expression. “I am Prospero, Lord Chancellor to His Majesty the King.”

“What do you want here?”

“You already know that, don’t you, boy?”

Roland eyed him warily, unsure.

“Whoever you want to make pretty, I’ll do it for ten pennies or—” He thought for a moment. “Eight pennies, if that’s too much.” A flush swept across his face.

This Prospero had a world-weary look about him, though he was young. He reached into his pocket and flicked a coin into the air. As it flipped over and over, the coin multiplied, two to three to four, then a shower of gold coins rained down around Roland’s feet.

Roland plucked one from the mud. The king’s stark profile was stamped on it. He made a face. “Is it him you need me to make pretty?”

The stranger laughed at that, peering into the brothel beyond the stoop. “No, not him. Is your mother here?”

“She’ll be a while. Maybe hours. You’ll have to wait.”

“Hmm. I see.” A cart rolled by, flinging up mud, so the stranger sat beside Roland on the stoop. “How do you help your mother, Roland?”

Roland didn’t register that he had never told the man his name. He shrugged, but his eyes lit up. “I make her like the men that come here. I tell her when they’re thinking good thoughts. When they pass by, I know who will make a good client and bring them to her.”

The stranger smiled. “Can you tell if the men are married, or devoted to someone?”

“Oh, yes,” said Roland proudly. “If a man and a woman are out walking together, I know if they’re husband and wife or something else. Father and daughter. Brother and sister. Mama says it’s mighty useful—”

A sudden, terrible scream. Both Roland and the stranger twisted toward the boarded-up windows of the second floor. Roland raced up the staircase, only vaguely aware that the stranger was right behind him. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears, the “not again, not again” of his heart, the fear in that familiar, high-pitched scream. This was his fault—he had read the client’s mind, he didn’t see—

“Mama!” he cried.

His mother was in the hall, caved over herself, clutching her stomach. Her smile was hazy and unfocused as her client’s hand reared over her.

Roland snapped the bond he’d forged between them, and his mother fell over.

Then I was wrenched from his mind so suddenly, I gasped. The wide river returned, stacks of town houses now lining both banks.