by Jack Vance
The Old Groar was the closest: a two-story structure, sinter blocks below and timber painted black, red, and green above to, produce an effect of rather ponderous frivolity.
Jantiff pushed through the door and entered a common room furnished with long tables and benches and illuminated by panes of dusty magenta glass set high in the side wall. At this slack hour of the day the room was vacant of all but seven or eight patrons, drinking ale from earthenware vessels and playing sanque.[35]
Jantiff looked into the kitchen, where a portly man, notable for a shining bald pate and a luxuriant black mustache stood with a knife and brush, preparatory to cleaning a large fish. His attitude suggested peevishness, provoked by conditions not immediately evident. Upon looking up and seeing Jantiff he lowered knife and brush and spoke in a brusque voice: “Well, sir? How may I oblige you?”
Jantiff spoke in an embarrassed half-stammer: “Sir, I am a traveler from, off-world. I need food and lodging, and since ] have no money, I would be pleased to work for my keep.”
The innkeeper threw down the knife and brush. His manner underwent a change, to become what was evidently a normal condition of pompous affability. “You are in luck! The maid is hard at it, giving birth, the pot-boy is likewise ill, perhaps in sympathy. I lack a hundred commodities but work is not one of them. There is much to be done and you may start at once. As your first task , be so good as to clean this fish.”
Chapter 12
Fariske the innkeeper had not deceived Jantiff: there was indeed work to be accomplished. Fariske, himself inclined to ease and tolerance, nevertheless, through sheer force of circumstances, kept Jantiff constantly on the move: scouring, sweeping, cutting, paring, serving food and drink; washing and cleaning pots, plates and utensils; husking, shelling and cleaning percebs.[36]
Jantiff was allowed the use of a small chamber at the back of the second floor, whatever he chose to eat and drink and a daily wage of two owls. “This is generous pay!” declared Fariske grandly. “Still, after you perform the toil that I require, you may think differently.”
“At the moment,” said Jantiff feelingly, “I am more than satisfied with the arrangement.”
“So be it!”
On the morning after his arrival in Baled, Jantiff took himself to the local post and communications office and there telephoned Alastor Centrality at Uncibal—a call for which, by Cluster law, no charge could be levied. On the screen appeared the face of Aleida Gluster. “Ah ha ha!” she exclaimed in excitement. “Jantiff Ravensroke! Where are you?”
“As you suggested, I came to Balad; in fact I arrived yesterday afternoon.”
“Excellent! And you will now take passage from the space-port?”
“I haven’t applied yet,” said Jantiff. “It may well be useless. Only cargo ships put down here; and they take no passengers, or so I’m told.”
Aleida Gluster’s jaw dropped. “I had not considered this aspect of affairs.”
“In any event,” said Jantiff, “I must speak to the cursar. Has he returned to Uncibal?”
“No! Nor has he called into the office! It is most strange.”
Jantiff clicked his tongue in disappointment “When he arrives, will you telephone me? I am at the Old Groar Tavern. My business is really important”
“I will give him your message, certainly.”
“Thank you very much.”
Jantiff left the post office and hurried back to the Old Groar, where Fariske had already become petulant because of his absence.
The custom of the Old Groar comprised a cross-section of local society: farmers and townspeople, servants from the manor of Grand Knight Shubart (as he was locally known), warehousemen and mechanics from the space-port and the port agent himself: a certain Eubanq. Jantiff found most of these folk somewhat coarse and not altogether congenial, especially the farmers, each of whom seemed more positive, stubborn and curt than the next. They drank Fariske’s compound ale and smoky spirits with zeal and ate decisively. They derived neither expansion nor ease from their drinking, and when drunk became torpid. As a rule Jantiff paid little heed to their conversation; however, overhearing mention of the witches, he asked a question: “Why do they never speak? Can anyone tell me this?”
The farmers exchanged smiles at Jantiff’s ignorance. “Certainly they can speak,” declared the oldest and most amiable of the group, a person named Skorbo. “My brother trapped two of them in his barn. The first got away; the other he tied to the farrel-post and took the truth out of her I won’t say how. The witch agreed that she could talk as well as the next person, but that words carried too much magic for ordinary occasions; therefore they were never used unless magic was to be worked, as at that very moment, so said the witch. Then she sang out a rhyme, or whatever it might be, and Chabby—that’s my brother—felt the blood rush to his ears in a burst and he ran from the bar. When he came back with his vyre[37] the creature was walking away. He took aim, and would you think it? The vyre exploded and tore open his hands!”
