The woman was needed because it was traditional, and they took the evening meal in the little garret, for the Martians do not customarily eat together in the common room with strangers, save at certain feasts.
After the meal, when the woman left, the old man left them at wine and went forth into the town to speak to the caravan men. Ryker would have done this, but Melandron curtly bade him tend Valarda, and there was nothing else for him to do but acquiesce.
She turned her eyes to him once, then, and looked into his own for virtually the first time since they had shared that kiss together under the starlight.
And at what he saw in the mysterious golden eyes of the dancing girl he had rescued from the mob in Yeolarn, Ryker felt a weight lift from his heart, and the blood sang within his veins, and there was no need for him to drink wine, for he was already drunk.
For the strange light that shone in her eyes when she looked at him he thought he knew. He had seen that light once before in the eyes of a woman, and it was like the glow that glimmers in Paradise.
7. The Jest of Kiki
While the people only feast together in family groups or during certain festivities, it is traditional for them to drink together, rather than apart. And this was particularly true in towns like Yhakhah which are under Water Truce, for technically the Truce does not include travelers until they have drunk water and wine in common with strangers. It was the only form of water-sharing which does not place the Martian equivalent of blood-brotherhood upon two chance-met travelers, yet the obligation to hold the Truce is somewhat similar. And woe to him who breaks it.
Thus, although they were weary from the day’s travel, they went down into the common room to drink with the caravan men, and to listen to the latest gossip. The relayer of this was a scrawny, bright-eyed little man with a comic puckered mouth and a nubbin of a nose, called a Juhangir. The Juhangir is the People’s version of a medieval troubadour, itinerant clown, juggler and entertainer, all rolled into one in an amalgam uniquely Martian.
Between snatches of song and sketches of comic patter, the Juhangir relays the latest news and gossip, some of it months, even years, old, gathered by him during his lifelong, endless journey from town to town, city to city, camp to camp.
The Martians have no daily newsfax or stereovision commentators, they have only the wandering gossip mongerers they call Juhangir.
This particular clown, a little man named Goro, had gathered his gossip in many far places, but had—Ryker was sincerely relieved to find out—heard naught of the latest events in Yeolarn. The big Outlander had tensed himself for the bad news that a zhaggua (whatever that meant to the People) had nearly been torn apart by a mob in Yeolarn, until a F’yagh rescued her, killing a priest with his power-guns.
Ryker breathed a sigh of relief when Goro finished, collected a few coins from the audience, and bowed himself away to his cubby. If gossip of their adventures had already reached Yhakhah, it could have been bad for them.
For there were priests here, even here.
After the skinny-shanked clown was through, a dancing girl came on. She looked hardly more than twelve or thirteen, her breasts scarcely budded, and she danced with coltish grace, but with none of the breathtaking artistry of Valarda. Her dance was frankly obscene, a naked wriggling invitation, and she simpered and giggled while undulating her bare tummy and loins before the grinning men. It was a disgusting thing to see, thought Ryker, although he was no prude and once he might have found it crudely exciting.
If they needed to replenish their dwindling store of coins here in Yhakhah, he thought to himself, Valarda could earn a fortune. The awkward nymphet barely wrung enough from her audience to buy a bauble, and went off to her grubby pallet accompanied by a leering, swaggering lout who would pay her scarcely more for a more intimate form of entertainment.
The room was large and long and low ceilinged, walled and roofed with stone, and floored with ancient, subtly colored tiles most likely thieved from one of the Dead Cities. It had a carved stone fireplace at one end, its
He gasped and half-rose. In the next instant warm, supple limbs twined about him, pressing him down, and a mouth was upon his own. He returned the kiss avidly, hungrily, his hands gliding down a curved back to slim thighs, his heart drumming.
Then he froze incredulously, scarce daring to think.
He caught slim shoulders, pried the body from his own, and slid his hands up between them.
Instead of soft, yielding roundness, he touched the smooth, hard breast of a boy.
Roaring a furious oath in a voice half-strangled with fury, he jerked free and pulled away.
“You little imp!” he yelled, “I’ll tan your bottom for you, if I ever get my hands on you!”
Doubled over with crowing laughter, Kiki scrambled from the cubicle, pausing momentarily at the part in the curtains to dart a mischievous, green-eyed glance at the contorted, crimsoning face of the outraged Earthling.
Then, with an impudent wiggle of his bare bottom, the grinning boy was gone.
His fury subsiding, Ryker sank back. Then it struck him funny in a sour way, and he grimaced, chuckling. The little rascal!—and he had taken it for granted that slim, vibrant body, bare against his own, was Valarda! And that eager, voluptuous mouth—
He scrubbed the back of his hand against his lips furiously. Maybe it served him right for thinking the dancer could go for a hairy, hulking Outworlder like himself.
But he resolved to get even with Kiki somehow. The urchin would bait him mercilessly for days over the success of his jest, otherwise.
Houm was a fat, merry man with a greasy, obsequious smile which contrasted curiously with his lordly ways. His fawning smiles, however, reached no further than his lips, and his small, slitted eyes were shrewd and coldly calculating.
He affected princely raiment and seemed forever to be stuffing sweetmeats in his mouth. And he wore altogether too many rings on his pudgy fingers for Ryker’s liking.
Ryker did not like the man. Neither did he entirely trust him.
For his own part, though, the merchant from Bakrah seemed eager to have them ride north with his caravan, and was happy to have so stalwart a warrior as Ryker to join his outriders. These were needed to guard the caravan against the possibility of marauders, for danger was always present in these northerly regions, which were far beyond the territories protected by the rule of the great High Clan princes. Outlaw bands might well lurk among the ravines of Casius to ambush passersby; and even slavers were not unknown north of Syrtis.
One more outrider was a welcome addition to Houm’s troop of guards, even if he was a F’yagh. The fat man measured Ryker’s tall, brawny frame, noted his hard, suspicious eyes and the way the tips of his calloused lingers never strayed far from the well-worn gun butts, and nodded approvingly.
The chief of Houm’s guards was a rangy, wolfish warrior called Xinga. If anything, the desert rider looked even more of a ruffian than the lean, leathery men he commanded. But he looked capable enough. Xinga assigned Ryker to the right guard of the caravan’s front, and Ryker gave a surly nod of assent. He did not like to be separated from Valarda, but had no say in the matter.
At least, his assignment would keep him out of reach of Kiki’s knowing grins for the day. The boy had burst into fits of giggling every time he saw the grumpy expression on Ryker’s face, and the big man had flushed crimson each time this happened, and yearned to up-end the child and apply the palm of his strong right hand to that bare and impudent little bottom.