The three young men talking over their beers were merchants, foreigners from far away. You could obviously tell it by their looks, their clothes, and their accents -- but also, by the excitement in their voices.
"Yeah, I mean, I've heard the stories, right, but you know the stories you hear in port towns..."
"All made up—"
"Yeah, yeah. So I was hoping that what I'll see here will live up to a tenth of the hype, that would already be something... but no, this whole festival is really pretty much as they say!"
Their talk was loud enough to carry over the sunny inside of the inn. Two tables over Iden, his hand on a flagon of pear cider (blissfully cold thanks to those heroic blocks of ice that persisted in their straw-filled cellar even now in the dead of summer), smiled in an unexpected little surge of pride.
Kontaria tended to make a very deep impression on anyone who visited. It was a fairly small country, and at a glance an unassuming one -- a mess of lakes and ancient woodland by a cool sea, dotted with villages and pasturelands, no stone cities or castles or anything impressive like that. Yet even so, it did have its definite claims to fame.
In the kingdoms of the plains, the Kontarians were known for their horses and horsemanship. No passable stable could be really complete without one or two Kontarian purebreds. In the coastal towns, the Kontarians were known for their small swift ships, as far-going merchants and, at times, pirates. Don't ever actually say the "pirate" part out loud near a Kontarian, though -- or you risk receiving a pained look and a three-hour lecture on the practical, philosophical, and moral distinctions between piracy and buccaneering.
But everywhere, inland or by the sea, the Kontarians also had a reputation for another thing.
Often respectable youths from respectable places in respectable kingdoms would, over the course of their respectable education, acquire a vague sense that Kontaria was not very respectable. Yet if they ever asked their respectable tutors what, exactly, was the reason for that, the answer was almost always something cryptic like "they have a loose approach to some things where strictness is well advised," followed by a swift and firm change of subject.
"S'good?" The serving girl appeared beside Iden and pointed to his drink.
"As always, Besje."
"Okay. But now you need to down it and get out."
He turned to her with a crooked smile. "Kicking me out already?"
She leaned down to him, and indicated a group of three young women chatting by the main entrance. She then spoke in a quiet, conspirational voice. "That black-haired gal by the door is looking for some luck this year. She's just going to ask the first guy to leave the inn. So get moving, you loafer."
Iden glanced sideways, and his eyes lit up. "Yeah, I thought this might be the case." He finished the drink. "How do I look?"
Besje inspected him critically. His tawny hair was getting in his face with all the appropriate level of artful carelessness. His eyes were looking at her with their usual lively clarity.
"Smile wider," she said. He obliged her. She scowled. "Winsome as fuck," she declared. "You're good to go."
He discreetly raised his fist. "Thanks, Besje. You're a good person."
The serving girl bumped the offered fist, took away the flagon, and returned behind the bar. Iden glanced at the black-haired girl, who made a point to glance everywhere except at him.
Looking for some luck, then.
Let down by their tight-lipped tutors, some respectable youths from respectable places in respectable kingdoms would resort to books, and there they would sometimes find some more concrete hints. Let us see, for example, what Tobias Aquafresca, that godly man, that great teacher of faith, had to say on Kontaria:
"...and therefore guard yourselves from temptation, and seek out with your heart the gods, lest ye become base, like flocks of the field or beasts of the woods; heed the warning of Old Gebrans, who through their own intemperance are become nothing; wary ye, lest ye become like the savages of Contarya, who, at the starfalls of summer, permit themselves be seduced by evil, and who live proud of their own infamy!"
There was that season in late summer when meteor showers were particularly abundant. Many peoples marked it with some celebration or other. But none of them quite compared to the Kontarian Festival of Shooting Stars.
The Festival lasted one week, and was an excuse for the Kontarians to engage in all their favourite things -- dancing, drunken parades, and draping every building, rock, tree, bush or animal in sight with colourful flags. But the thing that made it really stand out was one particular folk tradition -- a popular belief that caught on among the Kontarian women.
This tradition maintained that any gal who managed to sleep with seven different people over the seven festival days would be blessed with good luck for the entire following year.
How do folk traditions start? Probably as bets. It's hard to tell how seriously did people take the luck part -- but the naturally adventurous Kontarians did like a good challenge. A great many fine daughters of the land made a point to test out this luck thing at least once. And because the naturally helpful Kontarians liked to see others succeed, they usually found in their quest plenty of enthusiastic assistance, from friends and strangers alike.
In short, this festival time was overwhelmingly well-liked. Today, it was Day Three.
Iden got up and casually headed for the exit. From the corner of his eye he saw an animated discussion suddenly break out among the group at the door. As he was passing them he slowed down a little, and suppressed a grin as the girl with the black hair lurched sideways and stepped right in his path.
