“It would not be worth harnessing her,” he said. “She would be too stupid to learn.”
“Any woman can be taught,” I said.
“I am a free woman!” suddenly wept the Lady Temione.
He went and crouched beside her. She put her head down, frightened, on the blanket.
“You are not a woman,” he sneered. “You are a she-tarsk.”
She sobbed.
“You are not worth sleen feed,” he said.
“Do not interfere,” cautioned the fellow in space 98, who had been ejected from the corner space. “He is dangerous.”
“I do not expect to do so,” I said. I did not object, of course, to his abuse of the Lady Temione, in itself, for she was only a woman, and, indeed, the insults, in their way, while certainly overdrawn, were not altogether unjustified. The danger, of course, with one of my temper, was that I might suddenly feel a point of honor touched. Then, if I should flare up and, say, pin the fellow to the floor with my blade, my plans would be seriously disrupted. I would be as placid as a larl feigning sleep, as placid as a Dietrich of Tarnburg.
“What are you saying?” asked the fellow, wheeling about.
“Nothing,” I said.
He returned his attention to the Lady Temione.
“You are worthless,” he told her.
“She does have auburn hair,” I informed him. “It may be hard to see in this light.”
“Then shave it off, and sell it,” he laughed.
“The keeper might do that,” I said.
Lady Temione moaned, helplessly.
This was, of course, a genuine possibility, particularly in this area at this time. Women’s hair, long and silky, plaited into heavy ropes, is ideal for the cording of catapults. It is far superior, for example, to vegetable fibers. It is also superior, in length and texture, to the hair of sleen and kaiila. By now, the hair of slaves in Ar’s Station, and doubtless the hair of most of her free women as well, donated in the case of the latter as a contribution to the defense effort, would have been shaved off, or, perhaps, cropped short. If the keeper did decide to shave off, or crop, the hair of the Lady Temione, and, for that matter, the others, the Lady Amina, the Lady Rimice, and so on, he would presumably sell it to suppliers to the Cosians. Under the current conditions, of course, it would be difficult to get such materiel into Ar’s Station. Indeed, in a sense, that was the same problem I faced, finding a way into Ar’s Station.
“Worthless,” snarled the burly, bearded fellow to the Lady Temione.
She shuddered, bound, the tag on her neck.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes!” she said.
“Yes, what?” said he, angrily.
“Sir!” she whispered. “Sir!”
“Surely you can do better than that,” he said.
She looked at him with horror. “No!” she said.
“Yes, what?” he laughed, roughly.
“Please,” she begged.
“Yes, what?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, “—Master.”
The fellow next to me gasped.
The Lady Temione had used the word ‘Master’ to a man. It was doubtless the first time she had ever done so. She was looking at him, frightened, in helpless protest, in awe. Then, sobbing, she put down her head. She then lay there, her body shaken with sobs.
The burly fellow stood up. I saw where he had placed the pouch.
He looked down upon the Lady Temione with contempt. “Get that thing out of my sight,” he said. “I do not want my digestion spoiled for breakfast.”
I myself did not think I would have time for breakfast. I was planning on leaving rather early in the morning.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“The keeper’s man will be along presently,” I said.
“Do you cross me in this?” he asked.
“I would not think of doing so,” I said. I located the hilt of my sword. I supposed that it might be less than noble to drive a blade through the body of a drunken fellow in the dark, but it was probably preferable, all things considered, to having one driven through oneself.
“I will take her away,” said the fellow next to me, hastily.
“It is not your responsibility,” I said, somewhat ungraciously, I fear, considering the generosity of his offer.
“Look,” said he. “I am now well practiced in smiting walls with my back, but I have had very little experience in dodging swords, leaping about unarmed, you understand, in the darkness, in the middle of a sword fight.”
“Fight?” asked the burly fellow, interested.
“So I shall be pleased to return her to the keeper’s desk,” he said.
I think the burly fellow reached for the hilt of his sword, but missed it.
My own blade left the sheath. I stood up.
The fellow between us moaned, and prepared to crawl rapidly to safety.
“Oh!” said Lady Temione, lifted now, backwards, to the shoulder of the keeper’s man who, unnoticed, had approached. “Slut rent period is up,” he said.
“Take her away,” said the burly fellow, with a wave of his hand.
“That is my intention,” said the keeper’s man. He turned his back on us, and I saw, again, the face of the Lady Temione, facing backwards, held upon his shoulder in slave position.
“Put her in a tarsk cage,” laughed the fellow. “That is where she belongs.”
Lady Temione briefly struggled in frustration on the shoulder of the keeper’s man, squirming there doubtlessly more deliciously than she knew, and pulling helplessly at her bound wrists. She would be carried about and done with, of course, precisely as men wished. She looked back now in anger, but also in fear, at the burly fellow. Doubtless she thought she was attractive now. She did not understand, of course, how attractive, truly, she might be, subject to certain alterations in her condition. Our eyes met. She had addressed a man as “Master.” I decided that in the future she should so, too, address me. She looked down, frightened. I saw that she knew in her heart that such forms were correct for her.
