Sarazin smiled, then walked back to his horse. Then noticed his brothers staring at him. But it was Lod of Chenameg who spoke.
'It was nice knowing you, Sarazin my friend, but I fear I'll know you no longer. To drink from the Velvet River means certain death by nightfall.'
'Gahl' said Sarazin, in a rare display of perfect idiomatic Churl.
But his brothers chaffed him about his recklessness until it was time to board the slave-powered ferry for the trip north to the city of his destiny. Once aboard, Sarazin did not sit. It was too crowded, there were no seats – and his buttocks were raw from the saddle. Padded with greasy raw wool he had managed to ride – but only just.
Lod continued to josh him about drinking riverwater. Had he really made a bad mistake? He thought to ask Jarl about it – but Jarl had vanished. Sarazin, desolated, feared him gone for good. Thus it happens in legend. The old swordmaster trains the youth who is fated to dare all on a perilous quest for power or treasure. Then the master dies, retires or vanishes, leaving youth to battle unaided against the evil wizard, the red dragon, the pit of claws, the halfelven enemy or whatever it is.
Momentarily, Sarazin was half-convinced he had indeed embarked on a life of legend. After all, he had always known he was meant for great things. But, as he realised in a moment of utter panic, he was far from ready to dare such a destiny unaided.
Thodric Jarl, hemmed in by horses, heaped baggage and a rabble of peasants, dourly pondered Sarazin's chances. Jarl's good advice, thrice repeated, might save him from a few of early manhood's egregious errors. But Selzirk's politics would probably prove lethal.
While Sarazin lived, Jarl had an easy living. He would draw a spy's pay from the Rice Empire, and might win some position in Selzirk itself. But when the boy died? He'd manage, but… he was getting too old for new cities, new languages, new beginnings. At age forty-five – yesterday had been his birthday, and, while he had mentioned it to nobody, he was keeping count – he wanted to settle down. He had seen all, had done all, and had been everywhere. Long ago.
– Voice was good. The same again would be more than enough.
Yes. A quiet life, a steady routine and good pay. The soft years in Voice had been the best of his life. He had been furious when Lord Regan had ordered him north with Sarazin. -When Sarazin dies, what then? Rovac, maybe?
No. Though Jarl oft toyed with notions of returning home to Rovac, far west in the Central Ocean's wastelands, he knew such thoughts were idle. In youth, he had made eighty-nine death-feud enemies amongst the Rovac, for his temper had been formidable even by the standards of those formidable mercenary killers. Plus he had known, all too well, how to hold a grudge.
Some of those enemies would doubtless be dead by now; others, like the accursed oathbreaker Rolf Thelemite, would never dare show themselves in Rovac. But enough would remain. If Jarl went home, it would be killing for certain. Worse, amongst those who would go against him with sword, there would be some he longed to count as friends.
– We quarrelled over nothing when we were young. But then, that is youth, isn't it? And I had no mentor to teach me better. I had to learn everything the hard way.
Nearby, Elkin was complaining. His foot had been trodden on. 'Why don't you get some boots?' said Jarl.
'Because,' said Elkin, who had worn open-weave sandals throughout their journey, 'I hate the smell of dirty socks.'
What was Elkin's mission in Selzirk? Had he truly come north at Lord Regan's command? If so, did the Rice Empire's ruler want him as just one more spy in the city? Or as what? Who would know? Not Sarazin, that was for certain. He knew nothing – not even that Jarl was coming north as a spy.
– My lord perhaps plays a deep and subtle game. But what game? Logic may tell, for I know power by face and backside both. Perhaps Lord Regan reserves the truth to test my powers of divination. Mayhap the mystery is a test,
'You'll love Selzirk,' said Lod. 'Why, its very brothels are grander than my father's palace in Shin.' 'Shin?' said Sarazin.
'Chenameg's capital,' said Lod, with amusement. 'Have you not studied the world? I thought this Elkin lettered you.'
"Many years have we spent in scholarship,' said Sarazin. 'We have studied languages, philosophy, botany and poetry.'
'Ah,' said Lod, "but now you are out and about in the world, you must learn your geography.'
And he launched into an impromptu disquisition on the Chenameg Kingdom. This Sarazin ignored, having found Lod to be a fanciful fellow, given to extravagant embroidery of any truth unfortunate enough to fall to his possession.
'Here we are,' said Lod, as the ferry came alongside one of the wharves of Jone, the dockside quarter. 'What are you staring at?' There's a hole in the wall!' said Sarazin, outraged.
True enough. A section a hundred paces long was missing from Ol Ilkeen, the outer battle-wall of Selzirk.
That is no hole,' said Lod. That is but the river gate. In time of war the gate wardens will close it with heaps of horseshit and such.' 'This is scandalous!' said Sarazin.
'A military obscenity, perhaps,' agreed Lod, "but this is no time to be prudish. You've other things to think of. Soon you'll see your mother. Your brother Benthorn, too. How long since you saw him last?' 'Pardon?' said Sarazin. 'Benthorn,' said Lod. When did you see him last?'
How embarrassing! Were Chenameg's sons entirely ignorant of etiquette? Knowledge of Benthorn had reached Sarazin even in Voice; he knew well enough the fellow was a hunchbacked moron who worked on a dung cart and was reputed to be both an atheist and a child molester.
'Aren't three brothers enough?' said Sarazin, hinting to Lod that he should drop the subject.
'Do you jest?' said Lod. 'Or do you mean to disown Benthorn?'
'Oh, him,' said Sarazin, seeing Lod was not to be deterred. 'He's but a half-brother. In any case, how can I own or disown him when I know nothing of him? I was but four when I was taken from my mother's arms to be exiled as a hostage.' 'Then I'll tell you what I know of him,' said Lod.
But Sarazin was spared this further embarrassment, for the loading ramps of the ferry were in place, and conver- sation became impossible in the chaotic imbroglio as travellers, peasants, soldiers, horses, dogs, pigs, chickens and baggage were disembarked.
Sarazin was scarcely off the ferry when he was separated from his brothers, his horse, his tutors. His brothers could fend for themselves – but his steed? 'My horse!' he cried. 'It's gone!'
'Relax,' said Lod. 'Celadon's got your horse. Let him worry it to the palace. We'll be there on foot before him. Come – the press will ease once we're clear of the wharves. But guard your purse!'
Tvly purse? Ah – that's gone already! No matter. It held but a bent bronze triner.' True: the last of Sarazin's cash had been spent in Voice 30 buying favours from Jaluba, she of the passionate lips, the gauze-veiled (and sometimes unveiled) breasts.
Already Lod was hustling Sarazin onward. Despite Lod's predictions, the crush grew no less once they cleared the wharves. Sarazin was shocked by the heat, stench and crowds of the city in summer, by the ill-mannered jostling, the hawkers bawling in Churl, the inordinate amount of dung on the streets.
Tell me,' said he, pressing himself against a wall as three dozen muck-stained heifers shouldered past with a clatter of hooves, 'is there no law against herding cattle through Selzirk?'
There are laws against all dung-dropping animals,' said Lod, 'not discounting our noble servant the horse. But none such can be enforced, for our rulers fear the wrath of those who love dogs. Those irrationals would rise in rage, if not in revolution – and who could tell where that would end?'