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The market was loud. Louder than Miles had expected. Animals in cages squealed and squawked. Merchants shouted the quality and prices of their wares. Shoppers spoke loudly, haggling with shopkeeps and chatting with their friends. Even the ocean could be heard, waves slapping against the nearby docks. It was unpleasant, and Miles wondered how the people passing by him and Phoenix with smiling faces could possibly enjoy such an atmosphere. It put Miles on edge. He had agreed to try experiencing the day-to-day mundanities of life outside his tower, however, so he bore it.
As they moved from stall to stall—goods and purses quietly finding their way into Phoenix’s pockets—Miles slowly began noticing something. The market folk didn’t seem to look at Miles the same way they looked at Phoenix. For one, they looked longer. Especially the women. Something about Miles must be attracting attention.
This hunch was confirmed when he followed Phoenix into cloth merchant’s stall only to have the proprietor ignore Phoenix entirely and address herself to Miles.
“Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for?” she asked, moving close in a way that made Miles twitch and avoid meeting her eyes. Phoenix was taking this opportunity to shove a silk display scarf into his bag, so it seemed Miles was on his own for this one.
“No, thank you. I have very little experience with textiles, so I wouldn’t know what to look for.” Miles mumbled, staring at the floor.
She put a hand on Miles’ shoulder, and he tried not to flinch. He didn’t want to hurt this woman, so the best thing was to stand absolutely, perfectly still. He stopped breathing without even deciding to do so.
“Fortunately for you,” she said with a smile, “I have extensive experience with textiles. I can help you find whatever you need. Even if I don’t have it I can point you toward someone who will.”
Miles kept still. He couldn’t speak without breathing. Not that he would be able to string together words into a coherent pattern at this point anyways. Under the merchant’s hand his arm felt like fire. There was a roaring in his ears and his vision felt like warm wax in the hands of a child. It was an all-too familiar feeling and he knew he was nothing he could do to stop the Devil from coming at this point. All he could do was try to hold still as a statue and hope the demon wouldn’t make him hurt anyone this time.
Suddenly Phoenix was there, pushing the woman off of Miles and saying something placating about window shopping. Part of Miles’ brain told him that clearly the two of them needed to get out of there before the woman started screaming about demonic possession, but the rest insisted that he not move a muscle. Better to risk revealing himself than risk unleashing the Devil and hurting someone.
Phoenix continued talking to shopkeeper and then turned to leave. When Miles made no move as to follow, Phoenix returned and faced him. Miles knew what to expect next. Phoenix would grab him by the wrist and pull or yell at him to move, and then the Devil would take over. He didn’t want to hurt Phoenix, but the Devil wouldn’t care. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Father either.
Phoenix did not grab Miles, however, nor did he yell. He held a hand out and gently gestured for Miles to follow. Surprised out of his self-enforced paralysis, Miles felt his legs moving. Phoenix led him to a quiet alley not too far away and lowered himself onto an empty door stoop. After Miles made no attempts to join him, he motioned for Miles to sit.
Miles felt his knees bend. The two of them sat several feet apart in silence. Slowly, the roaring faded from Miles’ ears and his vision normalized. When he finally felt like he could breathe freely, a question was the first thing out of his mouth. “How?” It sounded raw and harsh even to his own ears.
Phoenix raised an eyebrow, as seemingly nonchalant as ever. “How what?”
“How did you--” the words were tumbling out of his mouth, barely keeping their order. “How did you stop the Devil?”
Phoenix shrugged. “It didn’t look demonic to me. It’s not like you grew horns or anything. You just looked like you were freaking out.”
Miles let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, fine. How did you stop me from freaking out?” he asked, his eyes following the mortar pattern of the alley wall two feet to the right of Phoenix’s head.
“I don’t know. I know you don’t like being touched, so I asked her to stop touching you.”
“Okay, but then I wouldn’t follow you. I was making a scene in the middle of a market and you couldn’t get me to leave. I could have hurt people! Why didn’t you push me out of the booth, or yell at me to get moving?”
Phoenix frowned. “Well, we’ve already covered the ‘you don’t like to be touched’ thing. I’ve also seen you flinch every time Maya gets over-excited, so I’m guessing loud noises aren’t your favorite either. I really don’t think you were going to hurt anybody, but either way I’m pretty sure pushing or yelling would have just made things worse.”
