by John Dalmas
The young guy looked interested. "Calculations?" he said. "Well, that can be useful. My own master has a Saracen slave to do calculations for him. His abacus is different from ours, and he's very quick."
Our conversation wasn't as neat and direct as I'm telling it here. His pronunciations were a bit different from those I'd heard before on Fanglith, and he used words that were new to me, while the Norman French I mixed with my Provencal gave him a certain amount of trouble. So a couple of times we had to stop and sort out meanings with each other.
Anyway, an idea began to develop. "Very quick, you say," I said, referring to the Saracen slave. "I am quicker. I calculate more quickly than anyone in Marseille!"
His eyebrows arched. "You think so?"
"I know it." I took the communicator off my belt, a military model with a microcomputer built in. "Give me a problem."
"Add seven to itself nine times."
I didn't need to use the micro for that. "Nine sevens added to seven equals seventy."
He looked impressed, but also uncertain. It occurred to me that he couldn't do arithmetic himself, so he couldn't tell whether I was right or not. I cocked an eye at him. "Is your master's slave faster than that?"
"I think not. Your answer was virtually instantaneous."
"Who is the fastest calculator in Marseille?"
"A merchant and shipowner named Isaac ben Abraham, a Jew from Valencia. He uses an abacus of beads upon rods, like the Saracen, which is much swifter than the boards and disks that others use."
"Does he wager?" I asked.
His face went instantly thoughtful. "Would you bet against him?" he asked back.
"If we're going to talk about things like this, we should know each other's names. Mine is Larn."
"Mine is Reyno. Would you? Bet against him?"
"I have nothing to bet," I answered. "But if you do, or if others wish to bet, for a percentage of their winnings I would contest against this-Isaac?"
"Isaac ben Abraham. Let me take you to my master, Carolus the Stonecutter. He sometimes wagers, but he will wish first to see the horse run."
"Of course," I said. "Take me to him." Meanwhile I was recording our conversation. It would be useful to speak Provencal better, including speaking it without a mixture of Norman French.
He nodded, and we began to walk briskly in the direction he'd been going. "I could stand to win a bet," he said. "I am in love with Margareta, the youngest daughter of Henrico the mason, and she with me. We wish to marry. But first I must have money, and soon, before her father promises her to someone else. She is already fifteen, though small for her age," he went on.
"In her family the women mature late."
Already fifteen. Jenoor had been sixteen, would have been seventeen soon now. Again I had that empty feeling. Where would we be if she and Piet had escaped with us? Together on some more or less civilized world, probably Grinder. Compared to Fanglith, Grinder would seem like home.
I spent the quarter-mile walk to Reyno's master's feeling sorry for myself, hardly aware that Reyno was whistling again. The stonecutter's place was two stories high, and set back from the street about thirty feet. The front yard was partly filled with blocks of rough-cut stones, some of them partly recut, and the ground was littered with chips and shards. A short stocky man, wearing a rough leather apron and holding a hammer and chisel, was examining one of the blocks as if looking for the right place to attack it. Reyno tossed him a cheery "good morning" and led me past; the man was not Carolus.
As you might expect, the building was made of stone, its blocks cut to roughly the same size. The stout plank door was open and we went in. There was more work space inside, with blocks lying around on the dirt floor. The windows were large, probably for light, and had no glass; the shutters I'd noticed, which opened back against the outside walls, were apparently all there was to close them with.
Carolus the stonecutter was a tall man for Fanglith, or at least for the places I'd been-only a few inches shorter than me. Even with a bulging middle, he looked extremely strong. He scowled at us as we came in.
"You're late," he snapped to Reyno.
"Yes sir. I met this young gentleman and brought him with me. His name is Larn. He has an interesting proposition-one that could be profitable."
