I had tallied my resources, prior to coming to the tavern of Tasdron, off the avenue of Lycurgus, and found them to amount to only seventy copper tarsks, including five tarsks which I had happily, and unexpectedly, received, the captain being a good fellow, for acting as an oarsman from Fina to the vicinity of Victoria. I did not know how much a slave might go for in the market of Lysander, but I wished to have enough to be confident that I could bid realistically and effectively on one item of merchandise, should it be offered to the public.
I spit down into the sand. I rubbed my hands on my thighs.
I had fought seven fellows, and finshed them off with a dispatch which, it seemed to me, might have pleased even Kenneth and Barus, my former mentors in such matters.I might have taken more time and enticed more challengers to face me but I wished to be at the market of Lysander when the bidding began.AS it was I was not displeased. I had managed to accumulate two silver tarsks and some sixteen copper tarsks.
In Victoria, I was confident I would encounter no guardsmen who, at the behest of honest folk, might encourage me to take my leave at an early convenience.
"Are there any more challengers?" I inquired."A silver tarsk," said a voice, not a pleasant one.I straightened up.
A fellow was now standing some fifty feet across the room. I had seen the table there earlier. About it had sat some seven or eight fellows, unshave, dour chaps. Several of them were scarred. Two wore earrings. More than one wore a hankerchief knotted about his head, in the manner of some oarsman, that there heads be protected from the sun.All were armed.
"Kind Sirs, no!" called out Tasdron, the tavern's proprietor.There was a sudden sound, that of a short metal blade sliping from a sheath."A silver tarsk," said the fellow again, holding the drawn blade. Goreans, I knew seldom drew steel unless the intended to make use of it.
I swallowed hard."I am not familiar with steel, " I said as pleasantly as I could manager."You should not carry it then," said the man. Several of his fellows laughed.
"The combat, as has been made clear," said Tasdron, his voice shaking, "is to be uarmed."
"Pick up your blade," said the fellow to me.I saw the point of his sword move lsightly. He gestured to my clothes and pouch and blade which lay nereby.
"I can not fight you with steel," I said. "I am not skilled with it." "Run," whispered Tasdron.
"Close the exits," said the fellow to some of the men with him. Four of them rose up, one going to the side door, one to the door of the kitchen, and two to the main threshold. They stood there. Their steel was now drawn. At the table, still sitting were two other men. One of them seemed in his presence as though he might be the group's leader. He observed me and quaffed paga.
"Pick up your blade," said the fellow.
"No," I said. "Very well, " said he. "The choise is yours." He stepped about his table and then, carefully, watching me, advanced. He stopped about ten feet from me. Then, suddenly, he kicked a table from in front of him to the side, clearing a path to me. Two men scramled away from the table. A paga slave, cowering inthe background, screamed.
"I am unarmed," I said. He advanced another step. I watched the point of that blade move. "He is new in Victoria," said Trasdron, desperately. "Take his clothes, his money, his things, Let him live!"
But the fellow did not even glance at Tasdron. He took another step closer. I backed away and then felt the tables behind me, agains my legs. "I am unarmed," I said. The fellow grinned and advanced another step. "Permit me to seize up my weapon." I said.
He grinned again and advanced yet another step. I did not have time to turn and clutch at the weapon in its sheath on the table, with my pouch and clothes, and even had I been able to reach it and remove it from the sheath, I di dnot think it would do me much good. I saw how this man handled steel, and I saw that the blade itself was much marked. It had seen a plentitude of combat. Before him, even with the blade in my grasp, I would have been, I knew, for all practical purposes defenseless. "I am unarmed," I said. "It is your intention to kill me in cold blood?" Yes," said the fellow. "Why?" I asked. "It will give me pleasure," he said. I saw the blade draw back. "Hold!" called a voice.The fellow stepped back and looked past me. I turned about. There about twenty feet away, in a dirty woolen himation, stood a tall, unshaven man. Though he seemed disreputable he stood at that moment very straight.
"Do you, Fellow," said he, addressing me, "desire a champion?" The man was armed. Over his left shoulder there hung a leather sheath.
He had not designed, however to draw the blade. "Who are you?" demanded the fellow who hadthreaten me. "Do you desire a chamption?" asked the man of me. "Yes," I said. "Who are you?" demanded the fellow who had been threatening me.
"Do you force me to draw my blade?" asked the tall man. The hair on the back of my neck rose when he had said this."Who are you?" demanded the man who had threatened me, taking another step back.The man did not speak. Rather with one hand he trhew back the himation, over his shoulders. There was a cry in the tavern.I saw that the fellow wore the scarlet of the warrior.
"No," said the fellow who had been threatening me. "I do not force you to draw your blade." He then baked away. When he reached his table he thrust his own blade angrily into his sheath. He then, with the fellows who had guarded the doors, left the tavern.
"Paga! paga for all!" called Tasdron. Paga slaves rushed to pour paga. "Music!" he called. Five musicians, who had been near the kitchen, hurried to their places. Tasdron too, clapped his hands twice and a dancing slave, portions of her body painted, ran to the sand.
Unsteadily I went to the table of the tall man. He seemed to pay me small attention. When the girl poured him paga, his hand shook as he reached for it. He lifted it suddenly, spilling some to the table, to his lips. He was shaking. "I own you my life," I said, "thank you." "Go away," he said. His eyes seemed glazed. No longer did he seem so proud and strong as he had before, in that brief moment when he had confronted the fellow who had threatened me. His hands shook on the paga goblet. "Go away," he said.
"I see that you still wear the scarlet, Callimachus," said a voice."Do not mock me." I saw that he who spoke was he whom I had taken to be the leader of the ruffians at the far table, one of whose number had threatened me. He himself had neither supposed nor attempted to deter the fellow who had threatened me.
He held himself above squabbles in common taverns, I gathered.I took him to be a man of some importance. "It has been a long time since we met in the vicinity of Port Cos," said the fellow who had come to the table. The man at the tble, sitting, he who had saved me,helf the goblet of paga and said nothign."This part of the river," said the standing men, "is mine."Then he looked down at the sitting fellow. "I bearyou no hard feelings for Port Cos," He said. The sitting man drank. His hands were unsteady.
"You always were a courageous fellow, Callimachus," said the standing man. "I always admired that in you. Had you not been concerned to keep the codes, you might have gone far. I might have found a position for you even in my organization."Instead," said the man sitting at the table, "we met at Port Cos."
"Your gamble this night was successful," said the standing man. "I would advise against similar boldnesses in the future, however." The sitting man drank.
"Fortunatly for you, my dear Callimachus, my friend Kliomenes, the disagreeable fellow who left the tavern earlier, does not know you. He does not know as I do, thatyour eye is no longer as sharp as once it was, that your hand has lost its cunning, that you are now ruined and fallen, that the scarlet is not but meaningless on your body, naught but a remembrance, an empty recollection of a vanished glory."
The sitting man drank. "If he knew you as I do," said the standing man, 'You would not be dead."