“She ain’t—”
“She’s got her sword!”
Nath the Sly felt cheated.
“Get on her, you fools!”
One of the men surged forward, a black batlike shape.
Silda had no wish to slay them. Oh, yes, there were plenty of girls who would joy in sticking a length of tempered steel into their bellies, one after the other. But Silda’s emotions were held in check. She was a cool fighting machine, and as such not about to spill blood that could be avoided. Her cover remained more important than simple vengeance.
Delicately, she pinked that outstretched arm.
The fellow yelped as though branded and stumbled back.
“Onkers! Idiots!” Silda poised ready for anything.
“Get her!” screeched Nath. He did not lunge forward, preferring to leave the heavy stuff to his half-drunken companions.
Standing in the darkness she was practically invisible to them, while they stood out as black silhouettes.
“Run off, you unhanged cramphs, or I’ll spit you through, one after the other!
Bratch!
”
They did not bratch there and then, although they hung back. Nath whispered ferociously and Silda just glimpsed in time the upraised arm and the flung cudgel.
The common folk of Vallia are adept and swift at throwing cudgels and knives.
She ducked. The wood clipped her across the forehead, bounced, clattered against the cobbles. She felt a wave of dizziness sweep over her, and ground her teeth together and fought the ugly wave of weakness that dragged at her knees. She remained upright, warily watching, and she used her training to push away the pain.
“Right, you rasts. You’re done for now. By Vox!” she got out, half-gasping. “I’ll have your ears!”
Her head felt light, like a feather, and as she moved forward that silly head seemed to want to go ahead on its own, her body stumbling after. She flicked the rapier into line. The little ’un. He was the bastard to go for...
One of the men husked out: “I’m off. Come on — she’s probably got no gold, anyway.”
Silda lined up, poised, and lunged.
With a cry of pure horror Nath the Sly leaped like a salmon, just avoided the blade that would have skewered his right arm. He took the point in his elbow and for a breathless heartbeat Silda fancied the rapier would hang up entangled in his bones. She whipped it free and immediately slashed it hard down the arm of the next fellow.
That settled it.
Their clumsy farm shoes clattered on cobbles.
This unpleasant incident, Silda was aware, was one of the ugly results of drink.
Except — except that little ’un, the one the others called Nath, had clearly been intent on dark business.
Well, there were thousands of Naths on Kregen, named for the fabled hero of many an epic legend. Nath was just about the most common and most favored name in Kregen. The precious metal Nathium was reputed to hold magical qualities in its silky texture. She put her left hand to her forehead, and felt stickiness.
She had not drawn her main gauche. The whole stupid incident hardly seemed to merit great concern. She took her hand away from her forehead and lightly touched the brown leather and canvas bag slung at her side.
Poor hulus! If she’d... Well, they’d have either run screaming, or tried to scream without faces...
It was absolutely imperative then for her to lean against the greasy wall and to suck in draughts of the evening air. She did not so much shudder as let the shakes cleanse the feeling of dirt from her.
After wiping her forehead, she cleaned the rapier on the oiled rag all prudent warriors carried against this kind of eventuality, and sauntered out onto the street.
There was, of course, no sign of the four drunks and their evil genius, Nath. What his sobriquet might be, Silda did not know. Probably it was the Cunning, or the Clever, or the Fixer.
Plenty of the girls she knew would piously hope that the little runt’s elbow would seize up and would never work properly again.
And, being apim, Homo sapiens, he had only two arms.
The various races of Kregen blessed with four arms, or a tail hand, were, she had often thought, extremely lucky. To have four arms in a fight! Or to have a tail with a dagger strapped to the tip, or, like the Pachaks, a hand with which to grasp a blade... How perfectly splendid that would be!
Walking along, she kept herself more on the qui vive than she would have done before the fracas. Lon the Knees had said that he did not think The Leather Bottle would be the nicest place for a lady to meet him, and had suggested an inn, The Silver Lotus, which he considered suitable. In the ordinary course of his life, Lon would never dream of entering so expensive and so — to him — high class an establishment. But he’d mumbled something to her about a deal he could arrange, and she’d gathered he was going to do something particular to find the silver stivers necessary for admittance.