The stonecutter's dark little eyes moved to me and stayed for a few seconds before he said anything more. My jumpsuit looked a lot different from clothes in Provence or Normandy, or any I'd seen at any rate. For a shirt, they generally wear a thing resembling a loose jacket that covers the upper legs. They call it a tunic. Instead of pants, most of the men wear a sort of leggings, with a kind of undershorts-more of a diaper, actually-to cover their genitals. None of it really fits. Also, the shoes don't have separate soles, and they don't press shut around the foot. Instead, they have a leather thong you draw them snug with and then tie. "Where are you from?" Carolus asked me. So there it was. I was going to have to tell him something, and it had to be a lie-hopefully, one that wouldn't trip me up. Remembering my one-night lecture on the world of Fanglith from Brother Oliver, more than two years earlier, I answered "India." India was a place that everyone had heard of and apparently no one had been. Things that were said about it sounded pretty imaginative.
His eyes had paused at my crucifix. "You're Christian."
"Yes. Although I've not been thoroughly instructed in it."
He shrugged. I'd already learned that most Christians hadn't been. "What is this interesting proposition?" he wanted to know.
"I'm a master calculator," I said. "Reyno tells me that the swiftest calculator in Marseille is a man named Isaac ben Abraham. I am faster at difficult calculations than he can possibly be, and perhaps at simple ones too. It seems to me we could have a contest, he and I, and there could be wagers. Whoever bet on me would win. In reward, I would get part of their winnings."
Carolus looked thoughtful. "You have not seen the Jew at his abacus; he is lightning swift. He is a man late in middle years, who was calculating long before you were born."
This kind of conversation would lead nowhere. "You have a slave who does your calculations," I said. "Is he fast?"
"Faster than most. But not so fast as the jew." "Let's see how much faster I am than your slave." For just a moment Carolus stood examining me. Then he turned toward a staircase that led upstairs through a raised trapdoor. "Faid!" he bellowed. "Down here!"
A few seconds later a slender, dark-complected man came down the stairs. He might have been thirty or thirty-five. "Yes, my lord?"
"I have need of your calculations."
"Yes, my lord." Faid walked over to a table beneath one of the windows. Carolus, Reyno, and I followed. There Faid sat down, and with one hand drew a sort of open-topped small box to him, a box with rows of beads on what seemed to be thin wooden rods. He looked questioningly at Carolus.
"Do a difficult problem," Carolus said to him, "but do not say from what roots, or what the answer is."
For just a moment Faid looked puzzled, then shrugged. His fingers moved quickly, the beads clicking for a few seconds. "It is done."
Carolus turned to me. "Where is your abacus?" he asked.
I took out my communicator, which was also a microcomputer, and switched it on. "Here," I answered.
He turned to Faid. "State your roots," he said.
"Twenty-eight fourfold."
"One hundred twelve," I answered. I didn't need my computer for that.
Carolus's eyebrows raised slightly and he turned to Faid. "Is that right?" he asked.
"Exactly right." The Saracen looked at me with considerable interest. "And what are the portions if you divide 144 into 18 equal parts?" His fingers raced as he asked it.
"Nine each," I said. "I need no abacus for that." Our math teachers in lower school had drilled us thoroughly. It looked as if this was going to be easy.
Faid looked up at Carolus. "He is right." Then he turned to me. "What sort of question would cause you to use your abacus?"<
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"Oh, the square root of some large number. Do you know how to do square roots?"
Faid nodded. "In the main they are problems for geometers. I can do them, but it takes time."
"Fine," I said. "Calculate a large square; that'll be easier. Then tell me what the square is and I'll give you its roots."
"Stand away then," he answered, "so you cannot see what roots I use."
We moved a few steps away and I turned my back to him. After a short while he said: "The square is 1,369."
I tapped 1,369 into the computer and asked for the square root. "The root is 37," I said, and turned to look at him. It had taken me about two seconds, which was about half as long as Paid stared at me before he said anything again.
"That is correct." He sounded impressed, or maybe awed would be more like it. "You must be Indian."
Carolus pursed his lips, then made a decision. "Paid, mention this to no one. None of it. How fast he is, that he comes from India, none of it. And you, Reyno: Keep that glib mouth shut, or I'll see you tongueless." Then he turned to me. "What is your name again?"
"Larn."
"Larn," he said, "we have things to talk about."
