Chapter ten
Concerning an ob and a toc
The Rokveil’s Ank was not quite as bad as Milsi had predicted the tavern would be; not quite.
It was situated on a side turning from the Street of Anchor Stones, where the sidewalks were fallen away here and there. When the rains came the roadway became a quagmire so tenacious that even a Quoffa, hauling with might and main, would never shift his cart harnessed to him by chains. The papishin leaf roof resounded to the uproar. Inside the tavern the wooden walls seeped water. No one appeared to care.
No dopa was served here.
Seg would not have entered had dopa been served, not because he was too prudish ever to enter a dopa den but because the almost inevitable fights tended to a sad and messy conclusion. Dopa dens, as he had come to know, could yield secrets and offer fine plucked rascals to be used as unwitting tools in intrigues.
The tables were scrubbed clean, the pots and jugs of a similar cleanly style, and the various brews far superior to anything so far encountered along the Kazzchun River. This was only a small unpretentious tavern a stone’s throw from the waterfront; but this was the capital city.
A Sylvie came in swirling gauzes and clanging bangles and danced erotically, and a performing animal with heavy chains was prodded by red-hot irons into dancing, and a troupe of jugglers threw balls and hoops and firebrands about and... Seg sat slumped into the corner of a settle and moped about the words he’d had with Milsi.
In all the uproar among the fumes of wine and ale and the blue smells of cooking from the kitchen, the hot fat sizzling in pans as food was hurried by serving wenches to the tables, Seg gradually found himself listening to the different conversations going on.
Naturally, one of the main topics was the capture and summary execution of the renders. Kov Llipton had acted very smartly there, the news flying up and down the river in no time. But, it was clear, even amid all this bustle and the titillation of fresh gossip, everyone’s mind dwelt upon the absence of the king and queen. The river was not the same without the guiding hand of King Crox, no matter how smartly the regent, Kov Llipton, acted.
No one knew much about conditions in the Snarly Hills, and a variety of opinions were expressed. That the place was infested with bandits was certain sure, and the king had stopped that, may the good Pandrite be praised. But how drikingers within their forest fastnesses could interfere with river traffic remained a puzzle, and the few land routes were hazardous enough at the best of times. Seg sat, drinking carefully, and he noticed that for all their big talk, Khardun, Rafikhan and the Dorvenhork also drank sparingly. They did, however, eat hugely.
Seg felt it would be less than politic — at the very least! — to mention that a Witch of Loh sat like an evil spider at the center of the Snarly Hills in the Coup Blag.
Nath the Dorvenhork caught the attention of a serving wench and asked if The Rokveil’s Ank served huliper pie.
“No, master. Squish pie, celene flan, jooshas—” She would have rattled out the menu, but the Dorvenhork nodded in his dour Chulik way and said, “Squish.”
“Huliper Pie,” said Rafikhan, leaning forward. “You have been in the army, horter Nath.”
“It is no secret. A Chulik follows the guiding hand of Shum of the Four Tusks into whatever fortune brings.”
Diomb was agog to taste all the varied delights of civilized cooking.
“Squish pie,” said Seg. “I have a comrade, a very great comrade, who dotes on squish pie. Yet his taboos deny him the pleasure without penance, so that he spends bur after bur standing on his head.”
Diomb laughed delightedly. He had proved an object of interest to the denizens of the tavern for only a short time. Most of them had seen dinkus before, captured and brought in as curiosities. Times changed, and no doubt the little people of the forest would soon be setting up in business in Nalvinlad. If good King Crox were here, now...
When Seg’s roast ponsho and momolams arrived at the table he looked at the platter, frowning.
“What is it, Seg?” demanded Diomb.
“A strange fashion this, to be sure.”
Diomb summoned the serving wench by the simple expedient of showing her a copper ob between his nimble fingers. He was learning the ways of civilization. The girl, she was apim with smudgy cheeks, ample bosom, stringy hair, dressed in a simple gray tunic, and she could carry a tray with ten jugs of ale one-handed, came over at once.
“What is this food?” demanded Diomb.
