As he waited for usca and mutton, Kellin again assessed the room. His entrance, as expected, had caused comment, but that had died. Men gambled again, paying him no mind except for the occasional sidelong glance. Impatiently he pressed the tip of a fingernail into the edge of the silver piece and flipped the coin on the table. Again and again he did it, so that the coin rang softly, and the wan light from greasy candles glinted dully on the sheen of clean silver.
The woman returned with a boiled leather flask, no cup; and a platter of mutton. She thumped down the platter as he tested the smell of the flask. “Well?”
Kellin caught the tang of harsh liquor through the bitterness of boiled leather. He nodded, then flipped the coin in her direction. She caught it deftly, eyed his intent to discern if his mood toward her had changed; plainly it had not, but she bobbed a quick curtsy in deference to the silver. The overpayment was vast, but she accepted it readily enough with no offer of coppers in change. He had expected none.
“Do ye game?” she asked, jerking her head toward a neighboring table.
And so the dance commenced; Kellin felt the knot of anticipation tie itself into his belly. “I game.”
“Do ye wager well?”
Kellin drew the Cheysuli long-knife and sliced into the meat. “As well as the next man.”
Emerald wolf’s-eyes glinted. She marked them, and stared. “Would ye dice with a stranger?”
Kellin bit into the chunk of meat. It was tough, stringy, foul; he ate it anyway, because it was part of the test. “If his coin is good enough, no man is a stranger.”
Indecisive, she chewed crookedly at her lip. Then blurted her warning out. “You lords don’t come here. The game is sometimes rough.”
“Tame ones bore me.” He cut more mutton. Emeralds winked.
Her own eyes shone with avarice. “Luce will throw with you. Will ye have him?”
Kellin downed a hearty swallow of usca, then tipped the flask again. Deliberately, he said, “I came here for neither the drink nor the meat. Do not waste my time on idle chatter.”
She inhaled a hissing breath. Her spine was stiff as she swung away, but he noted it did not prevent her from walking to the closest table. She bent and murmured to one of the table’s occupants, then went immediately into the kitchen behind a tattered curtain.
Kellin waited. He ate his way through most of the mutton, then shoved aside the platter with a grimace of distaste. The rest of the usca eventually burned away the mutton’s aftertaste.
A second flask was slapped down upon the table even as Kellin set aside the first. The hand that held it was not the woman’s. It was wide-palmed and seamed with scars. Thick dark hair sprouted from the back. “Purse,” the man said. “I dice against rich men, not poor.”
Kellin glanced up eventually. “Then we are well suited.”
The man did not smile or otherwise indicate emotion. He merely untied a pouch from his belt, loosened the puckered mouth, and poured a stream of gemstones into his hand. With a disdainful gesture he scattered the treasure across scarred wood. His authority was palpable as he stood beside the table, making no motion to guard his wealth. No one in the tavern would dare test him by attempting to steal a gemstone.
Real, every one. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and a diamond or two for good measure. All were at least the size of a man’s thumbnail; some were larger yet.
Kellin looked at Luce again. The man was huge. The imagery flashed into Kellin’s mind: A bull. And so Luce seemed, with his thick neck, and a wide-planed, saturnine face hidden in bushy brown beard. His eyes were dark, nearly black. His crooked teeth were yellow, and he lacked his left thumb.
A thief. But caught only once, or the Mujhar’s justice would have required more than a thumb.
On thick wrists Luce wore heavy leather bracers studded with grime-rimmed metal. His belt was identical, fastened with a massive buckle of heavy greenish bronze. His clothing was plain homespun wool, dark and unexceptional, but in a concession to personal vanity—and as a mark of his status—he wore a chunky bluish pearl in his right earlobe. In the Midden the adornment marked him a wealthy man.
A good thief, then. And undoubtedly dangerous.
Kellin smiled. He understood why the girl had gone to Luce rather than to another. She intended to teach the arrogant lordling a very painful lesson in payment for his rudeness.
