These sentiments were shared by the lady Yasuri and the other upper crusties of the caravan. Poor old Deb- Lu-Quienyin, for all he was an apparently dried up old stick, seemed to be in need of water, and I had fallen into the habit of sharing my ration with him. I am often wholeheartedly glad that I can scratch along with little to drink, although preferring unending cups of tea, and when it comes to push of pike and there is a serious shortage of drink — I can manage, somehow. We had passed the stage where he would say how kind I was, and that people who assisted a Wizard of Loh usually wanted something in return, and now we would sip the water companionably and talk while our mouths were moist.
“Do you notice that our famous Master Scatulo usually talks in terms of Jikaida?”
“I had noticed.”
“An affectation. He plays all day. He plays against his slave, Bevon the Brukaj, and always he wins.”
“Well, he is a Jikaidast. They are professionals. They have to win to eat.”
“True. But watch Bevon. He is a skilled player. I believe he makes stupid moves deliberately so as to lose.”
“Scatulo would see that at once!” I protested.
“Maybe. Maybe he is too puffed up with pride.”
It was not exactly true to say Scatulo played all day. The board would come out the moment we halted and the Deldars would be Ranked; during traveling periods he read from the many books of Jikaida lore he carried with him in his coach.
I had fallen into friendly conversation with Bevon the Brukaj and had learned some of his history. His gentleness seemed to me to sit strangely with his evident craggy toughness. He carried no sword, although he confided to me that he could use a blade, and as a slave was equipped with a stout stave to defend his master. I knew Scatulo had a sword in his coach that Bevon might use if pressed. The Jikaidast’s orders to Bevon resounded with the ugly word “Grak!” It was grak this and grak that all day. Grak means jump, move,obey or your skin will be flayed off your back or you must work until you drop dead. It is, indeed, an ugly word.
I said to Bevon one day: “Are you a Jikaidast, Bevon?”
“No, Jak.” He fetched up a sigh. “I might have been back home but for my tragedy.” He looked mournful as he spoke. Well, his story was soon told, and ugly in the telling thereof. He had been accused of a cowp, and, as you know, a cowp is a particularly beastly and horrible kind of murder, in which sadism and mutilation form part. The people had cried out against him and he had been locked away and would have been slain in lawful retribution. “Had I been guilty, Jak, I think I would have stayed and let them kill me. But I was innocent, so I escaped.”
“I can’t see how anyone could think you would commit murder, Bevon.”
“The man who died had made advances to a girl with whom I was friendly. I do not know, but I think she slew him. But I was blamed. So I ran away to be a soldier and was taken up as a slave. I do not really mind, for my heart is not in life-”
“By Havil!” I said, incensed. “Now that is just not good enough. So you are slave. Why not escape when we reach Jikaida City-?”
“You know little of that place, I fear.”
“I know nothing.”
“They play Kazz-Jikaida there.” Kazz is Kregish for blood.
That did explain a great deal. It also explained a little of Prince Mefto’s vaunted nickname, for he was traveling to Jikaida City to play in the games, and his sobriquet was Mefto the Kazzur. That splendid prince was pirouetting his swarth about a little to the side of the space where the caravan had halted. I looked at him, and grew tired of his antics, and resumed our conversation. Whenever Bevon found the time away from his master’s Jikaida board we would talk, and he joined Deb-Lu-Quienyin and me at night around our fire. The Wizard of Loh regarded the Brukaj not as he did his own slave but rather as a potential Jikaidast who had temporarily fallen on evil times. Often Pompino would join us, and, to tell the truth, we played Jikaida as well as Jikalla and the Game of Moons. This latter is near mindless; but it amuses many folk whose brains for whatever reason are not able to grapple with Jikaida or any of the other superior games.
