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“The man you know as the barber Taney.”
“I do know a man by that name,” Yahey said. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Was he supposed to introduce you to me?”
“He promised he would,” Sorgius said coldly.
“But he said nothing about it to me,” their host replied with a shrug.
“He was supposed to speak for us. We cannot speak for him,” Sorgius said.
The man’s lips stretched into something like a smile. “True. He wronged you if he gave his word and broke it.” He paused. “Or did he never give his word?”
Vordius gulped. Their host’s dreamy manner concealed something dangerous. He looked down and to one side to see if there was anyone behind him.
“Ask him yourself!” Sorgius said, looking surprised. “He’s late, but I’m sure he’ll be here.”
Yahey folded his arms across his chest. “Have no doubt that I will ask him. Unless someone else asked him first. Like, you, perhaps? What do you think?”
Sorgius had to work hard to keep from shaking.
“I’d have to answer to all the three families if anything happened to him. If it wasn’t that, I’d be happy to cut him. Cut him out, that is.”
Yahey narrowed his eyes and laughed. “I like you, Vuravian! What trade interests you? Carpenters, stone layers, plasterers? I hear that many new buildings are going up in Vuravia…”
“Oh no,” Sorgius chuckled. “I want the real goods, if you are getting my drift.”
“Of course!” Yahey nodded. “I understand you perfectly. We are the only ones who have the real goods.”
“I need girls,” Sorgius said, holding up two fingers as if they grasped a precious stone. “Pretty ones. Two hundred to start with.”
“Two hundred girls!” Yahey chortled. “Pretty ones! For a start! What on earth do you need so many of them for? Don’t tell me they’re all for your own town. It’s a lovely place, I’m sure, but very small.”
“Let me explain. Our town is small, but it stands on the border with Capotia. From there, it’s a short trip to Mustobrim, where girls from the Empire are hard to find.”
Yahey sat up straight. “You know the laws of Mustobrim, don’t you? The punishment for what you are proposing is death!”
“That should give you an idea how profitable it is.”
“But you need connections to move people over the border, especially if you want them to get there looking like anything.”
“My family has extensive connections. The Capotians have traditionally been the ones transporting girls to Mustobrim, but we looked into it and decided to give it a try. The market in Mustobrim is for blondes, but redheads are even better. