The Coming Of Wisdom (34 page)

He wondered if the birds were sorcerers in disguise. What would happen if he grabbed one? If it changed back into a sorcerer would its feathers turn into a gown, or would he be naked? Or were the birds prisoners, changed by sorcery, hanging around the tower in the hope of being turned back into men? He shivered.

Then a boy came across the square pulling a cart with fish painted on its sides. He stopped at the small door and spoke to the Second, who opened the door for him, and he started carrying boxes into the tower. Katanji came out of his corner and crossed the square in the slow, lazy lope of a slave who had been told to run. He grabbed a look in the boxes as he went by. Octopus?
Yuck
!

That was enough for now, so he wandered off through the town for a while, enjoying the smells, the people, the smell of people, the old familiar feel of horsedung between his toes. Ship life got boring for a city man.

He headed back to the docks to check on
Sapphire
. Two traders were trudging up the plank to haggle with Brota. That was all right, then. He had hours yet.

He went exploring the alleyways, looking for a slave hole. As a kid he had gone slaving often with Kan’a and Ji’o . . . what would they be doing now? Kan’a had sworn to the fullers. Ji’o was probably a draper now, like his dad.

The three of them had learned more from listening to slaves than their parents had ever known. Sometimes they had even drawn slave lines on their faces, although that was so risky that it had made his gut quiver and usually they had not done that. He had assumed when he got pricked as a swordsman that his slaving days were over. Then he had seen that a slavestripe would cover up a single sword, and the temptation had been too much to resist. He had gone down to the dock in Wal in the thunderstorm and gathered a lot of wisdom sitting under that wagon. Two golds . . . it had been worth at least two hundred to Brota.

So the Goddess had approved, and the next day he had gone slaving around Wal.

Slaves were slaves. Slave holes were slave holes. He found a deep alcove between two buildings, where a wooden stair went up. There was just room to squeeze between the steps and one wall—slaves were never fat unless they’d been gelded. He squeezed through, and there, sprawled underneath in the dark and filth and stink, were three slaves, assiduously shirking.

They just grunted, so he joined them, finding a place next to one of them where there was no dung on the ground. He sat down and huddled up for warmth, listened to their talk for a while; listened to the rain drip and a billion baritone flies. Just like old times.

The talk was of women, of course—bragging about what their mistresses demanded when their masters were away. None of them believed the others, it was all wishful thinking, and they all knew that. It made him horny listening to them, though, and he started thinking about Diwa. Maloli would kill him if he found out what had happened to his dear little, innocent, virgin daughter, or how much his dear little daughter enjoyed it.

But who would tell? Matarro knew; he’d wakened up at least once as his roommate came home at dawn. Truth be told, Katanji had been a little clumsier than necessary that first time. Stepping on his fingers had been a bit excessive. Later Matarro had tried to frighten him, saying Brota had put Diwa up to it, wanting to trap Katanji because he would make a good water rat. He did not believe that. He did not think he believed that. You could not trap a swordsman on land that way, but the river-folk had narrow ideas. Certainly it would create a hell of a fight—he had been told not to use the women. But Matarro was a good kid. Very naive, being just a sailor, but he wouldn’t split.

Very gently he edged into the conversation. New slave in town: what’s this sorcerer business? How many of them? What do they do? Could they cast a spell to make a slave a free man?

“They’d sell you a magic potion to do it,” one of the men said, and one of the others laughed. They worked together, these two. What’s so funny? asked the third—younger, not much older than Katanji.

“You know what they make those potions out of?” the first said. “Horse pee.”

The third said manure they did.

“Fact. Our owner has a stable. Collects the horse pee and the sorcerers buy it off him.”

Manure again.

“Manure you!” the first growled. “Fact. You go walk by that tower of theirs. You’ll smell it. Stinks like a stable, but there’s no horses there.”

“I used to belong to a tanner,” Katanji said. “Now there was stink!”

“None of those around here. Sorcerers ran them out of town.”

Again! The same as Wal—what did sorcerers have against tanners? “How about dyers?”

“Them, too. Why?” The oldest slave was getting suspicious of so many questions.

