by Alexey Pehov
“The Master?” the goblin guessed.
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about?” Eel had never heard about any Master.
“Don’t bother your head about it,” I told the warrior. “Let’s just say you could get something sharp under your shoulder blade at any moment. As soon as Hallas gets his tooth fixed we’ll go back, and then Alistan and Miralissa can rack their brains over what to do next. I said we shouldn’t come into Ranneng!”
“The halt was absolutely necessary. You know that perfectly well.”
“You’re very talkative, Eely-beely! Is there some reason for that?” Kli-Kli asked.
“Go and grin at someone else, Kli-Kli,” the Garrakian said good-humoredly. “Let’s go. Deler might need help.”
“I’m warning you now,” I said hurriedly. “I didn’t volunteer to hold the gnome!”
It was annoying that the goblin and the Wild Heart both turned a deaf ear to my warning. I wonder why in certain situations certain people suffer from a selective loss of hearing. I sighed bitterly and trudged toward the barber’s shop, following my comrades.
Hallas, bright red in the face, came leaping toward us out of the door of the shop, almost knocking the jester off his feet. The goblin only just managed to jump out of the way. Deler came flying out after Hallas. The color of the gnome’s face would have put any beetroot to shame.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“That…!” the gnome roared so loudly that everyone in the market could hear him and pointed back at the door of the shop.
“Shut up!” Deler hissed, pulling his hat down over his eyes.
“I told you, shut up! Let’s get out of here!”
“But what’s happened?” I asked again.
“That cretin who slept with a donkey wants money!” the gnome roared.
“Errr…,” said Eel, who didn’t understand a thing, either. “It’s quite usual to pay a barber money, isn’t it?”
“But not three gold pieces! Have you ever heard of anyone taking three gold pieces for a rotten tooth?”
“No, I haven’t.”
I hadn’t, either. Three gold pieces was a lot of money. For that much you could get all the teeth of half the army of Valiostr pulled out.
“Let’s go, Hallas!” Deler persisted.
“Hey, you! You damned swindler! Come out here! I’ll break all your teeth out for a copper! And I’ll wring your neck for free!”
“Hallas, shut up and let’s get going!” the dwarf yelled, unable to control himself any longer.
“Eel, stop both their mouths, before the guard arrives!” I whispered to the Garrakian when I saw a crowd of idle onlookers starting to gather round us.
The barber made the mistake of looking out of his shop.
“I do beg your pardon,” he babbled, “but I extract teeth using spells bought in a magic shop. The procedure is absolutely painless, that’s why my price is so high.”
“Hold me back,” Hallas told us, and went dashing at the barber with his fists held high.
The barber gave a shrill squeal and slammed the door in the furious gnome’s face. Deler hung on his comrade’s shoulders and Eel jumped in front of the gnome, who was charging like a rhinoceros. I pretended that I wasn’t with them at all, but simply standing there taking a breath of fresh air.
Some public-spirited individual had called the guards, and about ten armed men were already making their way through the crowd in our direction. They hadn’t wasted any time. The Ranneng guard were obviously far more conscientious about their work than the guard in Avendoom. No doubt the frequent clashes between Wild Boars, Nightingales, and Oburs kept the servants of the flexible and corrupt law in a state of constant battle readiness.
We didn’t have time to slip away.
“Problems?” the sergeant of the guard asked me.
“Problems? No, not at all. No problems,” I answered hastily, just hoping that Deler would somehow manage to stop the gnome’s mouth.
“No fairy tales, if you don’t mind!” the soldier said harshly. “Tell me why that half-pint is yelling like that.”
“He’s having a bad day.”
“And that’s why he feels like slugging a respectable barber, is it?” another guardsman chuckled. “A deliberate breach of public order and incitement to affray. Are you going to come quietly or…?”
It doesn’t matter where the guards are from—spend a bit of time in any city and you get to know all there is to know about their kind. Even a Doralissian could tell what it was the lads wanted from us.
