Waterborn

street, too, and said so.

Hang snorted. 'They should know better, that's why, but they're too drunk to have any sense, I imagine. I thought maybe you didn't know better.'

'That was good of you,' Perkar said.

The man shrugged, glanced slightly back at him as they walked along. 'Most people don't like foreigners,' he admitted. 'I find them sort of interesting. My mother was a barbarian, you know.'

'She was?'

'She was a Mang captive my father bought and eventually married.'

'Bought?' Perkar asked incredulously, wondering if he had misunderstood.

'Paid a fair price, too, twelve Royals, he used to say. That's what he called her most of the time, 'Twelve Royals.' '

Perkar wasn't sure he was following, precisely, but he remembered his father's advice about keeping quiet rather than revealing his ignorance.

'I thought I might go trading up-River one day, so I don't mind meeting strangers, to learn a little about them.'

'I see.'

'What have you come to Nhol for?'

'To see it, I suppose,' Perkar told him, not really knowing what else to say. Then he added, 'I was hoping to get a little work for my sword.'

The soldier nodded, and Perkar thought he caught a sidewise look of condescension from him. 'You'll want to stay at the Crab Woman, then. That's not far, I'll show you to it and bid you good night.'

They turned off of the street on the River and crossed several more streets inland. At last the soldier knocked on a heavy wooden door.

'This is the place, Perkar-from-faraway. Don't let them charge you more than a pair of soldiers a night. Remember that!'

'Thank you, I'll remember it,' Perkar said. He was watching the fellow walk away when the door opened.

A large, rough man stood there, raking a practiced gaze over him.

'Barbarian sell-sword? Well, keep that thing leathered, you hear me? We get trouble from your kind all of the time, and we know how to deal with it. You've got no clan or brotherhood or tribe or whatever that'll find out what happened to you down here and avenge you, get that straight, right?'

Perkar frowned when he understood that he was being threatened, but let it pass. Piraku and its code of behavior were plainly not known to any of these people, though they insisted on calling him a barbarian. Best he should mostly watch and listen here, until he understood more about what codes of conduct did apply.

'I just want a bed to sleep in,' he mumbled. 'I've been walking all day.'

'Four soldiers, here at the door,' the man said gruffly.

At least he understood this. He had never dealt with metal coins before, but he had bargained for cattle often enough.

'A single soldier is all I can afford,' he said.

'Well, then you can't afford to stay here,' the man snapped. 'Though we have a discount for albinos today. Three soldiers.'

They settled on two, as the guardsman had indicated, and after paying he entered into the building's courtyard. Here, too, was a bit of familiarity. The courtyard was set up much like the hall of a damakuta, with heavy tables and benches. Men and some women sat at these, drinking from heavy clay bowls.

'You can have the room in the corner,' the man indicated. 'Beer and wine is a soldier a pint. Tell the serving boy if you want some.'

'Where do I go to look for work?' Perkar asked, hesitantly.

'I knew it,' the man grumbled. He sighed heavily. 'Just stay around in here, keep your scabbard out where people can see it. If anyone is looking, they'll notice you.'

'Thanks,' Perkar said. Worn out and overloaded with sight, sound, and smell, he wound back through the mass of strangers to the door the man had indicated. It opened into a cell that was no larger than a storage shed, but held a pallet and a small lantern. He closed the door and, after a bit of fumbling about in the dark, found a bolt, slid it shut. He sank down to the mat, which stank of sweat and beer and possibly less appetizing things. He was musing on how a city could be so huge and rooms in it so small when, despite the smell and the constant noise of voices from outside, Perkar was soon deeply, mercifully asleep.

VIII

The Rooftop

Ghan was not in the library the next morning, and Hezhi knew what that meant; he was down in the city, planning her 'escape.' Her mind was still awhirl with the idea; she had stayed up late into the night, in the courtyard of her rooms, running her ringers upon the little Mang statuette. Somehow, the fierce little horsewoman made the almost unthinkable idea of leaving Nhol—of leaving the palace—seem possible, something she could survive. The little figure could not, however, allay her doubts; there were many of those. What would she do, wherever she went? Certainly she would not be a princess, waited on by servants. That and indexing in the library were all she knew how to do. Where else would her skills with books be useful? The Swamp Kingdoms, perhaps—they might have a few libraries. But the Swamp Kingdoms were too close to the River, still in his domain. Did the Mang have libraries? Probably not.

Hope and fear kept her company all night, and in the end it was knowing her only other choice was the underpalace that al-lowed hope to be the one that woke up with her. She would not be waited upon there, either, and no book could survive that flooded, terrible place.

Hope told her Ghan would think of something; hope was the statuette, the image of a creature, unfettered, unbindable.

The worst of it was that now that plans were in motion, she was helpless. After years of investigating her own life so that she could understand and control her fate, matters were again in the hands of others. She spent the morning thumbing vacantly through books whose pages she did not even see. Ghan's place was held by a plump young man from somewhere in the Butterfly Court, where the tax collectors carried out their business. He was pleasant and rather bland, and apparently of no help whatsoever to Yen, who came in about midmorning. Consequently, Yen brought his questions to Hezhi.

Yen was a fast learner, so his queries were no longer simple ones. She welcomed the challenge—it and Yen kept her mind and stomach off of wondering where Ghan and Tsem might be, what they might be doing. But once they had found the necessary texts—Second-Dynasty proscriptions for tertiary water fane drainage—her mind wandered off again into the land of what-will-be. She really couldn't help thinking that once she fled from Nhol, was exiled from it, she could marry whomever she wanted, even a merchant's son.

She also considered that, once she was no longer a princess, no one would want to marry her, not even a merchant's son. And of course, it could never be Yen, who was dedicated to his life here as a Royal Engineer. Still, it was a pleasant, even an entertaining, thought.

He looked up to ask her a question and caught her thoughtful gaze, and she blushed, fearing he could tell exactly what she was thinking.

'I'm sorry,' he said sincerely. 'I'm keeping you from something.'

'No, no,' she corrected, perhaps a bit too quickly. 'I'm just distracted today. I have a lot to think about.'

'Well, as I said,' Yen began, making motions to leave.

'No, stay,' she pleaded. 'I wanted to ask you about something.'

'Oh. Ask me?' Yen sounded very surprised. 'An opinion, I hope, for of real knowledge I have no great supply.'

'You know about this,' she assured him.

He looked at her expectantly.

'It's just that I've never been out of the palace,' she said at last. 'The city is a mystery to me, even what I can see of it. Tsem—my servant—he tells me a bit, but of course he's never lived out there. I