little of the pecking order in Vallia; that it is complicated is true; I didn’t worry about my lack of knowledge.
“It seems you insist I must make you show mercy,” I said. I started to draw my rapier. I was already working out how not to kill them all, when I heard a man in the towing party yell. “By Vaosh! Behind you, Ven!”
I turned. I was slow. The blow struck behind my ear and I pitched forward, struggling to retain my balance. A black booted foot kicked out. I heard a coarse laugh. “Swim in the canal, cramph!” And then I smashed face-first into blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the canals of Vallia
On my back I floated with the mild drift of the current, for here near the inflow of river water, controlled and sluiced, the canal waters possessed a definite movement of their own. The sky above me towered enormously high, palely blue, with the intolerable glare of Antares blinding down and streaming variegated highlights from the tiny waves I made as I floated. I knew what I was doing there. I had been stupid, as usual, and slow, which for a man in my trade is unforgivable. I knew, however, why I had been slow. My aims had been confused; a desire to do what naturally occurred to me to do and my so-clever newfound rationality had played me false. I would far better have simply rushed in swinging as in the old days. Then, instead of me floating in the canal with a muzzy head there would be six bully-boy guards floating there, and with rapier-thrusts through their bellies, like as not.
In the future I wouldn’t be slow, and I’d hit first — as I usually did.
Worry over Delia had fogged my mind. Here I was, actually on the same landmass as her, breathing air that might waft down for her to breathe and so waft back to me. An idiotic notion, but one that suited my idiotic mood.
Through the water toward me the smooth stem of a narrow boat bore on. I saw the gaily painted strakes and the fanciful representations of monsters and flowers, musical instruments, and spreading proudly to either side of the stem, the lavishly decorated picture of a Talu, one of those eight-armed mythical — as I still thought — dancers of the sloe eyes and the cupid’s-bow mouths. I had seen such a Talu carved from the mastodon tusk in that perfumed corridor of a decadent palace, when a slave girl in the gray slave breechclout had dropped and smashed a jar of water. I had cannoned into the statue and toppled with it in my arms, the eight arms a wagonwheel of wanton display about me, the fingertips touching.
I confess I was still thinking about that mastodon-tusk carving as the rope hissed into the water and I was hauled aboard.
The majority of Vallians have been blessed with the kind of strong beaked nose I have myself, and the man who stared down on me now wiped a hand across his powerful nose, and grunted:
“Welcome aboard—”
He did not add the customary Koter, or even dom, or, given the circumstances, Ven. I saw the expression on his face and knew precisely what he was thinking. If you’re not a canalman, he was saying, without speaking, then you’re a dead man.
“Thank you for pulling me out. It’s all right. The water won’t harm me.”
He perked up at that, and smiled.
“You’d best come below. Dry you off.” As I nodded to thank him and bent to descend the short companionway ladder, he whistled. I had lost my hat.
“That’s a crack you’ve had on the back of your head, Ven. Like to have killed a man.”
“I’ve a tolerably thick skull. Too thick for some folk.”
Someone yelled from up forward and my host halted to yell back. “He’s of the canalfolk. He’s had a knock, but he’ll live.”
In the small but beautifully appointed cabin with everything in its place I sat at the table and drank strong Kregan tea. Made with the canalwater, it tasted somehow as good as any tea I have ever had. “I am Yelker, skipper of the old
Dancing Talu.”
I knew, from my talk with Borg, that he would be Ven
“It seems you insist I must make you show mercy,” I said. I started to draw my rapier. I was already working out how not to kill them all, when I heard a man in the towing party yell. “By Vaosh! Behind you, Ven!”
I turned. I was slow. The blow struck behind my ear and I pitched forward, struggling to retain my balance. A black booted foot kicked out. I heard a coarse laugh. “Swim in the canal, cramph!” And then I smashed face-first into blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the canals of Vallia
On my back I floated with the mild drift of the current, for here near the inflow of river water, controlled and sluiced, the canal waters possessed a definite movement of their own. The sky above me towered enormously high, palely blue, with the intolerable glare of Antares blinding down and streaming variegated highlights from the tiny waves I made as I floated. I knew what I was doing there. I had been stupid, as usual, and slow, which for a man in my trade is unforgivable. I knew, however, why I had been slow. My aims had been confused; a desire to do what naturally occurred to me to do and my so-clever newfound rationality had played me false. I would far better have simply rushed in swinging as in the old days. Then, instead of me floating in the canal with a muzzy head there would be six bully-boy guards floating there, and with rapier-thrusts through their bellies, like as not.
In the future I wouldn’t be slow, and I’d hit first — as I usually did.
Worry over Delia had fogged my mind. Here I was, actually on the same landmass as her, breathing air that might waft down for her to breathe and so waft back to me. An idiotic notion, but one that suited my idiotic mood.
Through the water toward me the smooth stem of a narrow boat bore on. I saw the gaily painted strakes and the fanciful representations of monsters and flowers, musical instruments, and spreading proudly to either side of the stem, the lavishly decorated picture of a Talu, one of those eight-armed mythical — as I still thought — dancers of the sloe eyes and the cupid’s-bow mouths. I had seen such a Talu carved from the mastodon tusk in that perfumed corridor of a decadent palace, when a slave girl in the gray slave breechclout had dropped and smashed a jar of water. I had cannoned into the statue and toppled with it in my arms, the eight arms a wagonwheel of wanton display about me, the fingertips touching.
I confess I was still thinking about that mastodon-tusk carving as the rope hissed into the water and I was hauled aboard.
The majority of Vallians have been blessed with the kind of strong beaked nose I have myself, and the man who stared down on me now wiped a hand across his powerful nose, and grunted:
“Welcome aboard—”
He did not add the customary Koter, or even dom, or, given the circumstances, Ven. I saw the expression on his face and knew precisely what he was thinking. If you’re not a canalman, he was saying, without speaking, then you’re a dead man.
“Thank you for pulling me out. It’s all right. The water won’t harm me.”
He perked up at that, and smiled.
“You’d best come below. Dry you off.” As I nodded to thank him and bent to descend the short companionway ladder, he whistled. I had lost my hat.
“That’s a crack you’ve had on the back of your head, Ven. Like to have killed a man.”
“I’ve a tolerably thick skull. Too thick for some folk.”
Someone yelled from up forward and my host halted to yell back. “He’s of the canalfolk. He’s had a knock, but he’ll live.”
In the small but beautifully appointed cabin with everything in its place I sat at the table and drank strong Kregan tea. Made with the canalwater, it tasted somehow as good as any tea I have ever had. “I am Yelker, skipper of the old
Dancing Talu.”
I knew, from my talk with Borg, that he would be Ven
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