He untied his belt-purse, loosened the mouth, then dumped the contents out onto the table. Gold spilled across stained wood, mingling with the glitter of Luce’s stones. With it spilled also silver, a handful of coppers, and a single bloody ruby Kellin carried for good luck.
The pile of coins and lone ruby marked Kellin a rich man also, but it did not begin to match the worth of Luce’s treasure. He knew that at once and thought rapidly ahead to alternatives. Only one suggested itself. Only one was worth the risk.
The bearded Homanan grunted and began to scoop the gems tones back into his pouch. “A poor man, then.”
“No.” Kellin’s tone was deliberate, cutting through the faint clatter of stone against stone. “Look again.” With an elegant gesture he pushed the long-knife into the pile.
He heard the sibilance of indrawn breaths. Luce’s presence at Kellin’s table had attracted an audience. The huge man was among friends in the Midden; Kellin had none. Even Teague, ostensibly there to guard him, slouched at the back of the crowd and appeared only marginally interested in Luce and the lordling who was not, after all, so rich a man as that—except he had now raised the stakes higher than anyone might expect.
The fingers on Luce’s right hand twitched once. His eyes, dark and opaque, showed no expression. “I’ll touch it.”
“You know what it is,” Kellin said. “But aye, you may touch it—for a moment.”
The insult was deliberate. As expected, it caused a subtle shifting among the audience. Luce’s mouth tightened fractionally in the hedgerow of his beard, then loosened. He picked up the knife and smoothed fingers over the massive pommel, closed on the grip itself, then eventually tested the clean steel as an expert does: he plucked a hair from his beard and pulled it gently across the edge. Satisfied, he twisted his mouth. Then it loosened, slackened, and the tip of his tongue showed as he turned the knife in poor light. Emerald eyes glinted.
Luce wet thick lips. “Real.”
Kellin’s hands were slack on the table top. Compared to Luce’s bulky palms and spatulate fingers, Kellin’s were almost girlish in their slender elegance. “I carry no false weapons.”
Near-black eyes flicked an assessive glance at Kellin. “Cheysuli long-knife.”
“Aye.”
Flesh folded upon itself at the corners of Luce’s eyes. “You’d risk this.”
Kellin shrugged in elaborate negligence. “When I dice, there is no risk.”
Thus the challenge was made. Luce’s brows met, then parted. “This is worth more than I have.”
“Of course it is.” Kellin smiled faintly. “A Cheysuli knife cannot be bought, stolen, or copied…only earned.” Idly he rolled his ruby back and forth on the splintered wood. “Be certain, Homanan—if you win that knife from me, you will have earned it. But if it concerns you now that you cannot match my wager, there is something else you may add.”
Luce’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“If you lose,” Kellin said, “your other thumb.”
The tavern thrummed with low-toned growls of outrage and murmurs of surprise. In its tone Kellin heard the implicit threat, the promise of violence; he had challenged one of their own. But the audacity, once absorbed, was worth a grudging admiration. It was a wager to measure the courage of any man, and Luce had more pride than most to risk. They believed in him, Kellin knew, and that alone would move a reluctant man to accept a wager he would not otherwise consider.
Luce set the knife down very deliberately next to Kellin’s hand. It was a subtle display of fairness that was, Kellin believed, uncommon to the Midden, and therefore all the more suspect, but was als
o a salute to Kellin’s ploy. The handsome young lordling was no friend to them, but no longer precisely an enemy. He understood the tenor of their world.
Luce smiled. “A wager worth the making, but over too quickly. Let’s save us the knife—and the thumb—for last.”
Kellin suppressed a smile. “Agreed.”
“One more,” Luce cautioned, as Kellin moved to sweep the coins into his pouch, “if you lose the knife, an answer to a question.”
Easy enough. “If I can give it.”
Luce’s gaze did not waver. “You’ll tell me how you came by such a knife.”
That was unexpected. Kellin was accustomed to those in better taverns recognizing him and therefore knowing he was Cheysuli. But Luce clearly knew nothing at all about him, least of all his race, which suited him perfectly. “It is important to you?”
