"By the way," said Mjipa, "I just saw our friend Kuimaj, the herald from Ainkhist, loitering out front with some bully-boys. You'd better not use the front door without me or Minyev in attendance."
"You think they'd snatch me off the street?"
Mjipa shrugged. "One never knows. Let's not take unnecessary chances."
"A fat lot of good Minyev would be in such a case! He'd run like a rabbit."
Hearing his name spoken but not understanding the English, Minyev stared in puzzlement from one to the other.
"Then you'd better start out with me," said Mjipa. "On the way back, let's meet at the Fountain of the Crippled God before we return together. Can you find it?"
"Of course! I know all the nearby streets like the palm of my hand."
"Yes? Pride goeth before a fall. After all, we did get lost three nights ago, the night we met Khostavorn."
"It was four nights ago, and the reason we got lost was that you insisted on turning left when I wanted to turn right."
"Oh, have it your own way, nitpicker! And, Minyev!"
"Aye, my lord?"
"I wish to borrow that hooded cloak of yours."
If Minyev's cloak was too small for the towering black man, its hood at least concealed his bush of woolly hair. The three set forth, Minyev in one direction and Mjipa and Alicia in the other. Across the street, Kuimaj and his minions stared sullenly.
At the Fountain of the Crippled God, Mjipa sent Alicia off to the food markets, while he continued on to the Old Prison. As Roqir dipped behind the roofs of the nearer houses, he entered the prison and presented his forged release order to the warden.
The warden stared at the document. He called in another jailer, and the two held a muttered consultation. Mjipa thanked the Krishnan gods that Krishna was yet innocent of the telephone, which would have enabled the warden to confirm the order in a few minutes.
From his desk table, the warden brought out another document and compared the two. He murmured: "Verily, that's the Phathvum's true signature." Rising, he beckoned Mjipa down the corridor to Isayin's cell.
The learned Krishnan's eyes lit up as his cell door was unlocked. Mjipa handed him Minyev's cloak, saying: "Put this on, Doctor."
As they started back down the corridor, the warden said: "Ye must needs sign a receipt for this prisoner, Master Terran."
"Certainly. Where's a form?"
From his desk, the warden produced a square of paper covered with writing. Mjipa signed "William Shakespeare" with a flourish. Then he and Isayin emerged into the dusk.
At the Fountain of the Crippled God, Alicia had not yet arrived. Mjipa and Isayin waited for most of an hour, while Mjipa endured the curiosity of Kalwmians who gathered round to stare and ask questions: "Be your world flat, like unto ours? Or of some other shape, like a cube?" "Hath it wild bishtars, yekis, and their ilk?" "Is't covered by one vast sea, wherein sit islands?" "Canst tell me how to cure an obstruction of the breathing passages?" "In sooth, be Terran males so puissant that one can futter a hundred dames in a single night?"
Although the questioners paid little attention to Isayin, who seemed an ordinary Kalwmian, the scholar nevertheless complained: "Master Mjipa, this is most distasteful. Canst not drive them away? Or let us speak only Gozashtandou?"
"They've already heard us speaking Khaldoni, so it's too late for that." The consul, who had begun to enjoy fencing with the questioners, turned back to the last one. "As to that, goodman, I fear the reports exaggerate. Only in myth and legend can Terran males perform as you asked."
"Why comes not your companion?" grumbled Isayin."If the palace inquire after me ..."
"She'll come when she comes!" snapped Mjipa. "Ah, there she is."
Alicia appeared, carrying a large string bag loaded with foodstuffs. The three returned to the inn, where they found that Minyev had already arrived. Mjipa hustled Isayin to his room, saying:"We'll fetch your supper to you. Be careful of those paint pots!"
After supper, Mjipa and Minyev unpacked the rest of the supplies Minyev had bought and set about turning Isayin into a Zhamanacian. While Minyev mixed paints, Mjipa shaved Isayin's scalp, inflicting a few small cuts.
"Why could you not have taken me to a proper barber?" complained Isayin. "You've all but scalped me, as the barbarians of Qaath are said to do to their fallen foes."
"Oh, stop whining!" said Mjipa. "If we'd gone to a barber, the authorities could have traced you through him. Now hold still, or you'll be cut again."
Alicia looked in to see how the job was going. "Doctor," she said, "have you a wife or other dependents?"
"Not now."
"You mean you did? Did she die, or what?"
"If you must know, Mistress Dyckman, she ran away with a traveling musician."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!"
" 'Twas not without compensating advantages. She said she found life with me intolerable because of my incessant complaining. Verily, mistress, was that not most unfair? I am not a chronic caviler, now am I?" Without awaiting a reply, the savant went on: "Next year she came back, saying the musician was a ramandu addict and insane to boot, and that moreover he sought to futter every dame he met. She begged forgiveness, so I took her back.
"Next year she ran away with a sea captain. Again she came back, telling how he had beaten her; so I took her back again. The third time 'twas an aya-trader who, tiring of her, left her stranded in Yein. This time, recokining thrice to be two times too may, I denied her prayer for reconciliation and sundered our union."
"Have you seen her since?"
"Oh, aye, betimes she comes to clean the house, saying she cannot abide the dirt and disorder whereinto it falls in her absence. Afterwards she seeks my bed, hoping that after a canter conjugal I shall soften and relent. Whereas I rise to the occasion—I am not all through yet—nameless, with Roqir's red rising I send her forth. As saith Nehavend, all err, but the fool is he who perseverates in's errors. And thus it hath been for lo these seventeen years."
"Just like Homo sapiens," said Mjipa in English.
"It sounds to me," said Alicia, "like they deserved each other."
"Don't jump to conclusions. They could both be people of excellent qualities and still not be able to get along." Like you and me, he mentally added.
When the task was done, Mjipa said: "Now off with that kilt, Doctor. I'm told that in Zhamanak they deem all clothing effeminate."
"Ah, the indignities I suffer!" sighed Isayin, dropping his kilt. "If you will apply a pair of scarlet spirals to my back, methinks I can manage the rest."
By midnight the task was done. Mjipa said: "Put on the cloak again, Doctor. It'll blend with the darkness."
The street before Irants's Inn appeared deserted when Mjipa and Isayin set forth, the latter carrying the provisions Alicia had purchased. When Mjipa let out his full stride, Isayin complained: "Slowly, pray! I cannot keep up with those shomal's legs of yours, Terran."
Mjipa slowed down. In the dark he took a wrong turning and got lost. This time there was no squad of the night watch handy to set him right. Even if there had been, Mjipa would not have dared to accost them, fearing any contact with officialdom at this stage. He wished he had brought Alicia, with her infallible sense of direction.
Isayin was not of much help, grumbling: "Nay, Master Mjipa. I know not this old section. Why didst not make out a map or itinerary ere starting? Twould seem an obvious logical step."
"If we keep north," said Mjipa, "we're bound to strike the waterfront, and thence we can beat out way westward to the tower."
"If we get not our throats cut. The waterfront's a lobbish lieu."
Mjipa felt rising exasperation at Isayin's constant carping. "Have you any better ideas? No? Would you rather go back to the Old Prison? Well, then."