Miles didn’t know what to do with that explanation. It made a bizarre sort of sense. It certainly made sense from the perspective of someone who didn’t believe in the Devil. Miles, however, knew for certain that the Devil was real. How had this nonbeliever succeeded in quieting the demon that inhabited Miles’ soul when every holy man in Europe had failed?
Maybe it was something about Phoenix specifically. Had he been blessed by the Pope as a child? That hardly seemed likely. There was definitely something unusual about the man, though. He was the only person Miles had ever met who didn’t seem to care where Miles looked while they were speaking. He was the only person who allowed Miles’ rules about touch to stand unquestioned and uncontested. Maybe Phoenix was just unafraid of the demon Miles carried around inside him, and the demon needed fear to thrive. Or maybe Phoenix wasn’t the good-natured nonbeliever he pretended to be. Maybe he was the kind of man who knew the Devil better than any holy man ever could.
Miles pushed such thoughts aside for now. “Well, regardless of how you did it… thank you.”
Phoenix gave a half-grin. “Well, it was at least a bit my fault,” the rest of his sentence trailed into a mumble, “…after using you like a honeypot.”
“What?”
Phoenix sighed. “I used you to distract people while I stole their stuff.”
Miles squinted. “Used me how? I was just walking next to you. Why would that be a good distraction?” His face fell. “Oh Lord. I knew I should have worn a hood or something. I’m disgusting. Distractingly disgusting. Who would notice you when you were walking next to an ogre?”
Phoenix looked genuinely surprised. “What?”
“This explains so much. Phoenix, every female we have encountered in this market has watched me very closely. I’ve read that women are particularly delicate creatures; they must have been worried for their goods. Or their lives. I can’t believe you allowed me to terrorize an entire marketplace!”
By the end of this diatribe, Phoenix was staring at him with wide eyes. The man began to speak, but stopped himself, furrowing his brow. After a few moments he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah, I’m just going to keep this simple. What?”
Miles waved a hand dismissively in front of himself, feeling embarrassed. “I am accustomed being looked at with disgust. It is no more than I deserve. I was just unaware that my twisted nature was so visible. For the past several years I have only interacted with those who were briefed on my condition before they ever saw me. I didn’t know that the Devil inside had left obvious marks on my exterior.”
“You think…”
“You assumed I was already aware and, I am sure, intended no harm when you used my appearance to your advantage. I will retract any statements of accusation and we can discontinue this topic of discussion.” Miles tried to inject his words with as much finality as possible, his eyes trained on the end of the alleyway toward the market they had left. Today had already included more than sufficient humiliation.
Phoenix, however, was not picking up the hint. The man’s voice, normally calm and quiet, exploded out of him with a vehemence Miles couldn’t decipher. “Miles, you’re gorgeous! How could you not know that? How could you misread…those women weren’t frightened. They wanted to have your babies!”
Miles’ eyes snapped to Phoenix’s face for a moment, looking for any clues there to help interpret the bizarre words. As usual, there was nothing. Phoenix looked like Phoenix. He allowed his eyes to move away again, unwilling to give more information than he received. Without clues, all he could do was respond to the statements exactly as they had been given. “Ah. I am glad to hear that I am not physically repulsive. But surely a woman would not consider a marital contract to someone she had only laid eyes on for a moment. Women marry for protection, status, or financial stability. Even the Wife of Bath only married a handsome man once she herself was wealthy and aged.”
Phoenix let out a strained laugh that slowly grew steadier. “Yes, of course, you’re right. Girls are smarter about that kind of thing. I suppose I should have said ‘those women wanted to fuck you vigorously in any manner that would not lead to their eventual dishonor.’ That would have been a bit of a mouthful, though, so I hope you’ll excuse my casual speech.” A smile was back on his face now, though it seemed somehow tilted compared to his usual grin. “I’ll leave the full mouth for the ladies, eh?”
Miles was not trying to parse the puzzle of Phoenix’s unusual expression. He might have been, but something halfway through the speech had completely derailed him. Miles had read more books than most of the graduates of Oxford. He knew more than a dozen languages. He had—or at least he had thought he had—an exhaustive vocabulary. He did not, however, know… “What does it mean to ‘fuck’?”