Luce bent and spat. “I have no love of the shapechangers,” he said flatly. “If you got a knife from one of them, it can be done again. I want to find the way. Then I would be on equal ground.”
It was puzzling. “Equal ground? With the Cheysuli?”
Luce hitched massive shoulders. “They’re sorcerers. Their weapons are bound with spells. If I had a knife, I’d share in the power. If I had two, I could rule it.”
Kellin smiled. “Ambitious, for a thief.”
Luce’s eyes narrowed. “A thief, aye—for now. But these men’ll tell you what my ambition earns them.” One meaty hand swung out to encompass the room. “Without me they earn scraps. With me, they earn feasts.” His stare was malignant. “The Midden is mine, lordling, and I’ll be keeping it so. It’d be easier done with Cheysuli sorcery.”
Kellin displayed his teeth in an undiluted grin, then gestured with a sweep of one eloquent hand. “Sit you down, my lord of the Midden, and we shall see precisely what power there is to be won.”
Four
By the time Kellin had won some of Luce’s jewels and Luce a portion of Kellin’s gold, even Teague had joined the crowd surrounding the table. No one paid him the slightest attention, including the prince he was commanded to protect.
Sweat stippled Kellin’s upper lip. Except for the cracked door and holes broken in daub-and-wattle walls, the small room was mostly airless. Now that so many had moved in close to watch, ringing the table, he could not draw a single breath without inhaling also the stench of the tavern and the overriding stink of wool- and grime-swathed men who had not bathed since summer.
Kellin impatiently wiped the dampness from his face with the edge of his hand, knowing his nervousness came as much from belated acknowledgment of Luce’s dicing skills as the closeness of the room. He had always been good himself, but Luce was better.
The luck has turned. Kellin tossed back a swallow of usca from his third flask, trying to diffuse the nagging sense of trepidation. It favors Luce, not me—and we are nearly through my coin.
Left were two silver pieces and a handful of coppers, pitiful remainders of Kellin’s once-plump purse. Though he had briefly owned a few of Luce’s jewels, the giant had easily won them back and more, including the lone ruby.
That is where my luck went. Kellin eyed the bloody glint in Luce’s pile. He has it now.
Luce slapped one meaty hand down across the table, scattering the dice and the last few coins of the current wager. Dark eyes glittered. “Enough,” he said. “Put up the rest of it, all of it—it’s time for the final wager.”
To buy time, Kellin assessed him. The big man had consumed cup after cup of usca, but nothing of it showed in eyes or manner. There was no indication Luce was any less sober than when the wine-girl first approached him, only a fixed desire to begin the final pattern of the dance.
Kellin inhaled slowly and deeply, trying to clear his head. An unexpected desperation made him nervous and irritable, doubling the effects of his overindulgence in usca. His belly was unsettled as well as his spirit. He could not bear the knowledge he might well lose Blais’ knife. He had only risked the weapon because he had been certain of keeping it.
Luce smiled for the first time. Behind him, Kellin heard the murmuring of the Homanans. Their anticipation was clearer, as was their absolute faith in Luce’s ability. Kellin found it particularly annoying.
He shoved all that remained of his wealth into the center of the table, mingling it with jewels, coins, and dice, then challenged Luce in silence.
The big man laughed. “All, is it?” He flicked onto the pile a glittering diamond. “Worth more than yours,” he said off-handedly, “but I’ll have it back anyway.” Then, with abject contempt, he jabbed a hand toward Kellin. “Your throw. Boy.”
The insult stung, as it was intended, but not so much after all. To Luce, he was a boy, for the man was much older—but something else was far more imperative than answering a gibe at his youth and inexperience.
If I could win this throw, I could yet string out the game a while and avoid offering the knife. Teeth set tightly, Kellin scooped up the six ivory dice. Carved markings denoted their value. He threw, and counted the values before the dice stopped rolling.
Leijhana tu’sai— Relief crowded out the desperation in Kellin’s belly. Sweat dried on his face. He maintained a neutral expression only with great effort, and only because he knew it would annoy Luce. “Your throw,” he said negligently, relaxing on his stool. Inwardly jubilant, he waited. The crowd around the table stirred; only one value could beat the total on Kellin’s dice, and it was not easily accomplished.
