Her companion, however, made no pretense even of smiling. His glum face remained as impassive as a stone idol’s except at reference to the S’danzo curse, whereupon he favored Jarveena with a scowl.
What, Melilot asked himself, could have persuaded her to bring this boorish fellow here? So far he knew nothing about him save his name, and that was outlandish and nearly unpronounceable, something like “Klikitak” except that it ended with a rasp: Klikitagh?
Of course, a few hints could be deduced from his appearance. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, his hands large and sinewy: the figure of a man of action. Moreover he was of a striking color, for be- tween his fair beard and bushy fair hair his cheeks and forehead were windburned to a pale clear red after so many days at sea.
But never in all his life, not even when dealing with some nobleman’s illiterate wife desperate to know whether letters brought secretly to her husband and intercepted described her infidelities, had Melilot seen such unalloyed misery on a human countenance Why, even Enas Yorl, sport of a thousand mindless spells that changed his shape, his sex, and now and then his species, contrived to extract a certain wry and resigned humor from his predicament . .
He ended his story, and Jarveena, hooting with laughter, clapped her hands. The pretty ten-year-old girl who stood silently m one corner be- side the wine jug mistook her applause for a signal to replenish their mugs, and made haste to obey Melilot did not correct her He had hopes of loosening the stranger’s tongue, and in that project liquor was his chiefest ally