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sitting in casual knots on benches outside the elaborate gates, eyeing her
with increasing disfavor as the crowds in the streets thinned out and the
garden walls grew higher and more imposing, the air fresher, the day quieter
as it passed into the night. She slouched along, relaxed and unconcerned, with
the invincible gawk of a sightseer determined to stick her nose everywhere.
She located the house of Klikay the Poet (youngest and reputed to be the most
useless of the brothers of the Byglave, the man and family who with a play of
modesty told the Casach of Dum Besar how to govern the city and the domain).
No one pays much attention to the Poet, Telka said. They don't guard him with
any care because no one with the slightest pretense of a working mind would
waste their time trying to kill or kidnap him.
There was a wall. Shabby. The plaster, insipid frescoes, covering the red
brick was cracking and flaking away. She wrinkled her nose at the clumsy ugly
scenes in dull pastel colors. No great loss if it all came off. Maybe he was a
good poet, but his taste in art was gruesome. Probably spikes or broken glass
on the top of that wall; she couldn't tell from where she stood, but it didn't
matter. She could climb that wall easily enough using one of several trees
growing out over it; from the look of the thing she wouldn't have to worry
about leaving marks for guards to notice. Flet had sent one of her followers
on several high flights over the city to give Skeen some idea about how the
house was arranged, but once she was inside she was on her own. No Min except
Timka had been inside that structure so the layout was anyone's guess. She
didn't like going in blind but, Djabo's twitchy nose, no fancy traps in this
jerkwater place. No sniffer alarms, no sorting ears or any of the thousand
other things she'd had to neutralize or outwit before. She strolled on,
scolding herself for her tendency to think she could walk in and out as if she
was calling on the man. Carelessness like that could do her in faster than a
fancy trap. You don't know this stinking world, woman. You don't know where
the pitfalls are or what they are. Shapechangers, hah! What else is this place
going to spring on you? Wizards shaking death rattles in your face? Witches
yammering in the night? Tickled by the absurdities her imagination threw up,
she walked along chuckling to herself, moving back into more plebeian realms,
working her way next to the wall, walking along it, checking out possible
escape routes.
The gates were closed at sunset, watched by Skirrik and squads of local
guards. Herds of hungry massits were loosed on the parapet to discourage
anyone stupid enough to try climbing over the wall; they'd strip this fool to
the bone in less than a breath and a half. Telka said they had a special
hatred of Min and a mass mind so powerful it overwhelmed the subtle control
the Min exercised on most beasts. Thanks to Strazhha the V'duluvit she had
something she thought might deal with that little problem, but she wasn't
looking forward to using it.
Up close to the wall, the houses were elbow to elbow, narrow, hardly a room
wide, each house jammed with people, with those who lived all the time in the
city, with transients from all over, traders, tramp artisans, farmers,
peasants, younger sons looking for adventure or work (which one depended on
their family's wealth and status or lack of it). She started moving toward the
market, passing through more visitors rivermen off the boats that sailed up
and down the Rekkah and the smaller Rioti, land traders with their stolid
stumpy beasts, hordes of gawkers come to stare, come to buy or sell, come to
complain about something, come as pilgrims to pay homage at the temple that
was the tallest structure inside the walls. Lines of Blackrobes winding
through the buyers and sellers in the market, solemn-faced children censing
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
them and every one around with a pungent incense.
Skeen spent the narrow remnant of the day in the market, buying a few things
that would be useful when she went over the wall a large unworked hide, thick
and supple, nicely tanned, several large iron nails and a wooden mallet, a few
other odds and ends. She carried the leather rolled over her shoulder as she
continued wandering among the tables and booths and heaps, excited by just
about everything she saw around her. Everything crafted by hand. Swords,
knives, mail shirts and other specimens of the smith's art. Bows of several
sorts, arrow points (heavy multi-tanged hunting arrows meant for big game or
armed men to small knobs meant to bring down birds). Reels of thread. Gold and
silver wire. Papers of needles, papers of pins. Swaths of lace, ribbons.
Wooden objects, from simple bowls to elaborate carvings. Glass mirrors and
polished bronze mirrors. Lamps of horn and parchment, of glass and silver, the
metalwork as fine as she'd seen anywhere, the silver inlaid with a delicate
gold tracery in marvelous intricate whorls and webbing. Leather goods,
saddles, harness, gloves, hats, boots, belts. A Rooner's dream, a whole world
to be plundered, a world no one could reach but her well, almost no one. Not
that these were ruins. But Rooners are flexible, (oh yes we are, we take our
artifacts where we find them). She thought about old Yeoch. Someone might
finally believe him. Ah well, I can take care of that later, haul him here,
maybe, and dump him, he might like to see his Sessi again. She grinned at the
thought.
She nosed out a cookshop, got some meat pies and a mug of cider. When she
finished eating, she went back to the room, stretched out on the bed and
settled herself to sleep until it was time to go for the woman.
Skeen went over the wall three hours after midnight.
Flet and her fliers had mapped the routes the werehounds took as they prowled
the city streets and tied their rounds to moon positions so Skeen could judge
time by glancing at the sky. She couldn't complain about the back-up; the Min
went all out for her once the bargain was struck. In spite of that her trek to
the Poet's house was harrowing at times. She could hear howls a short distance
away, once a chopped-off scream as a transient stupid enough to sleep in the
street died under the jaws of werehounds. Worse than saayungkas, much worse.
She shivered at the thought of deadly, intelligent beasts roaming the streets
only a breath away from her, the senses and ferocity of the animals whose [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]