“It is Weeping Ponsho, master.”
Seg said: “How is the dish cooked?”
“Why, master, I know that, although I am but a serving girl. You slash the ponsho and stuff the cuts with herbs. You cut the momolams into slices and then you roast the meat above the vegetables on a rack so that all the fats and goodness drip down.” She looked proud in her own knowledge.
“No doubt, one day, you will be the cook here.” Seg stirred the mess with his knife. “I will eat this. But I prefer ponsho roast whole, or quartered respectably, with the momolams halved lengthways and arranged around the meat.”
“I have heard of that, master. We think it—” Then she stopped, clearly frightened at her willfulness in what she was about to say. You did not contradict a patron. The landlord had a hard and heavy switch hanging at the back of the kitchen door.
All this time she had not taken her eyes off the ob in Diomb’s fingers, going flickety-flick up and down in the way he’d copied, the coin a dazzle.
He flicked it to her and, with the unerring aim of a forest marksman he shied it into the cleavage of her gray tunic. She wiggled, laughed in an affected way, and said, “Thank you, master, may the good Pandrite reward you.”
Khardun the Franch looked at Diomb, and Seg, watching, saw that the Khibil smiled a genuine smile, albeit a foxy one.
“You want to be more careful with your money, young Diomb. Not all gold comes as easily as that from horter Seg.”
“Oh?”
“Why, yes. Didn’t you see the look on that girl’s face? She never gets more than a toc as a tip, and you get six tocs for one copper ob.”
Diomb shoved his blowpipe up his shoulder out of the way, and leaned back against the settle. “I thank you, horter Khardun, for your information. A toc is one of these, then?” And he held up the tiny coin to inspect it more closely.
Somewhat morosely, Seg struck into his meal. A Fristle fifi came in to sing a song and the taproom more or less quieted down to listen. In her melodious meowling way she sang through: “The Lay of Faerly the Ponsho Farmer’s Daughter.” Then she warbled, “Black is White and White is Black,” concerning the doings of the miller’s and the sweep’s wives. She finished up with a little ditty about a girl who so loved a boy on the opposite bank of the Kazzchun River that she essayed to swim and risk the perils of the jaws in the water. Her courage and love so impressed the goddess Pavishkeemi that she came down from her house in Panachreem, the home of the deities of Pandahem, and spread her shush-chiff across the waters. This elegant flowing garment provided a safe way for the love-sick girl, whose name, in the fashion of Kregen, changed from region to region.
This song was known as “The Shush-chiff of Pavishkeemi the Beloved.”
The Fristle fifi sang well and the applause that followed was genuine. Coins showered about her feet. The Fristle with the party, Naghan the Slippy, was so carried away he joyfully threw the fifi a whole shining silver Dhem. Diomb did not notice this. Mindful of Khardun’s words, he threw over the little copper toc.
The girl saw. She bent down with a single graceful motion, picked the toc from the floor, and with a scornful gesture, flung it back at Diomb.
“What—?” exclaimed the dinko, bemused.
Khardun blew out his reddish whiskers. “There are degrees of recompense within the world, young Diomb, and you have just demonstrated two of them — in the wrong order.”
“I suppose I will understand this silly world, one day?”
The young m
ercenaries who had served as boat guards for the short trip upriver now came in. They looked disgusted. Deeming the rest of his river journey safe, Obolya had paid them off. They had money which they proceeded to squander.
“Onkers,” said Khardun. “They will learn.”
The paktun, Norolger the Arm, whom they had elected as their Deldar to command them, made a half-hearted attempt to restrain the lavish spending. But his heart was not in it.
“By the Blade of Kurin!” he said, wiping the froth from his mouth. “Life is hard, doms, exceeding hard.”
A man wearing a coat of sewn skins sitting just along the wall hitched his cudgel forward and lifted his jug.
“If you seek work, paktuns, the wolves are out along the plains up past Mewsansmot.”
The paktuns swiveled to stare at this unwelcome intrusion upon their conspicuous misery.
“Wolves?” said Norolger. “We are paktuns, not animal catchers.”