Luce grunted and grabbed the dice. His mouth moved silently as he whispered something and shook the cubes in his hand.
A body shifted behind Kellin, breaking his concentration. A voice said irritably: “Don’t push!”
Kellin ignored it, watching Luce entreat the dice to fall his way, but within a moment the body pressed close again, brushing his shoulder. Kellin leaned forward in an attempt to escape the crowding. If they take no care, they will upset the table—
And they did so just as Luce threw. A body fell into Kellin, who was in turn shoved against the table. Coins, jewels, and dice spilled, showering the rush-littered floor.
Even as Kellin, swearing, rose to avoid overturned usca, he recognized the miscreant. The expression in Teague’s eyes was one of calculation and satisfaction, not regret or anger, though he voiced a sharp protest against the man who had caused him to fall.
For only a moment Kellin’s curiosity roused. Then he turned back to Luce, who cursed savagely and dropped to his knees, scrabbling for dice. Others were on the floor also, gathering coin and gemstones.
How many will make their way into purses and pockets? And then Kellin reflected that probably none would; Luce’s hold over the men was too strong. A copper here and there might disappear, but nothing of significance.
Luce came up from the floor, broad face dark in anger. A malignancy glittered in near-black eyes. “The dice,” he grated. “I have them all, but one.”
Teague held it aloft. “I have it.” His smile was odd as he tossed the cube in his left hand; the right lingered very near his knife.
Luce thrust out a hand. “Give it here.”
“I think not.” Teague had discarded his truculence and sloppy posture. He looked directly at Kellin. “The die is weighted improperly. You have been cheated.”
“A lie!” Luce thundered.
Teague tossed the cube to Kellin. “What say you?”
Frowning, Kellin rolled the smooth ivory in his fingers. It felt normal enough. The ploy could well be Teague’s way of rescuing him from a difficult situation.
He flashed a glance at the guardsman and saw nothing but a cool, poised patience. Nothing at all indicated Teague might be lying.
Kellin considered. A second test of the cube divulged a faint roughness at one rounded corner, but that could come from years of tavern use rather than purposeful weighting.
“A lie,” Luce declared. “Give it here.”
Kellin stared back. “You deny the charge.”
“I do!”
“Then you will have no objection if we test it.” Kellin kicked aside bits and pieces of soiled rushes. He grimaced in distaste as he knelt down on the packed earthen floor. It was a vulnerable position, with Luce towering over him, but he assumed it with as much nonchalance as he could muster. He dared not hesitate now, not before the ring of hostile faces.
“A lie,” Luce repeated.
Kellin draped one forearm across a doubled knee. He gripped the die loosely in his right hand. “If it is a fair roll, you shall have the knife.” He saw it in Teague’s hand, emerald eyes glittering. “Otherwise, your remaining thumb is forfeit.”
Luce breathed audibly. “Throw it, then.”
Kellin opened his fingers and dropped the cube. It bounced, rattled, then stilled.
“You see?” Luce declared.
Kellin smiled. “Patience is not your virtue.” He retrieved the die. “If the identical value shows four more times, I think there will be no question—”
Luce bellowed an order.
Kellin uncoiled from the floor and caught the knife easily as Teague slapped it into his hand. The blade rested against Luce’s massive belly, forestalling any attack by others. “I offer you two things,” Kellin said clearly. “First, your life; I have no desire to gut you here. It would only add to the stench.” He showed the big man his teeth. “The other is the answer to your question. You see, I got this knife—” he pressed the tip more firmly against Luce’s belly above the bronze buckle, “—in a sacred ritual. Few Homanans know about it; only one has witnessed it. His name was Carillon.” Jubilation welled up in Kellin’s spirit. He had risked himself, and won. “It is the custom to exchange knives when a Cheysuli liege man swears blood-oath to serve the Prince of Homana.”
Luce’s disbelief and fury began as a belly-deep growl and rose to a full-throated roar. “Prince—”
A Tapestry of Lions Page 16
