However, out in the city, mind speech was sometimes observable. More often, and worse, with the very children playing in the public gardens, their delighted shrieks suddenly stilled as they stood together in complete dumbness, planning the next stage of their game.
As for those Vis Chacor saw on the streets—a handful of Lans, amiable Dortharians in from the fort up the coast, Xarabian merchants, one Elyrian astrologer in a shop near the quay—even Annah’s betrothed, a mix so nearly Vis in looks it came as a jolt to hear his Vathcrian twang—they only disconcerted Chacor, put him out. There were not enough of them. It was foolish to be there at all.
Arn Yr’s unfailing charity and humor had been evident on the ship. The vessel had got a battering and enough cargo had been lost she must go home without profit to repair, but he had not bemoaned misfortune, and once in port spent less time with his agents than in showing Chacor the city. Chacor had long since found Rehger valueless as a companion. There was an Arms Academy at Moiyah. Rising early, Rehger would be gone, to utilize the services of the gymnasium. He sold the gold on his wrists and off his beh to pay, and to recompense Arn Yr, who, with his wife, had made such a fuss of refusal it developed into a one-sided row—Chacor had scarcely any money and nothing to sell, apart from himself. But to take work in Moiyah seemed to imply remaining in Moiyah, and he did not want to do it. No one gave cash to see acrobatic street brawls, and most of the bets in Moih inclined to archery contests and Shansar horse-races. On the fifth day Arn Yr, who had shown Chacor the markets and the guild halls, the exterior of the gold-roofed Anackire temple and the race-track, led him into Moiyah’s Street of Gods.
Chacor looked about in earnest dismay, seeing represented on every side, among the groves of yellow-flowered sintal trees, most of the foremost deities of Vis. There the temple of the Ommish fire god, cheek by jowl with his brother of Zakoris, and there the pavilion of the Xarabian Yasmis, furled with incense. Farther along, obsidian dragons marked a shrine to Dorthar’s mysterious storm gods, where two or three Dortharian soldiers were playing dice familiarly on the steps. Even Rom, blue-bearded, loomed on a plinth.
Chacor muttered. He asked Arn Yr, if the Lowlanders were so devout, so given to Anack, why this sacrilege under her nose. Arn Yr explained the ethics of tolerance. He himself did not neglect Zarok.
“Then,” said Chacor, “where is Corrah?”
Arn Yr, who had possibly been waiting for this, indicated a lane. Unconvinced the Corhlan turned into it, and soon found the house of Corrah, and the house of Cah, neighboring each other. He went in at the Corhlish entrance, and gave one of his last coins to make an offering of balm, had no comfort, wanted to ask the goddess what she was doing there.
That evening, Rehger achieved gainful employment in Moih. The ship lord’s domicile, partial to dinner parties, had given one. Loath and uneasy you might be, but you found yourself nonetheless in yet more borrowed garments, spruce and garlanded, at a snowy-draped, belilied table with the family, and eight of its intimates. Nor were you churlish, but did your best to behave for your generous hosts. For some reason it was very bright before Chacor, the image of Arn Yr’s ship emerging from the bloody fog beyond Saardsinmey’s shore, (only, quite incredibly, a month ago.) Who had Arn Yr been that day, coming toward them over the ruin of the beach, the red froth of the fouled black sea about his boots? And the blond men of his crew, shaking their heads, giving wine, going into the wreck of the city . . . returning silent in the scarlet dawn that seemed ready never to conclude—A man, Arn Yr, and other men, fellow humans in the world’s night.
To Chacor’s left, the younger daughter, Elissi, offered a segment of candied citrus to a late arrival, an impeccable small silver monkey. Eating graciously, the monkey reviewed the table with indigo eyes.
“Ah, the monkey-princess,” said the man seated on the left hand of Arn Yr’s wife. “I hope she is well?”
The monkey twittered.
The man said, “Alas. She tells me she’s had something of a cough this summer. But how is it now, my dear?”
The monkey flirted, taking her tail in her hands and veiling with it her lower countenance.
“She says, she supposes if she were not treated so uncaringly, she would do better.”
There was some laughter.
“How cruel,” said Elissi now to the princess. “To say such untruths, and before everybody, you ungrateful, furry thing. Besides, you ate the pearl out of my earring. That was the cause of your cough!”
The man who had spoken for the monkey, previously introduced as Master Vanek, was himself a small, grisled individual, of the Guild of Artisans and Stone-Workers. He commented now that the pearl-eater was a paragon, and outlined the vices of another of her tribe, taken to his studio on Marble Street for the purpose of being drawn, who ate her cage bars, and thereafter a bar of casting wax, some sticks of paint, and a wig from the store room.
Then, turning eyes on Rehger, who sat opposite to him, Vanek added, “But it’s a fact, we are always in need of sound models.”
Rehger smiled gravely.
“I won’t boast,” said Vanek, “as the boaster always will say. But the three sons of a lesser Dortharian prince have modeled for my sculptors. It’s well known.”
“The frieze of the warriors on the great library,” said Arn Yr. “Yes, everyone knows. They, too, boasted about it. Your studio’s reputed.”
“My father,” said Vanek to Rehger, “was a herder on the plains under Hibrel. We do what we like here, what we’re good at. This is a virtue of Moih. Nor is any man ashamed to tell another his price.” Vanek took a grape and toyed with it. “We are about to engage on an epic venture: A Raldnor, a statue of the hero-god. It’s commissioned in Xarabiss, for the king’s own winter palace. We must not go wrong, you will agree.” Another pause, and anyone who did not guess what was up, unless it were the monkey, must be the biggest fool in the south. “Well, now, I promise to you, Rehger Am Alisaar, sixty ankars in gold, Moih-Xarabiss guild-weight, if you’ll take on the job.”
The amount, which was impressive, caused a hush.
Then Rehger said, presumably playfully, “Do you mean, sir, the job of sculpting it or of modeling for it?”
The table laughed again. Vanek only looked crafty, intrigued. “To sculpt would bring rather more, but my man already has the commission. I meant, to model.”
And then, another diversion. Rehger said, gently:
“But I heard the face of the messiah-king Raldnor is commemorated. I’m not like him, surely.”
“That may be a subject for debate. The likenesses we have vary, as do the likenesses of his ancestor, Rarnammon, and even of Raldnor’s son, the second Rarnammon, though he’s only dead some twenty-five years. I don’t mean to embarrass you, young man, but great handsomeness is required, of physiognomy and of body. And some endurance also, the stance and the hours are not easy. You were a gladiator in Alisaar, I believe.”
“I was a slave there,” said Rehger.
Vanek said, briskly now, “Moih doesn’t recognize slavery. Any slave who can gain our borders is reckoned a free man, as are all men in the sight of the goddess. Aside from that, do you accept?”
“Yes,” said Rehger. “And my thanks.”
“Thank me when we’re done. And now, Elissi, let me embrace the monkey-princess. I must be going, Arn my friend, ladies, pardon me. You know my routine. The studio begins labor at first light, Rehger.”
Rehger nodded. His face, as his voice, had not changed.
Annah and her Vis-Vathcrian were discreetly canoodling in the vine arbor, and so Chacor cut down the other garden path through the sintal trees.