Clatatol nodded. “I do not know why these people should want you so greatly. Do you?
Kickaha said, “No. I could guess. But I won’t. My speculations would only confuse you and take much time. The first thing for me is to get out and away. And that, my love, is where you come in.”
“Now you love me,” she said.
“If there were time …” he replied.
“I can hide you where we will have all the time we need,” she said. “Of course, there are the others …”
Kickaha had been wondering if she was holding back. He wasn’t in a position to get rough with her, but he did. He gripped her wrist and squeezed. She grimaced and tried to pull away.
“What others?”
“Quit hurting me, and 1*11 tell. Maybe. Give me a kiss, and I’ll tell for sure.”
It was worthwhile to spend a few seconds, so he kissed her. The perfume from her mouth filled his nostrils and seemingly filtered down to the ends of his toes. He felt heady and began wondering if
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perhaps she didn’t deserve a reward after all this time.
He laughed then and gently released himself. “You are indeed the most beautiful and desirable woman I have ever seen and I have seen a thousand times a thousand,” he said. “But death walks the streets, and he is looking for me.”
‘ * When you see this other woman…” she said.
She became coy again, and then he had to impress upon her that coyness automatically meant pain for her. She did not resent this, liked it, in fact, since, to her, erotic love meant a certain amount of roughness and pain.
IT SEEMED THAT three strangers had fled from the inmost parts of the temple of Ollimaml a few minutes ahead of von Turbat. They were white-skinned, also. One was the black haired woman whom Clatatot, a very jealous and deprecating woman, nevertheless said was the most beautiful she had ever seen. Her companions were a huge, very fat man and a short skinny man. All three were dressed strangely and none spoke Tishquetmoac. They did speak Wishpawaml, the liturgical language of the priests. Unfortunately, the thieves who had hidden the three knew only a few words of Wishpawaml; these were from the responses of the laity during services.
Kickaha knew then that the three were Lords. The liturgical language everywhere on this world was theirs.
Their flight from von Tiirbat indicated that they had been dispossessed of their own universes and had taken refuge in this. But what was the minor king, von Turbat, doing in an affair that involved Lords?
Kickaha said, “Is there a reward for these three?”
“Yes. Ten thousand kwatluml. Apiece! For you,
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thirty thousand, and a high official post in the palace of the emperor. Perhaps, though this is only hinted at, marriage into the royal family.”
Kickaha was silent. Clatatol’s stomach rumbled, as if ruminating the reward offers. Voices fluttered weakly through the air shafts in the ceiling. The room, which had been cool, was hot. Sweat seeped from his armpits; the woman’s dark-brass skin hatched brass tadpoles. From the middle chamber, the kite hen-washroom-toilet, came gurgies of running water and little watery voices.
“You must have fainted at the thought of all that money,” Kickaha said finally. “What’s keeping you and your gang from collecting?”
“We are thieves and smugglers, killers even, but we are not traitors! The pinkfaces offered these …”
She stopped when she saw Kickaha grinning. She grinned back. “What I said is true. However, the sums are enormous! What made us hesitate, if you must know, you wise coyote, was what would happen after the pinkfaces left. Or if there is a revolt. We don’t want to be torn to pieces by a mob or tortured because some people might think we were traitors.”
“Also . . . ?”
She smiled and said, “Also, the three refugees have offered to pay us many times over what the pinkfaces offer if we get them out of the city.”
“And how will they do that?” Kickaha said. “They haven’t got a universe to their name.”