A farmer named Bodile jerked his head in scorn for the folly of Chab the brother. “No one should use a vyre, nor any complex thing, against a witch. A cudgel cut from a nine-year-old hawber and soaked nine nights in water which has washed no living hand: that’s the best fend against witches.”
“I keep a besom of prickle-withe and it’s never failed me yet,” said one named Sansoro. “I’ve laid it out ready for use and Fm smarting up my wurgles; there’s a new coven into Inkwood.”
“I saw some yesterday,” said Duade, a lanky young man with a great beak of a nose and crow-wing eyebrows. “They seemed on the move toward Wemish Water. I shouted my curse, but they showed no haste.”
Skorbo drained, his mug and set it down with a rap. “The Connatic should deal with them. We pay our yearly stiver[38] and what do we get in return? Felicitations and high prices. I’d as soon spend my tax on ale. Boy! Bring another pint!”
“Yes, sir.”
Nearby sat a man in a suit of fawn-colored twill, to match his sparse sandy hair. His shoulders were heavy, but narrow and sloping above a pear-shaped tom This was Eubanq, the port agent, an outworlder appointed by Grand Knight Shubert. Eubanq, a regular of the Old Groar, came every afternoon to sip ale, munch percebs and play sanque at a dinket[39] a game, with whomever chose to challenge him. His manner was equable, humorous, soft and sedate; his, lips constantly pursed and twitched as if at a series of private amusements. Eubanq now called from a nearby table. “Never scurrilize the Connatic, friends! He might be standing among us at this very minute. That’s his dearest habit, as we all know quite well!”
Duade uttered a jeering laugh. “Not likely. Unless he’s this new serving boy. But somehow I don’t see Janx in the part.”
“Janx” was a garbled mishearing of “Jantiff,” which had gained currency, around the tavern.
“Janx is not our Connatic,” Eubanq agreed, with humorous emphasis. “I’ve seen his picture and I can detect the difference. Still, never begrudge the Connatic’s stiver. Have you ever looked’ up into the sky? You’ll see the stars of Alastor cluster, all protected by the Whelm.”
Bodile grunted. “The stiver is wasted. Why should starmenters come to Blale? There’s nothing for them to take; certainly not at my house.”
“Grand Knight Shubart is the bait,” said Skorbo. “He surrounds himself with richness, as is his right; but by the same token he now must fear the starmenters.”
Duade grumbled: “We both pay the same stiver! Who does the Whelm protect? Shubart? Or me? Justice is remote.”
Eubanq laughed. “Take comfort! The Whelm is not all-powerful! Perhaps they will fail to guard the Grand Knight, then your stivers are equally misspent, so there you have your justice after all. And who is for a quick go at the sanque board?”
“Not I,” said Duade sourly. “The Connatic takes his stiver; you take our dinkets, Bahevah only knows by what set of artifices. I’ll play no more with you.”
“Nor I,” said Bodile. “I know a
better use for my dinkets. Boy! Are the percebs on order?”
“In just a few minutes, sir.”
Eubanq, unable to promote a game, turned away from the farmers. A few minutes later, finding a lull in his work, Jantiff approached him. “I wonder, sir, if you’d be good enough to advise me.”
“Certainly, within the limits of discretion,” said Eubanq. “I should warn you, however, that free advice is usually not worth its cost.”
Jantiff ignored the pleasantry. “I wish to take passage to Frayness on Zeck; this is Alastor 503, as no doubt you know. Is it possible to arrange this passage from the Balad spaceport?”
Eubanq shook his head. “Ships clearing Balad invariably make for Hilp and then Lambeter, to complete a circuit of the Gorgon’s Tusk.”
“Might I make connections from either Hilp or Lambeter to Zeck?”
“Certainly, except for the fact that the ships putting down here won’t carry you; they’re not licensed to do so. Go to Uncibal and take a Black Arrow packet direct.”
