“She is a fleet craft, and nimble, Viridia,” Chekumte was saying. He spilled wine as he slanted his cup in eagerness to lean forward in friendly converse. “She rows a hundred and twenty oars and sails like a king korf!”
“A hundred and twenty oars,” said Viridia, properly contemptuous. “Zenzile fashion!”
“And what of that? She has served me well; but I have captured a new swordship from Walfarg, and my force is balanced so that I no longer need her.”
“And you seek to dispose of your old scows to me, Chekumte.”
I stood there, listening, for listening brings information.
Viridia lifted her cup to me. The fingers she wrapped around the glass stem glittered with gemmed rings. Her tanned face was, minute by minute, growing more flushed. “Dray Prescot! You are not drinking.”
“When I find out what you wanted, Viridia, I will find some wine.”
She scowled as though I had insulted her, but heaved up and glared sullenly at me.
“Have you seen Strom Erclan? I want him to discuss this business. Chekumte is a wily rogue, for a Chulik.”
Chekumte guffawed, polished his tusks, and quaffed wine.
I would not lie. “I saw him up the beach half a bur ago.”
“Wenching again, I’ll be bound.” Viridia slumped back, that sullen expression on her face turning all her features lumpy. “I keep my render maidens locked away from the likes of him.”
I did not say: “You will have no need of that anymore.”
It would have been a nice line, but I wanted no more trouble. If I had to tear the hearts out of all those here, I would do so if that was the only way to return to my Delia. But only a fool buys trouble. Instead, I said, casually, “A zenzile swordship would not fit in with your squadron, Viridia. And if she rows only a hundred and twenty oars she must be short, and if short then narrow to retain her speed, and if narrow then useless in a sea. I can’t get your calsanys to shoot straight from the deck of your flagship as it is.”
Chekumte surged up. His eyes were bloodshot. His thin lips ricked back from those gold-tipped tusks. Little of humanity is known to a Chulik. About the only thing I have heard in their favor is that they are loyal to whoever pays them.
Mind you — that is a valuable attribute in any mercenary.
Now this Chulik glowered down on me and spouted obscenities at me. He rounded on Viridia. “Do you allow Likshu-spawned offal like this to teach you your trade, Viridia the Render?”
Viridia was annoyed. She twiddled with the hilt of her rapier. As though transmitting her anger to her Womoxes who stood in partial shadow at her back, she herself stood up. For a moment we three stood, confronting one another, and gradually the uproar died as the roisterers realized the tension gripping us. Chuliks make a habit of adopting the weapons and customs of the race employing them. Now Chekumte was a render captain in his own right and he had adopted the weaponry of his peers. He drew his rapier and, slowly, pushed it forward until the point touched my breast. He did not prick the skin.
“This thing must be taught a lesson, Viridia.”
I looked at her. This was a test for her. I knew that. I wondered if she had realized that yet.
“For the sake of the cursed Armipand, Chekumte! Leave him alone!”
“Not until he grovels on his knees and begs my pardon.”
So far I had not moved. Still I looked beneath lowering brows at Viridia. Her bosom beneath that armor heaved. She was clearly in distress — and I marveled.
“Leave it, Chekumte! I will buy the swordship. There! Will you shake hands on it?”
But the Chulik kept his rapier point pressed against my breast.
“Not until this cramph apologizes!”
I said, “This island is called the island of Careless Repose. I did not expect to find a quarrel here.”
“There is not a quarrel, cramph! You, Prescot! Down on your knees! Lick my boots! Beg my pardon else I run you through.”
“Now, Chekumte!” protested Viridia. She began to lose her temper and a spark of that wildness flared.
“I have men here! Would you drench our safe haven in blood?”
“This is a point of honor, Chulik honor! By Likshu the Treacherous! I’ll have his tripes!”
Still I glowered down on Viridia the Render — and still she would not meet my gaze. A ruffianly towheaded pirate down the board laughed and yelled. He was of The Bloody Menaham or Menahem — either spelling conveys the meaning — and he had no love for anyone of Tomboram, from which country he believed me to originate. “Stick him now, Chekumte! What are you waiting for?” He waved his goblet and spilled wine over the brilliant blue and green cummerbund he wore, the blue and green of his national colors.
“Hold!” shouted Viridia. Her blue eyes blazed on me now with a violence of passion I knew would break out any moment and that would be followed by a battle royal and bloody corpses strewing the pleasant island of Careless Repose.
“There seems no holding the Chulik, Viridia,” I said. With a quick and startlingly sudden movement I stepped back so that Chekumte was left with his rapier pressed against thin air. I lifted my voice and shouted. “Listen, renders of the islands! I will fight this rast of a Chulik in fair fight! It lies between him and me! In all honor is this not so?”
After a great deal of yelling and cursing and argument, the general opinion was that, indeed, the quarrel lay between Chekumte and myself. He leaped the table and advanced on me.
“You have held me up to ridicule, human! Now you will die!”
I drew and faced him.
As Strom Erclan had been, as long-dead Galna had been, he was a master swordsman. The moment our blades crossed I felt the power in his thick wrists, and knew that I must put out every ounce of effort. And yet — and yet I sometimes wonder if I exaggerate the qualities of swordsman opponents in order to aggrandize my own prowess. I do not know. I know that I have faced many master swordsmen and fencers of high renown, famous in their own lands, and have bested them, every one. Is this the beginning of paranoia? Yet each time I cross blades with an opponent I know that this time, at last, I may have met my match. I think it is this tingling zest of the unknown, this awareness that every combat may be my last, that gives me the nervous energy to go on. I have met swordsmen who through years of absolute victory have thought themselves invincible and so they fought in order to kill and gloat in their killing. This, to me, is the mark of the beast. I detest killing, as I have said many times. If I thought that I could never lose a fight — where would be the fun of fighting? If, Zair forgive me, fighting is ever fun. Chekumte the Chulik was extraordinarily good, as I remember, as I believe. He would have disposed of Strom Erclan in a mere passage or two. Chekumte came from one of the many Chulik islands that stretch northeastward up the coast of southeastern Segesthes, with the island of Xuntal in the south of the chain. There they train their children in all the varied weapons they are likely to encounter when they reach adulthood and sally forth as mercenaries, for this is the chief occupation of Chuliks. Chekumte had been well-trained, and by a master I would like to meet. In addition, he had turned pirate, which was unusual for a Chulik, and had fought his way up to the captaincy of his own band of renders. We fought in a great glittering of blades, thrusting and parrying, rapier against main-gauche, whirling about and sliding and slipping on the discarded bones and meats of the floor. But, in the end, I had with as pretty a passage as I recall forced him against a table so that he bent backward to escape being transfixed. He catapulted out, his dagger low, his rapier high. He feinted a thrust with the dagger and then, as swiftly as a striking leem, slashed diagonally down with his rapier. Here was the Jiktar and the Hikdar working in sweet unison. I heard a shrill chopped-off scream. Then I had taken that swooping lethal blade on my main-gauche and in a screech of steel deflected it and the next instant my own rapier stood out a foot past Chekumte’s backbone. In almost the same motion I withdrew and Chekumte dropped his weapons. He looked down in wonderment and then placed both his hands over the blood-seeping hole in his chest. My blade had gone through cleanly, without fouling bone; but he was done for.