They found themselves a tavern where they were the only customers. In actuality, it was a lean-to roof shading a small area on which cushions lay; you sat cross-legged, and the landlord fetched clay goblets of wine from inside his home. Everard paid him in beads, after desultory haggling. Foot traffic swarmed and babbled up and down the street on which the shop intruded, but at this hour men were generally busied. They’d relax here, those who could afford to, when cooling shadows had fallen between the walls.
Everard sipped the thin, sour drink and grimaced. In his opinion, nobody understood wine before about the seventeenth century A.D. Beer was worse. No matter. “Speak, son,” he said. “And you needn’t waste breath or time calling me the radiance of the universe and offering to lie down for me to wipe my feet on. What have you been doing?”
Pum gulped, shivered, leaned forward. “O lord of mine,” he began, and his voice broke in an adolescent squeak, “your underling has dared take much upon his head. Upbraid me, beat me, have me whipped, whatever your will may be, if I have transgressed. But never, I beg, never think I have sought anything but your welfare. My sole wish is to serve you as far as my poor abilities allow.”
A brief grin flashed. “You see, you pay so well!”
Soberness returned: “You are a strong man, a man of great powers, in whose service I may hope to flourish. Now for that, I must prove myself worthy. Any lout can carry your baggage or lead you to a pleasure house. What can Pum-mairam do, over and above this, that my lord will wish to keep him as a retainer? Well, what does my lord require? What does he need?
“Master, it pleases you to pose as a rude tribesman, but from the very first I had a feeling there was far more to you. Of course you would not confide in a chance-met guttersnipe. So, without knowledge of you, how could I tell what use I might be?”
Yeah, Everard thought, in his kind of hand-to-mouth existence, he had to develop a pretty keen intuition, or else go under. He kept his tone mild: “I am not angry. But tell me what you did.”
Pum’s big, russet-hued eyes met his and stayed, almost as equal to equal. “I made bold to query others about my master. Always carefully, never letting out what my purpose was or, in sooth, letting the person suspect what he or she revealed. As proof of this, has anyone seemed to doubt my lord?”
“M-m… no… not any more than I could expect. Who did you talk with?”
“Well, the lovely Pleshti -Bo-ron-u-wen, for a start.” Pum lifted a palm. “Master! She said never a word you would not have approved. I read her face, her movements, while I asked certain questions. No more. She refused me answers, now and then, herself, and those refusals told me something too. And her body does not know how to keep secrets. Is that her fault?”
“No.” Also, I wouldn’t be surprised but what you reopened your door a crack that night and eavesdropped. Never mind. 1 don’t want to know.
“Thus I learned you are not of the… the Geyil folk, is that their name? It was no surprise. I had already guessed as much. You see, although I am sure my master is terrible in battle, he is as forbearing with women as a mother with her child. Would a half-savage wanderer be?”
Everard laughed ruefully. Touche! On previous missions, he’d sometimes heard remarks about his lack of normal callousness, but nobody else had drawn conclusions from it.
Encouraged, Pum hurried on: “I shan’t weary my lord with details. Menials are always watching the mighty, and love to gossip about them. I may have deceived Sarai the housekeeper a tiny bit. Since I was your footman, she saw no reason to bid me begone. Not that I asked her very much directly. That would have been both foolish and unnecessary. I was content to get myself steered toward the dwelling of Jantin-hamu, where they were agog over their visitor yesterday eventide. Thus did I get a hint of what it is my lord seeks.”