“We’re not going anywhere, dear sirs,” said Eel, coming to my assistance and leaving Deler and Kli-Kli to take care of Hallas.
There was something in the Garrakian’s eyes that made the guardsmen take a step back. A wolf facing a pack of yard dogs, that was the thought that came to my mind when Eel blocked their way.
They had the advantage of numbers and—even more important—they had their halberds against our daggers. A very powerful argument in a fight, it must be said. But it was clear that they were still having doubts.
“Oh yes you are, dear sir,” the bold sergeant hissed through his teeth, adjusting his grip on his halberd. “This isn’t your Garrak; we observe the law here!”
Eel’s lips trembled into a barely visible smile.
“If the law was observed in my country the way it is here, there’d be more criminals in Garrak than there are bribe-takers in the guard.”
“Just what are you hinting at?” asked the sergeant, narrowing his eyes malevolently.
Eel gave another faint smile and swayed back thoughtfully on his heels. His hands dropped to the hilts of a pair of Garrakian daggers.
The gesture didn’t pass unnoticed by the soldiers and they all took another step back, as if on command. Hallas had finally shut up, and now he was staring around in amazement at the guards and the crowd watching us, unable to believe that his quarrelsome nature could have attracted so many people.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” said a man who suddenly emerged from the crowd and walked up to the guards. “These are my friends. They’re not from these parts, and they haven’t had time yet to get used to the laws of our glorious Ranneng!”
A sharp nose, blue eyes, light brown hair, about my own age. He had an open, slightly roguish smile and was dressed like a prosperous townsman—probably that was why the sergeant answered him instead of sending him packing.
“They’re disturbing the peace and insulting the keepers of public order,” said the sergeant, with a hostile glance at the Garrakian.
“Of course, of course,” the man whispered sympathetically, carefully taking the sergeant by the elbow and leading him off to one side. “But you understand, they’re from the country, and my friends were never taught good manners. This is their first time in the city. And that thin one over there is my aunt’s nephew, so he’s a relative of mine,” the man said, jabbing his finger in my direction.
“What’s that goon doing?” Hallas asked in amazement.
“Dragging us out of the shithole that you dug for us,” Deler explained to the gnome.
Hallas had enough wits not to start another argument.
“I was supposed to make sure they didn’t get into any trouble,” the man explained to the soldier. “Put yourself in my place, sergeant! If anything happens my aunt will tear my head off and she won’t let me back into the house!”
A silver coin passed from the stranger’s hand into the hand of the commander of the guard.
“Well…,” the sergeant said hesitantly. “We still have to perform our duty and carry out our responsibilities.”
Another coin changed owners.
“Although,” said the guardsman, starting to soften a bit, “following a brief reprimand I could quite well release your … mmm … respected relatives.”
A third silver piece disappeared into his grasping fingers.
“Yes!” said the sergeant with a resolute nod. “I think the Rann
eng guard can find more important business to deal with than punishing innocent passersby who haven’t quite settled into the city yet. All the best to you, dear sir!”
“All the best.”
“Let’s go, lads,” the sergeant said to his soldiers, and the guard immediately lost all interest in us and disappeared into the crowd.
The idle onlookers realized that the show was over and busied themselves with other matters. The market started buzzing again and no one paid any more attention to us.
The man came up to us, smiled, looked into my eyes, and said: “Hello, Harold!”
The only thing I could do was reply: “Hello, Bass.”
* * *
“Hello, Harold.”
“Hello, Bass,” I answered lazily, half opening one eye.
“Still asleep?” my friend asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m hungry,” said Bass, slapping himself on the stomach.
“So why tell me?”
“Well, you’re my friend!”
“Sure as daylight, I’m your friend. But it’s time you learned to earn your food some other way than playing potbellied small fry at dice and cards!”
“Ah!” Bass sighed in disappointment and sat down on the edge of the straw mattress. “Just because you’re twelve and I’m only eleven, it doesn’t mean that you’re cleverer than me.”