The wolves they were talking about, Seg decided, must really be werstings, and they were ferocious and vicious and yet could be tamed by man into hunting packs. Runaway criminals and fugitives of all kinds trembled when they heard the yeowling of the wersting pack upon their heels.
He scraped the platter clean and pushed it aside. Before he reached for the looshas pudding he took a swingeing draught of ale. It was probably correct for Milsi not to have accompanied him. But, then, had she done so he would have walked farther on and sought out a more respectable inn. He thought of Milsi, and found he was looking forward to meeting her daughter. For quite clearly her daughter was the real reason Milsi was so determined to go up to Mewsansmot where the werstings prowled.
Milsi, with her new handmaid Malindi and the charming dinka Bamba, found satisfaction at the warm welcome accorded them in the clothing arcade. The proprietor, a Lamnia called Orlan Felminyer, brushed up his pale yellow fur and smiled and spread his wares. His wife, Alenci, took the three into a back room where they could strip off their old clothes, thankfully, and then with many wriggles and sighs, and exclamations of delight, try on brand new clothes.
Bamba was determined not to wear her bark apron again. She declared that if she was to be a woman of the world then she must dress accordingly.
Milsi’s gold procured first-class service and sumptuous apparel. In the end, they bought a chestful.
“Have it taken down to horter Obolya’s boat, please, horter Felminyer.”
“It shall be done, my lady.”
The twin suns threw their twin shadows across the boardwalk as they emerged. The rains had broomed away and the sky was clearing. Out in the alley between arcade and wharfside a file of soldiers marched up, halted at a sharp word of command, grounded their spears.
Milsi realized that Kov Llipton did, indeed, run the kingdom tightly. An officer — he was a Hikdar —
walked up the few steps onto the boardwalk. He was apim, ruddy-featured, thrusting, wearing half-armor and carrying an arsenal of weapons in the Kregan way. He touched a forefinger to the peak of his helmet and spoke to Milsi.
“My lady. You are from Obolya Metromin’s boat?”
“That is correct, Hikdar.”
His ruddy features darkened. “My apologies, my lady. Llahal. I am Hikdar Northag ti Hovensmot. I seek information from you concerning your traveling companions.”
“Llahal Hikdar Northag. How may I assist you?”
She looked at him quite calmly. He wore an ornate plume of brown and white feathers in his helmet, and although they were not arbora feathers, they looked splendid. Even the swods in the ranks, the ordinary foot soldiers, wore a piling bunch of brown and white feathers in their bronze helmets.
“I have just asked you. Where are the people from Obolya’s boat?”
“Gone drinking in some tavern or other.”
His gaze bore down on her. At that moment Milsi felt cold. He did not look quite the same fine upright soldierly person her first impression had conveyed.
“Very well.”
He swung away, bellowed unpleasantly at the Deldar at the head of the file — it was an audo of ten men
— and jumped off the boardwalk. Milsi watched them until the last clump of brown and white feathers vanished past the end of a warehouse with a broken crane over the upper doors.
“What could that have been all about, my lady?” ventured Malindi in her simple way.
“I do not know,” snapped Milsi, crossly.
Bamba smoothed down her new green dress with the orange bows and the yellow lace. Milsi had been quite unable to part the dinka from the abomination.
“I did not like them at all,” said Bamba, with a spurt of fierceness. “Men like that have chased us in the forest.”
“Yes, and I daresay men like your Diomb have shot poisoned darts at them!”
“Milsi!”
“Oh, yes, very well. I didn’t mean to be so sharp. But I am worried. What, in the name of the foul Armipand, did they really want?”
The three women began slowly to walk back to the wharfside where Obolya’s boat was tied up. The smells of the river grew stronger, mingling with the brisk smells of the wharf, of which fish was the most prominent.
Milsi stopped so suddenly Malindi crashed into her.
“I am sorry, my lady—”
“Enough of that, Malindi! Of course! What a fool I am!”
“What is it?” cried Bamba.
