‘Taxes!’ said Neesberry, once Labrat had vanished into his office with Pokrov and Shabble. ‘Things were simpler in Zolabrik, eh?’ And he slapped Chegory on the back. ‘You remember?’
‘Yes,’ said Chegory sourly. ‘Though I was young.’
‘Of course you were! Then but a boy, but now a man. Come, man-thing, let’s drink with the men. You Ashdans coming?’
‘We don’t drink,’ said Ingalawa severely.
‘But you’re coming regardless,’ said Neesberry.
Ingalawa protested. Neesberry insisted. Ingalawa capitulated, and she and Olivia accompanied the two men into Firfat Labrat’s private saloon. There they were introduced to the few favoured guests who were enjoying Labrat’s hospitality. These guests included the harbourmaster, two bankers, three priests, a couple of tax collectors and a judge.
‘Give our friends a little Number One,’ said Hooch Neesberry.
The barman complied, serving up small tots of Number One in white porcelain cups. Chegory Guy regarded the fluid with disfavour. It was hard liquor. He knew, all too well, the consequences of indulgence in such. Intoxication. Addiction. Then the slow descent into degradation and madness in which the addict sweats through waking nightmares, hands and body shaking as imaginary spiders swarm in the fireplace and dead flesh walks by daylight.
‘Drink up!’ said Neesberry.
‘We are his guests,’ said Ingalawa, gently reminding Chegory of the demands of etiquette.
So Chegory gritted his teeth and took a swallow of the Number One. The vicious fluid seared his throat. Tears started from his eyes. His head spun and his knees buckled. He staggered, but kept his balance. He could feel the gut-rot liquor burning, burning, burning as it gulleted down to his stomach.
He took a deep, slow breath. Then another. Calming himself. Steadying himself. How did he feel? Well actually, not too bad. In fact, he felt fine. He felt good. He realised the initial shock had been due more to his own fear than the liquor’s chemistry. He reminded himself that he was, after all, an Ebrell Islander. For generations, anyone born on the Ebrells had perished in youth if they lacked the capability to handle hard liquor. Centuries of selective breeding had given Chegory a distinct genetic advantage when it came to handling strong drink.
I won’t die tonight. Not if I’m careful.
Thus thought Chegory Guy.
But, nevertheless, he warned himself to be very, very careful. He nursed his drink, and was nursing it still when a trio of soldiers entered the saloon.
‘Peace,’ said Hooch Neesberry, seeing Chegory’s alarm. ‘These are regular customers of ours.’
Then — doubtless out of devilment — he introduced Chegory to the newcomers.
‘So!’ said one, ‘so you’re the infamous Chegory Guy! Shabble’s companion in crime, are you? Oho, are you in trouble! There’s men burnt bad who’ve sworn to bum you alive.’
‘I’m innocent!’ protested Chegory.
‘You’re an Ebby, aren’t you?’ said the other soldier. ‘So how can you be innocent?’
This witticism set both soldiers to laughing.
Chegory’s fingers were already fists. A sullen anger hardened his face. He was but a joke away from brawling.
‘Come, friends,’ said Neesberry, seeing that brawling was imminent. ‘Finish your drinks and come with me. I’ve something to show you.’
Then he led Chegory and his two Ashdan companions from the saloon and into some quiet back rooms where there were a few pallets on the floor.
‘Here we sleep at times like this when it’s best to lie low,’ said Neesberry. ‘Likely you’re tired. Feel free to get your heads down and get some rest.’
Chegory said he would be more than happy to do so. Indeed, he was tired. It had been a long, long day. His sleep the night before had been disrupted by disturbances at the Dromdanjerie; he had worked hard physically all morning and mentally all afternoon; he had been shaken up by an encounter with a kraken then further traumatised by his sudden arrest and Shabble’s foolhardy assault on the arresting soldiers.
He was exhausted.
‘You sleep, then,’ said Ingalawa. ‘I’m going to have a word with Ivan and friend Firfat.’
Go she did, with Neesberry departing with her. But Olivia elected to stay. Strangely, Chegory found fatigue miraculously dispelled once he found himself thus alone with the young Ashdan lass in a room well-equipped with shadows, beds and privacy.
How long must we speculate before we divine the thoughts which must necessarily have presented themselves to his mind?
‘Precious is the day and precious is the flesh which enables the day.’ So says the Creed, which also tells us that ‘Great is the Gift of Life and sacred is the preservation of the same.’ Yet in our day-to-day life habit dulls our appreciation of existence, our awareness of what life has to offer and our knowledge of our own mortality.
Since Chegory Guy had long sought safety in habit, routine and the renunciation of ambition, he had long been more dull than most. In childhood he had endured the terrors of the pogrom which had claimed the lives of his mother, brother and sister. Thereafter, his greatest ambition had been to be a rock, something utterly insignificant and inoffensive, something the world would never think worth the effort of destruction. Chegory had lived by rote for a long, long time. (Here we are of course dealing with time as youth measures that mystery, for old age would think young Chegory had scarcely been born.)
By rote he had lived till this day, when events both major and minor had disrupted the even tenor of his cherished routines. His brush with death and with the law had awakened him to a terrifying appreciation of his own mortality. He also found himself alive to the world of the flesh.
To the world of beauty.
Olivia Qasaba!
Long had he denied the lust which urged him to possess her. Yet in the here and now it was hard to deny his desire. Soft were her curves and bright was the sheen of her skin. A light was alive in her eyes, and he allowed himself to imagine that she was remembering the valour with which he had contended against the kraken on the harbour bridge.
The caution which had governed his relations with Olivia in the Dromdanjerie was at low ebb. He was possessed by something akin to the recklessness which stirs the blood in time of war and sets the appetites seething. He imagined Olivia indulging him with a kiss. He was conscious of the gloss of her hair and of a certain fragrance which hung about her. He imagined But we all know exactly what he imagined. There is no need to elaborate further. Suffice to say that he studied the young woman intently while pretending to scrutinise his fingertips.
Olivia of the moods uncertain! What was she thinking of? What thinking? What? Only one way to find out. Ask!
‘Olivia,’ said Chegory.
He meant to make her name itself a poem. But he was truly tired despite his enthusiasm for the life of the moment. His tongue slurred her name, thickened it, made her middle-aged and dowdy, insulted her beyond redemption. Or so thought Chegory. Yet Olivia answered him:
‘Yes?’
Yes. She said yes. But to what? To nothing, for the moment. But one day, surely, she would say yes to all. To him, to his strength, to his need, to his urgency.
Chegory found himself trembling.
Then an outbreak of uproar abruptly ended this delightful dalliance. The two young people got to their feet in alarm as the building echoed with shouts, screams, the thumping of trampling boots and the resounding crash of sledgehammers smashing down doors.
‘Gods!’ said Olivia. ‘What is it?’
‘We’re being raided,’ said Chegory. ‘Come on! Let’s get out of here!’
But attempts to escape were futile. Chegory and Olivia had scarcely got out of the bedroom when shadows jumped them. Chegory was seized. Slammed up against a wall. Mobbed by a good half dozen soldiers.
‘Help!’ screamed a nearby panic.
His own throat shouted:
‘Olivia!’