"Hi!" she said, bared her teeth sheepishly, and brushed her hair away from her face. She was slim, had a pretty face, and wore a long black shirt that, together with her hair, made her look paler than she actually was -- and there was a whimsical sparkle in her grey eyes that Iden instantly found adorable.
"Hello," he replied. There was a playful encouragement in his voice, an assurance that he knew exactly what she was about to ask, and that he was going to accept.
This was, so far, a very efficient conversation.
"So, um. I'm doing this festival thing this year, you know, with sleeping with seven people, and I asked to want you..." she chortled, took a breath, and went again, slowly: "and I wanted to ask you if you'd maybe like to hook up?"
He gave her a bright smile. "Yeah. Sure!"
"Yeah?" Her eyes darted to her friends, then back to him, and the giggling fit that she had been trying to hold down now broke out. "Okay, cool," she managed. Her friends, one short, one tall, were observing all this with an air of studied coolness.
Iden took a step towards her and clasped his hands behind his back. "You're not from the village, right? Where are you staying?"
The girl straightened up. "Oh, we're not staying. We're from Olssi, across the lake."
"We're ferrying back at sundown," one of her friends interjected.
"Ah." Crap. Iden himself was an apprentice coppersmith, and roomed with two other apprentices above Enar the Coppersmith's workshop; and the old man had decided to take advantage of the work lulling during the festival to replace his main furnace, which meant a lot of noise and stench, and made the place completely unfit for any luck-related activities.
"Hey, Besje!" The serving girl looked at him. "Got any spare rooms upstairs?"
"All taken. It's the Festival, silly!"
The black-haired girl now looked mildly concerned. There weren't supposed to be complications after she'd mustered up her courage. But Iden's cheerful temper wouldn't waver. "It's okay, we'll ask at other inns. We'll figure something out."
The girl smiled and turned to her friends. "Okay, so let's meet at the pier at sundown? I'll go and figure something out with..." she trailed off.
"Iden."
"With Iden. I'm Ran, by the way!" She jutted out her hand.
"Ran. Nice to meet you!" he shook her hand. It was warm, and he thought he could almost feel with his fingers the jittery eagerness that seemed to animate Ran's whole person. A hint of pleasure puffed up in his stomach. He had a feeling that they were going to have a lot of fun together.
The heat of the summer afternoon descended upon them as they stepped outside. This village, deep in the woods by the lakeside, was actually the largest in all of Kontaria, and its main thoroughfare was full of people, noisy with talk and laughter. A lot of them had festive clothes on, of fine colourful linen. Some carried flags, carnival masks, and lanterns -- in preparation for the parade that would at twilight set out for the ritual field. Street food vendors filled the air with thin smoke, scented with roasted meats, chestnuts, and honey cakes. Over the din, on the porch of the long hall across the street a young boy was beating out a quick rhythm on a hand drum, and one of the village's bards was chanting out a song. Some obscure one, though -- if he tried to sing something popular, there was a very real danger that the entire street would join him in an elaborate musical number, and that would be just ridiculous.
Iden nodded and turned right, downwards toward the lake. Ran followed him into the crowd, and almost bumped into the side of a horse passing through. She caught up with her newly-made friend and walked by his side, not entirely sure how much distance she should keep.
"There's so many people," she said.
He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back. "Half of western Kontaria is here for the festival." From a bird's eye's view, the land was little more than a vast, primeval forest. From the ground level, you soon realized that you were rarely far from other humans -- homesteads, huts and lodges, connected by a vast network of trails, could be found huddled at almost every hillside. When all this forest folk got together -- which the gregarious Kontarians often did -- they could make a surprisingly great crowd.
"Think we'll find a free bed anywhere?"
"Some guesthouse has to have at least a free mattress. If not... well, there's the shrine, if you're into that..."
"The shrine?"
"Yeah. The shrine of the Shimmering Ones."
"Oh." She stumbled a little.
The Shimmering Ones were a tribe of spirits, the ones that people believed fed on pleasure. On their altars, you were supposed to offer pleasure. The easiest way to do it was of course a rigorous session of good old ritual sex.
"There's not much privacy at the shrine though, is there?" she said, carefully.
That much was true -- once in the shrine, you weren't supposed to conceal yourself from anyone else in there. Or the Shimmering Ones would think that you thought that you were doing something shameful and get offended, or something. "Yeah, it can get pretty intense. And there's no way it's empty now during the festival." He noticed the hint of uneasiness from her, and beamed. "We don't have to go there though. I mean, we can always just go into the woods and find a patch of soft moss."
