"No," said Reith. "Only my trusty Timásh, and I'll bunk with him."
"Then I'll give you Number Six, an that suit you."
Later, when Reith and Timásh sat in the common room nursing goblets of falat, Asteratun, having no other customers at the moment, joined them. Reith asked: "How go things in Ruz these days?"
"Well enough. Praise the divine stars, the Dasht hath rescinded that besotted ordinance calling for the bathhouse owners to divide their premises into compartments for male and female." Asteratun looked Reith in the eye. "Good my sir, last time we met, ye promised me an explication of the lady I took for your daughter. Now, since we're old friends and businessmates, I'll call in that note of hand. What's the tale?"
"She's the same one you met twenty years ago, who was then my wife."
"Master Reef, I know that, with your Terran medicines, ye live longer than do we human beings. In twenty years, forsooth, ye've aged a trifle; but less than I during that time. Yet this pretty damsel seems no older than twenty years agone. Wherefore is that?"
"She's spent all but a couple of those years in space travel, that's why."
Asteratun stared down at the table. "Aye, I've heard of that space magic, that slows down time for him who partakes thereof, like unto the tales of a wight who goes to Fairyland for a day and returns to find a century gone by. A Terran once essayed to explain it to me, but I could make nought oft. Howsomever, ye said: 'was my wife.' Mean ye she no longer is?"
"That's right. We were divorced shortly after you met her."
"Ohé", so that's why ye insisted on her sleeping alone! Yet here ye were a while ago, traveling about together and acting like unto old friends and copemates, as if there'd never been a harsh word betwixt you. When one of us human beings is divorced, the reason is that one of the pair hath done some deed so foul that t'other would never again have aught to do with the wicked one."
"Neither of us did anything wicked," said Reith with a wry smile. "I suppose each of us craved to rule, and she couldn't endure the rivalry."
The old Krishnan shook his graying blue-green hair. "Aye, ye Terrans take your pairings and unpairings as lightly as do the promiscuous Knights of Qarar, who couple like unto the beasts of the wildwood. One, a Sir Khors, stopped here not long since. He had his new leman along and boasted of dropping his previous sweetling for the new—unless in sooth 'twas she who jettisoned him. He hinted that I ought to do the same with my old wife. 'Every man,' quotha, 'needs a new mate every few years.'
"I replied: The stars forbid! After spending forty year in learning to get along with a single mate, and getting her used to my crochets and indulgent of my faults, think ye I'd go back to the beginning and start over again? Think ye I'm moonstricken?' "
"Divorce is a matter of dispute on Terra, too," said Reith somberly, "with no final answer in view. But I find the subject like a knife in the liver; so let's talk of other things."
Arriving at Rosid the next day, Reith went directly to the palace. He asked one of the men-at-arms at the portal to find out when it would be convenient for the Dasht to receive him. The guard barked orders to another guard inside, who soon returned, praying Master Reith to accompany him forthwith. As Reith followed the usher up marble stairs, through huge bronze doors, and along a corridor lined with painted statues and other works of Krishnan art, he wondered why the noble should pay him this sudden honor.
Reith entered the audience chamber to find men with drawn swords suddenly surrounding him. By reflex his hand flew to his hilt; then he realized that resistance now would be suicide.
Before he could sheathe his half-drawn sword, however, a net whirled above his head and settled down upon him. A burly Gozashtandu gave him a violent push; unbalanced, he tripped on the net and went sprawling. Then the burly one and his assistant pulled the net together, binding Reith as firmly as a Terran fly wrapped in spider silk.
"What's this?" shouted the hapless Reith.
"Ye shall soon see," said one of the swordsmen. Several Ruzuma picked up the bundle containing Reith and bore it down three flights of stairs, through many wandering halls, and finally into the dungeon.
They laid Reith on the floor of the cell, unwrapped the net and, gripping his limbs to forestall resistance, relieved him of all his metallic possessions: sword, dagger, pocketknife, money, keys, pen, and pencil. They took his billfold with the letter from the Grand Master, inviting a regiment of Ruzuma to take part in the movie making in Mikardand. They ignored Reith's heated demands for an explanation.
While two of his captors held Reith's arms, a Krishnan in a uniform of different style came in, bearing a massive chain, on each end of which dangled a lock ring. The jailer fitted the larger ring around Reith's neck, adjusted it to size, and locked it shut. The smaller ring he attached to a fixture in the wall.
"There, now!" said the jailer. "Ye be not in discomfort, I trust, Master Reef?"
"I shall be more comfortable," growled Reith, "when I know what all this is about."
"As to that, ye must needs await the Dasht's return from Lusht, whither he hath gone for the wedding of the Pandr's daughter."
"When will he return?"
"Any day, now."
The soldiers filed out; but one remained in the corridor, looking through the bars.
Reith said to his jailer, "If His Altitude wished to see me, he had but to request. I have legitimate business, concerning which he and my clients have a written agreement. What is your name, my friend?"
"Herg bad-Yeshram. My people have been jailers to His Altitude for four generations."
"Since you know who I am, why treat me like a desperate criminal? Why chain me up as if I were the giant Damghan, who would otherwise run about slaying and devouring folk?"
Herg wagged his head. "The reason I know not. But the Dasht left orders that ye be kept beyond the remotest chance of evanishment. " 'Tis known that ye be a slippery customer, who ere this hath escaped from bars and gyves. Now I go to fetch your supper."
There followed two days of unrelieved tedium for Fergus Reith. The jailer and his assistant did not treat him unkindly, and they took care of his basic needs. As Herg bad-Yeshram explained: "We've heard tales of you, Master Reef, and know ye be a wight of fair repute amongst the Terrans. I misdoubt not that, when the Dasht returns, he'll discover that he hath been the victim of a misapprehension and order you enlarged. Meanwhile, howsomever, we needs must do our duty."
One guard was always on sentry duty in the hall, watching him. It struck Reith that his present plight derived from his successes in previous adventures, for these very triumphs had endowed him with an inflated reputation for derring-do among the Krishnans.
On the second day, fumbling in his pockets for something that might help him to pass the weary hours, his fingers encountered a flat, rectangular box of pasteboard. This was the deck of playing cards that Fodor had given Alicia, which she had handed him. Ha! He thought. Sitting on his stool, he began dealing the cards out on the tiled floor, trying to remember the rules of solitaire.
On the third day, while engrossed in his eighteenth hand of this dull but time-consuming game, Reith heard a familiar voice, barking English with a distinctive Krishnan resonance. "Mr. Reith! What are you doing?"
Reith looked up. Outside the cell stood Gilan bad-Jam, Dasht of Ruz, wearing a silvered cuirass on which were superimposed figures of mythical beings. To his lip was glued a new mustache, with pomaded ends twisted into spikes. A pair of guards flanked his sides.
"Greetings, Your Altitude," said Reith with forced composure. "I'm playing solitaire."
"Eh? What's that? And why don't you stand up in my presence?"