They were surprised to see so many men wearing hats, usually grey or maroon or dark-blue brimmed ones, turned up in back and on one side. The few they remarked whose hats sprouted or trailed feathers had to be the wealthy. Those men tended also to wear brightly coloured leggings — often startlingly brightly coloured ones even to Hanse — and heeled boots under tunics that, cinched with great big belts, tended to blouse out below and even stand away in a ripply effect. Hanse realized that he was seeing every colour of tunic save red, although some were striped with lime or scarlet or cinnamon or a sort of raspberry pink shade he did not like at all. Even most of the plain white or “natural” tunics were striped at sleeve bottoms and hems, and sometimes multiply striped. Patterns were unusual.
Some older citizens wore robes. Once Hanse saw two women in yellow-gold robes, hardly flowing and yet somehow modest, pristine. Walking tall, orange-red veils flowing long down their backs, they looked straight ahead and spoke to no one. The singular pair was escorted by three men of the City Watch. Citizens were obviously deferential, and actually inclined their heads on passing or being passed by the two haughty women in their flame-hued robes, escorted by the stiff trio of men who wore uniforms and stony faces.
Hanse assumed that these women were Somebody, but decided against asking. He hoped they were the occasion of all the respectful attitudes; he’d hate to have journeyed to a city where one bowed one’s head every time a helmeted, armoured grabber passed!
The poorer citizens and lower classes wore what they wore about anywhere: whatever they could find and afford to make.
While a number of men wore arms, he noticed, quite a few did not. It was surprising to see people without so much as an eating dagger in evidence. Walking sticks or staffs did seem to be in vogue in Firaqa; Shadowspawn was well aware that such made felicitous weapons unless someone got in too close too fast. He had naturally chosen to wear a dagger openly, with another one concealed. Well, two, but the one was after all just part of the decoration on his buskin. He had decided against wearing Sinajhal’s sword until he saw how things were, in Firaqa.
He heard the word “Flame” quite a bit, in passing snatches of converse. Several men of the Watch were very visible, all uniformed as had been those at the gate. While they saw no chariots, a couple of laden wagons passed, moving slowly in the centre of the street. Each was equipped with jingling bells that effectively warned anyone out of the way. A few passersby were on horseback. All held their animals to a sedate walk save one; he moved his mount at a trot. The fact that he also kept scrupulously to the centre of the street was notable.
“I’d say we have a law about chariots inside the city,” Hanse said, “and about how fast horses can move, even on this wide street. I like that.”
“City rulers concerned about the safety of citizens? How wonderful!”
And how strange, Hanse mused.
Twice they observed the passage of covered, pole-mounted conveyances swaying on the shoulders of four knotty-calfed bearers. Servants or slaves, bearing masters or mistresses of wealth or dignity — perhaps even both — to some important destination. In both cases the bearers wore matched tunics — “Like a matched set of horses,” Hanse murmured — and the second sedan chair was escorted by an armed man, walking close to the drawn curtain of his employer’s lofty seat.
Hanse and Mignureal were looked at, too.
She sighed. “Obviously strangers, aren’t we?”
“Um. How d’you feel about putting your gourds on display?”
“Nervous.” After a few paces she added, “How do you feel about wearing one of those odd hats?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hanse said with a little smile. “I might like it.”
“I’ll bet the S’danzo here do not put their breasts on display,” she said primly, emphasizing the proper word for “gourds.”
Hanse said, “Um.”
He and Mignureal saw no S’danzo. They knew they were approaching the Temple of the Flame well before they reached it. It soared; it bulked.
The temple was the size of several large dwellings, and with the gold-gleaming onion-like dome it lofted taller than any apartment building. White stone, this main Temple of the Flame, and well kempt. Two sets of nine steps lifted it well above street level, so that all must look up to its porticoed face. The columns were yellow-gold, or orange-yellow, or whatever the term should be; they were carved to resemble the fire whose colour they imitated. Mignureal remarked no statue up there, and said so.
Hanse looked again. She was right. “Well, how do you build a statue to a flame?”
“Hmm,” she said, and they walked on, glancing back now and again at that lofty and more than imposing structure wherein, presumably, dwelt the protector god of Firaqa.
