Consorts of Heaven Read Online Free Page A

managed to turn his head, and got a waft of foul breath. A vague shape resolved into a head. Right next to his.
    He struggled harder and the rough cover slid off. His head pounded with the effort and his throat felt so dry that even breathing hurt.
    The shape - person - twitched, gasped, then rolled away. The gasp sounded feminine. He edged backwards, flinching when his bare back came up against a cold, damp wall. The woman sat up, becoming a silhouette. She looked down at him.
    ‘Hhhssh, sssshhh. Everything is all right.’ Her voice was hoarse and oddly accented. He had no idea who she was.
    ‘Wh—’ he started breathlessly, disconcerted at the sound of his own voice. He tried again. ‘Wh—What are you doing?’
    ‘Tis all right,’ she repeated, getting off the bed. ‘Lie still.’
    ‘Who—Who are you? Do I know you?’
    ‘No, you do not—’
    ‘ Then what the fuck am I doing in bed with you ? Where am I?’
    ‘Please, you have been ill, you need to stay calm.’
    ‘Ill? What do you mean?’ He heard someone else moving. A shadowy shape loomed behind the woman. ‘Who’s that?’ he squeaked.
    ‘My son. You woke him.’ She turned and spoke to the unidentifiable figure. ‘Tis all right, Damaru. Go back to bed.’
    ‘What’s he doing in your bedroom? What am I doing in your bedroom?’
    ‘You are confused. You should lie still, try to rest.’
    ‘Rest? In your bed? Can we at least turn the lights on?’ Maybe if he could see he could make some sense of all this.
    ‘I—I will open the door. Tis nearly dawn, so that should give us some light,’ the woman said. She moved off.
    A scraping noise; greyish light oozed in from a rectangle beyond his feet. He started to make out his surroundings: a small circular room with a high roof and cluttered shelves around the whitewashed walls. It was completely unfamiliar. Should he know this place?
    ‘I will get you some water,’ she said, and crossed the room to a table; other than the shelves and beds it was the only furniture he could see. ‘You must be thirsty.’ Her voice had an emphatic lilt, pleasant, and oddly reassuring. She sounded efficient, concerned for his welfare. And she was right about him being thirsty.
    She returned with a bowl and he realised that one of the nasty smells was her. Others included stale smoke, and the covers on the bed, which were a mixture of rough-woven blankets and what smelled like badly cured animal skins.
    ‘Can you sit up?’ asked the woman.
    He was pressed against the wall, where he’d tried to get away from her. Now he tried to uncurl, though even small motions made his head spin. ‘I’m not sure. My head hurts.’
    She nodded. ‘I think you may have banged it.’
    ‘I thought you said I was ill?’ She acted so caring, but he knew nothing about her, about how he came to be here—‘Are you lying to me? Is this some kind of trick?’ His voice rose.
    She put a hand out. ‘No, no. There is no trick, master. I am trying to help you.’
    Master? Why did she call him that? When he opened his mouth to ask, a cough caught him.
    She held up the bowl, and said carefully, ‘You need to drink. I will dip a cloth in this bowl, then squeeze it over your mouth.’
    Given how grubby everything here looked he wasn’t sure about that, but he was desperate for water. He eased himself back across the bed. She bundled the covers under his head to prop him up, then squeezed water into his mouth. Dirty it might be, but it tasted good. He finished the bowl and lay back, feeling better.
    The light was brighter now; he could make out a steeply sloping ceiling above him . . . no, not a ceiling: a roughly thatched roof, smoke-blackened. It was conical: he was in a round, windowless hut. Where the hut was, and how he came to be in it, he had no idea.
    A male voice said peremptorily, ‘Hungry!’
    He started, then looked across to see a boy of about fifteen standing behind the woman, who was back at her table. He didn’t recognise