But there had been no dyers in Aus or Wal, either. Shonsu would love this.

“I’d heard that,” Katanji said. “Didn’t believe it. What about thunderbolts? Fact?”

“Fact,” the oldest said. “Big noise and fire and smoke. Seen one.”

“No big noise,” said the middle one. “Seen one, too. Big flash of light was all.”

They got to arguing. The first man had been walking along a street when a madman came out of a house, a slave gone weird, waving a bloody ax. He had killed three people inside and got two more in the street. Then a sorceress of the Second—piddly little girl—had stepped in front of him. Big noise, smoke, dead slave.

So even a Second could cast that spell? Shonsu would not like hearing that.

That was
all
manure, the other said, pure, adulterated manure. He’d seen
swordsmen
killed by a thunderbolt. The others scoffed, so he went into details. Couple years ago—dark night, clouds over the Dream God . . . coming home late from a woman, he’d been making a shortcut across the square and seen three swordsmen—ponytails, swords, the whole rig. They must have come off a ship. They’d been carrying bundles. He’d stopped in the shadows to watch, because there had not been swordsmen in Sen for years, and he’d made out the bundles. They’d been faggots. The swordsmen had run across the square to the small door of the tower, and he’d guessed that they were going to set a fire against the door. He thought they’d been drunked up pretty good.

They’d stopped at the grating, suspicious, and put down the bundles. He thought a window had opened high up, but he was not sure. Then the swordsmen had gone to look at the door and there’d been a big flash of lightning and screams. No big noise, just a sort of glass-breaking sound; loud for glass, but not thunder.

Two of the swordsmen had come back and gone by him, one helping the other. The third had stayed, dead.

“Cooked,” he said. “They went right by me, and I could smell roast meat off the hurt one. He was making nasty noises and smelling like pork. You go look at that door on the tower! You can still see the scorch marks.”

Two types of thunderbolt? Or a demon?

The nearest slave put his arm round Katanji. “You’re a nice kid,” he said,

“No!” Katanji tried to wriggle loose.

“It’s all right if it’s all you can get,” the slave said, without much conviction. “Try it, come on!”

“No,” Katanji protested, not daring to shout very loud.

“Oh, let him go,” the youngest said. “I’ll do it with you.”

Katanji left then.

He checked on
Sapphire
again, and she was unloading cargo, so he still had time. He must try to find more wisdom. He went back to the square, and the rain was even heavier, the clouds lower and gloomier. A group of slaves was waiting by the big door, ten or twelve of them. He hung around, watching, beginning to feel frustrated.

Then a wagon came grumbling along the street behind him, heading for the square and the tower. It was big—four horses. Maybe from out of town? From Vul, even? Shonsu might know. It was loaded high with something, a leather cover over it. More slaves walked behind. Two slave gangs? He could join in, and then each would think he belonged to the other. When the wagon and its followers passed him, he tagged on and trailed after them across the square before he had time to get scared.

Halfway there his insides began to leap up and down. What in the names of all the gods was he doing? He must have been out of his mind, but it was too late to stop now. If he tried to bolt they’d start a runaway slave cry, and the whole town would give chase.
Goddess, preserve me
!

The big doors were opened. The teamster maneuvered the wagon onto the grating, against the loading door. Three sorcerers appeared, a Third and two big Firsts. They tried to keep the load dry, holding up the cover so that the slaves could pull out the sacks and hustle them inside. Katanji climbed up on the dock with the others, and no one looked at him twice.

He must tell Shonsu that the walls were an arm’s-length thick. There would be no knocking holes in those.

A sack was dumped on his shoulder, and his legs almost crumpled. He staggered into the tower, following the man in front.

He was crazy! What had possessed him? They would hear his heart!

They would hear his knees—either his terror or the load he was carrying was making them knock like castanets.

The air did stink of horses. Phew!

It was dark in there, a big, high room reaching right up to the first windows, and probably half the width of the tower. He could look up and see great massive beams supporting the ceiling. The place was cluttered, but the sack hid everything to his right, and on his left was just a wall of bins, some of them open, holding herbs.

A swordsman spying inside a sorcerers’ tower . . . what would they do to him if they caught him at it?

