“He doesn’t interfere with me.”
“Ah, but he does with me.”
As usual when the hunt returned, a feast was held, with drinking and eating into the night. In addition to the customary rathel, newly fermented by the brewers corps, there was dark barley wine. Songs were sung, jigs danced, as the liquors took hold. When the intoxication was at its height, most men were drinking in the big tower, which commanded a view down the main street. The ground floor had been cleared, and a fire burned there, sending its smoke curling against the metal-lined rafters. Aoz Roon remained moody, and broke away from the singing. Laintal Ay watched him go, but was too busy pursuing Oyre to pursue her father. Aoz Roon climbed the stairs, through the various levels, to emerge on the roof and gulp the cool of the air.
Dathka, who had no talent for music, followed him into the darkness. As usual, Dathka did not speak. He stood with his hands in his armpits, staring out at the vague looming shapes of night. A curtain of dull green fire hung in the sky overhead, its folds shading into the stratosphere.
Aoz Roon fell back with a great roar. Dathka grasped him and steadied him, but the older man fought him away.
“What ails you? Drunk, are you?”
“There!” Aoz Roon pointed into the vacant dark. “She’s gone now, damn her. A woman with the head of a pig. Eddre, the look in her eyes!”
“Ah, you’re seeing things. You’re drunk.”
Aoz Roon turned angrily. “Don’t you call me drunk, you shrimp! I saw her, I tell you. Naked, tall, thin-shanked, hair from slit to chin, fourteen dugs—coming towards me.” He ran about the roof, waving his arms.
Klils appeared through the trapdoor, staggering slightly, holding a femur of deer on which he was gnawing. “You two have no business up here. This is the Big Tower. Those who rule Oldorando come here.”
“You scumble,” Aoz Roon said approaching. “You dropped the axe.”
Klils coshed him savagely on the side of the neck with the deer bone. With a roar, Aoz Roon grasped Klils by the throat and tried to throttle him. But Klils kicked his ankle, pummelled him under the heart, and drove him back against the parapet surrounding the roof, part of which crumbled and fell away. Aoz Roon sprawled with his head hanging over into space.
“Dathka!” he called. “Help me!”
Silently, Dathka came up behind Klils, took him with a firm grasp about the knees, and lifted his legs. He swung the man’s body, angling it across the wall, and over the seven-floor drop.
“No, no!” cried Klils, fighting furiously, locking his arms about Aoz Roon’s neck. The three men struggled in the green dark, accompanied by the sound of singing from below, two of them—both befuddled by rathel—against the willowy Klils. Eventually they had him, prizing away his grip on life. With a last cry, he fell free. They heard his body strike the ground below.
Aoz Roon and Dathka sat gasping on the parapet. “We got rid of him,” Aoz Roon said finally. He hugged his ribs in pain. “I’m grateful, Dathka.”
Dathka answered nothing.
At last, Aoz Roon said, “They’ll kill us for this, the scumble. Nahkri will see to it they kill us. People hate me already.” After another wait, he burst out angrily, “It was all that fool Klils’ fault. He attacked me. It was his fault.”
Unable to endure the silence, Aoz Roon jumped up and paced about the roof, muttering to himself. He snatched up the gnawed femur and flung it far out into the gloom.
Turning on the impassive Dathka, he said, “Look, go down and speak to Oyre. She’ll do what I say. Get her to lead Nahkri up here. He’d wear a pig’s nose if she suggested it—I’ve been watching the way that scumb’s eyes go to her.”
Shrugging his shoulders, saying nothing, Dathka left. Oyre was currently working in Nahkri’s household, much to Laintal Ay’s disgust; being well-favoured, she had an easier time of it than other women.
After Aoz Roon had hugged himself and shivered and paced the roof and projected oaths into the darkness, Dathka returned.