And the man does. No more rats bother me while I am in Amblona. Other things, yes, but not rats.
Obert is already sitting with Kime and Lady Ett when I get to the table. Ett is, well, Ett. She wants to hear about Ganelon. She wants to hear about the train ride. She squeaks when I tell her about the rat. Kime pulls a face. He is drinking hard. He often drinks hard, but he is drinking harder than usual.
When Obert gets his supper, he only picks at it. With the magic that comes out of the kitchen here, that should be a crime. He keeps staring at Lady Ett. She does not give him any special notice. No one who knows Obert Ohn ever gives him any special notice. That must be part of the reason he is the way he is.
But the way he stares at Ett says she ought to notice him. It says she has noticed him before. It makes me wonder where he went on his little side trip from Ganelon, and what he did there. So does the way Kime is drinking. I feel like drinking that way myself.
I have had suppers I enjoyed more, then. I am not sorry to go up to my room. When I see the workman has taken care of the rathole, I go downstairs again to thank Tonmoya.
“It is nothing,” he says. “I am only sorry the miserable creature troubled you. I hope you rest well tonight. In the morning, you will go and see the bulls?”
“Oh, yes,” I say. We smile at each other. The bulls are the reason we are friends, Tonmoya and I. He had trouble believing a foreigner could be an enthusiast for the bulls, the way he is and so many Astilians are. Bulls are in their blood, they say.
It took some doing, but I convinced him I am also an enthusiast. I know a good bull from a bad one, and I know why each is as he is. Just knowing is not enough, though. Caring counts for more. When Tonmoya saw I cared, that was when our friendship hatched.
He makes a certain sign with his hand. If you have been to Amblona, you will know what it is. If you have not, I may not tell you. “The god watch over you in the running,” he says. “Thimras watch over you and your friends, if they run.”
I return the sign. I have earned the right to make it, as I have earned the right to see it. “May he watch over you and yours, as well,” I say. “I don’t know if my friends will run. We’ll see on the day.”
“On the day, we always see,” Tonmoya says gravely.
I go out early the next morning, before the sun rises. The hotel is quiet as an urnfield. No one sits behind the desk. I cannot grab a quick coffee no matter how much I want one. Most Astilians go to bed late and rise the same way. They often nap in the afternoon, when the day is hottest. They expect visitors to do likewise.
Most Astilians rise late, but not all. I start toward the holding pens by the train station. Workmen are already putting up the plywood sheets that will channel the runners and the bulls in their dash to the arena. One of them nods to me. Astilians have great dignity. It leaves them poorly suited to our modern world. I wave and walk on.
At the temple, a preacher and some acolytes ready the statue of Thimras for a procession through the streets. Bull-headed Thimras is an old god in these parts. The statue is nowhere near so old as the cult, though it is ancient next to anything in Dubyook. They have given the dark-blue-and-red stripes on his arms and torso a fresh coat of paint. The horns above his eyes and on his beak are freshly gilded. His frill shines silver in the lamplight.
The preacher wears a red that matches the god’s. The acolytes are painted dark blue. Seeing me go by, the preacher uses the same sign Tonmoya had. He smiles when I give it back.
A train pulls in just as I get to the station. Yard men wrestle heavy ramps into place by the freight cars. They shout back and forth in Astilian and Skeuaran. Next to Skeuaran, Thimras is a newcomer in these parts. It is the oldest, hardest language in the world. Even demons cannot learn to speak it. If you do not believe me, ask a Skeuara. He will tell you more than you want to know.
Plywood barriers go up between the freight cars and the holding pens. The bulls could break through them, but hardly ever do. To a bull, something that looks like a wall is a wall. He does not think to test it.
A freight-car door creaks open. The yard men shout again, in warning this time. A bull thunders out of the car and down the ramp to the ground. The ramp groans under his weight, but holds it. They are made to get bulls down, and do the job well.
One more shout says the bull has gone into his pen. A gate slams shut behind him. He makes a noise—half bellow, half deep grunt. Then he finds the manger full of hay. He settles down to eat. The yard men open the next freight car.
I walk over to the holding pens to study the bulls that are already in them. Several other men pace the narrow walkways between the pens. They look over the bulls with an educated eye. Sometimes they talk to the handlers. Sometimes a handler will ask one of them what he thinks. When they exchange words, both sides show great respect.
I stop by the pen with the bull just down from the freight car. I admire the surge of muscle under his brown, scaly hide. I like the way the black-and-white feathers of his crest run all the way from his frill to the tip of his strong tail. Enthusiasts say that is a sure sign of a brave bull.
A handler comes over to me. “What do you think, sir?” he asks.
“He looks like a good one to me,” I answer. “He has wide shoulders and big feet. The horn on his beak is long and curved. His crest is first-rate, too. He should put on a fine show in the arena.”
The man stares at me in surprise. I speak Astilian about as well as I speak Ecnarfish, but no one in either place ever takes me for a native.
Sure enough, the handler exclaims, “The gentleman is a foreigner! He is a foreigner, but he knows bulls!”
“Thank you for thinking so,” I tell him, and I mean it. A handler in Amblona at festival time cannot give higher praise.
“It is true, sir. You see what stands before you.” His own gaze sharpens. “Are you the foreign gentleman who also came here last year?”
“I was here then, yes.”
“I heard there was a foreign gentleman who was a true enthusiast. I had trouble believing it—you will excuse me for saying so. But now I see it was no lie.”
“You do me too much honor.” I would never talk about honor in Dubyook or Dunlin or Ecnarf. In Astilia, it is as natural as water to a trout.
“Not at all, sir. Not at all. And because you are an enthusiast, I want to tell you to watch out for Moremo when you go to the arena. Amblona has not seen a bullfighter like him in a heap of years.”
“I’ve seen his name in the sporting papers,” I say. “He was still an apprentice last year, wasn’t he? I don’t think I got to watch any of his fights.”
“You would remember if you had. He was something to see, even then. And he’s better now. The chances he takes! But when he does it, they don’t seem to be chances.”
“They never do, till one goes wrong.”
He nods. “You know how things work, all right, sir. One is all it takes. Remember the name, though. Moremo.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” I go on to look at some more of the bulls. I like one of them even better than the first one I saw. He looks mean and smart and full of muscle. Anyone in the arena with him had better stay on his toes if he wants to come out with a whole skin.
Other handlers talk up Moremo, too. They call him the real thing. They sound pleased when they do it. The real thing does not come along very often.
“In bullfighting or anything else,” I say. The handlers nod. Some seem sad when they do. For others, that is just the way things go, and you cannot change it no matter how much you wish you could.
It is still early in the morning when I get back to the hotel. Obert Ohn is mooching around outside. He looks like hell. His shoulders slump. His tail is down. When he sees me coming, he runs over and grabs both my hands. “It’s no good, Baek,” he says. “It’s no good at all.”