“It has to be so. That rast of a villain Ortyg the Undlefar. They must have questioned him. He told them
— oh, I can see it all!”
Bamba looked nervously unhappy; Malindi started to cry.
“We must warn Seg and the others!” said Milsi, and she straight away started to run swiftly along the alley. Gripping her skirts high, head up, she ran panting with passionate fury toward the city.
Chapter eleven
Knives
“We are a bedraggled-looking bunch,” observed Seg, feeling the food inside him and the ale cheerful in his blood. “Let us go along to the souks and buy ourselves some decent clothes.”
“Aye,” rumbled the Dorvenhork. “Clothes are all very well. But there is a greater need we lack.”
He had no need to place his broad yellow hand upon the fire-sharpened wooden stake at his side. In almost any location on Kregen a man needed a weapon, preferably a small arsenal of weapons. Kregans habitually carry enough weapons for the task ahead, not less, not more. If a blade breaks in your hands, and you have no other weapons to draw... Equally, no Kregan will willingly burden himself with junk he does not need.
“Agreed,” said Khardun.
They rose from the table, pushing the heavy wooden thing away with no difficulty. They stood up, stretching their legs. Only the Chulik belched.
“Weapons first,” he said, and there was no argument, not even from Seg.
“All the same,” pointed out Khardun. “We will be able to afford precious little.”
“A knife, maybe that is all we will need for a beginning. These wooden spears will serve, I judge. As for an axe—”
“Well,” observed Rafikhan, blowing out his feathers. “We will never afford a single sword between us.”
“You will pardon me, doms,” said Umtig. He stroked the spinlikl upon his breast. “I will return to the boat. I had an eye to Master Orlan Felminyer’s arcade.”
They watched him trot off without comment, merely calling the polite remberees.
Among the many different folk from all up and down the Kazzchun River they excited no particular interest. There were half-naked men and women seeking to earn their daily food, folk who slept under the piles of the sidewalks, folk who were as adept at stealing the copper ob as at carrying the burden from the wharfside.
Very very few men walked about without a weapon of some kind, even though very many of the poorer folk carried merely a heavy bludgeon.
The roadways steamed. The radiance of the suns beat down and very soon the gluey mud would return to its hard-baked consistency. Up ahead
the walkways led into that part of the city where the souks and covered alleys ran in a confusing tangle. These areas of cities, known as the aracloins, harbored commerce, money and villainy.
These particular aracloins in Nalvinlad were not extensive and it was abundantly clear that Kov Llipton kept a close eye on them. Parties of soldiers wearing blue and white feathers in their helmets could be seen here and there ready to squelch the first incipient riot.
The party with Seg walked along very meekly when they passed the soldiers. Old-hand paktuns knew when to make themselves small. Particularly when they carried no weapons in their fists.
The odd thing was that while most of the party of ordinary folk whom Seg had rescued did not go first to the souks of weaponry, instead trotting off to find new clothes, the Relt, mild and gentle, Caphlander the Quill, went with the paktuns.
As he said, “While I am with you, whom I venture to call comrades, I feel safe. And I must buy a penknife.”
They guffawed, and jollied him along. But they all sensed the innate wholesomeness of Caphlander, with his innocent beaked face and the yellow feathers rounding his eyes into bright intelligence.
“This looks likely,” said Khardun, halting precipitately. They all looked at the entrance to the store, one of many lining the sides of the souk. The sign said that one Jezbellandur the Iarvin provided the best weapons in all Croxdrin. Seg noticed that the word Croxdrin in the ornately embellished hyr-Kregish, was recently painted and already some of the base paint was flaking away to reveal dimmer lettering beneath. That would be the word Nalvindrin, without a doubt.
An audo — only eight of them — of soldiers marched past with careful looks at Seg and his people.
These soldiers wore green and yellow feathers. Farther on, chasing a couple of idiots caught thieving, a group of soldiers wearing green and white feathers rushed on, hullabalooing.
Everyone stood back as the rout passed.
“How is it, horter Hundle,” Seg said to the boat-master, “that there are differently colored feathers?”
Seg the Bowman Page 10