“Meaning no disrespect to Billy,” Donovan continued, “I doubt a Rajiloor tavern-master has the wealth to subborn fifteen rivermen. Earlier today, we passed a boundary cairn on the riverbank. We passed from Rajiloor to Jebelsanmèesh.”
Sloofy entered the tent, followed by Teodorq. The Wildman had loosened the thong on his scabbard.
The translator smiled. “What do my masters want with Sloofy?” But his smile slowly faded to match the faces he saw around him. “Have I done something to displease?”
Donovan spoke to him in clear Gaelactic. “When do they plan to strike?”
The translator went pale. He stammered ignorance, but Billy shook his head. “That will not do. We know everything. You need only tell us the rest.”
It was a formula that had struck terror in many hearts; but it meant nothing to Sloofy.
“My companion,” said Donovan, to make the matter plain, “practices an art by which others are brought to answer questions.”
Now Sloofy began to tremble. “No, a’yaih. I am but a piece played on the shadranech board of great men.”
“If you are so worthless,” Billy suggested, “you will not be missed.”
“I think,” said Méarana kindly, “that you had better tell us everything.”
Sloofy turned to her as if to his savior. “Yes, O sadie. I will withhold nothing!”
“It was the Rice of Jebelsanmèesh who hired you?” said Donovan.
“My master knows all things. Men of his gave me coins to purchase the boatmen, and promise of more when…the deed…was done.”
Méarana turned to her father. “Lafeev seemed friendly when we spoke.”
“But the Rice of Jebelsanmèesh,” Donovan said, “is also the Dūq of the jewelry trade. And we are searching for the source of one of his best exports.”
“But we’re not interested in the jewelry,” Méarana said. “We’re looking for my mother.”
“Lafeev could not imagine why anyone would go on such a mad quest. And I can’t say I blame him. He decided it was a cover for our true purpose, which was to cut him out of the jewel trade.”
Billy said, “A mind already wary will gaze on all with suspicion.”
“When did they plan to strike?” Donovan asked the translator again.
Sloofy stammered. “They will kill me if I tell you.”
Billy said, “And we will kill you if you don’t.” He spread his hands in helplessness.
“Hell of a dilemma,” said Teodorq. “Ain’t it?”
Billy continued. “But consider that at our hands, it might take far longer. You might live for many days before the jackals and kites find you.”
Paulie said, “He don’t look so happy about a longer life.”
Donovan asked gently, “Are all the boatmen in the plot?”
The translator nodded. “No. There are three who have not been told, because they are not blood relatives. Neither has the abominable Djamos, whose mother was a slut from the gorge. When the hammer falls, these four will be given the choice to join the boatmen or to join you with the fishes.”
“Tough choice,” Paulie acknowledged.
Donovan looked across his shoulder. “Teodorq?”
“Aye, boss. I’ll fetch ‘im.” And he ducked out the tent flap.
“When were they to carry out this deed?” Donovan continued to Sloofy.
“After we have crossed into Jebelsanmèesh, lest the deed offend the Qaysar of Rajiloor, and a little ways into the Roaring Gorge, so that blame may be laid upon the Gorgeous Folk.” Sloofy swallowed hard. “Likely tonight, after you are asleep, and they have rested from their punting.”
“Not farther up the gorge?”
“No, lord. They want to blame the Gorgeous, not actually encounter them.”
Donovan nodded, looked at the others. “There you have it. Do you see any problems?”
Billy shook his head. “Yes. How are we to handle three durm boats if all the boatmen are dead?”
“We’ll manage somehow,” Donovan said. “Depends on the other three, I guess.”
Teodorq re-entered with Djamos held by the scruff of his neck. “Found him, boss. Where do you want him?”
But Sloofy said, “The gods have maddened you. You face twelve men, at least. You have only two fighting men. And maybe this one—” He indicated Billy. “—is more than mere talk. But the soft one will be as nothing in a fight, and what use an old man and a bini?”
Donovan looked at Teodorq. “What do you think?”
Nagarajan scratched his head. “Three boats-full? I can handle one. Paulie can maybe handle most of the second. That leaves five for the rest of you. I don’t think this thing-found-on-my-shoe-bottom understands what his friends are biting off.”
The confidence of the “regarders” was beginning to undermine the translator’s certainty. Méarana only wished it would bolster hers. But she knew not to show fear in front of the enemy. “I could play my harp,” she suggested.
Billy began to laugh, but Donovan shushed him and both Sloofy and Djamos showed genuine alarm. Sloofy tried again. “Your occult arts will not help you.”
Donovan turned to Djamos. “How much do you know about this?” he asked in the language of Riverbridge.
Djamos glanced at his colleague. “I knew these downstream dogs planned something ill, but I thought to stand aside and see how things played out.”
“There’s a brave soul,” said Paulie.
Djamos shrugged. “Foolish is the man who dies in another’s quarrel.” But he saw the faces of Donovan and Billy, and he said, “But I see that the matter is settled, so let it be fighting the downriver dogs rather than aiding them.”
They did not kill Sloofy. Billy wanted to, but Donovan said that would alert the boatmen. Instead, he would join them at their fire, which they built farther up the shelf, away from the others. In the dim light, it would not be evident that Sloofy was bound and gagged. Billy cautioned him to sit still because if he tried to raise an alarm he would die “the first death and the last.” Sloofy understood. “What do I owe those upriver wharf rats?” he asked before they jammed the ball in his mouth. It was a rhetorical question. By his own admission, he owed them the second installment of Lafeev’s payment.
“A man who is willing to kill another for his gold,” Donovan told Méarana, “is seldom willing to die for it.”
Méarana placed a camp chair outside the tent and perched her harp on her lap. She tuned it to the third mode, humming a bit to herself. The boatmen lay about on blankets a little ways off and watched with some curiosity. One man spread an ointment on another’s shoulders. Yes, it could not have been an easy day for them, working the setting poles. Yet while it had been needful to reach the gorge before doing the deed, they did not want to linger too long in this place.
She remembered how they had rubbed their hands, licked their lips. Not anticipation, she realized. They were wharfside thugs, not professional assassins. They must nerve themselves up to the deed. They would probably start drinking soon.
She sang the “Tragedy of Hendryk Shang.” A well-known poem on Die Bold, the translation into the loor nuxtjes’r was tricky. She rehearsed the words sotto vocee, letting the earwig suggest the proper phrasing, then doing it over because she wanted a poetic translation, not a literal one. She was not entirely happy, for the poetic standards for the two languages were very different; but great poetry was not her intent.
Hendryk Shang had famously sold his lord to his enemies for a bag of silver coins. But once Lord Venable was in his enemy’s clutches, his captors refused to pay Shang, and so the man was left with no money, no lord, and no honor. Méarana sang the tale not as that of a good but desperate man who had succumbed to temptation. Such subtleties were for the concert halls of Èlfiuji not a sandy bench in the Roaring Gorge. She sang it as a satire. Shang as an object of ridicule and shame to his family, his friends, his profession.