“Well, if that’s not so, why are you nagging me about food?” I chuckled.
“There’s a job.”
“Well?” I stopped studying the ceiling and sat up.
“This man won a lot of money from Kra at dice…”
“How did you get in there?” I asked in surprise.
They didn’t like to let us into the gambling den. Kra didn’t make any profits out of juvenile pickpockets like us. We just got under everyone’s feet and cleaned out the decent customers.
“I managed it,” said Bass, screwing up his blue eyes cunningly.
Bass had earned his nickname of Snoop. He could get in anywhere at all—it was another matter that my friend quite often got in trouble for these escapades of his.
“Well, what about this man?”
“Ah! Well, basically, he was playing Kra at dice and he won three gold pieces!”
I whistled enviously. Only once had I ever managed to fish a gold piece out of someone’s pocket on the street, and Bass and I had lived in clover for two whole months. And this was three all at once!
“Do you think you can get them off him?” I asked Bass cautiously.
“I don’t think so, but you could,” my friend admitted with a sickly smile.
“Right,” I said morosely. “And if something goes wrong, it’ll be me they grab, not you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bass declared nonchalantly. “This character looks like a real goose. If anything happens, I’ll help. We’re a team!”
He was right there. We’d been through a lot together in the two years we had known each other and lived in the slums of the Suburbs. And there had been bad days as well as good ones in that time.
Compared with me, Bass wasn’t too good at delving into people’s pockets on the street. He didn’t really have any talent for lifting purses, and that burden was always laid on my shoulders. But then Snoop did have other talents: He could sell a bill of goods to the Nameless One himself, con and swindle his nearest and dearest, fix a game of dice or cards, and point me in the direction of a man with a pocket bulging with coins.
“All right,” I sighed. “Where is this golden gent of yours?”
“He’s sitting in the Dirty Fish, guzzling wine.”
“Let’s go, you can show me,” I said reluctantly.
We still had one silver coin and five copper ones, and there would have been no point in risking my neck if not for the three gold pieces. For that kind of money it was worth getting up off the mattress and going out into the cold.
We slipped out of the crooked old hovel that was home to more than twenty souls. The people who lived there were all homeless tramps, like us.
Avendoom was in the grip of early spring—there was still snow lying on the ground, the nights were still as fiercely cold as in January, when many people who had no roof over their head froze to death in the streets, but despite the cold weather, the unfriendly gray sky, and the snowdrifts everywhere, spring was in the air.
There was an elusive smell of opening buds, murmuring streams, and mud.
Yes, mud! The mud that appeared from out of nowhere every year in the Avendoom Suburbs. But of course the mud was a mere trifle, a minor inconvenience and nothing more. The important thing was that soon the weather would be warm and I would finally be able to throw away the repulsive dog’s-fur coat with tears in five places that I’d stolen from a drunken groom the year before.
It had faithfully kept me warm all winter long, but when I wore it I was less agile and quick, and that enforced clumsiness had got me into trouble more than once. The week before I’d very nearly ended up getting nabbed by the guards because my feet got tangled up in the thing.
The Dirty Fish, a crooked old tavern, was right in the very center of the Suburbs, beside Sour Plums Square. No sane man would ever go to the Fish to fill his paunch—the tavern’s sour wine and abundant bedbugs were enough to frighten away any decent customers.
We halted on the other side of the street, opposite the doors of the tavern.
“Are you sure your man’s still in there? What would he be doing in a puke hole like that with three gold pieces? Couldn’t he find a better place?”
“Obviously he couldn’t,” Bass muttered. “He’s there, and he has two jugs of wine on the table in front of him. I don’t think he could have guzzled all of it while I ran to get you.”
“You simply don’t know how good some people get at guzzling wine,” I retorted. “He could be more than a league away by now.”
“Harold, you’re always panicking over petty details,” Bass snorted. “I told you, he’s in there!”
