“O, traveler. And were you amused by the city of Betand?” It was that same wide-mouthed trader I had met in the tavern to the south of the city. I remembered he had said he would meet me, but I had paid little attention. Cursing silently, I reined in and waited for him to come up to me.
“Was it interesting, Necromancer?”
“The city was not a bad city, Trader.”
“Nap, friend. Laggy Nap. Oh, yes, Betand is interesting,” he said and again came that lewd laughter I remembered. “Interesting to get for no cost what one must pay for in other places, hmmm?” When I did not reply, he went on, “Well, have you a story to tell?”
“None, Trader Nap. I have accomplished my business in Betand and now ride west of here. Thank you for your interest.”
“Oh, more than interest, friend! Much more. Concern. Yes, true concern. We make it a practice, my fellows and I, to befriend any Gamesman traveling alone. It is a wicked world, young sir, an unconscionable world. It takes no account of youth or business. No, only with numbers does protection come. If you ride west, then you ride as we do. Come, let me introduce you to my people.”
I should have ridden away, simply ignored the fellow and gone, but the habit of courtesy was still too fresh in me. Fretting at the delay, I dismounted and walked with him to the line of wains at the roadside.
“Izia,” he called. “Come out and greet a Gamesman who travels alone.”
She came from behind one of the wagons, came like a vision, a Priestess, a Princess, a Goddess. I am sure my mouth dropped open. We had statues in the public square in Schooltown which embodied the ideal of female grace and form. If one of them had come to life and walked, thus was Izia’s walk. Her hair was black without any light in it at all. Her eyes were smudged with deep shadow. Her lips curved downward and upward in the center in that most sensuous of lines, that half smile which is a silent evocation of passion. A few days before I would not have noticed. Now I did. So much had I learned in Betand. She walked with grace, but with a slight … what was it? A kind of hesitation, a tentative placement of her feet, as though she had some reluctance. So she came beside the wide-mouthed man and said in a soft, neutral voice, “Welcome, traveler. Would you desire food or drink?”
“Not for me,” I said hastily. I felt I had done nothing but eat and drink for several days. “Truly, and thank you. I must ride on.”
“We will not hear of it.” The Trader had a firm arm about my shoulders, fingers dug into my upper arm in what might have been a friendly grip but felt like the talons of a bird of prey. “Never. You will ride with us, and we with you, for our mutual protection. If you need to go now, then so will we.” And with that he called instructions to some of the people in the shade of the wagons and provoked a swift turmoil of harnessing and packing. I tried vainly to remonstrate with him, to no avail. Each argument was met with firm, smiling denial, while all the time his eyes looked into my soul without smiling at all. I had never before met one who would, on no acquaintance, call me friend so often in so insistent a voice. Well, what could I do? They were moving out onto the road, going in the way I intended to go. It was with no good grace I accompanied them, but accompany them I did. All the while the woman, Izia, moved among the horses, as I watched her broodingly, clucking to them, speaking softly to them, fingers going to the harness as she murmured into their cocked ears, submitted to the nuzzling of their muzzles. When Nap came near, the animals shied away, but they responded to her as though she had been one of them. She was dressed in a swinging, wide skirt, a tightly-laced bodice over a wide-sleeved shirt, and high gray boots of some strange metallic weave. From time to time she would bend to stroke the boots, or more—to stroke her legs through the boots, first one and then the other, almost without seeming to know she did it. I wondered, once more, at the hesitancy in her step, then decided it must be a thing common to her people, for several of those in the train walked in the same way. Probably, I thought, it was a habit peculiar to whatever land they had come from.