“Hanse,” she said, with that lilt in her voice that said “Guess what” or “Have you ever thought” or “Oh look.” She said, “Look back at the temple now — look above it.”
He did. He saw smoke. True, only a tenuous vapour was rising, but it was darkish. Hanse nodded. “Um. Smoke. I guess that’s what we should expect to see above a place called the Temple of the Flame; smoke. What would be inside but a big fire? No statues, I’ll wager. Just a flame, always tended. A Flame that never goes out, I’d wager. If it does, the chances are that so does Firaqa.”
“Ewww. That’s…ewww.”
“Careful. We’re in a strange town. Another part of the world, with different gods and beliefs. I didn’t say I believed it, Mignue. But this isn’t the territory of Ils and Shipri and the Nameless Shadowed One. Gods are strong in their own territory, but weaken with distance from it. When you get to a new territory, its gods are supreme and your own are weak.”
“Oh. But then how come the Rankan gods are so strong back ho — back in Sanctuary?”
Hanse shrugged as they walked on. “Probably because some people wanted them to be and didn’t think much or care about facts everybody knows about gods. Besides, something happened to Vashanka, didn’t it!” Hanse, who as gods’ ally on another plane had slain that god of imperiously Imperial Ranke in the only way an immortal could be slain and who remembered nothing of it because he had chosen so, smiled. “The All-seeing Allfather sure proved Himself that night!” Then he added thoughtfully, “We’d better find out a few things, and we’d better be careful about what we say, too, Mignue, in a strange town of strange gods. That includes ‘Ewww.’”
“It’s strange, all right!”
*
As Khulna had said, Cameltrack Way led directly into the bazaar. And ended there, or became the bazaar. Perhaps once Cameltrack had connected Gate and Caravaner, and the bazaar had just grown up, naturally enough along the caravan route through Firaqa, and kept growing. The sprawling open market was larger than Sanctuary’s, but was the same or nearly. Noisy and full of people hawking and haggling, constantly amove; bright with many colours of clothing and wares and the striped awnings above merchant stalls; alive with aromas ranging from leather to horse to perfumes to sweat to cinnamon to garlic to oil to the cooking goodies some always sold because others were always ready to eat.
Hanse and Mignureal spent nearly an hour walking through, looking and looking while shaking their heads at eager vendors, trying to maintain a straight line toward the market’s far side, opposite Gates. They saw several police as well as private guards, and were not unhappy about it; Shadowspawn was or had been a cat burglar, not a cutpurse or ripsnatcher or mere grab-and-run thief. At last they emerged to realize that a caravan of some sort must have passed only recently. Half a dozen adolescents were clearing the broad street of droppings.
“So there’s where we’re not supposed to go,” Hanse said, looking across the street at the establishments of leatherworkers and others who picked up transient trade by situating themselves here. “Behind those is the dreadsome West End, and the maze called, gasp-gulp, Red Row.” He made his voice sinister and yet quavery. “D’you suppose there’s a Vulgar Unicom back there?”
; “Surely there can be only one Vulgar Unicom in all the world, and only one Sly’s Place. But I’ll bet there are dives just like them, with the same sort of trade. I won’t be finding out!”
I will, Hanse thought, and turned back. “Let’s find some purses. Stay close, all right?”
They bought two purses at two-for-a-copper, and hid them in their clothing, and well away from that pedlar they bought two more, of thicker leather. Very secretly, they slipped a couple of coppers and one of what Hanse called the “homing Imperials” in the purses they wore openly.
Then Hanse did a bit of wandering and polite questioning, telling a number of people that a man had offered him a Rankan silver coin, an Imperial, and should he accept it? Was it good? Was it as good as Firaqi?
Three men at once said yes, assuring him that the Imperial was worth sixty — an extra ten coppers here; a woman snapped “Ranke!” and spat; two women and another man agreed that an Imperial was worth sixty-two, and pointed to a moneychanger. Since he told them he offered a hearther-and-nine for an Imperial, Hanse decided that their coins were indeed worth a hearther-plus-twelve: a Firaqi silver coin and a dozen sparks. It was pleasant to have some idea of the value of money here, and of his.
