The Adorned by John Tristan Read Free Book Online Page A

here? We’ll need you to witness.”
    She slipped into the room, standing to Tallisk’s side, hands clasped behind her back. She and Tallisk waited as Maxen bent over the desk, writing up my new contract. It did not take him long, his handwriting crabbed scratches upon the paper. “Here, ah, it is done.”
    Tallisk snatched it up, ink still wet, and read it quickly. Then, unexpectedly, he held it out to me.
    He did not seem surprised when I took it and began to read. I read the hurried lines of Maxen’s handwriting. There were careful clauses and appeals to the gods; I read through them to the heart of it. Five years would Tallisk have of me, and the right of my skin. More than that: as his Adorned, I’d take my master’s name. I’d not known that. Dairan would be a buried patronymic. From the moment I signed, I would be Etan writ-Tallisk.
    And there, in a narrow parenthesis, was the question of money. For the purchase of my bond, Tallisk would pay Maxen Udred five thousand ral.
    It was more money than had ever been in my father’s accounts.
    The signing itself was over within moments, without ceremony. First I signed, then Maxen Udred. Tallisk signed his own name in a sloppily expansive scrawl, leaving a spreading inkblot upon the page. I read his full name and title upon the paper: Roberd guild-Meret Tallisk, Master Tattooist. Yana put her witness mark, and it was done: I was—in law, at least—an Adorned.
    “Now, your payment,” Tallisk said. “Will it be coin or credit, Maxen?”
    I almost choked on my next breath; did Tallisk really have five thousand ral lying about his house? Maxen turned a vivid shade of near-purple and muttered that a note of credit at a bank of Tallisk’s choosing would be perfectly, more than perfectly, acceptable.
    “Done.” He wrote out a note of credit to Maxen, who received it in limp hands. “Yana? Show Maxen out, please.”
    His mouth opened and closed at this show of rudeness, but he could not exactly protest with the ink still wet on the credit note held in his hands. “Will the boy stay—”
    “Yes, he’ll stay here. Have his things brought, if he has any.”
    “No.”
    “No?” Tallisk glanced at me.
    I shook my head. “There is no need. There’s nothing I own.”
    Tallisk held my gaze a moment. I wished I knew what he was thinking, but his dark blue eyes were inscrutable.
    “Well, it makes things easier, doesn’t it?” Maxen said, tucking the credit note into his coat pocket. He patted me clumsily upon the shoulder. “All luck to you, Etan. May the Lord of Stars bless and watch over you.”
    I bowed to him, unsure of the protocol. My father had not been a pious man, even with his own gods. “Thank you.”
    It seemed to satisfy. Maxen was hustled out of the house by Yana, who seemed glad to see the back of him. I was left alone with Tallisk, in his atelier. It was barely past the edge of the afternoon yet, but the light was rapidly fading from the day. The gauze of the windows lent a ghostly glint to the failing light, leaving the atelier in a grey twilight hush.
    Tallisk said nothing. He only looked at me, half frowning. I wondered if he already regretted his purchase, impulsive as it seemed to me. He seemed to be waiting for something, but for what I could not tell.
    At last he sighed. “Let’s take you downstairs. Doiran will find some proper clothes for you.”
    I looked down at myself; my clothes had been well made, in their day, but even Doiran had seemed less faded in his dress.
    “Have him bathe you, as well.”
    He left the atelier and I followed him, cheeks flushed. It seemed that Maxen’s trip to the barber had not counted for much, in Tallisk’s eyes. My new master hurried down the stairs—no, I thought, he did not exactly hurry, but his natural speed seemed twice that of any other man. I had to hurry, myself, to keep up with him.
    Yana and Doiran were both waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Doiran wore a wide smile; he had the largest