Something changed slightly in Phoenix’s face. “Of course you’re not up on slang. Why should I be surprised. I meant ‘to have sex with.’”
Miles did not know this term either, so he kept his expression neutrally focused, hoping Phoenix would explicate further.
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “Jeez, it’s not funny when you have to explain it this much. Ah, hell, maybe it wasn’t even funny in the first place. I was just making a dirty joke, okay! About…” he made a ring with one hand and shoved a finger from his other hand through it.
Miles did not know what this meant, but he often did not know what people’s gestures meant. Phoenix had started a sentence, so Miles waited for him to finish it.
“Oh my God. You really don’t… ah, fuck.”
“I cannot say whether I do or don’t until you explain what that word means,” Miles responded feeling slightly impatient.
Phoenix barked a laugh that was more of a squawk. “Okay, okay.” His hands started fluttering around him, waving far more than when he usually spoke. “You know Chaucer, right? You referenced the Wife of Bath earlier?”
Miles scoffed. “Of course I do. I’m surprised you are familiar with his work.”
Phoenix ignored the barb. “Yeah, yeah, people read a lot of stories out loud back when I was living in the palace. Anyways, you know the Miller’s Tale?”
“Certainly. A fabliaux meant to counterpoint the Knight’s following--”
“Great. What is it about?”
“Well, it is a comedy about three villains competing for the affections of the same woman.”
“And by affections you mean…”
“The right to share her bed.”
“And do what in her bed?”
This conversation was getting increasingly confusing. “To gaze upon her beauty all night long, or whatever it is that the lovesick poets of fin amor are always going on about. Maybe they would have shared kisses. Does it matter?”
“Yes—yes because—because sex. Fucking. That’s what that story is about.”
“Ah. I must have missed it. When precisely is the part when the fucking happens? You can give me the stanza or line numbers.”
Phoenix seemed to be sweating more than the moderate weather warranted. “Why would I know the line numbers!”
“I suppose you did hear it read. No matter, describe the section.”
“Well, it never actually happens on-stage…” Phoenix has devolved to mumbling, and Miles feels like he has caught the man in a lie. Perhaps he simply made the word up and is embarrassed that Miles noticed.
“Well, Phoenix, is the Miller’s Tale about fucking, or isn’t it? When does the fucking happen?”
“WHEN ABSOLON SHOVES THE POKER UP NICK’S ASS!” It came out in a shout and Miles flinched slightly. Either Phoenix was being uncharacteristically defensive about his fraudulent vocabulary, or this was something the man actually believed. Ass was a term generally used to describe a beast of burden, but there was no way Miles could mistake the scene Phoenix was referring to. He decides to speak slowly in the hopes that will help clear things up.
“You want me. To believe. That a bunch of women. That I’ve never met. Wanted to place a hot piece of metal. In my rectal opening?” Miles tried to keep his incredulity from showing and to remain reasonable in the face of the ridiculous notion. “Why. On Earth. Would they want to do that?”
Phoenix stuttered, “Well, they wouldn’t want it quite like that…” The man was as red as if he had been stained with beet juice.
“Are you quite all right?” Miles asked, concerned. “Not ill? Your humors seem a tad imbalanced.”
“You know what? Forget it.” Phoenix threw his hands up in the air and started walking back toward the market. “I’m not doing this. I am officially done with this conversation. You can ask Maya sometime. I’m sure she’d love to tell you.”
“Are you returning to the market?”
“I’m going home. And then maybe to a tavern.”
Miles closed his eyes. Somehow Phoenix had survived a demonic episode unperturbed, only to be grossly offended when Miles posed a question of vocabulary. It was completely unintelligible, enigmatic, and ineffable. Though the reasoning eluded him, however, he understood someone wanting to get away from Miles Gregory Edgeworth. That was something both comprehensible and predictable.
“You coming, or you have somewhere else to be?” Miles looked up and saw Phoenix paused at the turning, looking over his shoulder. With a ghost of a smile.
How odd. Miles stood there, staring.
Phoenix made the same beckoning gesture he had made back in the cloth merchant’s stall.
Miles grunted in irritation, but obligingly walked to catch up. “I’m not a dog, you know,” he asserted with a scowl.
Phoenix laughed. “’Course not. Dogs know all about fucking.”