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houses. Signs swung, crimson, green, and yellow, the symbols of hammers and flagons and loaves. It was midday, everything wrapped in a brass stormlight.
“Impressed by all this opulence?” Darak asked.
I was looking around me, fascinated despite myself at this first contact with the massed bundle of humanity which is called a town. The pattern of it intrigued me, all of it winding upward to the great fortress-house of its warden, who held it in turn from his warden, the overlord of this region. There were laws in this place, and taxes taken regularly in money, not occasionally in sheep and goats. In most streets braziers stood, waiting to light up the dark, but in parts houses grew together overhead and shut out the sky. I noticed horse troughs, and drains to let rainwater away, and I noticed bad smells, too, and side alleys packed with hovels. Not all opulence, it seemed, but I let Darak tease me.
Not that he had been in Ankurum himself before, but he had been in other similar towns along the foot of the Ring. No doubt it was rare for him to visit the same town twice. They would always finally discover they had bought their goods from a thief.
I realized how dangerous this game was that he played when I found his name had abruptly changed from Darak to Darros a few moments after we were in the town. As Maggur told me later, Darak the bandit was too well-known. Darros, the merchant’s son, however, was another proposition entirely. He was an impressive if eccentric figure, daring to bring his caravan through the hills and plains with their cordon of. dangers; one who had the favor of his gods. True, merchants here would think him wild and crazy, jealous of his achievement. And then his men would turn out to be such unruly scoundrels, drinking and whoring from one bordello to another throughout their stay. Nevertheless, the cargo was the important thing. Yes, despite his youth and failings, they would find a place in their greedy hearts for Darros of Sigko.
There were not many people about, for this hour they kept sacred to their stomachs. Half the gaudy shops were closed, but the taverns were bursting, spilling raucous gobblers out among trestles at the roadside.
We found a hostelry with some trouble. The caravan was a large one and looked very imposing now, particularly with its black, skull-masked outriders, a fearful product of the trader towns in the north.
At first there was always some man with a hot face sayings
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“No room. Ankurum’s packed for the Games. Try farther up.”
“What games are these?” someone called the first time.
“Are you barbarians or what? We’ve always had our Games. And now that the new stadium’s built, men have come for miles. Are you barbarians, you northerners?”
A fight might have broken out over this, but Darak, Ellak, and Maggur got the others quiet, and we rode off without any blood or brains spilled to mark our passage.
We soon had it through our heads, in any case, that Ankurum was full, and why. In the wider streets there were even posters hammered up on doors or walls, mostly in pictures or symbols-garish wrestlers, shown blue and orange, and chariots carried along by mauve horses. It had clouded over by now and was raining, and their colors were running all down the gutters. It seemed late in the year for games to be held. Probably they had delayed for their new stadium, The Gigantic and Unrivaled Sirkunix of Ankurum, as their dripping artistry called it.
At last we found a place large enough, and nasty enough that it still had room to hold us. The big stone rooms thrummed with neglect and cold. The beds had not been aired in a million years. They lit fires for us, and brought out motheaten sheets, and began a meal. There were only five or six others there, and I imagine they were residents, not guests. They were old and timid, and crept out of our way like small frightened animals. Whenever I met one-on the stairs or in the dining hall-they slide aside in abject terror; from Darak or the others, they fled squealing down side passages, and all night long their doors might be heard nervously opening and banging shut, as they attempted to scurry to and from the latrines, without seeing any of us. I think they were my initial lesson in pity, but I laughed at them, too.
Those first three days were dismal, black and full of rain. Darak would go out early with Ellak, Gleer, and three or four others, plus about ten men dressed as skull-guards, and pack animals carrying examples of his goods. I was not allowed with him, for apparently the sight of a woman in a merchant’s place of business was an unheard-of thing in the towns. I gathered they were dull times; endless bargaining and signing of papers. The plains’ cloth went easily, but the weapons were harder. At night, when I saw him, Darak would growl angrily at the underhand dealing and cheating by which his agents tried to trick and trap him-they were robbers. It was amusing to listen to his arrogant and righte-
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ous fury, he, who had stolen the goods in the first place. But then, he was Darros now. Except once when he rode bareback a mad horse in the marketplace three streets away.
So I spent my days, locked in the dreary hostelry hall, crouched around the fire with the others as they played their endless dice games, or alone if they were at a brothel. The women they had brought with them sulked and ordered endless food, which put too much weight on them. They were as unused to this life of sitting as any of the men. There were a few of us about on the morning of the third day, and, as the hall was virtually ours, Maggur hung up a painted wooden target, and he and I and another man began to shoot against each other with our bows. My bow had taken the damp, and did not do well until I had waxed and resined it. By then there were more in the game, and they had split into teams. Maggur’s team had called themselves the Rams, partly, I think, because three or four of them had just come in from a brothel. The other side retaliated with Dragons, and were a man short.
“Come and shoot for us, Imma,” one of them called. “These bastards have an unfair advantage.”
While the women lazily watched, plucking eyebrows because it was the fashion in Ankurum, and mouthing lumps of candied fruits and sugar-sweets, the Rams and Dragons did battle, occasionally degenerating into fights and wrestling matches on the floor. Maggur was the best of his side, and I the best of mine. In the end, I beat him.
“Dark was the day I taught you,” he said to me. “You’re quicker even than Kel.”
He looked around for Kel’s grin when he said it, then checked as he remembered Kel was dead. There was an awkward silence between us which Darak luckily broke up, coming in early with a lot of noise and an incomprehensible group of people.
He strode at once to me and got my arm.
“Put that stuff away, and come upstairs.”
A man near us laughed at his urgency, and Darak clouted him a casual blow across the back that sent him staggering.
He marched me out of the hall, and up to our long and icy room. I was surprised to find the people he had brought with him had scuttled after us.
“Wait,” he said, and shut the door on them. He threw wood on the dying fire and straightened. He looked irritated and amused at once.
“A sale?” I asked.
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“Not yet. Ankurum is worse than a tribal krarl for etiquette. The agent Pve been dealing with is having what he’s pleased to call a supper tonight. He wants me there, and I gather this is where I’ll meet my customers. It means a few hours tedium, weak wine and nibbly tidbits on eggshell plates. I want you with me.”
“Why? I thought the merchants of Ankurum swooned at the sight of a woman.”
“Only hi their weapon shops, it seems. There’ll be expensive ladies present, and I haven’t the time to get tangled with them if I’m to fish my merchants out of the pool. You’re my shield against it.”
I did not want to go, but I saw the logic of what he said. Coolly I asked him, “I am to go like this?”
“Outside:’three dressmakers and a woman for your hair. At least you won’t have to paint your face.”
“You think the shireen will not excite comment?”
“Quite an amount, I hope. A beautiful tribal mistress is enough to daunt the most ardent whore. It should be interesting. Besides, you’v the exquisite manners they adore, though where you got them-“