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scavenged. I could have let myself starve. I stole instead.”
    There was an odd expression on Boro’s face, one Faris couldn’t decode. “Who took you from the pillar, Faris?”
    “Enis. He was the herbalist. It’s a tradition, you see? The herbalist of Zidar tries to save the wretches who are left to die.” He finished the second leg and simply stood.
    “And after he saved you, he… took you in. Let you stay.”
    “He taught me.” Faris waved his hands vaguely, indicating the containers of herbs that surrounded them.
    Boro narrowed his eyes. “Did he fuck you?”
    Faris wanted to be angry. But the truth was, the accusation had been made many times before. Sly looks and knowing laughter, pointed comments about how pretty the herbalist’s apprentice was. More than once, Enis had to lay a calming hand on Faris’s shoulder, a reminder not to strike out with words or fists. And later, back in their home, Enis would admonish Faris again. “It doesn’t matter what they say, boy. It’s nothing but idle men looking to raise a disturbance. You’ll prove who you are by your deeds—by your studies and the cures you achieve.”
    “I’ll never be anything to them but a thief,” Faris would protest. “A thief and maybe a whore.”
    “You’re neither of those things, boy. But you’ll have to convince yourself of that first.”
    Now, Faris shook his head. “Never. He was… he was a father to me.” And that was close enough to truth.
    Boro nodded, but apparently his curiosity still wasn’t satisfied. “Why don’t you have a family now? A wife? Children?”
    “My back tells you the answer. I am a thief.”
    “Once you were. Once I was… someone else entirely. But I became a slave and you became a learned man, a man who saves lives. A beautiful man.” He said the last with a sigh, as if the admission pained him.
    The air was a little chill upon bare skin, yet suddenly Faris felt very warm. He turned his back to the bed and scrubbed harshly at the only part that still needed washing—his groin. But Boro’s gaze was heavy. No. It was firm , like a caress, like the steady stroking of calloused skin against his own.
    Horrified to find himself growing hard, Faris abruptly stopped rubbing. He dropped the rag on the floor and quickly pulled on his breeches. His hose proved recalcitrant, and he snarled as he yanked them on. Then came his tunic and belt, and if his vest and cloak hadn’t been across the room, he’d have put those on too. But good God, his cock was still hard . How twisted was that—aroused by nothing more than an injured man’s gaze?
    “Faris? Why aren’t you married?”
    Faris said nothing. He didn’t tell how Enis had guessed his secret early on—maybe he’d caught his apprentice looking longingly at Mirsada’s husband—and he’d sat him down for the most uncomfortable conversation of young Faris’s life. While Faris blushed, squirmed, and stammered, Enis told him of a kafana in Tuchenik where certain sailors and like-minded locals congregated, and to which the tolerant citizens of Tuchenik were willing to turn a blind eye. Enis had given Faris a small purseful of coins and ordered him to make the two-day walk to the sea. “A young man needs healthy release,” Enis intoned. “Go. Here’s a list of spices you can fetch while you’re at it.” Faris went. He went again several months later, and then again. And even now that he was no longer a young man, he made the trip a few times a year, whenever he ran low on certain exotic supplies and had enough time and coins. Faris never had to speak much when he arrived at the kafana. He just sat, and soon enough someone sat beside him, and then they’d pool their money and pay the proprietor for a room. The liaison wasn’t enough, but it was something.
    Faris said none of this to Boro, but his silence spoke for itself.
     
     
    F ARIS BUSIED himself with his chores and avoided looking in the direction of the bed. When he snuck a few