Pelzed laid them in a row, one smooth motion, ten shells marked by a Lord's Clerk. The clerk swept them into a leather pouch. He turned to the Witness. "They have paid, Honorable."
The Witness sat down to listen.
"An agreement between Lord Pelzed of Serpent's Walk and Chief Wulltid of Bull Pizzle," the clerk said. "Speak, Wulltid of Bull Fizzle."
"We give the street known as Dark Man's Cup to Serpent's Walk," Wulltid said. "Serpent's Walk will complete what's left of the work Bull Pizzle was paid to do. We will remove all Bull Pizzle people within two days and never return. Serpent's Walk has to repaint all the signs; we won't do that."
The clerk wrote on what looked like a sheet of thin white leather. When Pelzed tried to speak, the clerk held up a hand until he had finished writing. "Now. Speak, Pelzed of Serpent's Walk."
"We will complete the work offered by Lord Samorty's clerk. The Lords will pay us five bales of hemp and two buckets of tar. We will pay two bales of hemp to Bull Pizzle.
"In return, all trash will be removed from the street and yards, five houses of kinless will be established, and no one will gather in Dark Man's Cup for five years."
The clerk wrote again. "Do both of you accept this?" he demanded. "Then mark this vellum. Thank you. That will be twenty more shells."
Afterward, Pelzed was talkative and amused. "It was easy!" he crowed. "Wulltid never suspected a thing!"
Whandall didn't ask, but he looked. Pelzed laughed. "We had no way to expand in that area because of the gully," he said. "I've always wanted something on the other side. The gully may be worth something. Clean it up and a kinless could grow hemp there, I think."
Whandall remembered the hidden kinless camp.
"So I wanted it," Pelzed said. "I could have bought it, maybe, but this way is better. Look, Whandall-now the Lords know Bull Pizzle took their three bales, and two more of mine, and did nothing for it. Five hales for nothing. I'm gelling the three Hull Pizzle got, and I'll get it cleaned up."
Whandall waited a respectful moment. "How, Lord?"
"My kinless believe me when I tell them they'll have five years with no gathering," Pelzed said. "Do you believe me, Whandall?"
Whandall didn't answer instantly. Pelzed asked, "You know Fawlith?"
"The beggar who babbles all the time?"
"That's him. We caught him and his brother gathering on a street where I promised the kinless we'd leave them alone."
"I didn't know he had a brother."
Pelzed just grinned. "Want to live in a house of your own?" he asked. "I'll need two Lordkin families in the Cup. To watch over the kinless there. Ready to start a family?"
Whandall thought about it for a moment. "Thank you, no, Lord, I have a home." He shrugged. "I don't have a woman."
"Fine house will get you a woman," Pelzed said. "Even with that eye. But you're young. Ask me when you're ready. I owe you for this."
"Three of them," Shastern said, much later. "And you held them off until I scared them away. Tell me how to do that."
Whandall tried to explain. He told Shastern how he'd practiced each move, thinking about that and nothing else, and how it had taken months.
Shastern didn't believe him. There had to be a secret that Whandall wasn't telling him. Shastern left in disgust, leaving Whandall more alone than ever.
Chapter 16
As the scars of Burning faded, the lookers dwindled. They never went away entirely. Though Tras Preetror was gone, other tellers remained.
A teller gave Shastern a handful of fruit to torch Carver's lumberyard. At a dead run and with a blood-curdling whoop, Shastern hurled paired torches past a heap of beam ends and into the work shed. The fires went out, of course. Shastern shared the fruit around afterward.
They never told the lookers what happened to fires outside the shed.
Whandall liked lookers. Like most kinless, they made little trouble when their things disappeared. A looker who made a fuss would be returned to the docks in bruised condition, and who would complain? Many - not just tellers - carried little flasks of wine as gifts in return for stories or guidance. Some carried preserved fruit for children. And, of course, they told stories.
In spring again, three years after the beating, Pelzed summoned Whandall to his roofless hall.
Tumbanton wasn't about. It came to Whandall that he hadn't seen Tumbanton or Geravim the last few times Pelzed summoned him. Tumbanton and his son might be avoiding Whandall, after leaving Whandall and Wan-shig to the mercy of the Bull Fizzles.
These days Whandall had the status of a man, even though he had not selected his tattoo. Tentatively he opened conversation with some of Pelzed's men and found them speaking openly, treating him as an equal.
Hut when ho asked alter 'I'umbanton, nobody wanted to hear that question. Whandall hid his amusement and, naively, asked allot Geravim too.
Talk died. Whandall meandered casually toward Pelzed's rooms. He'd best not name those names again until he knew more.
The Serpent's Walk Lord offered hemp tea, and waited until Whandall had sipped before he spoke. "Tras Preetror is back."
Whandall stared. "I thought they'd fed him to the crabs!"
"Seems not. He owes me a new roof. Anyway, I'd like to hear his story. Wouldn't you?"
Whandall had learned caution. He only nodded, Go on.
"I want to meet him, but I hadn't decided who to send. Anyone else, he might not pay attention. If I send you, he'll try to explain what went wrong. Bring him here, right?"
"Lord, I am your messenger and no more. He comes or he doesn't. Where would I find him?"
"Nobody knows." Pelzed smiled; the tea was making him mellow. "Not in the Lordshills, I think."
Tumbanton thought Pelzed owed him. Pelzed might be tired of hearing it.
Tumbanton had heard Pelzed's prohibitions but might think himself an exception.
Tumbanton and his son had explored Dark Man's Cup. It gave them a proprietary interest... .
Whandall couldn't ask around Pelzed. He couldn't ask in Dark Man's Cup: stray Lordkin dared not be seen there. But Pelzed had set two Lordkin families, Corles and Trazalac, to guard the Cup. When Stant Corles came to the Long Mile Market to shop, Whandall was there with a cold baked potato.
Stant only knew that four Lordkin had tried to gather from the kinless in the Corles family's charge. They'd moved into the house under cover of night and held the family as terrorized prisoners. When it was over, the kinless were freed and three Lordkin had been given to the Lords. No telling what would happen to them. But the fourth, the older man with all the scars .. .
"We strung him up and played with him. He lasted two days. Not my idea. Long as he could talk at all, he kept trying to tell us he was friends with Lord Pelzed. Old man Trazalac, he thought that was way too funny. He never said why, and you know, I'm not inclined to ask twice."
Tras Preetror was in the village near the harbor. That was already too close to the Lordshills for Whandall.
Peacegiven Square was neutral territory and was the closest place to the
hills and hemp fields separating the "benighted area"-most of Top's Town-from Lord's Town, the harbor, and Lordshills. The Lords had changed the way things were done. Before the carnival, carts and guards came to local parks once each month. This year they gave out more, but the women had to go farther to get it.