“The fair, Jak?” he said, striding along easily, with the deep green of the foliage each side of the path framing his eager birdlike face. “It is a dire place, dreadful, sometimes. There are a large number of seafaring folk who go there, and, well, you know how rough they are.”
“Yes, Ravenshal. They lead a rough life.”
“People come from a long distance to the fairground. The sailors from the swordships are almost as bad as the renders they chase.”
“Do pirates frequent these coasts?”
“Naturally. Commerce is brisk.”
“Of course. And do you know the Golden Prychan?”
He gave his beak a brisk rub with his fist. Then: “I would not wish to know the place. It is infamous.”
Well, I commented to myself, that sounds a capital place to hoick Turko out of. In Trylon Nath’s airboat I had stumbled on a bundle of clothes, and so had selected a plain brown tunic and a short blue cloak. I had without any regrets laid aside the splendid mesh steel. That was like to get me into trouble where I was going, among wrestlers. But I carried my weapons. They, of course, would attract no undue attention.
Ravenshal told me he had been up to take a deposition from a tree-tapper who lived up in the hills. His wife had run off and he wanted the lord of Mahendrasmot to send men to find her and had offered a reward of a hundred silver dhems.
“He must care for her-” I said.
“Perhaps.” Ravenshal, belittling his nervous ways, had seen most of it. “But it is lonely up in the hills.”
“That’s why she ran off, then. Some young spark from the city, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“If Notor Pergon lays hands on him, he will wish he had not seduced another man’s wife away.”
“Strict, is he, this Notor Pergon? And with this notorious fairground in his city?”
Ravenshal fisted his beak again. “Yes, strict. He is a strom, and proud of that. The fairground brings in money. But Notor Pergon will take the hundred silver dhems for his trouble, and take his pleasure out on the hide of the young man.”
“If he catches him.”
“He will, he will, if such a man exists. He runs his city as the suns cross the sky, does the notor.”
So as we walked down the overgrown track to the city we talked and I learned a little something of the place my Turko passed his life away in a fairground booth.
The mild Relt stylor was anxious to get back to his wife and children, saying he lived in a pretty little house near the men’s quarters of the steel works. “There is a modicum of regular work to be had there, Jak.” And then, with that gracious little lift to his beak that Relts have, he said, “I do not know why you go to Mahendrasmot, but you would do me honor if you supped with me and my family this night.”
Well, now…
I said with a gravity that was not assumed, “It is you who do me the honor, Stylor Ravenshal. I shall be delighted.”
So that was how I, a desperado of desperadoes — as you know only too well — entered this strict city with its gutter side discreetly hidden in the fairground, in the meek company of a Relt stylor. His house was delightful, small and cheerful, his wife was charming, and the kids splendiferous, a squeaking bunch of charming mischief. We ate well, wine was brought, the lamps were lit, and when I broached the subject of going to see about finding an inn for the night, nothing would halt them in their protestations that I must use their guest room and welcome, seeing it was now little used after Rashenka’s sister had moved so far away, fully fifty dwaburs along the coast, with that husband of hers. Rashenka brought the lamp to the guest room, neat and tidy, and fussed only a little, and Ravenshal came along to bid me a good night’s sleep with Pandrite, and gently drew his wife away, and they went off full of smiles.
I slept with my usual caution, weapons at hand.
In the morning they greeted me with smiles, and a cup of superb Kregan tea, and small octagonal biscuits they call sweet Ordums. I stretched. After the toilet we sat down to a fine breakfast of crisp vosk rashers, and loloo’s eggs, and more tea, and red honey and palines. You see — there are good simple folk on Kregen, just as there are on this Earth. The mention of payment would have been insulting.
I went out and found a tiny Banje shop in the nearest souk where they sold baubles for children, and candies and knick-knacks of that kind, and went back to Ravenshal’s little house, and insisted they take the trifles I had brought. The children squealed, tiny bundles, all beak and feathers, and fell on the candies.
“And again my thanks. Remberee!”
“Remberee, Jak — and you have brought us luck. I have a commission today that will bring in at least five dhems. Five whole dhems! You have brought us good luck, praise to Pandrite.”
Shaking my head and wondering about the way of the world, I took my hulking old self off to the Golden Prychan.
Had I saved Ravenshal from footpads on the road he and his wife could not have been more attentive. And they were diffs and I was apim. Truly, I thought, as I passed along the crowded streets where people shouted and jostled and the mytzer carts clattered by without thought for the unwary pedestrian, truly, that was the spirit and attitude sorely needed in all Paz to confront the menace of the Shanks. The fact that the stylor had been able to walk down that lonely, jungly road and not be attacked by footpads also gave a good idea that this Strom Pergon, strict as he was reputed, kept an iron control on his stromnate. That could work for me, in some areas; but it was far more likely to make any mayhem more difficult. Just what had Turko got himself into here?
The notorious fairground of Mahendrasmot was not what I expected. For a start, it was fenced in by a tall lapped-wood barrier, and uniformed guards patrolled outside and stood sentry at the gates. This early in the morning the place held a lackluster look. Marquees and tents flapped a trifle in the early morning breeze; but the pennons hung limply. The ground was still soft and puddled with the marks of last night’s feet. When the daily rain came drenching down only the boardwalks gave pedestrians a reasonably mud-free walk. I went in. That was not difficult. The corollary came to my mind, to be pushed away. The Golden Prychan looked a formidable inn. It stood four square just inside the eastern gate. Many riding animals of the lesser kind stood hitched to rails; but there were three totrixes and just the one zorca.
The walls were built of baked brick. The roof was tile. The chimneys were twisted brick. And the windows were glazed. All these signs of affluence were emphasized by the sign swinging at its grandest on a tall pole. The prychan, which is the tawny-golden furred version of the black neemu, showed up there in bold style, painted by an artist of imagination. The neemu again brought my thoughts back to Hyrklana, for fat Queen Fahia loved to have her pet neemus, fierce, independent four-legged hunting cats, lolling on the steps of her throne.
Standing with my head cocked back studying the sign, I became aware of a shadow at my side and then a voice, saying: “You stare overlong at the prychan, dom. Do you wish to have your ribs crushed? Or would you prefer a broken arm — only the one, since you have only two?” I looked down. He was big. He was burly. He smiled with his lower jaw swinging like a jib boom in a gale. He wore a pair of tights colored bright purple, and a wersting breechclout. Otherwise he was naked — naked and hairless. He was a Chulik. I drew in my breath.
“Llahal, dom. I was admiring the sign. You are a wrestler?”
“Come now, dom. Do not refuse my offer. I am sharp set, for I bested Tranko last night, and I owed him that.”
This Chulik’s tusks had been sawn off close to his gums. That is a cruel and horrendous thing to do. Much as I deplore the activities of Chuliks, I had grown to a better understanding of them and their ways. Trained to be mercenaries from birth, they are superb paktuns, demanding high rates of pay. With their merciless black eyes and pigtails, their oiled yellow skins, their fierce three-inch tusks thrusting up from the corners of their mouths, they earn their hire. But — this one, tuskless — a wrestler in a fairground?