“I think the fellow feels that what he has is worth sixty-two,” Hanse said. “And he wants coppers, not silver.”
“Oh. The first might be so, but of course I have to keep food on my table,” said the Changer, who looked as if he might be able to squeeze the result of his eating habits into the green tunic from Sinajhal’s pack. “Of course if he wants coppers, I might be able to go sixty.”
“Suppose it was two Imperials and he wanted twice sixty plus three?”
The fellow regarded Hanse with a whimsical expression indicating that he realized — with surprise — that he was talking to the possessor of two pieces of Rankan silver. “Your accent…you and your wife haven’t just come up here from Ranke, have you?”
Hanse shook his head. “No no, Mrsevada. You see, we just sold a horse, and — ”
“A horse for a hundred and twenty sparks? Oh by the Fire That Ever Bums — I wish you had come to me! That was no fair price, lad. He took advantage of you.”
“You deal in horses, do you?”
The Changer smiled and his eyes positively twinkled. “Oh, I deal in about everything, my friend from Mrsevada. About everything. Now a good gelding, with good teeth and plenty of life and work left in him, would have had you and me discussing seven or eight hearthers.”
“Actually,” Hanse said, continuing his education, “it was an onager.”
“Ah. Oh, well then. Depending upon its age and condition, I still might have gone two-fifty; that is, five hearthers. Oh my. I do wish you had come to me first!”
So, Hanse mused. A good horse is probably worth twelve and Dumb-ass should bring seven or eight, then. Glad I stopped here! “Listen, the coins are in my sheath, which is inside my tunic. I tell you this so you won’t be alarmed when I take it out.”
The Changer’s eyes rolled and one hand casually left the counter. Hanse was sure he had just marked the location of a guard, and laid his dimpled hand on a weapon. Manse held up a hand, fingers spread, and smiled.
“Slowly,” he said. “See; left-handed, too.”
Mignureal turned away to hide her smile. When she turned back the relieved Changer was gingerly extracting the dagger from the sheath Hanse proffered. Both of them watched Hanse upend the sheath and whack it down into his palm. He held out the two Imperials.
“I’ll take a hundred and twenty-three,” he said.
The Changer regarded the bits of silver, regarded Hanse. “May I?” He examined a coin, then the other. And regarded Hanse. “My feeling is that we are through bargaining, so I’m going to count a hundred and twenty-two Firaqi coppers into your hand.” Simultaneously bringing up a metal box, he smiled. He banged the box rather sharply on the counter. “Sorry I haven’t any Mrsevadan.”
Hanse knew the fellow was assuming the transaction to be closed. He decided to go along. He glanced to one side, then the other, and smiled.
“Good signal. When you fetch out the. moneybox you bang it and that big sword-toter over there came as alert as a cat that hears a noise in the mouse-hole.”
“You are a sharp-eyed and sharp-minded individual. My name is Tethras. Now mind the counting; keep me honest.”
Hanse and Mignureal did just that, never taking their gazes off the Changer’s plump and hairless hand and the steady chink-chink of square, holed coins of about the same colour as the fingers that handled them. Six stacks of ten became three of twenty. And again. And he added one.
“There.”
“And one, Tethras my friend, and one. My name is Hansis, and this is Min.”
“Min-you-r — ” she began, but broke off. Oh. Caution. This time it was Hansis and Mign, then. She hoped he didn’t make up more names and places they were supposedly from. She’d have to make a list.
Hanse was saying, “Do you work for someone with an establishment elsewhere, Changer, or are you in business for yourself?”
“Sharp-eyed devil,” Tethras said with a chuckle and another genuine twinkle of oddly light brown eyes, and added the hundred twenty-second spark. “I have associates, but no formal banking establishment. My home is on Bitterwood.”
“Is that on Town Hill?”
Tethras laughed aloud. “Not quite! Northgates. That’s just northeast of the main Temple. You’ve been learning our city.”
“I try,” Hanse said. “And we really do have some horses.”
“I and one of my associates would love to see them, Hansis. And might I suggest you obtain a piece of wire from — oh, here. Take these. My dear, why don’t you string some of these around your neck, and you too, Hansis, so that you haven’t all your milk in one bucket, as ‘twere. Purses are not so safe as one’s coins on a wire about one’s neck.”
