“Once things are in motion, I might be able to throw in just a bit of additional confusion,” Velvet said. “The King of Pallia and the Prince Regent of Delchin both have sizable retinues, and they’re on the verge of open war anyway. There’s also the King of Veresebo, who’s so senile that he distrusts everybody. I could probably persuade each of them that any turmoil in the halls is directed at them personally. They’d put their men‑at‑arms into the corridors at the first sound of fighting.”
“Now that’s got some interesting possibilities,” Silk said, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “A five‑way brawl in the palace ought to give us all the opportunity we need to leave town.”
“And it wouldn’t necessarily have to be confined to the palace,” Sadi added thoughtfully. “A bit of judicious misdirection could probably spread it out into the city itself. A general riot in the streets would attract quite a bit of attention, wouldn’t you say?”
“How long would it take to set it up?” Garion asked.
Silk looked at his partners in crime. “Three days?” he asked them, “Maybe four?” They both considered it, then nodded.
“That’s it then, Garion,” Silk said. “Three or four days.”
“All right. Do it.”
They all turned and started back toward the entrance to the atrium. “Margravine Liselle,” Sadi said firmly.
“Yes, Sadi?”
“I’ll take my snake back now, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, of course, Sadi.” She reached into her bodice for Zith.
Silk’s face blanched, and he stepped back quickly.
“Something wrong, Kheldar?” she asked innocently.
“Never mind.” The little man turned on his heel and went on through the green‑smelling evening gesticulating and talking to himself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
His name was Balsca. He was a rheumy‑eyed seafaring man with bad habits and mediocre skills who hailed from Kaduz, a fish‑reeking town on one of the northern Melcene Islands. He had signed on as a common deck hand for the past six years aboard a leaky merchantman grandiosely named The Star of Jarot, commanded by an irascible peg‑leg captain from Celanta who called himself “Woodfoot,” a colorful name which Balsca privately suspected was designed to conceal the captain’s true identity from the maritime authorities.
Balsca did not like Captain Woodfoot. Balsca had not liked any ships’ officers since he had been summarily
flogged ten years back for pilfering grog from ship’s stores aboard a ship of the line in the Mallorean navy.
Balsca had nursed his grievance from that incident until he had found an opportunity to jump ship, and then he had gone in search of kindlier masters and more understanding officers in the merchant marine.
He had not found them aboard The Star of Jarot.
His most recent disillusionment had come about as the result of a difference of views with the ship’s bosun, a heavy‑fisted rascal from Pannor in Rengel. That altercation had left Balsca without his front teeth, and his vigorous protest to the captain had evoked jeering laughter followed by his being unceremoniously kicked off the quarterdeck by a nail‑studded leg constructed of solid oak. The humiliation and the bruises were bad enough, but the splinters which festered for weeks in Balsca’s behind made it almost impossible for him to sit down, and sitting down was Balsca’s favorite position.
He brooded about it, leaning on the starboard rail well out of Captain Woodfoot’s view and staring out at the lead‑gray swells surging through the straits of Perivor as The Star of Jarot beat her way northwesterly past the swampy coast of the southwestern Dalasian Protectorates and on around the savage breakers engulfing the Turrim Reef. By the time they had cleared the reef and turned due north along the desolate coast of Finda, Balsca had concluded that life was going out of its way to treat him unfairly, and that he might be far better off seeking his fortune ashore.
He spent several nights prowling through the cargo hold with a well‑shielded lantern until he found the concealed compartment where Woodfoot had hidden a number of small, valuable items that he didn’t want to trouble the customs people with. Balsca’s patched canvas sea bag picked up a fair amount of weight rather quickly that night.
When The Star of Jarot dropped anchor in the harbor of Mal Gemila, Balsca feigned illness and refused his shipmates’ suggestion that he go ashore with them for the customary end‑of‑voyage carouse. He lay instead in his hammock, moaning theatrically. Late during the dog watch, he pulled on his tarred canvas sea coat, the only thing of any value that he owned, picked up his sea bag and went on silent feet up on deck. The solitary watch, as Balsca had anticipated, lay snoring in the scuppers, snuggled up to an earthenware jug; there were no lights in the aft cabins, where Woodfoot and his officers lived in idle luxury; and the moon had already set. A small ship’s boat swung on a painter on the starboard side, and Balsca deftly dropped his sea bag into it, swung over the rail, and silently left The Star of Jarot forever. He felt no particular regret about that. He did not even pause to mutter a curse at the vessel which had been his home for the past six years. Balsca was a philosophical sort of fellow. Once he had escaped from an unpleasant situation, he no longer held any grudges.
When he reached the docks, he sold the small ship’s boat to a beady‑eyed man with a missing right hand.
Balsca feigned drunkenness during the transaction, and the maimed man ‑who had undoubtedly had his hand chopped off as punishment for theft‑ paid him quite a bit more for the boat than would have been the case had the sale taken place in broad daylight. Balsca immediately knew what that meant. He shouldered his sea bag, staggered up the wharf, and began to climb the steep cobblestone street from the harbor. At the first corner, he made a sudden turn to the left and ran like a deer, leaving the surprised press gang the beady‑eyed man had sent after him floundering far behind. Balsca was stupid, certainly, but he was no fool.
He ran until he was out of breath and quite some distance from the harbor with all its dangers. He passed a number of alehouses along the way, regretfully perhaps, but there was still business to attend to, and he needed his wits about him.
In a dim little establishment, well hidden up a dank, smelly alleyway, he sold Captain Woodfoot’s smuggled treasures, bargaining down to the last copper with the grossly fat woman who ran the place. He even traded his sea coat for a landsman’s tunic, and emerged from the alley with all trace of the sea removed from him, except for the rolling gait of a man whose feet have not touched dry land for several months.
He avoided the harbor with its press gangs and cheap grog shops and chose instead a quiet street that meandered past boarded‑up warehouses. He followed that until he found a sedate workman’s alehouse where a buxom barmaid rather sullenly served him. Her mood, he surmised, was the result of the fact that he was her only customer, and that she had quite obviously intended to close the doors and seek her bed ‑or someone else’s, for all he knew. He jollied her into some semblance of good humor for an hour or so, left a few pennies on the table, and squeezed her ample bottom by way of farewell. Then he lurched into the empty street in search of further adventure.
He found true love under a smoky torch on the comer.
Her name, she said, was Elowanda. Balsca suspected that she was not being entirely honest about that, but it was not her name he was interested in. She was quite young and quite obviously sick. She had a racking cough, a hoarse, croaking voice, and her reddened nose ran constantly. She was not particularly clean and she exuded the rank smell of a week or more of dried sweat. Balsca, however, had a sailor’s strong stomach and an appetite whetted by six months’ enforced abstinence at sea. Elowanda was not very pretty, but she was cheap. After a brief haggle, she led him to a rickety crib in an alley that reeked of moldy sewage. Although he was quite drunk, Balsca grappled with her on a lumpy pallet until dawn was staining the eastem sky.
It was noon when he awoke with a throbbing head. He might have slept longer, but the cry of a baby coming from a wooden box in the corner drove into his ears like a sharp knife. He nudged the pale woman lying beside him, hoping that she would rise and quiet her squalling brat. She moved limply under his hand, her limbs flaccid.
He nudged her again, harder this time. Then he rose up and looked at her. Her stiff face was locked in a dreadful rictus ‑a hideous grin that made his blood run cold. He suddenly realized that her skin was like clammy ice. He jerked his hand away, swearing under his breath. He reached out gingerly and peeled back one of her eyelids. He swore again.