I didn't answer, just squatted down beside them. I'd talked too much already. I had no business claiming to be a fighting man on this world; someone might easily call my bluff. And unless I was willing to use my stunner or pistol, which was undesirable, I could be dead in a hurry. Hand-foot art was nothing to face a trained swordsman with, and the odds wouldn't be good against a skilled knife fighter either.
It was most of an hour before the gate opened, and by that time it looked as if the weather might clear. The clouds seemed thin again, and in places blue showed through. I didn't even say goodbye to the two sailors, just walked inside and followed the muddy road, which became a muddy street.
Marseille smelled bad. I'm sure that not all the water in the street was rain. It seemed as if these people didn't have much idea of sanitation, and I was glad we'd used the broad spectrum immunoserum in the medkit.
There weren't many people on the street yet, but most that I did see seemed lively enough and not unhappy. One young guy, a year or two younger than me by his looks, was striding along whistling, his step springy. His clothes were red and yellow beneath their grime.
"Hello, young sir," I said. "Can I ask you a question?"
He stopped and looked me over. I stood about a head taller than him. "Ask away," he answered.
"I'm looking for a merchant who will hire me. I do calculations very quickly." It seemed to me that that was a safer thing to advertise than martial skills.
The young guy looked interested. "Calculations?" he said. "Well, that can be useful. My own master has a Saracen slave to do calculations for him. His abacus is different from ours, and he's very quick."
Our conversation wasn't as neat and direct as I'm telling it here. His pronunciations were a bit different from those I'd heard before on Fanglith, and he used words that were new to me, while the Norman French I mixed with my Provencal gave him a certain amount of trouble. So a couple of times we had to stop and sort out meanings with each other.
Anyway, an idea began to develop. "Very quick, you say," I said, referring to the Saracen slave. "I am quicker. I calculate more quickly than anyone in Marseille!"
His eyebrows arched. "You think so?"
"I know it." I took the communicator off my belt, a military model with a microcomputer built in. "Give me a problem."
"Add seven to itself nine times."
I didn't need to use the micro for that. "Nine sevens added to seven equals seventy."
He looked impressed, but also uncertain. It occurred to me that he couldn't do arithmetic himself, so he couldn't tell whether I was right or not. I cocked an eye at him. "Is your master's slave faster than that?"
"I think not. Your answer was virtually instantaneous."
"Who is the fastest calculator in Marseille?"
"A merchant and shipowner named Isaac ben Abraham, a Jew from Valencia. He uses an abacus of beads upon rods, like the Saracen, which is much swifter than the boards and disks that others use."
"Does he wager?" I asked.
His face went instantly thoughtful. "Would you bet against him?" he asked back.
"If we're going to talk about things like this, we should know each other's names. Mine is Larn."
"Mine is Reyno. Would you? Bet against him?"
"I have nothing to bet," I answered. "But if you do, or if others wish to bet, for a percentage of their winnings I would contest against this-Isaac?"
"Isaac ben Abraham. Let me take you to my master, Carolus the Stonecutter. He sometimes wagers, but he will wish first to see the horse run."
"Of course," I said. "Take me to him." Meanwhile I was recording our conversation. It would be useful to speak Provencal better, including speaking it without a mixture of Norman French.
He nodded, and we began to walk briskly in the direction he'd been going. "I could stand to win a bet," he said. "I am in love with Margareta, the youngest daughter of Henrico the mason, and she with me. We wish to marry. But first I must have money, and soon, before her father promises her to someone else. She is already fifteen, though small for her age," he went on.
"In her family the women mature late."
Already fifteen. Jenoor had been sixteen, would have been seventeen soon now. Again I had that empty feeling. Where would we be if she and Piet had escaped with us? Together on some more or less civilized world, probably Grinder. Compared to Fanglith, Grinder would seem like home.
I spent the quarter-mile walk to Reyno's master's feeling sorry for myself, hardly aware that Reyno was whistling again. The stonecutter's place was two stories high, and set back from the street about thirty feet. The front yard was partly filled with blocks of rough-cut stones, some of them partly recut, and the ground was littered with chips and shards. A short stocky man, wearing a rough leather apron and holding a hammer and chisel, was examining one of the blocks as if looking for the right place to attack it. Reyno tossed him a cheery "good morning" and led me past; the man was not Carolus.
As you might expect, the building was made of stone, its blocks cut to roughly the same size. The stout plank door was open and we went in. There was more work space inside, with blocks lying around on the dirt floor. The windows were large, probably for light, and had no glass; the shutters I'd noticed, which opened back against the outside walls, were apparently all there was to close them with.
Carolus the stonecutter was a tall man for Fanglith, or at least for the places I'd been-only a few inches shorter than me. Even with a bulging middle, he looked extremely strong. He scowled at us as we came in.
"You're late," he snapped to Reyno.
"Yes sir. I met this young gentleman and brought him with me. His name is Larn. He has an interesting proposition-one that could be profitable."
The stonecutter's dark little eyes moved to me and stayed for a few seconds before he said anything more. My jumpsuit looked a lot different from clothes in Provence or Normandy, or any I'd seen at any rate. For a shirt, they generally wear a thing resembling a loose jacket that covers the upper legs. They call it a tunic. Instead of pants, most of the men wear a sort of leggings, with a kind of undershorts-more of a diaper, actually-to cover their genitals. None of it really fits. Also, the shoes don't have separate soles, and they don't press shut around the foot. Instead, they have a leather thong you draw them snug with and then tie. "Where are you from?" Carolus asked me. So there it was. I was going to have to tell him something, and it had to be a lie-hopefully, one that wouldn't trip me up. Remembering my one-night lecture on the world of Fanglith from Brother Oliver, more than two years earlier, I answered "India." India was a place that everyone had heard of and apparently no one had been. Things that were said about it sounded pretty imaginative.
His eyes had paused at my crucifix. "You're Christian."
"Yes. Although I've not been thoroughly instructed in it."
He shrugged. I'd already learned that most Christians hadn't been. "What is this interesting proposition?" he wanted to know.
"I'm a master calculator," I said. "Reyno tells me that the swiftest calculator in Marseille is a man named Isaac ben Abraham. I am faster at difficult calculations than he can possibly be, and perhaps at simple ones too. It seems to me we could have a contest, he and I, and there could be wagers. Whoever bet on me would win. In reward, I would get part of their winnings."
Carolus looked thoughtful. "You have not seen the Jew at his abacus; he is lightning swift. He is a man late in middle years, who was calculating long before you were born."
This kind of conversation would lead nowhere. "You have a slave who does your calculations," I said. "Is he fast?"
"Faster than most. But not so fast as the jew." "Let's see how much faster I am than your slave." For just a moment Carolus stood examining me. Then he turned toward a staircase that led upstairs through a raised trapdoor. "Faid!" he bellowed. "Down here!"