thrust, of course, he in his present condition, there would have been little of honor. Too, it is difficult to use a sword in a professional manner in the darkness, and I tend to be vain about such things. The sword is less akin to darkness than stealth and the dagger. A recruit, under the circumstance, could have felled him.
'It is time to go to sleep,' announced the burly fellow.
'Yes, you are right,' agreed the other man.
This was the second time the burly fellow, this night, had been in considerable danger. He would probably not realize this, even in the morning.
'Sit down,' said the burly fellow to me.
'Very well,' I said, sitting down. The other man sat down, too, in his space. The burly fellow then stood there and looked about him. He was the only one standing in the room.
He had taken the first tub in the baths. He had created a disturbance in the paga room. He had had an excellent slave sent to him, perhaps even gratis. I suspected he had had a greater variety of food to choose from than I had been offered. He had traversed the sleeping room like a hurricane. I doubted he would be too popular with the other guests. Indeed, more than one fellow he had struck about, making his way to his space. He had even come directly to his space, in a diagonal, rather than making use, like other folks, of more neighborly, if lengthier, orthogonals. Too, it seemed he had shown me insufficient respect, not to mention the fellow next to me, whose paid-for space he had appropriated, nor those he had trampled upon, and struck about, in his passage to our area. I also did not appreciate his criticizing me, mostly implicitly, for my choice of rent sluts. I frankly thought I might have seem more in the Lady Temione than he had. If nothing else, considering the prices in the inn, she came cheap. He then sat down in the corner space, 99, the safest, most private space on the floor. 'Do you snore?' he asked the fellow next to me.
'Never,' the fellow assured him. 'If you do,' said the burly fellow, 'sit up tonight.'
'I was planning on that anyway,' the fellow assured him.
I had little doubt the fellow between us planned on taking his leave as soon as the burly fellow slept. Could one really count, one wondered, on the burly fellow being in a pleasant mood when he awakened? Too, what if he should have some savage dream, and start thrashing about, knife in hand, in the middle of the night?
The fellow between us sat back against the wall. The burly fellow looked across at me, contemptuously. 'User of she-tarsks,' he laughed.
I noted he wrapped the strap of the pouch he carried about his left arm, three or four times. I supposed, like many such pouches, diplomatic pouches, so to speak, the strap would be cored with wire, and, inside, within the pouch itself, between the leather and a presumed lining, there would be a pattern of interlinked rings. These precautions make the pouch immune to the customary approaches of the cutpurse.
In a few moments the burly fellow was breathing heavily.
I put out my hand and detained the fellow in space 98 who, it seemed, was preparing to depart.
He moaned. 'Why is it,' he asked, 'that I am never abused by small men?' 'What is your trade?' I asked.
'I am a sutler,' he said.
'Excellent,' I said.
'I used to think so,' he said.
That had seemed not improbably to me. There were mostly wagoners, of one sort of another, here, or refugees. He did not seem to be a refugee. For example, he did not have a companion, or children, with him. Similarly, most refugees could not have afforded an inn. Too, he did not seem to have the refinement of a high merchant nor the roughness of the drover. Drovers, flush with coins, would be here, of course, returning from Ar's Station. On the journey there they would be with their animals, probably verr or tarsk. 'You are on your way to the Cosians' siege camp at Ar's Station,' I hazarded.
'Yes,' he said.
I had thought that, too, was probable, as he was at the inn. He would want its protection, probably, for his goods. Coins, or letters of credit, might be concealed about a wagon, but it is not easy to conceal quantities of flour, salt, jerky, paga and such, not to mention the miscellany of diverse items for the field supply of which one can usually count on the sutlers, such things as combs, brushes, candles, lamp oil, small knives, common tools, pans, eating utensils, sharpening stones, flints, steel, thumb cuffs, shackles, nose rings, binding fiber, slave collars and whips.'
'I have a commission for you,' I said.
'You want me to kill our friend in 99?' he asked.
'No,' I said.
'It is perhaps just as well,' he said. 'If I failed to do the job neatly, and he awakened, and I was kneeling there with a bloody knife in my hand, one could not at all count on his seeing the matter from our point of view.'
'You are right,' I said.
'He has a terrible temper,' he said, 'and, under such circumstances, it would be hard to blame anyone for being cranky.'
'I thoroughly agree,' I said.
'What then?' he asked.
'Listen carefully,' I said.
7 The Attendant
'Attendant!' cried the burly fellow, from one of the second tubs, that immediately behind one of the first tubs, that most convenient to the entrance to the baths. 'Stir up the fire!' It was early, but most of the fellows who had been sleeping on the floor of the baths during the night had now taken their leave.
The fellow then attending on the baths, rather large for such a fellow, it might seem, hooded, too, perhaps to disguise scarring of such a nature as might turn the stomachs of bathers, enveloped in a cloak, hobbling, perhaps the result of a fall from tarnback, hurried, seemingly alarmed, to the bricked platform beneath his tub and stirred the fire with the fire rake.
'Build up the fire! Hurry, fellow!' said the bather.
'Yes, Sir, yes, Sir,' rasped the hooded, cloaked fellow.
I had been confident, of course, from what I had seen last night, that if the fellow were to bathe he would pick that first tub, and then, behind it, that second tub. Some, and he was apparently among them, regard such as the most prestigious tubs. It was natural, then, that he, such a fellow, should select them. Somehow, it seemed that the fire in the platform under the tub in which he now reclined had not been built up this morning. He who was now in attendance on the baths hurried now, of course, to do so. The fellow, thus, who seemingly was fond of his luxuries, would have to wait for a time, and then, when the water was comfortably warm, could presumably be counted upon, if only in compensation for his discomfort and inconvenience, to dally for a while. He in attendance on the baths, shuffling about, occasionally muttering to himself, tended the fire.
I had anticipated that the fellow would wish to use the baths in the morning. For example, he had drunk heavily the night before and presumably could be counted upon to awaken in a few hours, thirsty and drenched with sweat. A horrifying hangover, too, considering the entire situation, was not too much to expect. In case he was less fastidious than we had anticipated, we had also taken the liberty of anointing the floor around his place with some representative elements extracted from the level's wastes' bucket. The presence of these in his area, particularly given the nature of his preceding evening, we naturally hoped he would explain to himself in the most natural way possible. 'Ahhh,' said the bather, leaning back.
'Is the temperature of the water satisfactory?' inquired he in attendance, hobbling over to the tub.
'Yes,' growled the bather.
He in attendance put an armload of wood and shavings near the bather's tub, on the platform. In such a way, on a busy day at the baths, might some trips to the bins be saved. It is an old bath attendant's trick. He in attendance, however, was somewhat clumsy in doing this. The striking of a piece of kindling on the tub, for example, rather on the left of the tub, seemed to cause distress to the bather.
'Get out,' ordered the bather.
