Part 40 (2/2)

'You seem to throw a great deal of weight around, Oscagne,' Emban said that evening after they had eaten an exotic meal consisting of course after course of unidentifiable delicacies and sometimes startling flavours.

'I'm not the overweight one, my friend,' Oscagne smiled. 'My commission is signed by the emperor, and his hand had the full weight of the entire Daresian continent behind it. He's ordered that all of Tamuli do everything possible-and even impossible-to make the visit of Queen Ehlana pleasant and convenient. No one ever disobeys his orders.'

'They must not have reached the Trolls then,' Ulath said blandly. 'Of course Trolls have a different view of the world than we do. Maybe they thought Queen Ehlana would be entertained by their welcome.'

'Does he have to do that?' Oscagne complained to Sparhawk.

'Ulath? Yes, I think he does, your Excellency. It's something in the Thalesian nature, terribly obscure, I'm afraid, and quite possibly perverted.'

'Sparhawk.' Ulath protested.

'Nothing personal there, old boy,' Sparhawk grinned, 'just a reminder that I haven't yet quite forgiven you for all the times you've tricked me into doing the cooking when it wasn't really my turn.'

'Hold still,' Mirtai commanded.

'You got some of it in my eye,' Talen accused her.

'It won't hurt you. Now hold still.' She continued to daub the mixture onto his face.

'What is that, Mirtai?' Baroness Melidere asked curiously.

'Saffron. We use it in our cooking. It's a kind of a spice.'

'What are we doing here?' Ehlana asked curiously as she and Sparhawk entered the room to find the Atana spreading the condiment over Talen's face.

'We're modifying your page, my Queen,' Stragen explained. 'He has to go out into the streets, and we want him to be un.o.btrusive. Mirtai's changing the colour of his skin.'

'You could do that with magic, couldn't you, Sparhawk?' Ehlana asked.

'Probably,' he said, 'and if I couldn't, Sephrenia certainly could.'

'Now you tell me,' Talen said in a slightly bitter tone. 'Mirtai's been seasoning me for the past half hour.'

'You smell good, though,' Melidere told him.

'I didn't set out to be somebody's supper. Ouch.'

'Sorry,' Alcan murmured, carefully disengaging her comb from a snarl in his hair. 'I have to work the dye in, though, or it won't look right.' Alcan was applying black dye to the young man's hair.

'How long will it take me to wash this yellow stuff off?' Talen asked.

'I'm not sure,' Mirtai shrugged. 'It might be permanent, but it should grow out in a month or so.'

'I'll get you for this, Stragen,' Talen threatened.

'Hold still,' Mirtai said again and continued her daubing.

'We have to make contact with the local thieves,' Stragen explained. 'The thieves at Sarsos promised that we'd get a definite answer here in Lebas.'

'I see a large hole in the plan, Stragen,' Sparhawk replied. 'Talen doesn't speak Tamul.'

'That's no real problem,' Stragen shrugged. 'The chief of the local thieves is a Cammorian.'

'How did that happen?'

'We're very cosmopolitan, Sparhawk. All thieves are brothers, after all, and we recognise the aristocracy of talent. Anyway, as soon as he can pa.s.s for a Tamul, Talen's going to the local thieves' den to talk with Caalador-that's the Cammorian's name. He'll bring him here, and we'll be able to talk with him privately.'

'Why aren't you the one who's going?'

'And get saffron all over my face? Don't be silly, Sparhawk.'

Caalador the Cammorian was a stocky, red-faced man with curly black hair and an open, friendly countenance. He looked more like a jovial innkeeper than a leader of thieves and cutthroats. His manner was bluff and good humoured, and he spoke in the typical Cammorian drawl and with the slovenly grammar that bespoke back-country origins.

'So yet the one oz has got all the thieves of Daresia so sore perplexed,' he said to Stragen when Talen presented him.

'I'll have to plead guilty on that score, Caalador, Stragen smiled.

'Don't never do that, brother. Alluz try'n lie yet way outten thangs.'

'I'll try to remember that. What are you doing so far from home, my friend?'

'I nought ax you the same question, Stragen. It's a fur piece from here t' Thalesia.'

'And quite nearly as far from Cammoria.'

'Ain, that's easy explained, m' friend. I started out in life oz a poacher, ketchin' rabbits an' sick in the bushes on land that weren't rightly mine, but that's a sore hard kinda work with lotsar risk and mighty slim profit, so I tooken t' liftin' chickens outten hen-roosts-chickens not runnin' near oz fast oz rabbits, especial at night. Then I moved up t' sheep-stealing-only one night I had me a set-to with a hull pa.s.sel o' sheep-dawgs which it wuz oz betrayed me real cruel by not stayin' bribed.'

'How do you bribe a dog?' Ehlana asked curiously.

'Easiest thang in the world, little lady. Y thrum 'em some meat-sc.r.a.ps t' keep then attention.

'Well, sir, them there dawgs tore into me somethin' fierce, an' I lit out leavin', misfortunate-like, a hat which it wuz I wuz partial 'to an' which it wuz oz could be rekonnized oz mine by half the parish. Now, I'm gist a country boy at hert 'thout no real citified ways t' get me by in town, an' so I tooken t' sea, an' t' make it short, I fetched up on this yore furrin coast an' beat my way inland, the capting of the s.h.i.+p I wuz a-sailin' on wanhn' t' talk t' me 'bout some stuff oz had turnt up missin' tum the cargo hold, y' know.' He paused.

'Have I sufficiently entertained you as yet, Milord Stragen?' he grinned.

'Very, very good, Caalador,' Stragen murmured. 'Convincing-although it was a trifle overdone.'

'A failing, Milord. It's so much fun that I get carried away. Actually, I'm a swindler. I've found that posing as an ignorant yokel disarms people. No one in this world is as easy to gull as the man who thinks he's smarter than you are.'

'Ohh.' Ehlana's tone was profoundly disappointed.

'Wuz yet Majesty tooken with the iggernent way I wuz 'atalkin?' Caalador asked sympathetically. 'I'll do 'er agin, iff'n yet of a mind-of course it takes a beastly long time to get to the point that way.'

She laughed delightedly. 'I think you could charm the birds out of the bushes, Caalador,' she told him.

'Thank you, your Majesty,' he said, bowing with fluid grace. Then he turned back to Stragen. 'Your proposal has baffled our Tamul friends, Milord,' he said. 'The demarcation line between corruption and outright theft is very clearly defined in the Tamul culture. Tamul thieves are quite cla.s.s-conscious, and the notion of actually co-operating with the authorities strikes them as unnatural for some reason. Fortunately, we Elenes are far more corrupt than our simple yellow brothers, and Elenes seem to rise to the top in our peculiar society natural talent, most likely. We saw the advantages of your proposal immediately. Kondrak of Darsas was most eloquent in his presentation. You seem to have impressed him enormously. The disturbances here in Tamuli have been disastrous for business, and when we began reciting profit and loss figures to the Tamuls, they started to listen to reason. They agreed to co-operate grudgingly, I'll grant you, but they will help you to gather information.'

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