"I know him in a way," I said. "He followed me in the camp of the Tuchuks and tried to kill me."
"I trust," said Saphrar, "that we shall have better fortune." I said nothing.
"Are you truly of the Clan of Torturers?" asked Harold of the hooded man.
"You shall find out," he said.
"Do you think," asked Harold, "you will be able to make me cry for mercy?"
"If I choose," said the man.
"Would you care to wager?" asked Harold.
The man leaned forward and hissed. "Tuchuk sleen!" "May I introduce," inquired Saphrar, "Ha-Keel of Port Kar, chief of the mercenary tarnsmen."
"Is it known to Saphrar," I inquired, "that you have received gold from the Tuchuks?"
"Of course," said Ha-Keel.
"You think perhaps," said Saphrar, chuckling, "that I might object and that thus you might sow discord amongst us, your enemies. But know, Tarl Cabot, that I am a mer- chant and understand men and the meaning of gold, I no more object to Ha-Keel dealing with Tuchuks than I would to the fact that water freezes and fire burns and that no one ever leaves the Yellow Pool of Turia alive."
I did not follow the reference to the Yellow Pool of Turia. I glanced, however, at Harold, and it seemed he had sudden- ly paled.
"How is it," I asked, "that Ha-Keel of Port Kar wears about his neck a tarn disk from the city of Ar?"
"I was once of Ar," said scarred Ha-Keel. "Indeed, I can remember you, though as Tarl of Bristol, from the siege of Ar."
"It was long ago," I said.
"Your swordplay with Pa-Kur, Master of the Assassins, was superb."
A nod of my head acknowledged his compliment.
"You may ask," said Ha-Keel, "how it is that I, a tarns- man of Ar, ride for merchants and traitors on the southern plains?"
"It saddens me," I said, "that a sword that was once raised in defense of Ar is raised now only by the beck and call of gold."
"About my neck," he said, "you see a golden tarn disk of glorious Ar. I cut a throat for that tarn-disk, to buy silks and perfumes for a woman. But she had fled with another. I, hunted, also fled. I followed them and in combat slew the warrior, obtaining my scar. The wench I sold into slavery. I could not return to Glorious Ar." He fingered the tarn disk. "Sometimes," said he, "it seems heavy."
"Ha-Keel," said Saphrar, "wisely went to the city of Port Kar, whose hospitality to such as he is well known. It was there we first met."
"Ha!" cried Ha-Keel. "The little urt was trying to pick my pouch!"
"You were not always a merchant, then?" I asked Saphrar. "Among friends," said Saphrar, "perhaps we can speak frankly, particularly seeing that the tales we tell will not be retold. You see, I know I can trust you."
"How is that?" I asked.
"Because you are to be slain," he said.
"I see," I said.
"I was once," continued Saphrar, "a perfumer of Tyros but I one day left the shop it seems inadvertently with some pounds of the nectar of talenders concealed beneath my tunic in a bladder and for that my ear was notched and I was exiled from the city. I found my way to Port Kar, where I lived unpleasantly for some time on garbage floating in the canals and such other tidbits as I could find about." "How then are you a rich merchant?" I asked.
"A man met me," said Saphrar, "a tall man rather dread- ful actually with a face as gray as stone and eyes like glass."
I immediately recalled Elizabeth's description of the man who had examined her for fitness to wear the message collar on Earth "I have never seen that man," said Ha-Keel. "I wish that I might have."
Saphrar shivered. "You are just as well off," he said. "Your fortunes turned," I said, "when you met that man?" "Decidedly," he said. "In fact," continued the small mer- chant, "it was he who arranged my fortunes and sent me, some years ago, to Turia."
"What is your city?" I demanded.
He smiled. "I think," he said, "Port Karl"
That told me what I wanted to know. Though raised in Tyros and successful in Turia, Saphrar the merchant thought of himself as one of Port Karl Such a city, I thought, could stain the soul of a man.
"That explains," I said, "how it is that you, though in Turia, can have a galley in Port Karl"
"Of course," said he.
"Also," I cried, suddenly aware, "the rence paper in the message collar, paper from Port Kar!"
"Of course," he said.
"The message was yours," I said.
"The collar was sewn on the girl in this very house," said he, "though the poor thing was anesthetized at the time and unaware of the honor bestowed upon her." Saphrar smiled. "In a way," he said, "it was a waste I would not have minded keeping her in my Pleasure Gardens as a slave." Saphrar shrugged and spread his hands. "But he would not hear of it, it must be she!"
"Who is 'he'?" I demanded.
"The gray fellow," said Saphrar, "who brought the girl to the city, drugged on tarnback."
"What is his name?" I demanded.
"Always he refused to tell me," said Saphrar.
"What did you call him?" I asked.
"Master," said Saphrar. "He paid well," he added.
"Fat little slave," said Harold.
Saphrar took no offense but arranged his robes and smiled. "He paid very well," he said.
"Why," I asked, "did he not permit you to keep the girl as a slave?"
"She spoke a barbarous tongue," said Saphrar, "like your- self apparently. The plan was, it seems, that the message would be read, and that the Tuchuks would then use the girl to find you and when they had they would kill you. But they did not do so."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't matter now," said Saphrar.
I wondered what death he might have in mind for me. "How was it," I asked, "that you, who had never seen me, knew me and spoke my name at the banquet?
"You had been well described to me by the gray fellow," said Saphrar. "Also, I was certain there could not have been two among the Tuchuks with hair such as yours."
I bristled slightly. For no rational reason I am sometimes angered when enemies or strangers speak of my hair. I suppose this dates back to my youth when my flaming hair, perhaps a deplorably outrageous red, was the object of doz- ens of derisive comments, each customarily engendering its own rebuttal, both followed often by a nimble controversy, adjudicated by bare knuckles. I recalled, with a certain amount of satisfaction, even in the House of Saphrar, that I had managed to resolve most of these in my favor.
My aunt used to examine my knuckles each evening and when they were skinned which was not seldom, I trooped away to bed with honor rather than supper.
"It was an amusement on my part," smiled Saphrar, "to speak your name at that time to see what you would do, to give you something, so to speak, to stir in your wine."
It was a Turian saying. They used wines in which, as a matter of fact, things could be and were, upon occasion, stirred mostly spices and sugars.
"Let us kill him," said the Paravaci.
"No one has spoken to you, Slave," remarked Harold. "Let me have this one," begged the Paravaci of Saphrar, pointing the tip of his quiva at Harold.
"Perhaps," said Saphrar. Then the little merchant stood up and clapped his hands twice. From a side, from a portal which had been concealed behind a hanging, two men-at- arms came forth, followed by two others. The first two carried a platform, draped in purple. On this platform, nes- tled in the folds of the purple, I saw the object of my quest what I had come so far to find that for which I had risked and, apparently, lost my Life, the golden sphere. It was clearly an egg. Its longest axis was apparently about eighteen inches. It was, at its widest point, about a foot thick.