were unusual enough to attract the attention of someone with a less intense curiosity than his . . . and he had nothing else to distract him. Most of the buyers who came to the market fitted into more-or-less defined categories. Masters and overseers looking for new laborers, wanting men with strength rather than intellect; haughty matrons in search of domestic staff, generally looking for ugly or disfigured young girls; furtive affluent folk, the young ones still conscience-pricked, the older ones with a terrifying jaded-hungry look, in their quest for sexual entertainments. Different sections of the market were dedicated to the different types of merchandise. Seldom did any buyer wander through more than one sector. Except these three. They’d started at one end and had been steadily going through it all.
They were an ill-assorted trio. One of them was short and broad, the other slim and obviously feminine, even to the Morkth-man’s untrained eye, and the third exceptionally tall and, by the look of the sun reflecting off his head, bald. From S’kith’s point of view this was something in the fellow’s favor. He found the head and facial hair so overtly displayed by these mongrel humans repulsive.
They came closer, going through stall after stall. S’kith continued to watch them. The short one was truly amazingly broad, nearly as wide as he was high. The backs of his hands and his bare legs were covered in a thick down of reddish brown hair. As this extended into a bushy beard and curly hair mop, it was only the loose, faded-green canvas jerkin and lederhosen that he wore that stopped folk thinking he was a small pet bear. That, and the pale weimaraner-yellow eyes that stared out from under those bushy brows, intelligent and cold. Across his back was strapped a great, two-handed, jagged landsknecht’s sword.
The girl’s hair was a deep and lustrous black, flowing back over her shoulders. Her eyes, slightly wet-looking, were faintly slanted, and as dark as the broad one’s were light. Her high cheekbones were faintly lighter than the otherwise uniform smooth amber skin. Her soft mouth was set in a small pout above a determined chin.
But it was not her face that caught most eyes. It was her body. It was . . . generous. Women were inclined to say, through slightly pursed