The slave in front stepped into a sort of big closet and dumped his sack on a pile and came out. Katanji copied him with relief. Two sorcerers stood by the entrance, watching—a Fourth in orange, and a Second, whose yellow gown shone bright in the gloom.

Remembering to keep his head down, Katanji emerged from the closet, still following the same slave. He rubbed his back . . . mucking heavy, those sacks! Then, as he was going past the sorcerers, one of them reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

†††

Sapphire
was still gliding toward the dock in Sen, while Honakura sat on an oak chest like a ragged black owl and Nnanji slouched restlessly by the windows and Wallie thudded knives into the target board. Then Brota swooped into the deckhouse, swathed in an enormous madder-colored leather cloak, more huge even than usual, an angry cumulus cloud. Water was puddling all around her as it ran off that great expanse of stitched leather and dripped from her ponytail. It shone on her plump brown face and white eyebrows.

“I don’t like the look of this place,” she grumbled. “What do you think you’re going to learn here, my lord?”

“I don’t know, mistress.”

“Traders expect shelter. They’ll want to come in here!”

Wallie had not thought of that. There was nowhere else he would be able to see much at all. The portholes would be level with the dock, or lower. “Hang a drape? Yes—I’ve seen washing hung in here, haven’t I?”

Brota rolled her eyes at the thought of swordsmen hiding behind laundry, but she swung around and went off to organize.

“Where’s our mascot?” Wallie asked. “Perhaps we should keep him under our eye.”

Nnanji nodded. He was turning for the door when Honakura said, “Lord Shonsu? What would you say was the most unusual thing the sorcerer did, the one who came aboard in Wal? And you, adept? What do you think?”

“Killing a man with a snap of his fingers,” Wallie suggested.

“Not killing me with another!” Nnanji grinned as if that were funny.

The old priest shrugged his huddled shoulders. “We knew they could do something like that. And you were not trying to draw your sword, adept. Not like the late Swordsman Kandoru . . . No. That’s not it.” He looked puzzled.

“Tell us.”

“That spell of good fortune he offered to put on the cargo!”

What bright thoughts were sparkling below that polished scalp? “He must have known of the fire,” Wallie said.

“Exactly! It’s like that bird that they magicked into the kettle for the captain, isn’t it?”

“It is?”

Honakura scowled at the obtuseness of swordsmen. “When you capture a dangerous prisoner, Lord Shonsu, do you demonstrate your swordsmanship? Do you throw apples in the air and split them?”

“Showing off?”

“Like little boys! Why?”

It was a curious point, possibly significant. Honakura had a finely honed instinct for people.

“Katanji says he was lumpy. That interests me more,” Wallie said.

“Lumpy? Boils?”

“No. Their gowns are made of very heavy, stiff material, but the wind was blowing hard that night, and Katanji says that either the man had packages strapped around him, or a great many pockets. He’s a very quick little rascal, that one. Which reminds me. Nnanji—”

Honakura leered. “That’s not all he’s quick at.”

“What do you mean? He was told—”

The old man put a warning finger to his lips as Brota came in with Mata, bearing bundles. Quickly they strung a line along the length of the room and draped wet sheets over it. Nnanji pushed the chests to one side, so the swordsmen could sit unseen, yet would be able to see and hear whatever was going on. They would be on the landward side, Brota assured them, and able to watch the dock, also. It was ingenious but not very plausible, for nothing would dry in Sen on this drippy day. Wallie wondered if sorcerers could see through cotton—but then they might be able to see through timbers as easily.

The deckhouse began to fill up with wet people, including children, giggling at the novelty of wearing capes. Their play would be a good distraction if anyone became suspicious, for nothing could seem more innocent than children’s laughter.

As
Sapphire
nestled against the dock, Wallie remembered Katanji. Too late now to send Nnanji. Honakura, who had just wandered away so ingenuously, had deliberately diverted Wallie’s attention from the boy, and not for the first time, either. Katanji must be up to something, and Honakura was covering for him. Still, the novice had been ordered not to go ashore in sorcerer ports, so he could not get into too much mischief. Wallie put Katanji out of his mind.