So, as we neared the water hole and the drikingers had not put in an appearance and we were hot and thirsty and fatigued, I fancied that we might find the damned bandits waiting for us at the water, mocking us, taunting us to try to reach the water hole against their opposition. Ineldar shared the thought, too, for he hoarded our water meanly. The caravan guards stood watch like hawks. During a halt when the suns burned down we drank little if at all, for the sweat would waste the precious fluid. That last night before the water hole, with the stars fat in the sky and the cooking fires burning with eye-aching brilliance, we took our water rations thankfully. What happened happened in a kind of copybook way, as though this were the moment I had been waiting for many seasons to arrive. When it did, I found I could not identify my emotions with any accuracy.
It turned out this way… At our fire the lady Yasuri and Master Scatulo finished their meals and retired to their coaches. Bevon, Pompino, Quienyin and myself lingered for a space, for we had hoarded a little water and were about to share it out between ourselves. It was legal water; that is, it was ours issued to us by Ineldar the Kaktu. Sishi slipped past her mistress’s coach to join us, giggling, for she had a little sazz with which to sweeten the water. She had probably stolen it from Yasuri, a procedure I regarded with both disfavor and applause. In return for the sazz, which would freshen the water and make of it a pleasant drink, Sishi was to receive her share. We would split the sazz five ways. Ionno the Ladle might come in for a few mouthfuls, also. To get the sequence right is not easy. In the starlight with the Twins just vaulting over the horizon and the flare of the fire we crouched around like conspirators. The rattle of a window shutter announced Master Scatulo’s peevish voice.
“Grak, Bevon! Grak, you idle, shiftless rast! Bring some water — Pallan’s Hikdar’s Swod to Pallan’s Hikdar’s sixth! Bratch! You useless cloddish lumop, Grak!”
With a sigh, Bevon stood up, a massive bent shape against the starlight. Quienyin murmured that he was not enamored of Scatulo’s notation. The fire struck sparks from a glinting figure that appeared, striding along between the caravan and the fires. I saw this was Prince Mefto. Bevon took up his goblet and started for Scatulo’s carriage. Prince Mefto, leading his swarth, approached. There was nothing any of us could say to halt Bevon and to persuade him that the water ration was his. His master had demanded it and Bevon was slave.
A fellow who had been slave a long time and grown cunning in slavish ways would have gulped the sazz down instantly and then whined that there was no water — and if he got a beating for it would regard that as quits doubled, once for drinking the water himself and second for depriving his master of it. But Bevon was gentle and unschooled in the devious ways of the world. And, too, there is every chance that he really felt his master required the sazz — oh, yes, absolutely. Something like that must surely have been in his mind in view of what occurred.
Mefto was swigging from a bottle. He resealed this and moving to the side of his swarth thrust the bottle away. He patted the swarth’s greenish-purple scaled head. He saw Bevon.
“Hai, slave! Kraitch-ambur,[4]my swarth, is thirsty. Give me that water.”
Bevon halted.
Better he should have run into the darkness.
Prince Mefto frowned. We could see his resplendent figure reflecting our firelight. His lower right hand fell to one of his sword hilts.
“Slave, the water! Grak!”
“Master,” stammered Bevon. “It is for my master-”
“To a Herrelldrin Hell with your master! I shall not tell you again, slave. The water!”
Bevon just stood, his dogged face perplexed, his massive shoulders hunched, it seemed, protectively over the goblet. Scatulo yelled again and Bevon jumped and Mefto reached forward to snatch the water and the goblet fell and the sazz-flavored water spread into the dirt.
“You onker! You stupid yetch!”
Prince Mefto was incensed. He whipped out the sword he gripped and with another hand patted his swarth affectionately. “My poor Kraitch-ambur! There is no water for you. But the slave will be punished!”
With that Mefto the Kazzur began hitting Bevon with the flat of his sword. Desperately attempting to protect himself with upraised arms, the Brukaj was knocked over onto the ground. The Kildoi went on hitting him sadistically with the flat.
I stood up.
Pompino rose at my side and put a hand on my arm.