“Who wants a fight?” asked the burly fellow, unsteadily. He now had his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“No one,” said the fellow between us, hastily, earnestly.
I did not think the burly fellow could well attack with the other fellow between us, not, at least, without cutting him out of the way. That would indeed be a poor way for that fellow to end his day, which had not been a very good one anyway. I sheathed my sword. I was not even sure that the burly fellow, in the darkness, realized I had drawn it. He himself had not proceeded further than to get his hand on his sword. I do not think he realized he was in any danger.
“Are you the one who wants to fight?” he asked.
“Not me,” I said.
“Then it is you!” cried the burly fellow, turning on the fellow between us.
“No!” cried the fellow.
His response was surely prompt, I thought. It was assured and definite. It left little doubt about the matter.
“I am tired,” announced the burly fellow.
“It is time then to go to sleep,” said the other man.
The burly fellow stood there for a moment considering this possibility. “Perhaps,” he said.
I was sure, now, that it would not prove necessary to run the fellow through, at least at this time. In such a thrust, of course, he in his present condition, there would have been little of honor. Too, it is difficult to use a sword in a professional manner in the darkness, and I tend to be vain about such things. The sword is less akin to darkness than stealth and the dagger. A recruit, under the circumstances, could have felled him.
“It is time to go to sleep,” announced the burly fellow.
“Yes, you are right,” agreed the other man.
This was the second time the burly fellow, this night, had been in considerable danger. He would probably not realize this, even in the morning.
“Sit down,” said
the burly fellow to me.
“Very well,” I said, sitting down. The other man sat down, too, in his space.
The burly fellow then stood there and looked about him. He was the only one standing in the room.
He had taken the first tub in the baths. He had created a disturbance in the paga room. He had had an excellent slave sent to him, perhaps even gratis. I suspected he had had a greater variety of food to choose from than I had been offered. He had traversed the sleeping room like a hurricane. I doubted he would be too popular with the other guests. Indeed, more than one fellow he had struck about, making his way to his space. He had even come directly to his space, in a diagonal, rather than making use, like other folks, of more neighborly, if lengthier, orthogonals. Too, it seemed he had shown me insufficient respect, not to mention the fellow next to me, whose paid-for space he had appropriated, nor those he had trampled upon, and struck about, in his passage to our area. I also did not appreciate his criticizing me, mostly implicitly, for my choice of rent sluts. I frankly thought I might have seen more in the Lady Temione than he had. If nothing else, considering the prices in the inn, she came cheap. He then sat down in the corner space, 99, the safest, most private space on the floor.
“Do you snore?” he asked the fellow next to me.
“Never,” the fellow assured him.
“If you do,” said the burly fellow, “sit up tonight.”
“I was planning on that, anyway,” the fellow assured him.
I had little doubt the fellow between us planned on taking his leave as soon as the burly fellow slept. Could one really count, one wondered, on the burly fellow being in a pleasant mood when he awakened? Too, what if he should have some savage dream, and start thrashing about, knife in hand, in the middle of the night?
The fellow between us sat back against the wall. The burly fellow looked across at me, contemptuously. “User of she-tarsks,” he laughed.
I noted he wrapped the strap of the pouch he carried about his left arm, three or four times. I supposed, like many such pouches, diplomatic pouches, so to speak, the strap would be cored with wire, and, inside, within the pouch itself, between the leather and a presumed lining, there would be a pattern of interlinked rings. These precautions make the pouch immune to the customary approaches of the cutpurse.
In a few moments the burly fellow was breathing heavily.
I put out my hand and detained the fellow in space 98 who, it seemed, was preparing to depart.
He moaned. “Why is it,” he asked, “that I am never abused by small men?”
“What is your trade?” I asked.
“I am a sutler,” he said.
“Excellent,” I said.
“I used to think so,” he said.
That had seemed not improbable to me. There were mostly wagoners, of one sort or another, here, or refugees. He did not seem to be a refugee. For example, he did not have a companion, or children, with him. Similarly, most refugees could not have afforded an inn. Too, he did not seem to have the refinement of a high merchant nor the roughness of the drover. Drovers, flush with coins, would be here, of course, returning from Ar’s Station. On the journey there they would be with their animals, probably verr or tarsk.
“You are on your way to the Cosians’ siege camp at Ar’s Station,” I hazarded.
“Yes,” he said.
I had thought that, too, was probable, as he was at the inn. He would want its protection, probably, for his goods. Coins, or letters of credit, might be concealed about a wagon, but it is not easy to conceal quantities of flour, salt, jerky, paga and such, not to mention the miscellany of diverse items for the field supply of which one can usually count on the sutlers, such things as combs, brushes, candles, lamp oil, small knives, common tools, pans, eating utensils, sharpening stones, flints, steel, thumb cuffs, shackles, nose rings, binding fiber, slave collars and whips.
“I have a commission for you,” I said.
“You want me to kill our friend in 99?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“It is perhaps just as well,” he said. “If I failed to do the job neatly, and he awakened, and I was kneeling there with a bloody knife in my hand, one could not at all count on his seeing the matter from our point of view.”
