"I am pleased I am not he whom you seek," said Bertram of Lydius. "I do not envy him."
"The one I seek," I said, "is skilled with the knife. He is, I suspect, of the assassins."
I threw a tarsk bit to the desk. "Your door will need repairing," I said.
Then I turned and left the place. I had not thought the man at my house, he, too, whom I had seen in the tent of the curio dealer, had been truly Bertram of Lydius, but I had wished to clarify that. Too, I had thought he might be one known to Bertram of Lydius, if it were not he. It is easier to assume an identity where one knows a subject reasonably well. Yet one, to assume that identity, would have to know little more than the streets of Lydius and the training of sleen. I hoped to renew my acquaintance with the fellow. Little love is lost betwixt the castes of warriors and assassins. Each deems himself the superior of, and the natural foe, of the other. The sword of the warrior, commonly, is pledged to a Home Stone, that of the assassin to gold and the knife.
I walked through the streets of Lydius until I came to the small metal worker's shop, one out of the main ways of the city.
I entered the shop.
"Are you still crying?" I asked Constance.
She sat in the straw beside an anvil. A chain ran from the anvil and was padlocked about her neck.
"My brand hurts, Master," she said.
"Very well," I said, "cry."
"There," said the metal worker. He eased the heavy iron collar, with the short, dangling chain, from Ram's neck.
"Ah," said Ram.
Beside him, on the floor, knelt Tina, which was now her slave name.
Ram directed the metal worker to saw away an inch and a half of the opened collar. He put it in a vise on his workbench and did so.
"Did you find Bertram of Lydius?" asked Ram.
"Yes," I said.
"You slew him?" asked Ram.
"No," I said. "He was not the man I sought."
"Oh," said Ram.
"I did not think he would be," I said.
I looked down at Tina. "Show me your thigh, Girl," I said. She did so.
"How did she take the iron?" I asked.
"She screamed like a she-sleen," he said, "but she is quiet now."
"The brands," I said, "are excellent, both of them."
"Thank you, Master," said Constance, smiling. Tina, too, I noted, straightened herself a bit.
I threw the metal worker a silver tarsk.
"My thanks, Warrior!" he said.
Both of the girls had been beautifully branded. I was pleased.
The metal worker finished sawing the portion off the heavy collar Ram had worn.
Ram then pulled Tina to the feet by her hair and forced her head down on the anvil.
The metal worker looked at him.
"Put it on her neck," he said.
I watched while the heavy collar, shortened now to fit a woman, was curved expertly about her neck by blows of the hammer, and then, decisively, struck shut.
"Lift your head, Slave Girl," said Ram.
She did so, tears in her eyes. The chain on the collar dangled between her breasts.
I signaled the metal worker to free Constance of the chain on her neck. I tossed both girls a light, white rep-cloth slave tunic which I had purchased in the city.
Gratefully, half sobbing, they drew them on. I smiled. Did they not know, to a man's eye, they were almost more naked in such a garment than without it? Garments are an additional way, incidentally, in which to control slave girls. Knowing that the master may not permit her even such a rag if he chooses tends to make her more eager to please him, that she not be sent into the streets without it.
"I will march her barefoot, clad so, through the streets of Lydius," said Ram.
"Excellent," I said. It would be a rich joke. Who would recognize in her the former lofty lady of Lydius, the rich Lady Tina, who had often trod these streets aloof and hidden, probably escorted, in her several veils and multitudinous robes of concealment? Looking upon her, and look they would, they would see only a bond girl, only a lovely, half-naked slave at the heels of her master.
"I will have her serve me paga, publicly, in her own city," said Ram.
"Let us go to the tavern of Sarpedon," I said. "It is a fine tavern." I had been there before, some years earlier. I remembered a girl who had once been wench there, named Tana. It was I who had informed Sarpedon, her master, of her skill in dancing. She had been danced that very night for the patrons, but I had had business, and had not dallied to see her perform.
In less than a quarter of an Ahn we had come to the tavern of Sarpedon.
It was, however, in an angry mood. On the wharves leading to the tavern, in many places, I had seen bales of hide. It was hide of the northern tabuk.
"I must leave Lydius tonight," I said. 'There is much here I do not understand. It must be investigated."
"I shall accompany you," said Ram.
"I am a tarnsman," I said. "It is better that you remain."
"The reins of a tarn are not unfamiliar to me," said Ram.
"You are a tarnsman?" I asked.
"I have done many things," he said. "In Hunjer I worked with tarn keepers."
"Do you know the spear, the bow, the sword?" I asked.
"I am not a warrior," he shrugged.
"Remain behind," I said.
"Do masters desire aught?" asked the proprietor, a paunchy man, in leather apron.
Ram and I sat behind one of the small tables. Our girls knelt by us.
"Where is Sarpedon?" I asked.
"He visits in Ar," said the man. "I am Sarpelius, who is managing the tavern in his absence." He regarded the girls. "Lovely," he said. "Would masters care to sell them? I can always use such wenches in the alcoves."
"No," I said.
The girls seemed then less tense.
"There are many bales of hide on the wharves," I said.
"From Kassau, and the north," he said.
"Did the herd of Tancred this year emerge from the forests?" I asked.
"Yes," said the man. "I have heard so."
"But," said I, "it has not yet crossed Ax Glacier?"
"I would not know of that," he said.
"On the wharves," I said, "there are thousands of hides."
"From the northern herds," he said.
"Are there traders come south from the north?" asked Ram.
"Few," said the man.
"Is it common," I asked, "for the hides to be so plentiful in Lydius in the spring?" Normally hide hunters prefer the fall tabuk, for the coats are heavier.
"I do not know," said the man. "I am new in Lydius." He looked at us, smiling. "May I serve, Masters?" he asked.
"We will be served by our own girls," said Ram. "We will send them shortly to the vat."
"As masters wish," beamed Sarpelius, and turned about and left us.
"Never have there been hides in this quantity in Lydius," said Ram to me, "either in the spring or fall."
"They are perhaps from the herd of Tancred," I said.
"There are other herds," he said.
"That is true," I said. But I was puzzled. If the herd of Tancred had indeed emerged from the forests why had it not yet crossed Ax Glacier? Surely hunters, even in great numbers, could not stay the avalanche of such a herd, which consisted of doubtless two to three hundred thousand animals. It was one of the largest migratory herds of tabuk on the planet. Unfortunately for the red hunters, it was also the only one which crossed Ax Glacier to summer in the polar basin. To turn such a herd from its migratory destination would be less easy than to turn the course of a flood. Yet, if reports could be believed, the ice of Ax Glacier had not yet, this year, rung to the hooves of the herd.
I was now more pleased than ever that I had had Samos send a ship with supplies north.
But I was suddenly afraid that the ship might not have gotten through. Ram had said that the north was closed.
"Worry upon the morrow," suggested Ram. "Tonight let us divert ourselves with the pleasures of slave girls and paga."