opened for business, he would be on his feet the rest of the night.
She didn’t lie to him: Diverus wandered through the three main rooms throughout that entire first night, weaving among clients and other serving boys, and the boys on display.
Most of the clientele were costumed and masked, as if arriving from a fancy ball somewhere else upon the span. He watched them descend the long, high stairway, dressed in loose pants and sometimes with sweeping capes. Bogrevil was often there to meet them. Many, he seemed to know despite—or perhaps because of—their costumes, welcoming them broadly and taking them immediately to one of the three chambers, where he would point out someone in particular. Most of the time, the guest agreed with his selection and allowed himself to be escorted into the narrow halls and the rooms beyond them. A very large boy—practically a giant—stood beside the base of the steps, with folded arms, still as a statue, though his eyes cast from room to room. Diverus he considered with disinterest.
The boys were costumed, too. Some had been painted in extravagant makeup and wore flowing garments, veils, and scarves. They could have passed for women. Others wore very little—short trunks or diaphanous robes. Some, especially muscular older boys, sported leather collars, and wide bracelets at their wrists, as if prepared for some combat. One of them strode from room to room, proudly naked beneath green paint. His hair had been spiked about his head like that of a sea sprite.
Those clients not swept up immediately by Bogrevil milled around, appraising the boys as they might have done a bolt of fabric. Their masks made them silent, somber, bestial. Beaks and snouts turned the liquid eyes above into wet stones, as if what lay beneath the mask would prove to be less recognizable even than the caricatured surface.
Whenever his tray was empty, Diverus returned to the kitchen for more. Initially Bogrevil clasped his shoulders and nudged him to let him know that it was time, but after a few hours he was able to sense from the weight of it when the tray was almost empty.
The first one he carried held cups of wine, the second, plates of finger foods. He and the other serving boys walked with measured strides in and out of the rooms, eyeing one another without comment. In the center parlor a boy sat cross-legged and played lamely at a stringed instrument with a curved neck. Diverus had never seen such an instrument and didn’t know what it was called, but he knew from the dissonant notes that the boy was not accustomed to it. The clients all but ignored the performance until one young guest spilled a drink upon him, and the clustered entourage burst into laughter. That brought Bogrevil into the room so fast, it seemed he’d anticipated it. The young man smirked as if the matter was not of consequence and made a vague apology, insisting it had been an accident; but the trio who’d accompanied him still sniggered as he spoke and exchanged glances that, even beneath their masks, expressed cruel delight. Bogrevil asked them if they had any particular preference for the evening—“a particular essence you cared to sample.” It seemed an innocent question but somehow conveyed the message that they must now either choose or leave. After fidgeting and shrugging among one another, they turned and departed back up the steps, with Bogrevil at their heels. He smiled and waved them along, but when he came back down the steps, his face had gone sharp and humorless. To the giant boy at the bottom, he said, “They never come in again, separately or together. The gate, if they do.” The giant nodded slightly, though how he would distinguish them, Diverus couldn’t fathom.
To the wine-soaked musician Bogrevil snarled, “At least tune the damned thing.”
The remainder of the evening provided no excitement or diversion, and exhaustion replaced curiosity well before the end of the night. Sent off to bed, he slept so heavily that he likely could have been tossed into the laundry pool and wouldn’t have noticed. He neither sensed nor cared who else shared the room, or who was missing.
In the afternoon, when he awoke, he found Eskie seated beside one of the pallets, feeding a boy as though he was ill; and he looked ill, too. He watched Diverus through sunken eyes so asthenic that they couldn’t maintain the glance and fell, unfocused upon anything this side of