He ran until he was out of breath and quite some distance from the harbor with all its dangers. He passed a number of alehouses along the way, regretfully perhaps, but there was still business to attend to, and he needed his wits about him.
In a dim little establishment, well hidden up a dank, smelly alleyway, he sold Captain Woodfoot’s smuggled treasures, bargaining down to the last copper with the grossly fat woman who ran the place. He even traded his sea coat for a landsman’s tunic, and emerged from the alley with all trace of the sea removed from him, except for the rolling gait of a man whose feet have not touched dry land for several months.
He avoided the harbor with its press gangs and cheap grog shops and chose instead a quiet street that meandered past boarded-up warehouses. He followed that until he found a sedate workman’s alehouse where a buxom barmaid rather sullenly served him. Her mood, he surmised, was the result of the fact that he was her only customer, and that she had quite obviously intended to close the doors and seek her bed—or someone else’s, for all he knew. He jollied her into some semblance of good humor for an hour or so, left a few pennies on the table, and squeezed her ample bottom by way of farewell. Then he lurched into the empty street in search of further adventure.
He found true love under a smoky torch on the comer.
Her name, she said, was Elowanda. Balsca suspected that she was not being entirely honest about that, but it was not her name he was interested in. She was quite young and quite obviously sick. She had a racking cough, a hoarse, croaking voice, and her reddened nose ran constantly. She was not particularly clean and she exuded the rank smell of a week or more of dried sweat. Balsca, however, had a sailor’s strong stomach and an appetite whetted by six months’ enforced abstinence at sea. Elowanda was not very pretty, but she was cheap. After a brief haggle, she led him to a rickety crib in an alley that reeked of moldy sewage. Although he was quite drunk, Balsca grappled with her on a lumpy pallet until dawn was staining the eastern sky.
It was noon when he awoke with a throbbing head. He might have slept longer, but the cry of a baby coming from a wooden box in the corner drove into his ears like a sharp knife. He nudged the pale woman lying beside him, hoping that she would rise and quiet her squalling brat. She moved limply under his hand, her limbs flaccid.
He nudged her again, harder this time. Then he rose up and looked at her. Her stiff face was locked in a dreadful rictus—a hideous grin that made his blood run cold. He suddenly realized that her skin was like clammy ice. He jerked his hand away, swearing under his breath. He reached out gingerly and peeled back one of her eyelids. He swore again.
The woman who had called herself Elowanda was as dead as last week’s mackerel.
Balsca rose and quickly pulled on his clothes. He searched the room thoroughly, but found nothing worth stealing except for the few coins he had given the dead woman the previous night. He took those, then glared at the naked corpse lying on the pallet. “Rotten whore!” he said and kicked her once in the side. She rolled limply off the pallet and lay face down on the floor.
Balsca slammed out into the stinking alley, ignoring the wailing baby he had left behind him.
He had a few moments’ concern about the possibility of certain social diseases. Something had killed Elowanda, and he had not really been all that rough with her. As a precaution, he muttered an old sailors’ incantation which was said to be particularly efficacious in warding off the pox; reassured, he went looking for something to drink.
By midaftemoon, he was pleasantly drunk and he lurched out of a congenial little wine shop and stopped, swaying slightly, to consider his options. By now Woodfoot would certainly have discovered that his hidden cabinet was empty and that Balsca had jumped ship. Since Woodfoot was a man of limited imagination, he and his officers would certainly be concentrating their search along the waterfront. It would take them some time to realize that their quarry had moved somewhat beyond the sight, if not the smell, of salt water. Balsca prudently decided that if he were to maintain his lead on his vengeful former captain, it was probably time for him to head inland. It occurred to him, moreover, that someone might have seen him with Elowanda, and that her body probably had been found by now. Balsca felt no particular responsibility for her death, but he was by nature slightly shy about talking with policemen. All in all, he decided, it might just be time to leave Mal Gemila.
He started out confidently, striding toward the east gate of the city; but after several blocks, his feet began to hurt. He loitered outside a warehouse where several workmen were loading a large wagon. He carefully stayed out of sight until the work was nearly done, then heartily offered to lend a hand. He put two boxes on the wagon, then sought out the teamster, a shaggy-bearded man smelling strongly of mules.
“Where be ye bound, friend?” Balsca asked him as if out of idle curiosity.
“Mal Zeth,” the teamster replied shortly.
“What an amazing coincidence,” Balsca exclaimed.
“I have business there myself.” In point of fact, Balsca had cared very little where the teamster and his wagon had been bound. All he wanted to do was to go inland to avoid Woodfoot or the police. “What say I ride along, with you—for company?”
“I don’t get all that lonesome,” the teamster said churlishly.
Balsca sighed. It was going to be one of those days.
“I’d be willing to pay,” he offered sadly.
“How much?”
“I don’t really have very much.”
“Ten coppers,” the teamster said flatly.
“Ten? I haven’t got that much.”
“You’d better start walking then. It’s that way.”
Balsca sighed and gave in. “All right,” he said. “Ten.”
“In advance.”
“Half now and half when we get to Mal Zeth.”
“In advance.”
“That’s hard.”
” So’s walking. ”
Balsca stepped around a corner, reached into an inside pocket, and carefully counted out the ten copper coins. The horde he had accumulated as a result of his pilferage aboard The Star of Jarot had dwindled alarmingly. A number of possibilities occurred to him. He shifted his sheath knife around until it was at his back. If the teamster slept soundly enough and if they stopped for the night in some secluded place, Balsca was quite certain that he could ride into Mal Zeth the proud owner of a wagon and a team of mules—not to mention whatever was in the boxes. Balsca had killed a few men in his time—when it had been safe to do so—and he was not particularly squeamish about cutting throats, if it was worth his while.
The wagon clattered and creaked as it rumbled along the cobbled street in the slanting afternoon sunlight.
“Let’s get a few things clear before we start,” the teamster said. “I don’t like to talk and I don’t like having people jabber at me.”
“All right.”
The teamster reached back and picked up a wicked-looking hatchet out of the wagon bed. “Now,” he said, “give me your knife.”
“I don’t have a knife.”
The teamster reined in his mules. “Get out,” he said curtly.
“But I paid you?”
“Not enough for me to take any chances with you. Come up with a knife or get out of my wagon.”
Balsca glared at him, then at the hatchet. Slowly he drew out his dagger and handed it over.