TEN
Carolus sent Reyno to Isaac ben Abraham, inviting him to contest with "a youth who is truly marvelous at calculations." Ben Abraham answered in writing, which Faid read to his master; reading was something else the Saracen could do and Carolus couldn't. After commenting that it was unimportant to him whether someone else could calculate faster or not, ben Abraham said it would amuse him to take me on. He offered to bet fifty gold bezants or an equivalent in Pisan solidi.
Carolus the stonecutter was a careful man who would bet only what he could afford to lose, even when it seemed almost certain that he wouldn't. And he felt very uncomfortable at the thought of betting fifty bezants. He sent back word that he would bet only twenty. Reyno had almost nothing of his own to bet, but borrowed two bezants from his master, Carolus was grumpy about lending it, and I suspect he only did it to keep Reyno from trying to borrow elsewhere and being questioned. He felt uneasy about word of the contest getting out.
Ben Abraham, smelling Carolus's uncertainty, decided he could probably beat me, and got Carolus up to thirty against his own sixty. Then, in amusement, he agreed to cover Reyno's small bet at odds of three to one. All of this was arranged through Reyno as courier.
Carolus was to pay me a sixth, or ten bezants, if I won. I wasn't sure what he'd try to do if I lost, but I couldn't see any chance of that happening.
The contest was to take place in the office of Isaac ben Abraham, shortly after the hour called "sext"-local midday, as far as I could tell. After eating an early lunch, we walked there through spring sunshine. I was impressed by ben Abraham's offices. They were clean, and there were decorative woven cloths called tapestries on some of the walls.
I was even more impressed with Isaac ben Abraham. He was the biggest man I'd seen yet on Fanglith, and the tallest except for a Norman knight named Brislieu. Besides which, he looked as if, under the fat, he'd be very strong physically. His face went with an age of about fifty or fifty-five, but his long black hair had only scattered threads of gray. He also had a bigger, thicker beard than I'd ever imagined, and wore the richest clothes, topped by a long, far-trimmed, brown velvet cape. All in all, when he spoke in his rich bass voice, people were likely to pay attention.
And it was obvious that he washed, he and the man who ushered us into his office. I'd never seen a clean Fanglithan before. I hadn't realized there were any.
He had his servant pour wine for us. It was weak and kind of watery-intended for flavor, not to get anyone tight. After Carolus introduced us, ben Abraham looked me over with eyes that were shiny black. "Larn," he said, as if tasting the name. "What is your age?"
"I am a few days short of nineteen."
"And you are already very fast?"
"Very," I answered.
"By the design of your crucifix, I take it you follow the Church of Rome, yet it appears that you bathe. How is that?"
I had no idea what a safe answer might be, but l had to say something. "I was told to by the Abbot of St. Stephen at Isere. For a rash I get sometimes." I crossed myself when I'd said it, the way I'd learned to do at the monastery, and changed the subject. "I'm ready to contest when it is time."
I'd no sooner said it than the cathedral bells began to ring. A cathedral is a large church-a building in which the Christians carry out important religious activities. Cathedrals apparently always have a bell tower. The people of Fanglith don't have clocks. They read the hour by the shadow on an etched metal plate set in the sun. They also measure intervals of time by the flow of sand through a narrow opening between adjacent glass hemispheres. But most people simply go by the ringing of bells in the city's cathedral. These are rung several times a day to tell the people when it's time to pray.
As soon as the bells had stopped ringing, Carolus and Key no lowered their heads and began to pray out loud. I didn't know the prayers, but it was expected of me so I did the best I could: I recited a poem, "The Greening of Dancer's Desert," in Evdashian:
'Twas on the planet Dancer In the System Farness Meth, There spread a windswept desert Named the Emptiness of Death, The director, Kalven Denken, Wearied by its furnace breath, Swore to plant its desolation, End the Emptiness of Death He never dreamed what it would cost, Nor the kind of coin. In faith, Had he known, he'd not have sworn To plant the Emptiness of Death…
I kept going until the others stopped, and when we were done, Garolus scowled at me suspiciously. Isaac ben Abraham looked on with interest, and again with that hint of amusement.