“All right,” I sighed, “let’s wait and see.”
So we waited in the frost. Bass and I leapt up every time the door of the tavern opened, and every time it turned out to be the wrong man.
“Listen,” I said, losing patience after two hours’ waiting, “I’m frozen to death.”
“I’m almost frozen solid, too, but that man’s definitely in there!”
“We wait for another half hour, and if he doesn’t come, I’m clearing out of here,” I said firmly.
Bass sighed mournfully.
“Maybe I should go and check?”
“That’s all we need, for Kra to give you a good thrashing. Stay where you are.”
The frost was licking greedily at my fingers and toes, so I stamped my feet and clapped my hands, trying to warm myself up at least a little bit. Several times Bass wanted to go into the tavern to check how the owner of the three gold pieces was getting on, but every time, after wrangling with me for a while, he stayed where he was.
“Maybe the guy’s had too much to drink?” my friend asked uncertainly; I could feel my fingers turning to icicles.
“Maybe…,” I replied, with my teeth chattering. “I don’t want anything anymore except to get warm.”
“There he is!” Bass suddenly exclaimed, pointing to a man who was walking out of the tavern. I studied him critically and gave my verdict: “A goose.”
“I told you so,” my friend said with a sniff. “Oh, now we’ll really start living!”
“Don’t be in such a hurry,” I said, watching our future victim’s progress. “Did you see where he keeps his money?”
“His right pocket. That’s where his purse is.”
“Let’s go.”
We tried to behave so that he wouldn’t take any notice of us. Trying to get into his pocket just then would have been asking for trouble. There weren’t many people about, there was no way to approach him without being noticed; all we could do was wait for a convenient moment.
�
�Are you sure he’s drunk two jugs of wine?” I hissed, keeping my eyes on the stranger.
“Why?” Bass hissed back.
“He’s walking very steadily. Not at all like a drunk.”
“There are different kinds of drunks,” Bass disagreed. “You could never tell if my old dad was drunk or not, until he picked up a log and started chasing after my mother.”
Meanwhile the man was wandering through the winding streets of the Suburbs without any obvious goal, like a hare circling through the forest to confuse his tracks. We kept our distance and tried not to let him see us until he reached the Market Square. There were plenty of people there, and it was quite easy for us to move up close behind him.
I gave Bass a quick nod, and he darted off to one side.
I tried to breathe through my nose, match the rhythm of the man’s steps, and stop trembling with nerves. My fingers were chilly and not as nimble as usual. I would never have taken the risk if the man hadn’t had three gold pieces in his pocket.
Someone pushed me in the back and for a second I found myself almost pressed up against the man, so I accepted this gift from the gods and lowered my hand into his pocket. I felt the purse immediately, and grabbed it, preparing to scram, but just at that moment the stranger grabbed hold of my hand. “Got you, you little thief!” he hissed.
I gave a shrill squeal and tried to break free, but the man was a lot stronger than me, and my hand didn’t even shift in the grasp of his bearlike paw. The thought flashed through my mind that I was in for really big trouble now.
Bass came dashing up out of nowhere and gave the big lunk a smart kick on the leg. He howled and let go of me.
“Let’s get out of here!” Bass shouted, and legged it.
Without bothering to think, I followed him, clutching the purse. I could hear the furious guy dashing after us.
“Thieves!” he yelled. “Stop those thieves!”
We wormed our way through the crowd and dashed out of Market Square onto a narrow little street. But that damn lunk was right there behind us all the way.
It was hard to run, the fur coat kept getting tangled round my legs, and the tramping feet of our pursuer kept getting closer and closer. Bass was showing me a clean pair of heels and the distance between us was gradually increasing. I groaned in disappointment: I would have to abandon the fur coat that I had acquired with such a great effort. I stuck the purse in my teeth and started unfastening the buttons as I ran along. The warm coat slipped off my shoulders and fell into the snow. Immediately it was much easier to run—I strode out and caught up with Bass.