Moltingur.
With a gulp that echoed, Fodo said: “It is a lady of reputation, come to buy a dagger for her husband. Her lover and his men await. It would be-” He hesitated.
The apim laughed.
Trinko hissed, “Passion and daggers and lovers. It is no business of ours, Ortyg.” He flapped his yellow cape around and hitched his sword. Well, that familiar gesture can mean many things. But Ortyg, the apim, read his Moltingur comrade aright, and he laughed, and said, “So perish all blind husbands, may Quergey take them up. You are right, Trinko. Anyway,” and he popped the last paline, “if there are men waiting…”
“By Gursrnigur!” said Trinko. “You have the right of it.”
So, their fists on their sword hilts, they swaggered out.
A space passed over before I emerged from the shadows. I did not ask Friendly Fodo the reason for his words. Perhaps he just did not like Mefto’s men. Perhaps. Perhaps he had seen something in my sudden flight that revealed much to his shrewd Fristle eyes.
Chapter Nineteen
Events moved rapidly in the ensuing days although in ways that surprised me and, by Vox! that mightily discomposed Konec and Dav. My own emotions remained opaque and murky in relation to my feelings about myself. Eventually I had emerged from my hiding place and with no word of the two Shanodrinese between us had completed my business with Friendly Fodo. He would produce the finer lines in the thraxter blade and he would charge me well.
We heard reports that Mefto the Kazzur was recovered of his wound. His animal-like powers of recuperation aided in this sense of that certain possession of the yrium that aided him in his control of his people. But I wondered. Certainly, had one of my clansmen, or Djangs, been wounded in a wing, as Mefto had, he would not have dropped all his weapons. Those on the wounded side, yes, perhaps; but not all of them.
The day on which Konec’s entourage visited the Jikaidaderen to watch Mefto and his people play a game comes back to me now as a day of suppressed passion and seething anger. We took our seats in the public galleries and settled down to study the play. The crowd was of the opinion that the prince would win, and resoundingly. This he did. We studied the way his men fought, their swordplay and techniques, tried to detect any weaknesses, and marked the men to whom he assigned the posts of most danger. On that occasion Mefto took part in only a single encounter. He and his Jikaidast worked the play admirably, and Mefto was able to put himself in as a substitute and deal with the opposing Princess’s Swordsman. This man was a Rapa, beaked, proud, fierce and an accomplished bladesman. He had made a name for himself. But against Mefto the Kazzur he just did not stand a chance. As I watched the glittering blades and the dazzling, nerve-flicking passes, I stared hungrily, desperately searching for a flaw in Mefto’s art. He appeared to me perfect at every point. When it was over the crowd applauded. At Konec’s fierce urgings we clapped, too.
As the games were played and the positions on the league tables changed leading to the final tournament, the patterns of the final opponents emerged. We were at last advised of the day on which we would meet Mefto, for both he and ourselves had fought through successfully. The lady Yasuri, too, was well positioned with a handful of nobles and royalty from various countries. The play-offs would sort out the final positions. The wealth at stake in this session of games was breathtaking. As Konec remarked, dourly, “Let them keep their gold. We fight here for higher motives.”
Yes. Yes, I know that sounds banal, juvenile almost, but if you had seen the burning determination of these people of Konec’s and understood what they were prepared to sacrifice for what they believed in, I do not think you would mock.
One of the questions to be decided before a game could begin was the notation to be used. A simple grid- reference, or the English notation where squares are named from their superior pieces, were in use, as was the typically Kregan system in which each drin, having its own name, gives drin co-ordinates. Well. As you may imagine, Mefto in the preliminary planning stages insisted on using his system. Konec, who in other times might well have argued with the authority of a stiff-necked kov, gravely assented. We didn’t give the chances of an arbora feather in the Furnace Fires of Inshurfraz what rules were used, just so we could get our swords at the cramph. But Dav screwed his eyes up.
“Do not agree too hastily to everything, Konec. The rast will suspect. I have the nastiest of itches that tells me he guesses we harbor plots against him-”
“You say so?”
“I do not say so. Just that I have this itch.”
By this time I had formed enough of an opinion of Dav Olmes to respect his itches of intuition. During this period when we all fenced consistently in the sanded enclosure at the rear of the Blue Rokveil I took much delight in bouts with Bevon. We used the wooden swords, the weight and feel nicely balanced to simulate the real article. With the rudis Bevon and I dealt each other many a shrewd buffet. He was a strong swordsman, blunt and workmanlike. His skill improved daily as he learned the tricks, his dogged face clamped with effort, the grip-jawed look lowering and determined. Some of his history, clearly, he had not revealed, although he did mention that his uncle had been a paktun. I caught a glimpse of many a warm summer evening when uncle and nephew would steal away down to the bottom pasture and then go at it, hammer and tongs with their wooden swords; and, later, of the tall stories the scarred old mercenary would tell the boy. But, all the same, Devon’s main interest then and now lay in Jikaida, the purity of the game, the disciplined concentration that drove out every other thought, the sheer intellectual challenge.
“You hit a man shrewdly, Jak,” he said once, after we desisted from a session and sought ale, wiping our foreheads with the yellow towels. “By Spag the Junct,” he said, having picked up that beauty from Dav.
“I swear your sword obeys your inmost spirit without thought. I never saw the last passage at all.”
“It is a pretty one.” I sliced the wooden sword about. “Look, like this. And, as to the sword and the spirit being one, yes, you have the right of it. Thought is too slow.”
Although, I said to myself, I had thought when fighting Mefto the Kazzur. Aye, and the thought never put into practice…
Bevon looked troubled as we drank. “This so-called plan. It is suicide, and that I do not like. Yet it seems I can see no other sure course.”
“Well, there has to be. Or, as some of my friends would say: We must saddle a leem to catch his ponsho.”
He eyed me. “Aye. And I have noticed that Kov Konec and Vad Dav Olmes speak with you in a way they do not with others. Me, they expect miracles from in Jikaida. But you, I think they see in you something that perhaps-” He paused, and drank.
I made no direct response. But it was true. For the simple paktun I appeared to be, these powerful men handled me with great attention. I know Konec listened to Dav. Perhaps they, at the least, could see something in this Jak the Paktun that was a faint and far off echo of Dray Prescot, Krozair of Zy. I prayed Zair that this was so.
Some of the party from Mandua went to see Execution Jikaida. Most of us stayed away. When criminals were sentenced to death, as opposed to being sentenced to take part in Kazz-Jikaida, there still remained a chance. They took the part of pieces on the board. When they were taken, their execution happened, there and then, the taking piece striking them down. The Bowmen of Loh maintained order. And there was the chance that they might not be taken in a game. They could go onto the board, with many a wary glance to the position they had drawn, and hope. After all, many a game has been settled in just a few dramatic moves…
One aspect of Execution Jikaida most unlikely ever to be found in Kazz-Jikaida was that, despite the blood- letting, real games of Jikaida still could be played. And one aspect of Kazz-Jikaida most unlikely to be found in Execution Jikaida — although sometimes this, too, was enforced — was the sight of the player taking his place on the board. Usually he or she would take the part of the Pallan, sometimes of the Princess. Mefto had taken part,
