This did not suit my plans, but I wanted to ask questions anyway, and I might find loosened tongues in a low tavern where men grew merry. The quality of the company was not low — there were two Kovs and three Trylons there — but the atmosphere was conducive to erratic behavior, hard drinking, wenching, and a fuddlement of the senses. As I had found out, when you act as a spy you must employ what weapons come to hand.
Looking around the low-ceiled tavern with the wine-drenched tables, the scurrying serving wenches, the flushed faces of boisterous revelers, I found it extraordinarily difficult to realize all that had happened to me since I had spent my nights in Ruathytu in just this fashion. But not whole nights — when the others had staggered off to their homes I had gone leaping over the rooftops, my cloak flaring, a mask covering my features, a rapier glittering ready to spit the first person who tried to stop me. Now I was going about exactly the same task in a different way.
And only because I had rescued Rees’s daughter, the glorious lion-maid Saffi, from a hideous death in Far Faol.
The mad dash to save Saffi had not been a hindrance to my plans, had not been an interruption in my search for the secrets of the vollers. If I had not gone after Saffi I would not have come into possession of the information I had through a narrow air shaft, a fragment of a conversation between that cramph Vad Garnath and his agent, the Chuktar Strom, Rosil na Morcray who was a vile Kataki, and Phu-si-Yantong, a Wizard of Loh, a man of whom I was to know far more later, to my cost. For one thing, this Wizard of Loh fancied he was going to take over Hamal from Queen Thyllis; that is, if I had heard him correctly. And he intended to use me, Dray Prescot, as his pawn in taking secret command of the Vallian Empire when the Emperor was gone. This was megalomania. At least, that is what I thought then. Later I came to know this Phu-si-Yantong better and to understand he was in deadly earnest.
Yantong had also said I was not to be assassinated, so he had not sent the stikitches who had attacked Delia, the twins, and myself in our walled garden of Esser Rarioch. He had mentioned the Nine Faceless Ones of Hamal as appointing the nobles to their duties in connection with voller manufacture. The secrets were well understood to be secrets and were well kept. I believed exactly the same precautions were taken in Hyrklana, where Queen Fahia would have me dragged into her arena and butchered for the crowds if I showed myself. So, with the smell of spilled wine about me, men arguing in half-drunken ways, the girls dancing, and the air filled with shouts, there in the Scented Sylvie, I marked one of the Kovs talking to a Trylon. Both were of Hamal, hard men, filled with the vigor of full growth. Their faces severe even as they felt the wine working on their senses, they were men who knew their high positions and would not tolerate a single infringement upon their pride or their dignity. The pride of a noble is fanatical in most countries of Kregen. This I knew.
Outside in the moons-shot darkness they would have their preysany litters waiting with their link slaves and a retinue of guards, fierce predatory men — diffs, apims — who would delight in smashing a few heads to clear a path for their master.
The tavern was well patronized by diffs, I noticed and, even as Rees turned to me, I saw a fresh party of Kataki officers stride in, their tails bare, laughing, shouting, clearly already very merry from previous taverns. Other halflings sat at the sturm-wood tables, Chuliks, Rapas, Blegs — many and many a member of the diffs on Kregen, many of races I have not even mentioned yet, for the reason that they have not figured largely in my story up to this time. This was clear proof, if proof was needed, that Queen Thyllis had been pouring out her coffers to hire mercenaries. Bankers like Casmas the Deldy had lent her vast sums, to be rewarded by patents of nobility, favors or prerequisites within an administration which was corrupt despite all the rigid laws of Hamal. This reeking tavern, the Scented Sylvie, had evidently become a favorite haunt of the halflings in Ruathytu.
“Damned diffs,” the Kov was saying, his face a deep plum purple, as he lifted his glass. Rees saw my look and turned to me, saying, “You don’t want to take too much notice of what old Nath the Crafty says, but, by Krun, you must watch your back if you cross him.”
“Nath ham Livahan,” said Chido, and bent his goggle-eyed face back to his glass. “Kov of Thoth Uppwe. We call him old Nath the Crafty-”
“And, by Krun,” chipped in Rees, “never a man better deserved it!”
“He don’t like diffs,” Chido said, laughed, and drank.
Well, there were many men on Kregen who disliked every other man not of their race. This was inevitable, I suppose, given xenophobia. A Chulik does not get on with a Fristle. A Rapa gets on with very few other races. Blegs will draw swords against Mystiges without excuse. And apims like Chido and myself — there probably being more apims than any other race on Kregen — often came in for hatreds from every quarter.
The presence of so many Katakis intrigued me, for previously, as far as I was aware, they had seldom ventured far from their homes in the Shrouded Sea and elsewhere. The only reason I could advance for their presence was the prospect of enormous hauls of slaves, for Katakis are slave-masters par excellence.
The noise racketed on and the girls danced; wine and beer were spilled, and men cursed by a medley of gods and spirits. More than once, listening, I heard the name of Lem spurt from the seething mass. Rees touched me on the forearm.
“Leave him be, Hamun. He is in a nasty mood.”
For quite humorous reasons, I could not explain to Rees that I wished to discuss the problems of the Nine Faceless Ones and the secrets of the vollers with this Nath the Crafty, this Kov of Thoth Uppwe, so I sat back in the chair. Nath the Crafty suddenly jerked up as his arm was jogged, and a stream of wine — the best the house afforded although not Jholaix — spattered the front of his gray shirt and the ling fur of his pelisse. Kov Nath leaped to his feet, his harsh features convulsed. He dragged out his thraxter.
The Bleg who had jostled him, about to apologize, snapped into the fiercely angry rage of that race and whipped his sword out in turn.
“Cramph!” bellowed Kov Nath. “Rast! You will pay for that!”
A Kataki about to sit at the next table, his tail curved over his shoulder, whipped a hand into his sash and flashed out a wickedly bladed dagger. The thing was strapped to his tail in a twinkling. Other diffs were brandishing weapons. The moment spurted a dark and horrible fire.
“To me, apims!” screeched Nath the Crafty. What craftiness there was now about his conduct I couldn’t see.
A Rapa hurled a knife. A Kataki whistled his bladed tail. “Kill the apim yetch!” yelled a Chulik, his tusks catching the oil lamps’ gleam and glistening.
In the next mur the tavern turned into a boil of action and fighting, a frenzied, murderous brawl. We three, Rees, Chido, and myself, sat at our table shoved up against the wall. I said, “If an apim tries to stick you, Rees, we will help you dispose of him.”
“And,” said Rees, “if a Numim does likewise, likewise.”
The tavern exploded with action. Men were reeling around, many more than half drunk, blinded by the glitter of sword and rapier. Daggers thunked home. The Katakis whistled their tails about and the wicked blades sliced and slashed. I sat still. I meant what I had said to Rees for one thing. For another, every man slain here meant a fighting man less for Hamal to fling against my country. A Numim staggered from the press, a rapier still transfixing his body, and reeled to crash full-length on our table.