"Oil" Jorian rolled his eyes. "She once called herself a drunken slut with a hot cleft—begging your pardon, madam—and I fear she did but speak the truth. Since she makes no bones about her love of fornication, I besmirch no lady's name in telling you. Daily we quarreled and made up. Nightly she demanded that I dip my wick, and then she'd taunt me by boasting of some former lover who, she said, could stroke three to my one. When I was king, I flatter myself that I kept five wives happy; but now I could not satisfy one. She's careless with her contraceptive spells, too. Altogether—well, I own I am the world's greatest fool for falling in love with the drab, but there it is."
"She hardly sounds beguiling, from what you say," said Goania. "Why should you, who have known the pick of a kingdom, love so cross-grained a hussy?"
Jorian scratched his new beard. "A kind of painful pleasure. There's something about her—a blunt honesty, a forceful vigor, and an intelligence that, were it but cultivated, could hold its own with learned doctors… When in a good humor she can be more fun than a cage of monkeys. And when is love controlled by rational calculations? But the last few days have wellnigh cured me. I made a little verse about it, which she did not like at alclass="underline"
"Only wellnigh cured, said you?"
"Just that. If she came hither now and pleaded and flattered, promising to be sweet and kind and to stay sober, and begging me to keep her with me throughout my journey, I should be her pliant slave again, though I knew her promises to be so much straw. Thank Zevatas, she seems to have found someone more to her taste."
Goania glanced towards the corner, where Boso and Vanora had fallen into drunken slumber, the girl's head on the man's shoulder. "O Karadur, you had better get the lad out of Othomae forthwith, ere the wench change her mind. Know you any member of our order in Vindium?"
"I stayed with Porrex on my way to Xylar, last year. A delightful colleague—so kind and considerate."
"He is also tricky; beware of him."
"Oh, I am sure so good a man is to be trusted, as far as one can trust anyone in this wicked world. I had a chance of witnessing his kindness and generosity at first hand."
Jorian asked, "Why can't you perform a divination to find the results of our intercourse with Master Porrex?"
Goania shook her head. "The practice of magic introduces into the lifeline of the practitioner too many factors from other planes and dimensions. I can divine somewhat of the luck of a layman like yourself, Master Nikko, but not those of Doctors Karadur or Porrex."
"Well then," said Jorian eagerly, "tell me what lies before met"
"Give me your hand. When and where were you born?"
"In Ardamai, Kortoli, on the fifteenth of the Month of the Lion, in the twelfth year of King Fealin the Second, about sunrise."
Goania examined Jorian's palm and thought silently for a moment. Then she held her goblet so that she could see the reflection of one of the lamps in the surface of the wine. With her other hand she made passes over the vessel, moving her fingers in complex patterns and softly whispering. At last she said:
"Beware of a bedroom window, a tinkling man, and a tiger-headed god."
"Is that all?"
"It is all I see at this time."
Familiar with the vagueness and ambiguity of oracles, Jorian did not press the wizardess for more detail. Karadur spoke, "And now, madam, or ever I forget, have you that which you promised me?"
Goania felt in her purse and brought out a small packet. "The Powder of Discord—pollen of the spotted fireweed, gathered when the Red Planet was in conjunction with the White in the Wolf. Blown into any group of men, it will cause them to bicker and fight."
"Gramercy, Mistress Goania. This may prove a mighty help in Trimandilam."
Jorian: "With the Xylarians hunting us, I would not try to walk to Vindium. We can afford horses, and we can lead the ass with our little baggage."
"No horse for me!" said Karadur. "A fall from so tall a beast would break my old bones like flowerpots. Get me another ass, instead."
"An ass would slow us."
"No more than the one you already have."
"So be it, then. When does the horse market open tomorrow?"
The folk of Vindium City observed their harvest festival, the Feast of Spooks, by dressing up as supernatural beings and dancing in their streets. Since the day was a holiday, masked Vindines began to appear in their costumes well before the early autumnal sunset. Before the dinner hour, they paraded the streets, admiring one another's costumes and trying to guess which notables were concealed by especially ornate and costly garb. The livelier events—the parade, the dancing and singing, and the costume contest—would come later.
Arriving at the West Gate while the sun was still a red ball over the tilled fields of Vindium behind them, Jorian and Karadur halted at the gate for questioning. Then they rode on into the city, Jorian on the elderly black he had bought in Othomae, Karadur riding an ass and leading another. The main street, Republic Avenue, sloped gently down from the West Gate to the waterfront. They passed the Senate House, the Magistracy, and other public buildings, wherein the austere plainness of the classical Novarian style was adulterated by a touch of florid, fanciful Mulvanian ornateness.
Porrex's dwelling, said Karadur, was near the waterfront, so thither they threaded their way through swarms of gods, demons, ghosts, ghouls, skeletons, witches, elves, trolls, werewolves, and vampires, and some clad as supernatural beings from Mulvanian legendry. Mulvanian influence showed in Vindium not only in the architecture and the costumes but also in the swarthiness of the people. When one reveler, dressed as the war god Heryx, hit Jorian's horse with a bladder on the end of a stick, Jorian had much ado to keep the beast under control.
They took a room near the waterfront, stabled their animals, and sought out the dwelling of Porrex the magician. Porrex lived in a rented room above a draper's shop.
"Come in, good my sirs, come in!" cried Porrex at the head of the stair. He was a short, round, bald man with blue eyes almost buried in fat. "Dear old Karadur! How good to see you again! And your companion—tell me not, let me guess—is Jorian son of Evor, former king of
Xylar! Come in, come in. Sit down. Let me fetch you a drop of beer; that is all I have in the place."
The room was small and sparsely furnished, with an unmade bed, a rickety chair, a table, and a small bookcase with a few tattered scrolls in the pigeonholes and a few dogeared codices on top. A couple of chests along the wall and a water-stained drawing of the god Psaan driving his chariot on the waves of the sea completed the meager appointments. A single candle inside a small lanthorn with glass windows shed a wan illumination. When silence fell, the patter of mice in their runs could be heard.