Horn was standing as straight as a Guardsman on parade now. With a slight shock of insight, Silk realized that this unaccustomed perpendicularity was in imitation of his own, and that Horn’s clear, dark eyes were very nearly level with his.
“And after that,” Horn continued, “there will be others, new boys. And men.”
Silk nodded again, gravely reflecting that Horn was already a grown man in every way that mattered, and a man far better educated than most.
“And I don’t want you to think I’m mad about it—knocking me over like that, Patera. You hit me hard, but that’s the fun of the game.”
Silk shook his head. “That’s merely how the game is played. The fun comes when someone small knocks down someone larger.”
“You were their best player, Patera. It wouldn’t have been fair to them if you hadn’t played as well as you can.” Horn glanced over his shoulder at Maytera Rose’s open door. “I have to go now. Thanks, Patera.”
There was a line in the Writings that applied to the game and its lessons—lessons more important, Silk felt, than any Maytera Rose might teach; but Horn was already almost to the doorway. To his back, Silk murmured, “‘Men build scales, but the gods blow upon the lighter pan.’”
He sighed at the final word, knowing that the quotation had come a second too late, and that Horn, too, had been too late; that Horn would tell Maytera Rose that he, Patera Silk, had detained him, and that Maytera Rose would punish him nevertheless without bothering to find out whether it was true.
Silk turned away. There was no point in remaining to listen, and Horn would fare that much worse if he tried to intervene. How could the Outsider have chosen such a bungler? Was it possible that the very gods were ignorant of his weakness and stupidity?
Some of them?
The manteion’s rusty cash box was bare, he knew; yet he must have a victim, and a fine one. The parents of one of the students might lend him five or even ten bits, and the humiliation of having to beg such poor people for a loan would certainly be beneficial. For as long as it took him to close the unwilling door of the palaestra and start for the market, his resolution held; then the only-too-well-imagined tears of small children deprived of their accustomed supper of milk and stale bread washed it away. No. The sellers would have to extend him credit.
The sellers must. When had he ever offered a single sacrifice, however small, to the Outsider? Never! Not one in his entire life. Yet the Outsider had extended infinite credit to him, for Patera Pike’s sake. That was one way of looking at it, at least. And perhaps that was the best way. Certainly he would never be able to repay the Outsider for the knowledge and the honor, no matter how hard or how long he tried. Small wonder, then …
As Silk’s thoughts raced, his long legs flashed faster and faster.
The sellers never extended a single bit’s credit, true. They gave credit to no augur; and certainly they would not extend it to an augur whose manteion stood in the poorest quarter of the city. Yet the Outsider could not be denied, so they would have to. He would have to be firm with them, extremely firm. Remind them that the Outsider was known to esteem them last among men already—that according to the Writings he had once (having possessed and enlightened a fortunate man) beaten them severely in person. And though the Nine could rightly boast …
A black civilian floater was roaring down Sun Street, scattering men and women on foot and dodging ramshackle carts and patient gray donkeys, its blowers raising a choking cloud of hot yellow dust. Like everyone else, Silk turned his face away, covering his nose and mouth with the edge of his robe.
“You there! Augur!”
The floater had stopped, its roar fading to a plaintive whine as it settled onto the rutted street. A big, beefy, prosperous-looking man standing in its passenger compartment flourished a walking stick.
Silk called, “I take it you are addressing me, sir. Is that correct?”
The prosperous-looking man gestured impatiently. “Come over here.”
“I intend to,” Silk told him. A dead dog rotting in the gutter required a long stride that roused a cloud of fat blue-backed flies. “
The prosperous-looking man looked at least as surprised as Horn had when Silk had knocked him down.
“I require two—no, three cards,” Silk continued. “Three cards or more. I require them at once, for a sacred purpose. You can provide them easily, and the gods will smile on you. Please do so.”
The prosperous-looking man mopped his streaming brow with a large peach-colored handkerchief that sent a cloying fragrance to war with the stenches of the street. “I didn’t think that the Chapter let you augurs do this sort of thing, Patera.”
“Beg? Why, no. You’re perfectly correct, sir. It’s absolutely forbidden. But there’s a beggar on every corner—you must know the kinds of things they say, and that’s not what I’m telling you at all. I’m not hungry, and I have no starving children. I don’t want your money for myself, but for a god, for the Outsider. It’s a major error to restrict one’s worship to the Nine, as I—Never mind. The Outsider must have a suitable offering from me before shadedown. It’s absolutely imperative. You’ll be certain to gain his favor by supplying it.”
“I wanted—” the prosperous-looking man began.
Silk raised his hand. “No! The money—three cards at least, at once. I’ve offered you a splendid opportunity to gain his favor. You’ve lost that now, but you may still escape his displeasure, if only you’ll act without further delay. For your own sake, give me three cards immediately!” Silk stepped closer, scrutinizing the prosperous-looking man’s ruddy, perspiring face. “Terrible things may befall you. Horrible things!”
Reaching for the card case at his waist, the prosperous-looking man said, “A respectable citizen shouldn’t even stop his floater in this quarter. I simply—”
“If you own this floater, you can afford three cards easily. And I’ll offer a prayer for you—many prayers that you may eventually attain to…” Silk shivered.
The driver rasped, “Shut your shaggy mouth and let Blood talk, you butcher.” Then to Blood, “You want me to