“I am bored with Uncibal,” Jantiff muttered. “I don’t want to set foot there again.”
“Then I fear that you must reconcile yourself to residence in Blale.”
Jantiff considered a moment. “I hold a passage voucher to Zeck. Could you issue me a ticket from Baled directly through to Frayness, so that I could board the packet without going through Uncibal Terminal?”
Eubanq’s glance became shrewd and inquisitive. “This is possible. But how would you travel from Baled to Uncibal?”
“Is there no connecting service?”
“No scheduled commercial flights.”
‘Well, suppose you were making the trip: how would you go?”
“I would hire someone with a flibbit to fly me. Naturally it wouldn’t come cheap, as it’s a far distance.”
‘Well then—how much?”
Eubanq pulled thoughtfully at his chin. “I could arrange it for a hundred owls; that’s my guess. It might come more. It won’t come less.”
“A hundred ozols!” cried Jantiff in shock. “That’s a vast sum!”
Eubanq shrugged. “Not when you consider what’s involved. A man with a sound flibbit won’t care to work on the cheap. No more do I, for that matter.”
A call came from the farmers: “Boy! Service!”
Jantiff turned away. A hundred ozols! Surely the figure was excessive! At two ozols a day and not a dinket wasted, a hundred ozols meant fifty days; the Arrabin Centenary would have come and gone!
No doubt the hundred owls included a substantial fee for Eubanq, thought Jantiff glumly. Well, either Eubanq must reduce his fee or Jantiff must earn more money. The first proposition was far-fetched: Eubanq’s parsimony was something of a joke around the Old Groar. According to Fariske, Eubanq had arrived at Baled wearing his fawn twill costume and never had worn anything else. So then: how to earn more money? No easy accomplishment in view of the demands Fariske made upon his time.
So Jantiff reflected as he cleared a vacated table.—He glanced resentfully toward Eubanq, who was deep in colloquy with a person newly arrived at the Old Groar. Jantiff froze in his tracks. The new arrival, a person large and heavy, with coarse black hair, narrow eyes, a complexion charged with heavy reeking blood, commanded local importance, to judge from Eubanq’s obsequious manner. His garments by Baled standards were rather grand: a pale blue suit (somewhat soiled) cut in military style, black boots; a black harness and a cap of black bast set off with a fine panache of silver bristles. He now looked around the room, saw Jantiff, signaled. “Boy! Bring ale!”
“Yes, sir.” With a beating heart Jantiff served the table. Booch glanced at him again without any trace of recognition. “Is this Fariske’s old Dark Wort? Or the Nebranger?”
“It’s the best Dark Won, sir.”
Booch dismissed Jantiff with a brusque nod. If he had so much as noticed Jantiff at the bonterfest, the recollection apparently had dissolved. More reason than ever to leave Balad, Jantiff told himself through gritted teeth. A hundred ozols might turn out to be a dramatic bargain!
Eubanq presently rose to his feet and took leave of Booth. Jantiff accosted him near the door. “I don’t have a hundred ozols now, but I’ll make up the amount as soon as possible.”
“Good enough,” said Eubanq. “I’ll check the Black Arrow schedule, and we can set up definite arrangements.”
Jantiff made a half-hearted proposal: “If you could get me away sooner, I’d pay you as soon as I arrived on Zeck.”
Eubanq gave an indulgent chuckle. “Zeck is far from Baled; memories sometimes don’t extend such distances.”
“You could trust me! I’ve never cheated anyone in my life!”
Eubanq raised his hand in a laughing disclaimer. “Nevertheless and not withstanding! I invariably do business in proper fashion, and that means ozols on the barrel head!”
Jantiff gave a morose shrug. “I’ll see what I can do. Er—who is your friend yonder?”
Eubanq glanced back across the room. “That’s the Respectable Buwechluter, usually known as Booch. He’s factotum to Grand Knight Shubert, who happens to be offplanet at the moment, so Booch takes his ease at the manor and regales us all with his blood-curdling anecdotes. Step smartly when he calls his order and you’ll find no difficulties.”
“Boy. called out Booch at this moment. “Bring a double order of percebs!”
