Read Online Riding the Serpent's Back by Keith Brooke - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Keith Brooke
Ads: Link
linens and yarns, their pots and knives, all their exotic finery.
Eventually, she had to realise that Roch held her and patted her and caressed her a little more often than was strictly necessary, that his excessive fussing about the precise hang of the silk always seemed to require frequent adjustments around her breasts, her legs, her backside.
One evening, with the marketeers packing up all around, Roch helped her down from the stall. He caught her, breathed hot chilli breath into her face, reluctantly let her go. Then he grabbed a corner of her silk drape and tugged it sharply so that she spun, stumbled, caught herself against the stall.
Inadvertently, she had turned away from him, and abruptly he took her from behind and held her tight. “I’m so sorry,” he said, although she did not know if he was sorry for making her stumble of for what he was now attempting to do – which was find the ties of her light cotton one-piece. “I’m so sorry.”
His face was buried in her hair, an arm held tight across her belly. He found the opening and his free hand squirmed into her clothes and engulfed a small breast, pinching the nipple painfully. She cried out but that only seemed to spur him on. She heard voices raised from nearby: joking, ribald, full of end-of-day good humour.
She stamped hard on Roch’s instep and felt something give way beneath her heel.
He cried out, released her, staggered back.
Now it was Cotoche’s turn to apologise, fearful of losing her job. But he was unable to fire her immediately, because he needed someone to push his hand cart back to the parlour – with his damaged foot it was all he could do to walk there with the aid of a stick. By the time they had returned Roch seemed so full of remorse, so desperate that she should say nothing about what had happened, that she ended up keeping her job. He never touched her unnecessarily again, but when the time came she was sure this incident was the reason he sold her so readily to Melved’s men.
It was a year after the food riots when Cotoche first saw Chi. First, it was Jaryd and Bean that she noticed, both of them admiring either her modelling or her silks – she had given up trying to make the distinction any more. It was their hair she noticed: the tails of dead rats interwoven and Charmed so that they twitched at will.
Chi joined his two friends, a hand on a shoulder of each, both of them tipping their heads towards him so they could hear whatever it was he was saying. His beard had been shorter then, recently trimmed, and the feathers in his blue-grey hair that day were white and yellow. Cotoche had never been remotely snobbish but as she studied this new man who, in turn, was studying her, she saw something in his poise and his angular handsomeness that she could only describe as noble.
She smiled at him, although it was only the weary smile she had already used a thousand times that day. She gave her hips a little wiggle and tipped her pelvis towards him.
His expression clouded and he gave a little shake of his head and she knew the tired old come-on had insulted him. She looked away, still not unduly concerned.
When she looked again, minutes later, the striking stranger had moved on.
A little later that same afternoon, she saw a face that she did recognise this time. It belonged to Luc Esquellion, the captain of Tomas Melved’s personal militia. Esquellion had always put up a show of comradeship with her father, and a playful flirting with her mother. But Cotoche knew that Melved’s militia had been heavily involved in putting down the food riots: if Esquellion was not personally responsible for the death of her parents or her brother then he was certainly responsible for the murder of countless others just like them.
Esquellion approached the stall and Roch hobbled to his feet, sensing the possibility of becoming supplier to one of the few True Family households this side of the continental shelf.
Roch’s hopes of supplying
Eventually, she had to realise that Roch held her and patted her and caressed her a little more often than was strictly necessary, that his excessive fussing about the precise hang of the silk always seemed to require frequent adjustments around her breasts, her legs, her backside.
One evening, with the marketeers packing up all around, Roch helped her down from the stall. He caught her, breathed hot chilli breath into her face, reluctantly let her go. Then he grabbed a corner of her silk drape and tugged it sharply so that she spun, stumbled, caught herself against the stall.
Inadvertently, she had turned away from him, and abruptly he took her from behind and held her tight. “I’m so sorry,” he said, although she did not know if he was sorry for making her stumble of for what he was now attempting to do – which was find the ties of her light cotton one-piece. “I’m so sorry.”
His face was buried in her hair, an arm held tight across her belly. He found the opening and his free hand squirmed into her clothes and engulfed a small breast, pinching the nipple painfully. She cried out but that only seemed to spur him on. She heard voices raised from nearby: joking, ribald, full of end-of-day good humour.
She stamped hard on Roch’s instep and felt something give way beneath her heel.
He cried out, released her, staggered back.
Now it was Cotoche’s turn to apologise, fearful of losing her job. But he was unable to fire her immediately, because he needed someone to push his hand cart back to the parlour – with his damaged foot it was all he could do to walk there with the aid of a stick. By the time they had returned Roch seemed so full of remorse, so desperate that she should say nothing about what had happened, that she ended up keeping her job. He never touched her unnecessarily again, but when the time came she was sure this incident was the reason he sold her so readily to Melved’s men.
It was a year after the food riots when Cotoche first saw Chi. First, it was Jaryd and Bean that she noticed, both of them admiring either her modelling or her silks – she had given up trying to make the distinction any more. It was their hair she noticed: the tails of dead rats interwoven and Charmed so that they twitched at will.
Chi joined his two friends, a hand on a shoulder of each, both of them tipping their heads towards him so they could hear whatever it was he was saying. His beard had been shorter then, recently trimmed, and the feathers in his blue-grey hair that day were white and yellow. Cotoche had never been remotely snobbish but as she studied this new man who, in turn, was studying her, she saw something in his poise and his angular handsomeness that she could only describe as noble.
She smiled at him, although it was only the weary smile she had already used a thousand times that day. She gave her hips a little wiggle and tipped her pelvis towards him.
His expression clouded and he gave a little shake of his head and she knew the tired old come-on had insulted him. She looked away, still not unduly concerned.
When she looked again, minutes later, the striking stranger had moved on.
A little later that same afternoon, she saw a face that she did recognise this time. It belonged to Luc Esquellion, the captain of Tomas Melved’s personal militia. Esquellion had always put up a show of comradeship with her father, and a playful flirting with her mother. But Cotoche knew that Melved’s militia had been heavily involved in putting down the food riots: if Esquellion was not personally responsible for the death of her parents or her brother then he was certainly responsible for the murder of countless others just like them.
Esquellion approached the stall and Roch hobbled to his feet, sensing the possibility of becoming supplier to one of the few True Family households this side of the continental shelf.
Roch’s hopes of supplying
Similar Books
