Was the old man delaying, perhaps hoping for the arrival of another trader? Dumarest doubted it. The last time the Moray had called it had carried biological fertilizers, wool, strains of mutated yeast, seeds and artifacts of iron-hard wood. All natural things according to the dogma of the Candarians. Sheyan had never guessed that his load of iron might prove worthless.
Dumarest swallowed his wine, feeling the rich liquid ease some of the fatigue which ached his bones. He looked at his hands, bruised and discolored with pressure and strain. Slowtime was a dangerous drug to use on a wakeful man. It accelerated the metabolism and slowed normal time to a fortieth of its normal passing. A man so drugged would move forty times as fast, do forty times as much. But care had to be taken. Flesh and bone could not stand the shatter shy;ing impact of a normal blow. The touch had to be gentle, the movements under constant control. He had the knack and so did Nimino. They had used the drug while the others did the rough work. Moving, gulping down pints of basic to replenish lost energy, sleeping to wake and eat and work and eat again.
Always eating to ward off starvation, getting hurt and bruised, doing the labor of forty times their number.
Dumarest blinked and drank a little more wine. Later he would sleep and restore the strength he had expended. Now he wanted to follow the progress of the trading.
It was going well. Sheyan, recovered from his initial over-eagerness, confident that he now had what the chief elder wanted, was pressing a hard bargain.
"The weed is bulky," he said. "My hold would barely take the worth of a dozen hooks. The skins are better and the crystals even more so, yet still they have bulk and my hold is small."
"And the oil?" Herkam pushed forward a container. It was of baked clay sealed with wax. "This would take but little room."
"True." Deliberately Sheyan broke the seal and poured some of the contents into the hollow of his palm. He rubbed his hands, smelled, frowned, smelled again. "An extract from a fish?"
"From the giant clams which live deep in the water. They have a gland which can be milked. From the oil can be made a costly perfume."
Nimino smiled and whispered, "Do you think Sheyan is overacting, Earl? Maybe you'd better end the bargain before he talks us all out of a profit."
"He's doing well." Dumarest reached out and helped him shy;self to more wine. The container was a gourd bright with inset shells and had probably taken some woman a year to make. "This is no time to interfere."
Sheyan slammed his hand hard on the table. "Done! The oil, the crystals, some amber and skins in the ratio agreed on. In return we give the hooks chains and gaffs. Can we load immediately?"
"First we must drink to seal the bargain." The haggling done the chief elder could afford to relax a little. "You find our wine palatable?"
"It is a rare vintage." Sheyan, too, had relaxed. He had driven a hard bargain and had cause to be satisfied. "A veritable gift of nature."
"And, as such, not to be swilled as the food of swine," said the chief elder sternly. "Mother Nature has given us the grape to be used for the comfort of guests and the libation of sacrifice." He sipped at his glass. "And now, captain, there is a service I must ask you to perform."
Sheyan narrowed his eyes. "And that is?"
"A matter of dissension which needs to be settled."
"A trial?"
"That and perhaps more. I beg your indulgence for this imposition on a guest, but the matter must be settled im shy;mediately. You will form a tribunal?"
"Of course." Sheyan gestured towards Dumarest and Nim shy;ino. "These two officers will accompany me. When will you need us?"
"Two hours after sunset, captain. I shall send men to escort you to the meeting house."
"So late?" The captain's voice echoed his displeasure. "I could be loaded and ready to leave in an hour. Time is money to a trader."
"Two hours after sunset," repeated the chief elder firmly. "It will be dark and the workers will be in from the fields and the sea. You may load, captain, everything but the oil. That we shall deliver to you after the trial."
V
night came with a thin wind gusting from the sea, a mist of cloud hiding the stars and intensifying the darkness. Men with torches came to escort the tribunal, their faces hard and solemn in the guttering light. Nimino's voice was low as he walked beside Dumarest, both men three paces behind the captain.
"We get this from time to time. As traders we're con shy;sidered to be impartial and when a hard decision has to be made we are asked to give it. That way no one has any reason to hold a grudge. A lot of these worlds have a tribal culture or large families locked in a struggle for power. A vendetta would ruin them and most are too proud or too wary to submit to the judgment of other residents." Nimino stumbled as his foot caught an obstruction and he grabbed at Dumarest's arm to save himself from falling. "I just hope that we don't have to execute anyone."
The meeting house was a long, low-roofed structure built of logs caulked with clay, lit by flaring torches, and hung with a clutter of various trophies. Benches accommodated the audience, the sour reek of their bodies rising to blend with the resinous smell of the torches, the odor of damp soil.
Dumarest studied them as he took his seat on the raised platform occupying one end of the hall. They wore either rough jerkins and trousers made of treated fish skins or som shy;ber garments of wool. The fishers and farmers, he decided; but aside from their clothes they seemed all cast from the same mold. Like the elderly guards, their faces were set in fanatical lines as if to laugh was to commit a sin. Hair was long and held back with fillets of skin or leather; those of hammered steel being obviously a badge of authority. There were no young women present but a double row of matrons, shapeless in voluminous dresses, sat at the extreme rear.
Nimino leaned towards Dumarest and said quietly, "Look at their eyes, Earl. Have you ever seen such an expression before?"
It was the blood-lust glare inherent to mobs and to those anticipating blood and pain. He had seen it a hundred times in the eyes of watchers clustered around a ring where men fought with ten-inch blades. At his side Sheyan moved restlessly on the hard wooden chair.
"Why the delay?" he said to the chief elder. "We are assembled, where is the prisoner?"
There was a stir at the far end of the hall. A dozen men, guards, hard-faced and no longer young, marched forward with someone in their midst. They halted before the raised platform and stepped back, their staves swinging horizontal before them to form a barrier. Isolated in the clear space before the platform, a girl looked coolly at the tribunal.
"By God," she said. "Men. Real men at last!"
"Silence!" Herkam's voice was harsh with anger. "There will be no blasphemy. Guards! If the woman Lallia speaks so again you will strike her down!"
Nimino drew in his breath with an audible hiss. "By the sacred mantras of the Dedla Vhal," he said. "That is a woman!"
She was tall, with a mane of lustrous black hair which swept from a high forehead and rested on her left shoulder. Beneath a rough dress of undyed wool the curves of her body strained under the fabric. Her skin was white, arms and feet bare, the long column of her throat unadorned. The long-lashed eyes were bold, challenging, and the full lips held a wealth of sensuous passion.
Herkam looked at Sheyan, at the others of the tribunal.
"This is the one on whom you must pass judgment," he said. "She came to us several months ago from a ship which called here. We gave her the guest offering of food and wine and accepted the stranger within our gates. In return she has sowed dissension, turning brother against brother, mocking our sacred ways and filling the young men with thoughts of evil.