“I told ye we ‘ad to feed ‘er more often, Gertrude,” hissed her husband. “Onc’t a week jest won’t—”
Zulkeh cleared his throat noisily. “Sirrah, you misunderstand. I have come here to make a sale, not a purchase.”
The mage grasped Shelyid by the shoulder and shoved him forward. “My apprentice. A stout lad, if stupid, and well inured to labor. I warn you I shall not be cheated.”
The man—Herbert Sophist, presumably—eyed Shelyid with skepticism. But, unlike all the other slave dealers they had approached that day, he began to examine the prospective merchandise. And if his bony fingers poked Shelyid’s ribs with no great vigor, and pried open his lips to inspect the teeth with even less, still and all ’twas at least a semblance of proper slave-dealer custom.
After Sophist was finished he stepped back, planted hands on hips, and announced firmly: “I’ll take ‘im off yer hands. Nay a problem, sair. Be my pleasure.” He eyed Zulkeh for a moment, gauging the possibilities, and then added (not quite as firmly): “Twenty quid. And don’t think ye can talk me down, sirrah! I’m being generous as ’tis.”
Zulkeh frowned. “I have no intention of talking you down! Your offer is absurd. Thirty quid and not a penny less.”
Sophist’s eyes widened. “Thirty?” he choked.
Before he could say another word his wife shuffled forwardly eagerly and hissed: “Done! Thirty quid it is!” Her hand stretched forth, palm up, like the petal of a Venus flytrap. “Cash now. No credit.”
Zulkeh’s frown deepened. He stared at the woman’s clawlike hand. “There seems to be some confusion here . . .” he muttered.
“No confusion!” snapped Gertrude. “As ’tis, even at thirty quid we’ll like as not lose money.”
Her husband nodded solemnly. “Indeed so! A dwarf? Scrofulous as thissun? Th’feed alone’ll mos’ like bankrupt us afore we kin find some idiot—ah, customer who’ll take ‘im off our hands.”
It was Zulkeh’s turn to choke. And choke. Eventually he managed: “Insane! Do I understand you aright? You expect me to pay you for—for selling my own merchandise?”
Hearing these words, Gertrude Sophist began to spittle. “O’course! ‘Tis the law!”
“Sairtainly is!” snapped her husband. In the singsong tone of one reciting memorized words: “No dwarven slave may be purchased without payment from the seller, lest the foul notion be established that dwarves are worth anything.” In a less stilted manner: “Sorry, sair. No point arguin’ th’matter. Thazza direct quote from ye Honorable Judge Greased Hand’s decision in th’ case o’ The Dreaded Scot vs. the Pewling Dwarf-Lovers’ Association.”
He lifted his nose. “The Dreaded Scot bein’, as I’m sairtain yer aware, reckinized ‘cross Grotum as th’slave trader’s slave trader.”
“In the Hall of Fame, ‘e is,” snapped Gertrude. “Made it on th’first ballot, too.”
These words spoken, the mage proceeded to open up to the understanding of Sophists, man and wife, the preposterous and pernicious nature of their logic, reason, rationale, sanity—
But he had barely warmed to the subject before the distaff member of the couple, displaying a vigor quite out of keeping with her anorexic appearance, threw him bodily out of the establishment’s doorway. Dislodging, alas, the final hinge in the process, the which produced a shrieking promise from Gertrude Sophist that she intended to sue the mage for every penny he owned in damages.
Shelyid scuttled out of the building, nimbly evading a savage blow from Gertrude on the way out—so nimbly, indeed, that the hapless woman overbalanced and injured herself on the doorframe, the which mishap produced yet another shrieking promise that she intended to sue the mage for every penny he might ever own in damages.
But, by then, Shelyid had hoisted the mage back onto his feet. Master and apprentice hastened from the scene, followed by the shrill curses and imprecations of the Sophists, man and wife, until the cadaverous pair apparently ran out of breath altogether. Which, in truth, did not take long.
* * *
Midafternoon, therefore, found Zulkeh and Shelyid trudging back to the inn. Once arrived in their room, the wizard turned to his apprentice and spoke.
“Shelyid, I command you to remain here. You are forbidden to leave this room under any circumstances, no matter how dire or urgent they may seem to you. I now depart, to rendezvous with a certain individual who, such is my hope, may be interested in purchasing your person.”