People like Lon, and those louts back there, habitually worked in copper or bronze coins. Silver was hailed with joy. Gold — wha’ that?
Just about the only way they’d get their Diproo-fingers on gold was the way they’d tried in the alley. And, to be sure, during the Times of Troubles many lawless men had snatched more gold than they, their fathers and grandfathers, and sons and grandsons, would ordinarily see in their combined lifetimes.
Lon the Knees, face aflame, nose a purple beacon, eyes brimming, looked splendiferous. He glowed. He waited under the dismounting porch so that he might enter the inn with the lady, and glory in the feeling that all eyes would be fixed upon his companion.
“Lahal, Lon.”
“Lahal, my lady.”
Silda composed her face. Then she contrived a dazzling smile. She really wanted to bust a gut laughing.
Lon! Lon the Knees! His famous bandy legs were encased in riding breeches that almost fitted, and their color owed more to judiciously applied brown chalk than to natural cloth. He’d borrowed those, that was for sure. Yet they were not too far removed from the usual Vallian buff breeches the gentlefolk wore.
His boots glittered. Silda did not make too close an inspection of them. But that superb polished shine, that had come only from loving ministrations right here under the dismounting porch, for most people’s boots were dusty if they walked a pace or two. Her own were a sorry mess compared with Lon’s.
And his coat! Now where the hell had he got that from? Originally the garment had been a khiganer, a heavy brown tunic that fastened by a wide flap along the left side of the body and along the left shoulder. The neck came in a variety of styles, and this specimen possessed what appeared to Silda to be the highest, stiffest, most constricting neck she’d ever seen fitted to a khiganer. Lon’s chin jutted out like a chick sticking his neck out of the egg.
The arms of the khiganer had been cut off to reveal the loose flowing sleeves of Lon’s shirt. The color was ivory, for he did not wear the normal bands of color denoting allegiances. Silda was prepared to take a bet that Lon was wearing sleeves and no shirt at all.
He wore no hat. This was probably, Silda decided, because he had been unable to beg, borrow or steal one of the typical Vallian floppy hats with the brave feathers. His own headgear, a skull cap, a head band, would be quite inappropriate here.
The main gauche was thrust down into his belt and from somewhere he’d cobbled together a quite respectable scabbard for the dagger.
Lon quivered.
“Shall we go in, my lady?”
“By all means, Lon. I am looking forward to a pleasant evening.”
“Shall you wish to see the illuminations, my lady?”
He wouldn’t normally speak like that. He was trying to suit his language to the importance of the occasion.
She halted.
“Lon — two things. One: speak nicely but normally. Two: Don’t keep on my lady all the time. My name is Lyss. Use it when you have to.”
Lon swallowed.
“Yes, my la — Yes, Lyss.”
So that meant that Silda was back into the persona of Lyss the Lone again. She sighed and went up the steps with Lon into The Silver Lotus. She’d be damned happy when all this present untidiness was over and she could go home and see Drak. That made her think of that awful Queen Lush. The fat scheming bitch! No doubt at this very minute she was fluttering her eyelashes at Drak, and oohing and aahing, and arching her back — the fat cow — and stinking of too much scent and — and — and she was with Drak! It was just about too much.
Still and all, Silda was a Sister of the Rose, and so Silda must be Lyss and soldier on.
The buttons of the khiganer along Lon’s left collar bone, fashioned of pewter, had their embossed representation of Beng Debrant almost polished away. The buttons down his left side started out in exactly the same way, the pewter shining nicely. Halfway down, the buttons were made of bone, some with inscribed and worn away pictures, the lower ones plain. Toward the bottom of the tunic the buttons were of wood. Lon kept his right hand casually across his stomach as much as he could, concealing those wooden buttons.
The Sisters of the Rose learning at Lancival were told that if a person made an effort, if they did the very best they could, and tried to their utmost, then, win or lose, they couldn’t be faulted. The results of those contests lay with the Invisible Twins made manifest in the light of Opaz.
Lon had made a tremendous effort.
Silda gave him full marks.
She was uncomfortably aware, with a feeling she tried to tell herself was not self-conscious superiority, that in Lon’s mind no thought of any sexual approaches existed. He was just pleased to be out, and to be seen out, with a young lady of so different a background from those girls he habitually consorted with. And the very thought made Silda feel conscious of her unworthiness. How her sisters in the SoR would chortle at her now! And — she’d tell ’em all to go hang!
