As hestrolled into the light of the small lamp, the girl must see all this. See,too, the slightly cold and acid twist to the mouth that dismissed sexualimmoderation and therefore threat of it, the invisible yet quite preciselyruled line that seemed to link the balance of both eyes—a mark of calculation,intelligence and control above and beyond the normal. Only a fool would judgethis man robber, rapist or similar practitioner. And the girl did not seem tobe a fool. Yet she was afraid, and menacing. And remained so.
Assuddenly as she had thrown open the door, she slashed out with the knife in herhand.
Parl Drostepped back, a sloping lame man’s step, but perfectly timed, and the bladecarved the air an inch from his side. He was somewhat above average height, andthe girl not tall. She had been aiming as close to his heart as she could.
“Now willyou take yourself off!” she cried, in a panic apparently at her own intentionsas much as the missed stroke. “You’re not welcome.”
“Obviously.”
He stoodbeyond her range, continuing to look at her.
“What doyou want?” she spatat last.
“I toldyou. A drink of water.”
“You don’twant water.”
“How odd.I thought I did. Thank you for putting me right.”
Sheblinked. Her long lashes were almost gray, her eyes a hot, dry tindery color,nearly green, not quite.
“Don’ttry word games with me. Just go. Or I’ll call the dogs.”
“You meanthose dogs I’ve heard snarling and barking ever since I came through the gate.”
At that,she flung the knife right at him. It was a wide cast, after all; he judged asmuch and let it come by. It brushed his sleeve and clattered against the sideof the well. He had had much worse to deal with a few days back.
“Too bad,” he said. “You should practice more.”
He turnedand walked off and left her poised there, staring. At the gate he hesitated andglanced around. She had not moved. She would be shocked, but also dreaming thatshe had got rid of him. It was too soon for that.
“Perhaps,” he called, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Leavingher knife lying by the well, she flashed back into the house and slammed thedoor. In the stillness, he heard the sound of bolts.
He pulled the hood over his head.
His facewas grim and meditative as he turned again onto the road and started toward thevillage.
Thevillage was like a hundred others. One broad central street which branchedstraight off the road. The central street had a central watercourse, a stream,natural or connived, that carried off the sewage, and in which strangephosphorescent fish swam by night. Stepping stones crossed the water atintervals, and at other intervals alleys as narrow as needles ran between thehouses. Most of the buildings facing on the main thoroughfare were shops, theiropen fronts nocturnally fenced in by locked gates. Houses on the thoroughfare hadblind walls, keeping their windows to the rear, save for the rare slit thatdropped a slender bar of yellow gold onto the ground.
The threeinns, however, made up in light and noise what the village, mute and dark amidits grain fields and orchards and the vineyard scent of late summer, otherwiselacked.
The firstinn Dro bypassed. It was too loud and largely too active for his requirements.The second inn was but two doors away, and plainly served also as the villagebrothel. There had been enough trouble with women. As he went by, a sly-eyedcurly girl shouted from the open entrance the immemorial invitation, and, whenhe ignored her, screamed an insult connecting virility, or lack of it, to alimp. That made him smile a moment. The final inn stood on a corner formed bythe central street and an adjacent alley. It too was loud and bright, but to alesser degree. He found the writing on the sign was virtually illegible. Thedoor was also shut, as if to say: I am not actually invitingany of you to enter.
When Dropushed the door wide enough to be admitted, the entire roomful of occupantsturned to see who was coming in. Their reaction on learning was disturbed, butvague.
Parl Dro’sfame, or perhaps infamy, tended to precede him. It was quite probable some here would surmisehis identity. It seemed likely the girl in the leaning house had done so. Butif the diners and drinkers of this inn divined who had come among them, theywere not eager, or had no reason, to act upon it. Even the singing, which was concentratedat the far end of the room, about the hearth and its cumbersomely turningspits, had not faltered.
Dro letthe door reel shut behind him. He stood a few extra seconds, allowing moredetermined gawpers to satisfy themselves. Then he walked, slow and scarcelylame, quietly to one of the long tables. As he seated himself, the slightest,softest, most involuntary of sighs escaped him as the turmoil in the crippledleg subsided to mere pain.
Theothers seated at the table shifted, like grass touched by a breeze, andresettled. They eyed each other over their cups and bowls, the bones they werechewing, the cards or dice or riddle-blocks they were gaming with. An elderlylooking boy in a leather apron came up, a meat knife through his belt, a bottleand cup in his hand.
“What’llyou have?”
“Whateverthere is.”
“There’sthis,” said the boy. He dumped the cup on the table and poured a roughglycerine alcohol into it from the bottle. “And that,” he added, pointing tothe spits, the stew pot, the shelves of hot loaves and baking onions stackedover them.
“Don’twaste your time,” said one of the gamesters at the table. “He doesn’teat.” He picked up and showed the card he had just dealt. It was the King ofSwords, its four black points painted on like thorns, the hooded high- crownedmonarch brooding between them. The death card, Bad Luck.
“Hemeans,” explained the elderly boy, “you look like Death.”
“Icertainly feel like it,” said