"What heretical tongue was that?" Carolus demanded.
It smelled like trouble for sure. My answer was as much a surprise to me as to him, and based on what Arno of Courmeron had said at the monastery two years earlier. "That was Aramaic," I told him. "The language of our Lord Jesu Christ."
I could only hope Carolus didn't speak Aramaic. He frowned. "It sounded like Saracen to me," he said suspiciously.
It was Isaac ben Abraham who answered. "It does indeed. We Jews speak Aramaic in our churches and homes, in the reading of the Talmud. Also, we speak it in trade with Jews of other lands. From his dialect, obviously Larn learned it in the Holy Land, from Syrian monks, whose tongues are not colored by any vernacular." He looked at me with respect. "Truly, I am impressed."
I was more than impressed. I was relieved, but also a little worried. I couldn't imagine what reason Isaac ben Abraham might have had for lying me out of trouble.
After that, the contest was an anticlimax for me. We were to calculate in rounds-the best of nine would win. In each round, ben Abraham would pose a problem and we'd both calculate the answer. Then I'd pose one. If we tied a round, each of us winning a half, then we were supposed to replay the round until one of us won both halves.
But of course I won right away. I didn't know what to expect from Isaac ben Abraham then, or his household guards. I only hoped I wouldn't have to use my stunner. But what he did was pay Carolus and Reyno what they'd won, weighing out the coins to satisfy Carolus that they hadn't been shaved. Reyno was practically dancing, and Carolus's usually sour face was actually smiling as he paid me my ten gold bezants.
Then ben Abraham had wine poured again. "And what will you do with your winnings, young Larn?" he asked.
"I'm not sure how much I can buy with ten bezants," I told him. "I'd like to buy food-fresh meat, cheese, fish, and flour. And dried fruit, if I can get any. And rent a donkey to take it to friends I know, who are hungry."
Carolus looked at me as if I was crazy, but didn't say anything. Ben Abraham looked at me as if he'd like to know what I was really all about. Reyno looked at me as if he didn't really see me; his thoughts were on the girl he might be able to marry now.
By evening I had a donkey loaded with freshly butchered beef, a huge round cheese, dried fish, dates, olives, and other foods I'd bought in the market. Plu
s two daggers, two short swords, and a set of cheap local clothes for all three of us. The short swords were way the most expensive: a bezant each. Except for a dagger that I'd fastened to my belt, all of it was loaded in two big baskets slung across the donkey's back. They almost hid the donkey.
And I also owned the donkey! I hoped I could bring him back to the market and sell him for what I paid for him. But if I simply had to let him loose, that would be okay too, because I still had two of my gold pieces left.
ELEVEN
I left the city gate just before it closed at sundown, and followed the road westward, leading my donkey by his rope halter, Off to my left was the sea, beautiful in sunlight, and a beach with no one on it. After a little while I turned off on a trail that wound its way down to it.
The beach seemed like the nearest decent landing place, except for the road itself. After unloading the baskets onto the sand, I tied the donkey to a bush a little way above the beach-far enough that the scout shouldn't scare him out of his wits. Then, when it was dark, I called Deneen to come get me. When they landed, Bubba trotted down the ramp and off into the brush above the beach without a word. He needed to get out and stretch his legs and hunt. Knowing Bubba, I had no doubt he'd catch fresh meat by dawn, when he was to meet us. And no way would he bother my donkey, or anyone's livestock. Well-not my donkey, anyway. But he was bound to be pretty desperate for a proper meal.
After Tarel and I got my purchases loaded into the scout, we took off, and Deneen parked us twenty-one miles above Marseille. There I loaded the contents of my recorder into the computer, and while Deneen and Tarel started putting the food away, I had the linguistics program analyze the language contents against the Provencal and Norman it already knew. It didn't take long-a few seconds. Then I had the computer copy it into the learning program. When that was done, I sat down in the copilot's seat, put on a learning skullcap, and proceeded to upgrade my knowledge of Provencal, running through all we knew of it now until I had it thoroughly.