“Unless someone grabs it from behind of a dark night,” Hanse muttered. “Why, this is copper wire.”
“Aye. I’m afraid the two are worth that extra coin, too, but I would love to see those horses. As for the danger on a dark night…that might be true, Hansis of Mrsevada, but when a man carries a very good throwing knife concealed inside his tunic, I assume that on dark nights he has it to hand and knows how to use it.” He turned his pleasant look on Mignureal. “You, Min, now you do be careful of a dark night, and mind where you go!”
“She carries three throwing stars in her bosom,” Hanse said, stringing coins, and was careful not to laugh when Tethras and Mignureal did.
“Any time, Hansis,” Tethras was saying a couple of minutes later. “You know where to find me, and I do deal.” Nodding, Hanse and Mignureal left the Changer, holding hands and enjoying the heavy feel of copper coins on their upper chests. Hers made jing sounds against the medallion Strick had given her.
He succumbed to her urgings and tried on a ready-made tunic, in white with a vertical blue stripe running up and over each shoulder. It was too long, he said, and was assured that it could be hemmed to his preference before he could sneeze twice. He didn’t think he cared for the white, he said, standing there in front of the stall and removing it as he had his own; and the small, bent man with the balding head and great big nose urged on him a green one. It was too narrow in the shoulders.
“Look at my fabrics, look at this! See this! I can habe one to your bery own measure by sunset. You can come back then or in the morning. Wouldn’t this nice orange look nice on him, hmm?” He held it up, beaming at Mignureal.
“No, but that russet would.”
“Russet, russet oh aye, and a fine piece of cloth this is. Look at this — not a mark in the weabe, not a single flaw, and two horses couldn’t pull it apart.” Grasping two edges, he whipped his arms apart so that the cloth made sharp popping sounds. “Aye, you’d look handsome in this and see a lot of serbice from it too, young sir!”
“What would you want for a tunic from that,” Hanse asked as if i
dly, holding his new red sash against the cloth and cocking his head as he studied it.
The cloth-and-clothing dealer was studying Hanse’s new necklace. “Well now you habe to consider that this is bery good cloth, woben down in Suma by a woman who’s been at her loom for thirty years, and now it’s come all the way up here, brabing the terrors of the desert and Maidenhead Wood, just so that I could put my master-tailor skill to work on it to make you the handsomest tunic in town, I say in all Firaqa, young sir. Why I’d habe to habe twenty coppers. Unless you are in some sort of trade or a farmer; we do always need meat and milk…”
Hanse hadn’t the faintest notion whether that was a fair price or not. Surely not, though, since it was the first one stated! He blinked, worked at a well-executed look of shock, and stepped back a pace. “I am amazed, sir! I had expected to hear about half that.”
“Half that! Ah, arghh! Half, he says! Ten coppers for a fine tunic, made with lobing skill of fine fabric! You would hoard your fortune and pauper me and all those I support! Half! Oh, young sir! Tell me now, were you considering a nice round neck or — ”
“No, like mine,” Hanse said, touching the tunic he had not yet resumed. Only a female or two paid any attention to the dark young man standing there shirtless and rangily muscular above his stained leather leggings. “With laces.”
“Ah, the B-cut and laces as well.”
“No no,” Hanse said, holding up his tunic. “A V-cut neck.”
“That’s what I said, a B-cut. More labour for me! No no, I should habe to habe at least — oh Guardians help me! I suppose I could go without meat for a fortnight and make the garment for sixteen coppers.”
“Perhaps I was a bit hasty,” Hanse said, glancing around. “Mignue: d’you think that woman over there with the fabrics piled behind her; don’t you think she looks the sort to charge a sensible price?”
“She might. But then you might consider all the people this nice man supports and go ahead and give him the dozen copper coins he wants.”
The vendor, who of course might or might not have been a tailor, was having a hard time keeping up. First he started to tell them about the shoddy workmanship they could expect of the woman Hanse indicated, then heard Mignue’s pleasant words about him.
Shadowspawn (Thieves' World Book 4) Page 16