“You are right,” I said.
“He has a terrible temper,” he said, “and, under such circumstances, it would be hard to blame anyone for being cranky.”
“I thoroughly agree,” I said.
“What then?” he asked.
“Listen carefully,” I said.
7
The Attendant
“Attendant!” cried the burly fellow, from one of the second tubs, that immediately behind one of the first tubs, that most convenient to the entrance to the baths. “Stir up the fire!” It was early, but most of the fellows who had been sleeping on the floor of the baths during the night had now taken their leave.
The fellow then attending on the baths, rather large for such a fellow, it might seem, hooded, too, perhaps to disguise scarring of such a nature as might turn the stomachs of bathers, enveloped in a cloak, hobbling, perhaps the result of a fall from tarnback, hurried, seemingly alarmed, to the bricked platform beneath his tub and stirred the fire with the fire rake.
“Build up the fire! Hurry, fellow!” said the bather.
“Yes, Sir, yes, Sir,” rasped the hooded, cloaked fellow.
I had been confident, of course, from what I had seen last night, that if the fellow were to bathe he would pick that first tub, and then, behind it, that second tub. Some, and he was apparently among them, regard such as the most prestigious tubs. It was natural, then, that he, such a fellow, should select them. Somehow, it seemed that the fire in the platform under the tub in which he now reclined had not been built up this morning. He who was now in attendance on the baths hurried now, of course, to do so. The fellow, thus, who seemingly was fond of his luxuries, would have to wait for a time, and then, when the water was comfortably warm, could presumably be counted upon, if only in compensation for his discomfort and inconvenience, to dally for a while.
He in attendance on the baths, shuffling about, occasionally muttering to himself, tended the fire.
I had anticipated that the fellow would wish to use the baths in the morning. For example, he had drunk heavily the night before and presumably could be counted upon to awaken in a few hours, thirsty and drenched with sweat. A horrifying hangover, too, considering the entire situation, was not too much to expect. In case he was less fastidious than we had anticipated, we had also taken the liberty of anointing the floor about his place with some representative elements extracted from the level’s wastes’ bucket. The presence of these in his area, particularly given the nature of his preceding evening, we naturally hoped he would explain to himself in the most natural way possible.
He in attendance on the baths puttered about, scraping the brick platforms, picking up shavings, odd pieces of wood, and such.
“Ahhh,” said the bather, leaning back.
“Is the temperature of the water satisfactory?” inquired he in attendance, hobbling over to the tub.
“Yes,” growled the bather.
He in attendance put an armload of wood and shavings near the bather’s tub, on the platform. In such a way, on a busy day at the baths, might some trips to the bins be saved. It is an old bath attendant’s trick. He in attendance, however, was somewhat clumsy in doing this. The striking of a piece of kindling on the tub, for example, rather on the left of the tub, seemed to cause distress to the bather.
“Get out,” ordered the bather.
“May I be of further service?” inquired he in attendance.
“Get out!” said the bather. “Get out!”
“Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir!” rasped the bent fellow, hobbling away quickly, as though frightened. Then, in a moment, he was on the other side of the latticework.
On the other side of the latticework I looked back into the room of the baths, not yet strai
ghtening up. Beneath my cloak, of course, were the belt, scabbard and sword, his wallet, and the rectangular pouch, taken from the tub hook, under the diversion of the sound and blow of kindling to the left, on the tub. The bather, I noted, now lay back in the tub, his eyes closed. The real attendant was probably upstairs in the paga room, enjoying cakes and Bazi tea, a breakfast popular with Goreans on holidays. Certainly he had the means to do so. I had given him five copper tarsks.
I removed the burly fellow’s helmet and clothing from the peg in the outer room.
I then left the outer room of the baths.
8
I Take my Leave of the Crooked Tarn
I strode to the tarncot.
I did not think I would have much time to waste. I now wore the blue of Cos, the uniform of one of the company of Artemidorus, and carried the blue helmet, these things having been removed from the peg in the outer room of the baths.
I smote on the gate of the tarncot.
My pack was on my back.
There was only one tarn in the cot, obviously a warrior’s mount.
An attendant emerged from a shed to the side.
A wagon moved by, to the left. The tharlarion stables were in that direction. Folks were up, and stirring. I glanced up, to my right, at the high shedlike structure which would shelter the tarn beacon. It was not lit now, of course. The inn’s tarn gate, as I stood, within the inn’s grounds, was to its right. In this way, as one would approach the inn on tarnback, from outside the grounds, the gate would be on its left.
“Ready the bird,” I ordered.
It seemed he might hesitate a moment, but he took in my appearance, the blue of Cos, the insignia of the mercenaries of Artemidorus, the helmet, my weapons, indeed, two swords.
“Now,” I said.
He scurried back into the shed, where, doubtless, the burly fellow’s gear was stored, the saddle, tarn harness, and such. I think he did not wish to delay one of the company of Artemidorus. Perhaps he had done so before, to his sorrow.
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