“Do you mind, sir,” Letitia asked, carefully leaning forward in her chair, “if I ask a question? I mean, if you please.”
Sabatino's eyes flashed, his interests mirrored there in greasy candlelight. “Anything, my dear. Whatever comes to mind.”
Finn allowed him a deadly look, which Sabatino chose not to see. Letitia held her question while Squeen limped in with a ghastly, transparent soup, and a great, faded silver fish with glazed, astonished eyes; a fish still startled, still stunned by the stroke of bad luck that had clearly ruined its day.
“I do not wish to pry,” Letitia said, staring in wonder at something in her soup, “I see you are a man of position and wealth with everything a person could desire. May I dare inquire just what it is you do?”
“Why, of course you may,” Sabatino said, leaning back with a hearty laugh, a wink and half a leer. “As it happens, I don't do anything, miss. I travel at times, as you know. But mostly I stay right here-as you so graciously pointed out-in the comfort of my lovely home.”
“Yes, how nice.” Letitia gazed at her soup again, certain now that something in there moved. “Still, I would say you stay quite busy, what with violence and rebellion all about. I don't know if I could live in a land so sorely torn by strife.”
“Strife, miss?” Sabatino looked puzzled, slightly annoyed, as if Letitia had committed some minor offense. “I'm guessing, now, you're referring to the spiritual life practiced here. I should hardly call what you witnessed today strife.”
Finn set down a broken spoon.
“Why, you did, for a fact. We practice liturgy, ceremony, varied sacred rites. All of which are, I believe, common to religious institutions everywhere.”
“Not everywhere,” Letitia said.
“Oh?” Sabatino folded his hands beneath his chin. “So you are saying, I believe, that religion in your land is superior to that practiced in mine?”
“Ah, no, not at all, sir.” Letitia looked to one of the many heavens for help. “Some are less aggressive in nature, I have to say that. Not so much slaughter, torture, moaning and such. That sort of thing.”
Sabatino waved her words away. “Lame, insipid-boring, you mean.”
“Some of us like it that way.”
“Yes, I'm sure you do. And if you don't mind, may we set this subject aside? Our ways are best. Yours are clearly not. Let's talk about you, Master Finn. And you too, of course,” Sabatino added with a sly, deliberate glance at Letitia Louise. “And that marvelous creation of yours. The, uh-what? The grizzard, yes?”
“Lizard, I believe.”
“Yes, whatever. What did you say it did, now? Except speak, of course, and give a good showing of itself in a fight. Aside from that, what exactly is it
“No, a moment, please …” Letitia daintily dabbed her lips with the tip of her finger, as there were no napkins of any sort.
“I don't mean to be rude, but I have just gone through the most terrifying day of my life, and you have dismissed all that as no great incident at all. We nearly lost our lives during one of your
“No reason why it should, lady, no earthly reason at all …”
Letitia turned to see Sabatino's father stumbling down the stairway and into the dining hall. Two steps left, and then another right where he knocked a vase of very dead flowers to the floor.
Sabatino's features froze into a mask. “I think you would be more comfortable in your rooms, Father. You've had a trying day. I shall send Squeen William up with soup and fish.”
“Bugger your fish, boy.”
The old man staggered to the table and gave his two guests a crooked grin.
“Master Finn, is it not? And the very lovely whatsher-name.”
“Letitia,” Finn said, rising slightly from his chair. “I'm pleased you're feeling better, sir.”
“Yes, well, I'm not. Never felt worse, not that anyone in this house cares. Calabus. Calabus Nucci. We were never properly introduced. Put your hand away, please. I never touch people without a protective device of some sort. Terrible disease is spread through the flesh, through the very air itself.”
“I never heard that,” Finn said.
“Likely much you've never heard, boy. I doubt your knowledge extends too far beyond your craft. Few men have the will to extend themselves past their meager needs.”
“You might be wrong in that, sir.”
“Oh, now don't take offense. From what I've seen of your work, I'd guess you're a bloody genius in your field. Likely know your numbers, but I doubt you've read a book. Damn you, Sabatino, I loathe things that live in the sea. Squeen! Get me something else, you mange-headed brute! Bring me some food fit to eat!”
“Father, if you intend to stay, sit.”
“Not that chair, sir,” Letitia warned, “I understand it's unfit.”
“Nothing works in this place. You can thank my worthless son for that.”
Calabus found another chair, pulled it up and sat. Downed a mug of turnip wine, and filled it up again. Squeen limped in, looking like old clothes left out in the rain. He set something down in front of Calabus and hastily left. Finn stared at the old man's plate, and never looked that way again.
If the son, he thought, had abused every color in nature, and many that were not, the father had balanced the books. Calabus seemed content with shredded tones of gray from head to toe. Whatever he'd been drinking upstairs, most of it had dribbled down his vest.
“The answer to your question, miss,” the old man went on, as if not a moment had passed, “is that people act the way they do in this sorry country because they don't know any better. Yokels and fools, every one. I ought to know, I'm a former fool myself. Pass that wine around, will you, Master Finn? Damned if this isn't a vintage year.
“Used to be just ceremony. Flog your neighbor, punch an eye out. No one minded that. Now you've got to pay the bastards off. Richer you are, the worse it gets. I've been taken twenty-two times, you believe that? Nobody else has got any money here.”
Calabus took a bite of something brown, and glared at his son. “Took you long enough today, boy. Don't let it happen again. That Newlie you got there, Master Finn? Could she take off her clothes? By damn, I'd like to see that.”
“What?” Letitia turned three slightly varied shades of white.
“I don't much care for the manner of your speech,” Finn said. “It scarcely seems polite.”
“True, Father. You don't ask questions like that.” Finn thought Sabatino spoke with little conviction at all. He seemed to have a vision in his head.
“She's a Newlie,” Calabus said, spitting a morsel on the floor. He grinned at Letitia as if he'd truly seen her for the very first time. “You're a Mycer, right? You and me are going to talk, girl. We're going to get along fine.”
“No sir, you're not.” Finn pushed his plate aside. He'd eaten a bite of bread, and scarcely anything else. “Letitia, if you're finished?”
“I haven't even started, Finn. Do you imagine I'm going to eat a fish?”
“You can eat tomorrow, dear. When we get back to the ship.”
Letitia thrust out her chin. “I'll die before that. And I don't care what he says, all right? It doesn't bother me.”
“Well, it bothers me. If you're not going to eat, we're leaving, dear. I don't care for the company here.”
“I hope you and he are going to fight,” Calabus said, grinning at his son. “That's another thing I'd like to see.”
“Master Finn and I will settle our differences,” Sabatino said. “I loathe the lout, and he feels the same about me. Tonight, though, we won't go into that. As much as I despise it, I'm in the fellow's debt.”
Sabatino turned to Finn, offering a wide, and thoroughly insincere smile. “I insist, sir, before you leave our table, you give us a little display of your, ah-”
“Lizard. We've been through this before.”
