“What’s his measure as a fighter?”
“Fair.” In Ryhgon’s terminology this was high praise. Kathaos judged it accordingly.
“That interests me. I want you to keep a watch on him. He has an uneasy resemblance to the royal line of the Am Dorthar.”
“I hadn’t noticed it.”
“I would never expect you to. However, I am perhaps more familiar with that face. Don’t you think it unusual that such a Dortharian brand should be set in Sar?”
“A by-blow. Some passing Koramvin.”
“Then that Koramvin would need to have been a prince.”
“Unlikely.”
“Quite. Which leads me to a theory that perhaps your Sarite comes from a higher bed altogether, in Koramvis itself.”
Ryhgon’s eyes widened.
“Belly of earth!”
“I may, of course, be mistaken,” Kathaos said dryly.
“He would have had to know where your lordship placed your scouts.”
“Possibly he does. There is a certain careful enmity between Amrek and myself, yet I’m useful to him and not overt in what I do. But if this Sarite is some half-brother of Amrek’s, put here as the King’s spy—I think you understand me, Ryhgon.”
There was a light, indeterminate, white moth snow blowing on the wind, melting colorlessly on the pavements of the city.
Still absorbed by the melancholy dusk, Raldnor and the Lan had settled on the lower and more obscure ways of Abissa. The first wine shop they came to was unknown, but they pushed in out of the snowy dark to the murky light of greasy candles. The place was deserted.
Yannul took hold of the handbell hanging by the grate and rang it, and out of the silence of the shop came the rustling of a woman’s skirt in answer. But it was a threadbare skirt, and she little and thin and very young. As the shadow left her, Raldnor saw that she had yellow hair.
She did not speak. Yannul asked her for wine; she nodded and went out. As soon as she was gone, he said: “A Lowlander!” His voice was full of amazement. “Does she know how close she is to Amrek’s nest? How has the persecution passed her by? She must be a slave.” And then, with surprising gentleness: “Poor little mite, she looked barely old enough to couple.”
Raldnor said nothing. As once before, a terror of betrayal came on him. Then it had been the woman in the market at Abissa, but fear had found him more expectedly, and so less painfully, at that time—the physical change he had wrought on himself being still new. He saw now that in the three months of the snow he had come to think of himself as a Xarabian, and as a Vis, despite the subterfuge of the dye. True, he had nursed the old hatred for Amrek, but that had become an almost abstract thing, an emotion sufficient unto itself, a reason no longer essential. Even when she came to him in dreams, and he woke sweating on the couches of the whores, thinking himself once again in the Pleasure City, the agony of despair beginning in his skull, the focus of Anici’s death was dissociated from race. Could not a Xarabian love a Lowland girl and lose her to a monstrous perverted King? It had bitterly pleased him to study the ways of the Am Dorthar, to read their legends, and somewhere in this morass of beliefs, he had mislaid the pure monotheism of the Plains. It had been easy, in the end, to swear by gods and not by Her, the Lady of Snakes, who asked for nothing, being all.
And now this girl in her rags, a figment of his lost unhappy past, conjured to torment him with remembrance.
She returned and set cups and a stone jug on the table, and then took their payment in her chapped hands. Raldnor turned away, but even when she had gone the room seemed full of her.
Yannul gave him a brimming cup, and they gulped the raw strong drink. He noticed the Lan’s eyes on him.
“Finish your wine. This is a gloomy place, and there’s a love house five doors up,” Yannul said.
There was a sudden noise outside which did not somehow belong in these streets. The door burst open and the fire leapt.
Six men entered. They wore the black tunics and black hooded cloaks that were the casual wear of the Storm Lord’s Dragon Guard, and worked in silver upon breast and back was Amrek’s lightning blazon. They cast half looks at the house’s earlier customers, discounting them as of no importance. Kathaos’s badge was ignored. One of them spoke in a low voice. They laughed.
“A strange haunt for Amrek’s Chosen,” Yannul said softly. “Why here?”
The dragons had sat down at a trestle and, disdaining the bell, began to beat with their mailed fists on the table top.
“Let’s go,” Yannul said.
But Raldnor found he could not move. He sat like stone, staring at the inner doorway, and a moment later the Lowland girl came. She walked quietly toward the noisy table, as though unaware of any enmity in the world.
Silence fell at once. The Dragon Guard sat, their eyes riveted on her. One of them, the tallest, eased back his hood.
“Wine, little girl. And make sure you bring it yourself.”
Expressionless, the girl turned and went away. A dragon laughed.
“Spawn of the snake goddess. So the rumor was correct.”
Raldnor felt Yannul grip his shoulder.
“Let’s be on our way.”
“Wait,” Raldnor said and set down his cup; the blood thudded in his temples, and a taste of dry bone was in his mouth.
The girl came back shortly, a jug in the crook of her arm, cups caught by their stems between her fingers. She poured their wine, then stood waiting for payment.
After a while a dragon looked round at her.
“What do you want, girl?”
One of his companions leaned forward.
“She’s demanding money.”
“Money for what? For the wine?” He drained his cup and held it out to her, empty. “See, you didn’t give me any.”
A slow cold laughter circled the table.
The girl turned, presumably to go in search of the proprietor. The dragon swiftly caught her, swung her about and pushed her against the trestle.
“If you want money, little girl, you’ll have to earn it. Yes, struggle all you want. You won’t get away. Besides, you struggle very nicely.” Holding her easily with one arm, he pealed open the bodice of her dress, revealing the beautiful yet immature breasts of barely quickened puberty. “I’ve heard all you Lowland bitches are virgin. I’ve never had a virgin. How do you think that’ll compensate for the wine you never poured me, you slut?”
But something like a vise caught his shoulder and dragged him round from the girl with a force that utterly surprised him. Next came a blow of darkness in his throat and for a time the world stopped spinning. He fell across the table and was still.
The other five stared at this tall, light-eyed house guard of Kathaos Am Alisaar, who could not be anything but insane.
“Foolish,” one said, but he was smiling.
They began circling, two to get behind him, three content to wait on his capture. Raldnor understood very well that he had given them the right to kill him, but he was indeed mad, in a way. Like them, he felt a strange joy at the prospect of violence, and the big men were dwarfed by his mood—a pack he could toss off his back like beans. Then there was a yell from behind him. Yannul, it seemed, had joined the fight.
Raldnor snatched the wine jug from the table and flung the liquor in the nearest dragon’s face, leaving the two behind him for the Lan. As the man cursed and clawed his eyes, Raldnor sprang, knocking his legs from under him and sending him crashing into his neighbor. Rolling clear of the struggling heap, he brought his fist into cracking connection with a gaping jaw and kicked the other deftly with a light yet almost deadly accuracy over the heart. In the background he heard the blows of the Lan’s own iron juggler’s knuckles, and to this continuing music the third Guard slung himself against Raldnor, a short knife blazing in his hand. But he met Raldnor’s foot before his body, and next got a concussion in his guts that sent him retching and reeling to the ground. The handy stone wine jug added the finishing touch, and his knife fell harmlessly on the flags.