The inn was of the middling quality, clean, and the wine varied from reasonable to good. If some patron felt the rush of blood to his head and ordered a bottle of Jholaix, there was just the chance one might be found. The chance was very slender, for of all the wines of these parts, Jholaix was acknowledged to be the finest. Its cost was astronomical. She turned to Lon as they sat in the seats indicated by the serving girl, and said: “Something very simple, Lon, for me.”
He stared at her with a concerned expression.
“Now, my la — Lyss — in the lights, I can see. Your head — there is blood—”
“Oh!” she said crossly. “Didn’t I wipe it all off?”
She hauled out the kerchief and spat on it and scrubbed, wondering what the hell her mentors would say if they could see her.
“Each time we meet, Lon, I am bloody. Take heed.”
“How? I mean — what—?”
“Louts, drunken, out for a laugh and robbery.”
“The Watch is lax, I think.” Then Lon let one eyelid droop. “Which is fortunate, at times...”
Silda laughed.
The serving girl was a Fristle, all laypom-colored fur, and a saucy tail, and brushed whiskers, clad in a yellow apron. She was not, therefore, a slave. In her meek obedience Silda sensed much of a slave’s mentality.
“I am parched. I would like to start with a glass of parclear. The fizzy sherbet will clear my throat.”
“Two,” said Lon, importantly. “And, after?”
The Fristle fifi said: “There is quidgling pie, roast chicken, any kind of fish you require, ordel pudding—”
“Ordel pudding for me,” said Silda unthinkingly.
“Two,” said Lon again.
“Wine?” Silda twiddled her fingers on the table. “As I said, keep it simple.”
Lon said, “What would you like?”
Decisively, Silda said, “Kensha, with herbs.”
“Two,” said Lon.
Was that a slight nervous gesture to the wallet-pouch strapped to his belt? Silda fancied she’d have to be highly tactful if it came to push of pike, as Nath na Kochwold would say.
Kensha wine, a delicate rosé, was best drunk with a sprinkling of herbs into the glass. They gave the wine a lift, a fragrance, and turned it from merely a good cheap wine into what was truly a fine vintage.
So the evening progressed, eating, drinking and talking. The usual subjects of conversation were dealt with gravely by Lon. He was seething and bubbling inside with delirious pleasure. He’d live on this night’s dinner for the rest of his life in memory, drawing spiritual nourishment when he drank up his cabbage soup and gnawed a heel of cheese or a crust of bread. This girl was superb!
He told her that Nath the Goader had vanished. He, himself, had been exonerated. All the same, he’d sweated blood for just a little too long...
When he apologized for his coarseness of expression, Silda laughed out loud, hugely amused. She was enjoying this evening as she’d never imagined she would. The day had been fraught enough, Opaz knew.
The Silver Lotus was doing moderate business, people entering and leaving, and folk nipping in for a quick one before the illuminations. A brilliant laugh from the opposite corner of the alcove drew Silda’s attention. A woman was in the act of throwing her head back, laughing with open enjoyment at some sally of her partner’s. Her black skin sheened with health, her raven’s-wing hair shone like an ebony waterfall, and her eyes gleamed with a challenging brilliance. Her ankle length gown of eye-catching emerald green suited her superbly, and the silver adornments were in perfect taste.
On her left shoulder a little furry likl-likl crouched contentedly munching on the scraps of food she passed up, the little pet no doubt proud of his silver-studded green collar. The silver chain attaching him to the woman’s left wrist glinted as she moved.
Her companion’s teeth shone in his black face as he laughed with her, gallant in decent Vallian buff, with bright bands of color to indicate his loyalties. They made a dazzling couple. Silda warmed to them. She did not know their names, nor was she ever likely to; yet she sensed this unknown woman was relaxing and letting the evening take over, rejoicing in her good fortune, letting life be lived and flow by.
A noisy party entered, all chaffing the old jokes between themselves, and sat down around a table across from the couple who had so aroused Silda’s admiration. The water dropped in the clepsydra, and a serving girl turned the glass over, and Silda began to think that she must now see about the possibly unpleasant business of ending this enjoyable evening.