Mujiin wheeled his mount.
The lad wavered. Surely he would fall. Surely Mujiin must hurry!
“Beware!” cried Hunlaki.
The boy suddenly, raising his staff, as the lance sped toward him, struck it to the side and slipped to the side of the horse, and then thrust up with the staff, brutally into the ribs of the horse, which howled with pain, and the lad then struck the mount twice more, with terrible jabs, and it squealed, moving suddenly, awkwardly, trying to avoid the stick, the pain, to the side, and it lost its footing, and Mujiin, his foot caught in the stirrup, went down with the horse, his leg pinned under it, and looked up to see the boy, wild-eyed, bleeding, over him, raising the staff, but the blow did not fall for Hunlaki rode him down, his lance piercing the boy’s back, under the left shoulder blade.
Mujiin, cursing, rose to this feet, his horse having scrambled up.
Hunlaki drew his lance from the boy’s back.
Mujiin was furious. He kicked the inert form of the boy.
His horse stood some yards off, its eyes wide with pain.
It shook the snow from its fur.
“Are you all right?” asked Hunlaki.
“Dog! Dog!” cried Mujiin, kicking the boy.
Hunlaki fetched Mujiin’s mount.
Mujiin checked the girth strap on the horse. Then he ascended to the saddle.
Hunlaki surveyed the prairie about them. It was still. Then he looked again at the form of the boy.
“He was brave,” said Hunlaki, “to follow us.”
“He is a dog!” said Mujiin.
“But he is a brave dog,” said Hunlaki.
“Yes,” said Mujiin, “he was a brave dog.”
“They are all brave dogs,” said Hunlaki.
“Yes,” said Mujiin, “they are all brave dogs.”
“Worthy enemies,” said Hunlaki.
“Yes,” said Mujiin.
Then, looking behind them from time to time, they returned to the track of the column. In a few moments they saw their contact riders approaching.
CHAPTER 5
The peasant descended the narrow stairs, leading down to the main floor of the tavern.
It was late in the afternoon.
“Hold,” said Boon Thap, from behind the counter, to the left, past which one must move to reach the door.
The peasant stopped.
Two others, nearby, looked up. They sat at a stained table to the right of the door, one of several. These were the only others on the main floor of the tavern. They had drinks before them, on the circled tabletop. They had been playing cards, Tanleel. The flat, revolving counterboard, with its pegs, was between them.
Boon Thap, who was the proprietor of this establishment, drew forth from under the counter a shallow, copper dish. He placed it on the counter. In this dish were four or five coins, pennies.
“Pay,” said Boon Thap.
The peasant recalled the dish upstairs. It was in that dish that coins for the pay woman would be placed.
He was from far away, from another world, indeed, but it was within the empire. He knew that much.
“Why?” asked the peasant.
“Pay,” said Boon Thap.
“I have not eaten here. I have not drunk here,” said the peasant, slowly.
Boon Thap gestured toward the stairs with his head. “Was she any good?”
“Yes,” said the peasant.
That was certainly true. She had juiced well. Too, in the beginning, she had shown him things he had not known, things he had not dreamed of in the village. But in the end, after an hour, she had
been merely his, helpless, uncontrollable, begging, crying out, as had been Tessa, or Lia, or Sut. In the end she had been not an instructress, only a mastered slave.
“Did you like her?” asked Boon Thap.
“Yes,” said the peasant.
“Pay,” said Boon Thap.
“I have not eaten here. I have not drunk here,” said the peasant.
“You pay here,” said Boon Thap, pointing to the copper bowl.
The two fellows at the table slid their chairs back and came toward the counter. Then they were standing a little behind the peasant, one on each side.
“You must not make trouble,” said Boon Thap.
“I am not making trouble,” said the peasant.
He did not want to make trouble. He did not know this place, or these people. He was a stranger here. Too, he did not want to disappoint Brother Benjamin. Brother Benjamin, in his recent admonitions, had been very explicit on such points. Brother Benjamin had come down all the way from the festung, down to the road, by the village, to bid him farewell. The peasant had knelt in the road, his head bowed, to receive Brother Benjamin’s blessing, administered in old Telnarian, given with the sign of the device. Brother Benjamin had never really expected him to stay in the village, for some reason, it seemed. In his journey the peasant realized that he had sensed this before, that he had known it, somehow, for years. Others had been there, too, to bid him farewell, others with diverse feelings. Doubtless some would miss him. Others were perhaps relieved that such as he was leaving. He had towered among them. He had not seemed to be like them. Too, he was dangerous. His temper was unpredictable, and violent. And he could break the neck of a garn pig in his bare hands.
“Who am I?” the peasant had asked Brother Benjamin, once again, before he left the village.
“You are ‘Dog,’ “had said Brother Benjamin, “of the festung village of Saint Giadini.”
Then the peasant had left.
The peasant felt his sack taken from his back by one of the men behind him. He did not interfere, or resist. He was a stranger here. He did not wish to disappoint Brother Benjamin. It was put on the counter. His staff was removed from his hand by the other man, and leant against the counter.
“I will tell you what you owe,” said Boon Thap. “How much did you pay upstairs?”
The peasant was silent.
“What did you give her?” asked Boon Thap.
“Nothing,” said the peasant.
“Nothing?” said Boon Thap.
“She would not take anything,” said the peasant.
“Liar!” said Boon Thap.
The peasant noted the resemblance of Boon Thap to a garn pig.
“Do you think she is a contract woman, kept in a brothel, chained by the neck to her bed, with a slotted coin box bolted to the bed?”
“No,” said the peasant. He had heard of such things, and many more, he and the others who had worked their passage to Terrenia, from the sailors, when they were not on watch. The coin was put near the box, which was locked, in order to prove that the customer possessed the means wherewith to pay for his pleasure. Afterwards the coin would be placed in the box or not, according to whether or not the customer had found the services of the contract woman satisfactory. As a record was kept of the customers and the rooms to which they went, it was a simple matter, after undoing the locks on the boxes, after business hours, to count the coins and see if the amount of money in the box was correct, if it matched the number of customers. Sanctions, of course, were imposed on the contract women if the funds were short. Sometimes they were beaten, as though they might have been slaves. In such ways are the women encouraged to please the proprietor’s customers, or clients.
“You are a thief,” said one of the men behind the peasant.
“I am not a thief,” said the peasant.
“If you did not pay her, then you will pay me, double,” said Boon Thap.
“No,” said the peasant.
“She is my employee,” said the proprietor.
“No,” said the peasant. “She pays you rent.”
“I will beat her,” said Boon Thap.
“But she is a free woman,” said the peasant. He was not sure of these matters. Were free women in cities to be beaten? He did know that the fathers in the village would sometimes beat their wives, and their daughters. Certainly Tessa, and Lia and Sut, had been beaten, sometimes for having been seen with him, but this had not stopped them from coming back, from arranging to meet him secretly, behind the hay sheds, in the varda coops. But he had heard that on Terennia women were not to be beaten, whether they deserved it or not. That was perhaps why the women