“And if I have, Nath the Arm, does not that augur well for the ruby drang?”
He glowered at me and pulled his gold-threaded beard. He knew how I liked to mock him, and he could only take it, for we had become as friendly as men in our respective positions might. As to my references to the ruby drang, he could never make up his mind if I meant what I said, or merely mocked the more.
My own second fight followed, and it was a bloodthirsty affair which I prefer to forget. But I did what I had to do — had to do, for a kaidur who would not fight was a kaidur with a garrote around his throat and a stone lashed to his legs and a billet in the fast-flowing River of Leaping Fishes which pours around the northern side of Huringa.
After that I had no wish to sit further on the ponsho fleeces of the benches in the red quarter. Out on the arena stakes were being raised. Presently females of various races would be brought out, all naked, and lashed to those stakes. Their male counterparts would be let out, naked also, and armed with that very broad, very short two-edged sword the Havilfarese call djangir. Then, when all was ready and the crowds were leaning forward in expectation, the wild bosks would be driven out, mad with hunger and rage. The bosk is pig-like, and very good eating, and highly prized, a delicacy of Valka, as you know. The wild bosk has two horns upon its head, each at least two feet long, straight and sharp and deadly. It can lower its head and charge and skewer through good leather.
The men must defend their womenfolk, for the managers of the Jikhorkdun are most clever in this, and select married couples, or son and mother, or father and daughter, or lovers. The short djangir is scarcely the weapon with which to meet the wicked twenty-four-inch twin horns of the wild bosk. But the spectacle affords amusement to the paying public of Huringa. .
Chapter Ten
Soft and gentle and very skilled were the fingers of Tilly, the girl Fristle, as she clipped and combed my hair and beard and moustache. I like a short, pointed, damn-you-to-hell beard, and moustaches that, whether I will it or no, thrust upward arrogantly. Tilly sang a little song as she snipped. It was “The Lay of Faerly the Ponsho Farmer’s Daughter.” Young girl Fristles with their soft fur and their sweet cat-faces and their exciting figures are notorious for their knowledge of the arts of love. Perhaps I am unfair in using the word notorious. It would be kinder to say famous. Of course, this meant nothing to me, for only Delia could ever stir me; but it was undeniably pleasurable to have Tilly thus minister to my wants. She would wash and rub me with oil and ease the stiffness out of my limbs and clip my hair and comb it and sniff at me and say, cheekily, “You are a veritable apim graint, Drak the Sword.”
To which I was honor-bound to reply, “Tomorrow I shall buy a silver chain.”
To which she, in her turn, would toss her pretty head and flick her tail around to tickle my ribs, while she went on snipping and combing and singing about the lay of Faerly, the Fristle ponsho farmer’s daughter. All this was meaningless. By tomorrow, far from buying a silver chain, or even threatening to, as I did almost every day, I would be aboard a stolen voller and winging my way northward to Valka — or southwestward to Migla, for I still felt great unease about that diabolical rain shower. I have said I prefer a short pointed beard. I had deliberately allowed my face fungus to grow inordinately. Oh, it had not sprouted into the great blaze of jet threaded with gold that Nath the Arm sported. But now, when Tilly finished her clipping, she sat back, curling her tail up, and said: “By the furry tail of the Frivolous Freemiff! You look so different, Drak my master.”
She knew I didn’t like her calling me her master.
We were slaves together. I frowned. She opened those wide slanting eyes of hers, so catlike, so sensual, and flicked her golden tail.
“I am no different, you impudent fifi. I am still Drak the Sword, a great hairy graint of an apim.”
“Aye! That you are!”
So, that being settled, I packed her off to her bed in an adjoining room, where she was perfectly safe not only from me but from any amorous kaidur who might wander the corridors of this high barracks. Somewhere below in a courtyard a poor devil was being flogged. I could hear the meaty thwack of each blow and the shrieks that gradually quieted to a moaning and then to a more horrible silence, punctuated only by that devilish sound of a man’s bare back being lashed raw.
The contrast between my condition up here, with all its luxury, and that poor devil below sobered my high spirits for the night’s enterprise. Young Oby came in, cheerfully whistling a scandalous song. He wanted my authorization for him to collect our allowance of samphron oil for the lamps. I gave it to him, sealing it with the crude signet stamp allowed me in the form of a thraxter crossed with a djangir. I had not chosen that signature.
“Who is that below, Oby?”
“Why, master, the onker Ortyg the Sly. He was caught stealing wine — purple Hamish wine, too.”
Well, stealing rum was a crime for which I had seen floggings enough in the navy of my youth. I dismissed Oby.
Then I set about dressing myself for the night’s adventures.
A nobleman or a Horter — that is, a gentleman — of Havilfar might well walk the streets of his city wearing a sword. He would not ordinarily carry a shield. They favored the curved dagger here, and with its ornate sheath and grip the one I slung to my belt was a flashy toy. But the thraxter was a warrior’s weapon, bloodied this day in the arena. I put on my favored scarlet breechclout — a new one specially procured and washed and ironed by Tilly. Over this the white linen shirt and then a yellow jerkin, its shoulders and back a blaze of embroidery. The weather was too hot for trousers. I chose calf-high boots of a supple leather that would breathe, for I did not wish to wear sandals in the game I was playing. A pouch contained a considerable sum in deldys and sinvers, and this I buckled to my waist. With due precaution I also wrapped a few extremely valuable gems into the scarlet breechclout. Around me in my marble chamber with its silks and feathers and furs lay a fortune I had won. All this must be left. It meant nothing. I wore a hat, one of the Havilfarese closely fitting leather caps, and could wish for one of the wide-brimmed Vallian hats with their jaunty feathers.
I knew nothing of the city of Huringa — save that its people liked to pay money to enter the Jikhorkdun and to wager if a man would live or die — and Oxkalin the Blind Spirit must guide me when I set foot outside the amphitheater. You may be sure I observed the fantamyrrh when I left that chamber, as I thought for the last time.
A stuxcal stood by the door, fully filled with its eight javelins. I had to leave it. A gentleman does not walk the streets of his city carrying stuxes, now does he? In a civilized city like Huringa? I thought not, judging by what I knew of Vondium and Sanurkazz and Zenicce.
Tilly and Oby were left. They had prepared me a good meal, and I had eaten well — roast vosk, taylynes, a pie of squishes and gregarians, rather too sweet, rich yellow butter and fluffy Kregan loaves, and — a triumph! — cup after cup of that fragrant superb Kregan tea. In my wallet I had stuffed a package of palines, and I carried two strips of dried beef, veritable biltong, which would sustain me for a long period.
Once past the corridors and passageways immediately adjacent to my chamber I was able to pass without notice. From my cap a great cascading mass of red feathers drooped and a red favor glowed on my left shoulder. These I planned to discard the moment I was out on the street and unobserved. The success of my plan hinged on the evening entertainments of the Horters of Huringa. They would take their carriages, their sleeths, or their zorcas and ride up to the Jikhorkdun, unable, it seemed, to keep away from the blood-reeking place, to inspect the latest hyr-kaidur, or a newly imported wild beast, or to watch practices. Some of these Horters, I knew, fancied their luck and would don a kaidur’s gear and venture into a practice ring. They would use rebated weapons — that went without saying. There must be many other entertainments for a pleasant evening in the city, I reasoned: taverns and dancing halls, dopa dens, even theaters. But the pull of the arena was stronger.