“Sorry, sir! No percebs left; we’ve had a run on them today.”
Booch uttered a curse of disgust. “Why doesn’t Fariske plan more providentially? Well then, bring me a slice of good fat grump and a half-pound of haggot.”
Jantiff hastened to do Booch’s bidding, and so the evening progressed.
The patrons departed at last and went their ways through the misty Blale night. Jantiff cleared the tables, set the room to rights, extinguished lights and gratefully retired to his room.
Taking all with all, Jantiff had no fault to find with the Old Groar. But for his anxiety and Fariske’s importunities, he might have taken pleasure in Baled and its dim, strange surroundings. He was aroused early by Palinka, Fariske’s robust daughter, who then served him a breakfast of groats, sausage and blackmold tea. Immediately thereafter he swabbed out the common room, brought up supplies from the cellar and smartened up the bar in preparation for the day’s business. After his third day a new task was required of Jantiff. In rain or shine, mist or storm, he was sent out with a pair of buckets to gather the day’s supply of percebs from the offshore rocks. Jantiff came to enjoy this particular task above all others, in spite of the uncertain weather and the chill water of the Moaning Ocean. Once beyond the immediate precincts of Balad, solitude was absolute, and Jantiff had the shore to himself.
Jantiff’s usual route was eastward along Dessimo Beach, where half-sunken platforms of rock alternated with pleasant little coves. Dunes along the shore-side supported a multitude of growths: purple gart, puzzle-bush, ginger-tufts, creeping: jilberry, which squeaked when trod upon. Interspersed were patches of silicanthus: miniature five-pronged radiants of a stuff Re frosted glass, stained apparently at random in any of a hundred colors. Here and there granat trees twisted and humped to the wind, with limbs wildly askew like harridans in flight. When Jantiff looked south across the ocean, the near horizon never failed to startle him with the illusion that he stood high in the air. The wet days were undeniably dreary; and when the wind blew strong, the ocean swells toppled ponderously over the rocks; and sometimes Jantiff slouched empty-bucketed back to the Old Groar.
On fine days the ocean sparked and scintillated to the Dwan light; the gart glowed like purple glass; and the sand beneath Jantiff’s feet seemed as clean and fresh as at the beginning of time; and Jantiff, swinging his buckets and breathing the cool salt air, felt that life was well worth living, despite every conceivable tribulation.
Halfway along the Dessimo headland an arm of the Sych swung out and approached the ocean. Here Jantiff discovered a dilapidated shack, half-hidden in the
shadows of the forest. The roof had dropped; one wall had collapsed; the floor was buried under the detritus of years. Jantiff prodded here and there with a stick, but found nothing of interest.
One day Jantiff walked to the end of the headland: a massive tongue of black rock protecting a dozen swirling pools of chilly water in its lee. Exploring these pools Jantiff found quantities of excellent percebs, including many of the prized coronel variety, and thereafter Jantiff visited the area daily. Passing the old hut, he occasionally troubled to fit a stone or two back into the wall, or clear an armload of litter from the interior. One sunny morning he circled the headland and returned to Balad along the shore of Lulace Sound, and so obtained a view of Lulace, Grand Knight Shubart’s manor, at the back of an immaculate formal garden. Jantiff paused to admire the place, of which he had heard a dozen marvelous tales. Immediately he noticed Booch sunning himself on a garden bench, and as he watched, a young maid in black and red livery came out from the kitchen with a tray of refreshment& Booch, seemed to make a facetious invitation, but the maid sidled nervously away. Booch reached out, to haul her back and caught one of the red pompoms of her livery. The girl protested, pleaded and at last began to cry. Booch’s gallantry instantly vanished. He gave the girl a buffet across the buttocks, to send her stumbling and weeping toward the manor. Jantiff took an impulsive step forward, ready to call out a reprimand, but thought twice and held his tongue. Booch, chancing to notice him, jumped to his feet in a fury; Jantiff was relieved that sixty yards of water lay between them. He took up his percebs and hurried away.
Halfway through the evening Booch appeared at the Old Groar. Jantiff went about his duties, trying to ignore Booch’s glowering glances. At last Booch signaled and Jantiff approached. “Yes, sir?”