He expressed himself as much concerned by Strom Lart’s challenge. I tried to turn his mind to other things, for I had already decided what I would do.
We spoke of this fine regiment he was forming, and against my better judgment, I said: “Are you sure it is wise to form a cavalry regiment of zorcas only, Rees?”
His tawny eyes flashed gold at me. I could imagine the great lion roar he would have given at other times.
“Do you think I should form a regiment riding totrixes?”
The contempt on his face was not for me.
“The zorca is a marvelous animal,” I said. Indeed, the zorca is royalty among saddle animals! But the zorca is so close-coupled, so slender as to leg, so dainty even within the toughness and the fiery spirit of the animal, that I always handle zorcas in a very special way. Voves, those massive eight-legged saddle-animals of Segesthes, were unknown here. Hamal did not even have the smaller voves of Zenicce. The totrix, now, that slate-hided six-legged animal of stubborn willfulness and damned awkward riding habits, that should figure in a cavalry regiment fighting in far Pandahem.
“Well, Hamun,” said Chido, railing me, “would you have us ride out on sleeths?”
“I do not like sleeths.” The sleeth, that dinosaur-like riding animal that walks like some menacing allosaurus and was the passion of the bloods here in Ruathytu as well as in Huringa in Hyrklana, does not please me. I am a zorcaman after I am a voveman.
I had to make myself laugh — a most hollow sound — and turn the conversation. I was in the act of giving advice — and damned good advice — to an enemy regimental commander! Such things spies have to do, no wonder it is a jealous profession.
“I’ll make a Bladesman of you yet,” said Rees. But I saw his wound pained him, and with a roll of my eyes at Chido I rose and bid him Remberee.
He bellowed: “Young Hamun! Listen to me, you stubborn onker! Get Nath Tolfeyr for a second — he has even agreed — and then drop out. You’ll never face that cramph Lart.”
“Don’t fret, Rees. Get better. I’ll handle the affair, as Havil the Green is my witness.”
“Some damned witness he’ll make!” shouted Rees, most blasphemously. Only his own people could hear, thank Zair.
We left and took ourselves off to a tavern where we spent the rest of the morning at Jikaida. Chido was good if a trifle reckless and I had no compunctions about beating him. Because the tavern was crowded and the table not overlarge, we played the smallest reasonable game of Jikaida, that called Poron Jikaida. The board has six squares upon it, two at the top and three at the sides, and each square is called a drin. Each drin is further subdivided into squares six a side. Poron Jikaida is an infantry game, very like chess with the addition of that useful Halma-like move, and despite my cares I found myself absorbed.[6]
Pushing the blue and yellow pieces back into their velvet-lined box, I stretched, and bellowed for tea. Chido grumbled but paid up, the golden deldy that was the bet ringing most sweetly upon the sturm-wood table. The tavern was filled with men stoking for the afternoon’s activities. There was no Jikhorkdun this day, I remember; instead there was another of the interminable handicapped zorca-versus-sleeth races. Unless the faithful zorca is given an impossible handicap, he will beat that two-legged dinosaurian monstrosity of a sleeth every time.
Our conversation turned on the wave of cults and faith-healing sweeping the country, and I was minded to tell Chido of Beng Salter’s bones and his grandiose claims at curing ailments, at which Chide laughed and said, stab him, he’d believe any of ’em in times like these.
Even as I watched his bright chinless face all agog and listened to his artless voice, sipping my sweet Kregan tea, I suddenly saw that same Strom Hormish of Rivensmot who had jostled and insulted me at the shrine of Beng Salter. This was the boor who had put into my head the idea of acting the part of a weakling so as to make a more effective spy. I regretted that decision now. It had seemed a good idea at the time. So you may imagine with what bile I regarded the fellow as he minced into the tavern, dressed in foppish finery, a foam of green lace at his neck, a beautifully cut satin coat on his back, a baldric blazing with gems over his shoulder, and — and! — a rapier and main-gauche for arms. This promised. He had evidently patronized this tavern before — it was The Golden Talu, I remember — for servants ran about before him carrying chairs, pushing tables, and spreading cloths, and the landlord, a Lamnia with beautifully brushed golden fur, fussed about him, a brand-new white apron donned just for the occasion.
There are, as I have previously indicated, a whole range of taverns and inns on Kregen, ranging from those which are fit for mere swinish boozing to others which provide meals and overnight stops, to those where ladies may go for refreshments secure in the knowledge that they are perfectly safe in a first-class hostelry. Here in the sacred quarter The Golden Talu was a place of the latter category; a number of Horteras and ladies of quality sat at the tables, at ease. The main drink at this time of the day, too, was good Kregan tea. So when Chido nudged me and said quickly from the side of his mouth, “By Krun, Hamun! Look yonder — old Casmas, the great usurious humbug! By Havil! What a beauty!” I took my eyes away from Strom Hormish of Rivensmot, knowing he would keep, and followed where Chido directed.
Casmas the Deldy, oiled, sweating, profuse, was guiding a girl to a table by the window. She was beautiful, beautiful, as I had observed before, when I’d snatched her from the beak and talons of a snow-white zhyan, beautiful in the way of looking and not touching. What the hell she was marrying old Casmas the Deldy for I had no idea — unless his cognomen held all the answer necessary. I think she saw me almost as soon as she entered the tavern. Certainly, she could scarcely keep her eyes off me, but she did not make a mention of me to Casmas, for he had not seen Chido and me, and bent all his effusiveness upon his bride-to-be.
As though in some shadow play of a Kregen village, with the samphron-oil lamps casting the grotesque or beautiful shadows upon the linen sheet, with entrance after entrance, Strom Lart, he with whom I would soon be crossing swords, entered. He saw Strom Hormish, already swilling wine among the tea-drinkers, and he went straight across. There was a sickly plethora of bows and blandishments, then both men sat down and put their heads together. Birds of a feather, thought I. This pretty pot might yet boil into an affair of light amusement, or deadly peril, with the steel flying and the blood spurting. In my mood I knew which I would prefer.
The way it did go I would not relish to have to suffer again.
Chido’s slender frame partially shielded me from the view of the two Storms at their table. Casmas was so wrapped up in his little passionflower that he had eyes for nothing else. The girl was pale, very pale. Her color came and went, it is true, but by the way her breast moved, and the little helpless fluttery movements of her hands, and by other signs, I knew she had no joy in this marriage with Casmas the Deldy.
The genteel uproar in the tavern, so different from the full-throated bellowings of taverns when the moons have risen, sounded all about; there was much coming and going as the midday meal was served. Kregans like six or more good meals a day, as I have said. Chido and I tucked into good red beef from cattle that might, for all we knew, have been destroying Rees’s lands. There were momolams, green vegetables, a great fruit pie, and many cups of tea to follow the table wine, a poor stuff, to my surprise; then the inevitable and sweetly necessary silver dish of palines.
With my mouth full of palines I looked up and there was the fair hair, rosebud mouth, and pale blue eyes of the girl I had pulled from the zhyan’s claws outside The Crippled Chavonth in the dusty town of Urigal in the lazy and half-forgotten Kovnate of Waarom. Before I could stand up, over Chido’s sudden explosion of wonder, she was blurting out quick words.