It was here that the stream we had followed emptied into Gyoll, and here there were xebecs, carracks, and feluccas tied up along the riverfront. We asked for their captains, but all had gone ashore on missions of business or pleasure, and the sullen watchmen left to guard their vessels assured us we would have to return in the morning. One recommended the Chowder Pot; we were on our way there when we happened upon a man robed in tyrian and green, who stood upon an inverted tub addressing an audience of a hundred or so:
“—buried treasure! Everything hidden revealed! If there are three birds in a bush, the third may not know of the first, but I know. There is a ring — even as I speak — beneath the pillow of our ruler, the wise, the transcendent — Thank you, my good woman. What is it you wish to know? I know it, to be sure, but allow these good folk to hear it. Then I shall reveal it.”
A fat townswoman had handed him a few aes. Burgundofara said, “Come on. I’d like to sit down and get something to eat.”
“Wait,” I told her.
I stayed in part because the mountebank’s patter reminded me of Dr. Tabs, and in larger part because something in his eyes recalled Abundantius. Yet there was another thing more fundamental than either, though I am not certain I can explain it. I sensed that this stranger had traveled as I had, that we had gone far and returned in a way that even Burgundofara had not; and that though we had not gone to the same place or returned with the same gain, we had both known strange roads.
The fat woman muttered something; the mountebank announced, “She begs to be informed as to whether her husband will find a new site for his stew, and whether the venture will succeed.”
He threw his arms above his head, clasping a long wand with both hands. His eyes remained open, rolling upward until the whites showed like the skins of two boiled eggs. I smiled, expecting the crowd to laugh; yet there was something terrible about his blind, invocatory figure, and no one did. We heard the lapping of the river and the sigh of the evening breeze, though it blew too gently to stir my hair.
Abruptly his arms fell and his snapping black eyes were back in place. “The answers are: Yes! And yes! The new bathhouse will stand not half a league from where we are now.”
“Easy enough,” Burgundofara whispered. “The whole town can’t be a league across.”
“And you shall have more from it than you ever had from the old,” the mountebank promised. “But now, my dear friends, before the next question I wish to tell you something more. You think I prophesied for the money this good woman gave me.” He had retained the aes in his hand. Now he tossed them up in a dark little column against the darkening sky. “Well, you’re wrong, my friends! Here!”
He flung them to the crowd, a good deal more than he had received from the woman, I think. There was a wild scramble.
I said, “All right, let’s go.”
Burgundofara shook her head. “I want to listen to this.”
“These are bad times, friends! You are hungry for wonders. For thaumaturgical cures and apples from pine trees! Why, only this afternoon I learned that some quack-salver has been touring the villages up the Fluminis, and was headed our way.” His gaze locked with mine. “I know that he is here now. I dare him to step forward. We shall hold a competition for you, friends — a trial of magic! Come, fellow. Come to Ceryx!”
The crowd stirred and murmured. I smiled and shook my head.
“You, my good man.” He leveled a finger at me. “Do you know what it is to train your will until it’s like a bar of iron? To drive your spirit before you like a slave? To toil ceaselessly for an end that may never come, a prize so remote that it seems it will never come?”
I shook my head.
“Answer! Let them hear you!”
“No,” I said. “I haven’t done those things.”
“Yet they are what must be done, if you would seize the scepter of the Increate!”
I said, “I know nothing of seizing that scepter. To tell the truth, I’m certain it could not be done. If you wish to be as the Increate is, I question whether you can do it by acting as the Increate does not.”
I took Burgundofara by the arm and drew her away. We had passed one narrow side street when the staff I had been given in Gurgustii snapped with a loud report. I tossed the half that had remained in my hand into the gutter, and we continued up the steep slope that led from the embankment to the Chowder Pot.
It seemed a decent enough inn; I noticed that those who had gathered in its public room seemed to be eating almost as much as drinking, which was ever a favorable sign. When the host leaned across his bar to speak to us, I asked whether he could provide us with supper and a quiet room.
“Indeed I can, sieur. Not equal to your station, sieur, but as good as you’ll find in Os.”
I got out one of Idas’s chrisos. He took it, stared at it for a moment as though surprised, and said, “Of course, sieur. Yes, of course. See me in the morning, sieur, and I’ll have your change for you. Perhaps you’d like your supper served in your room?”
I shook my head.
“A table, then. You’ll want to be far from the door, the bar, and the kitchen. I understand. Over there, sieur — the table with the cloth. Would that suit you?”
I told him it would.
“We’ve all manner of freshwater fish, sieur. Freshly caught, too. Our chowder’s quite famous. Sole and salmon, smoked or salted. Game, beef, veal, lamb, fowl…?”
I said, “I’ve heard food’s hard to come by in this part of the world.”
He looked troubled. “Crop failures. Yes, sieur. This is the third in a row. Bread’s very dear — not for you, sieur, but for the poor. Many a poor child will go to bed hungry tonight, so let’s give thanks that we don’t have to.”
Burgundofara asked, “You’ve no fresh salmon?”
“Only in the spring, I’m afraid. That’s when they run, my lady. Otherwise they’re sea caught, and they won’t stand the trip so far up the river.
“Salt salmon, then.”
“You’ll like it, my lady — put down in our own kitchen not three months ago. You needn’t trouble about bread, fruit, and so on now. We’ll bring everything, and you may choose when you see it. We’ve bananas from the north, though the rebellion makes them dear. Red wine or white?”
“Red, I think. Do you recommend it?”
“I recommend all our wines, my lady. I won’t have a cask in my cellar I can’t recommend.”
“Red, then.”
“Very good, my lady. And for you, sieur?”
A moment before, I would have said I was not hungry. Now I found I salivated at the mere mention of food; it was impossible to decide what I wanted most.
“Pheasant, sieur? We’ve a fine one in the spring house.”
“All right. No wine, though. Mate. Do you have it?”
“Of course, sieur.”
“Then I’ll drink that. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted it.”
“It should be ready at once, sieur. Will there be anything more for you?”
“Only an early breakfast tomorrow; we’ll be going to the quay to arrange passage to Nessus. I’ll expect my change then.”
“I’ll have it for you, sieur, and a good, hot breakfast in the morning, too. Sausages, sieur. Ham, and…”
I nodded and waved him away.
When be was gone, Burgundofara asked, “Why didn’t you want to eat in our room? It would have been much nicer.”
“Because I have hopes of learning something. And because I don’t want to be by myself, to have to think.”
“I’d be there.”