"I beg his lordship to open his arms to the side," a burly man muttered, his voice sounding like gravel being ground in a mortar. He passed a rough hempen cord around the young man's waist, pulling it taut before using a small knife to nick a mark into the fiber.
He toiled in a rhythmic, unsettling silence. He spoke only in clipped instructions, moving around in a way that forced him to show the back of his thinning white hair every time he bent to adjust a measurement.
Truth be told, the man upset Latio. He possessed a devious, lopsided smile that revealed more blackened stumps than healthy teeth, a fact he seemed self-conscious of, as he habitually shielded his mouth with a grime-stained hand when he spoke.
But no hand could shield his stench. Despite the cloying layers of cheap perfume the man had doused himself in, a foul, organic rot wafted from his pores, as if his very internal organs were beginning to liquefy.
