You had a knife in your hand at the time, unless I misremember.'
He remembered perfectly. When he had fled from Stokos, Yot had pursued him to Androlmarphos, and had made a determined effort to kill him.'Do you want to buy him?' asked a voice.
Drake turned. His interlocutor proved to be Simp Fiche, one of the crewmen from the
'Are you selling this . . . this thing?' asked Drake idly, not really caring too much one way or the other.'I bought it myself just today,' said Fiche.'What for?' asked Drake. 'It's not good for much.'
T bought it to torture to death,' said Simp Fiche, giving an honest answer; he was bored, and needed some cheap and harmless occupation to while away the rest of the day.
'Why, that shows good judgment,' said Drake genially. 'I'd like to torture him myself. Would you sell me a piece of the action?'
'No,' said Fiche, who was an inveterate gambler. 'But I'll wager with him if you like. Dice-chess, the best of three games. My meat against. . . shall we say a pearl or three?'
'Bloody oath no!' said Drake. 'I don't risk jewels to buy scum. Your meat versus my left boot – which I'll fill with liquor if you win.'
'How about meat versus dog?' said Fiche, who had seen King Tor and liked the look of him.
'No!' said Drake sharply. 'My final offer – I'll wager with both boots, the left full of ale, the right full of mead.'
'Done,' said Simp Fiche, seeing these were the best odds he was going to get offered.And they sat down to gamble.
Now the game of chess is, of course, very old and very solemn, its intricacies sufficient to tax the highest of intellects. But when the dice get rolling, freeing each player to make (sometimes) as many as a dozen moves at once, then most of its niceties vanish. The stately clash of armies degenerates into something more like a free-for- all brawl, a gutter fight with flails, whips and hatchets.
Drake and Simp Fiche played ferociously. They rolled the dice and scrambled their pieces over the board, whooped with delight or cried out with anguish, punched themselves in the head as punishment for gross stupidity, jabbed gloating fingers at each other's misfortune, and overall comported themselves more like cheap drunks in a casino than solemn chess players.
Men gathered to watch as the titans did battle. Their warriors hacked and slaughtered. Their Neversh clashed in the skies, bringing death and disaster. Battering rams converged to crumble castles. Wizards raged, and, raging, fell. In less time than it takes ordinary chess players to make their first three moves, these dice-chess players had swept nearly everything from the board but the hellbanes – which are, as every player knows, beyond capture.And Simp Fiche had won the first game.
Drake drew the second but won the third – so the best of three left them even.
'Flip a coin, then,' said Simp Fiche, who was all played out and a little bit weary.'Fine,' said Drake.
And took from his pocket one of the coins he had gained through agiotage: a bronze bisque from the Rice Empire, with the disc of the sun gracing its face and the crescent of the moon riding its reverse.'Sun or moon?' asked Drake.
'Moon,' said Simp Fiche, who had a touch of vampire in his ancestry, and had never liked the sun. Drake tossed the coin to Yot.'Flip it for us, boy,' said Drake. Then, as Yot sat limp and snivelling: 'Flip it! Or we'll gouge your eyes out here and now!'
With the greatest reluctance, Yot's fingers crabbed their way to the coin. He took it into his shivering hand and gave it a little flip. It fell with the sun uppermost.
'Fair enough,' said Simp Fiche gravely, and got to his feet and wandered off as the spectators began to disperse.
Fiche had already decided that any stray cat he could catch would probably give him as much sport as Yot would have done.'Let's go home, darling,' said Drake.
And releasing Yot from the floor shackle, led him away by the rope round his neck. A few pirates made jokes about mutilations. A strong smell of dung began to permeate the air; the pirates laughed outrageously.Shortly, Drake showed Yot into his cave.
'Sit down there,' said Drake, 'while I sharpen some torturing knives.'
Yot sat meekly, without attempting to jump him. Drake was disappointed. He wanted a desperate fight, yes, and the pleasure of wrecking Yot in combat before killing him. But Yot had no more spirit than a dead fish.
Whistling tunelessly, Drake began to sharpen his favourite knives.
'Drake,' said Yot, in a pale voice, 'I can … I can be of use to you.'
'Can you now?' said Drake. 'I don't really think so. I've got more taste than to want to bugger you. And I'd never let you suck anything you might just possibly bite off. But I can use you for fish bait – if the fish aren't too fussy tomorrow. And that's about all that you're good for.''Drake, I can – I can tell you things.'
'Tell me things? Like what? Like the precise and exact taste of Gouda Muck's arsehole?'
'Drake . . . things about home. You know. Cam. Your uncle. Your parents. Drake, your brother Heth.'
'Yes, and how hot the sun was, and how cold the rain,' said Drake, pretending news of Heth meant nothing to him.But Yot knew better.
'Drake, I saw Heth just before I left Stokos last, and that was recent. He was come to Cam to marry.'
Drake gave no verbal acknowledgment of interest, but the intensity went out of his knife-sharpening. Stokos! Cam! His uncle! His parents! Heth!
'Your uncle paid for the marriage. Yes, that's why it was in Cam.'
Drake pretended not to hear, but his sharpening strokes got slower and slower, and little tears pricked his eyes. It had been so long since he saw the Home Island last, so long since he wandered its streets of forge- hammering and coal dust.
'Tell me then,' said Drake at last, emotion beginning to choke his voice. 'Tell me about all of it.'
So Yot began to talk, and fear gave him eloquence. The words poured out of him, and what he didn't know he invented.
Before he had gone too far, Drake was offering him some ale to moisten his throat. Then, after a few tales more, he insisted that Yot must eat, yes, and change into fresh sealskins which Drake would lend him. And when at last Yot had talked himself out, Drake sat rocking on his heels for a while, stroking King Tor with an absent-minded hand and brooding.
'Well now,' said Drake, 'that was worth hearing and all. Come – there's a banquet tonight to mark the end of Slaving Day. It's a good do, or so I've heard. Will you come with me? We'll get some real food and good drink with it, then talk some more.'
'If you don't mind,' said Yot, still in that same pale voice, 'I'd rather rest a bit if I may.'
'For sure,' said Drake, content, and glutted with nostalgia. 'You can do what you want. We'll be together plenty in the future, as we make you into a pirate.'
'I'm not sure I've really got what it takes to be a pirate,' said Yot.'Don't run yourself down,' said Drake. 'Be brave! Be strong! Be confident! Come now – rest, and we'll talk again tomorrow.'
So Drake took himself off to the banquet, alone, and a great treat it was. Musicians from the kingdom of Sung played for them, so they ate to the accompaniment of the skirl of the skavamareen, and the uproar of krymbol and kloo. Naked bodies danced for their delight, and performed charades of love by flaring torchlight. There was food by the table-load, with plenty of lobster, crab, gaplax and crayfish. It was a well-organized affair, with an unending supply of good drink, and plenty of buckets to vomit into.
Drake indulged himself, drinking cold rice wine and warm brown beer. It bolstered his ego to know the others were admiring him as he quaffed down quantities of alcohol which would have killed an ordinary man, and, what's more, would have embalmed the corpse into the bargain.
The banquet finally reached the rowdy stage, with knife-throwing and wrist-wrestling, a brawl, and some extra-special entertainment laid on by Jon Arabin, who whipped one of his wives raw in public, having caught her out in adultery.
Drake left shortly afterwards, staggering markedly as he quit the banquet, so his future gambling partners would register the fact that he could indeed get drunk like other mortals. Actually, he was not even slightly tipsy – but, by the time he reached his home cave, he was staggering a little for real, out of sheer fatigue.
A low-burning whale oil lamp showed Drake that Yot was curled up in a corner. A number of things in the
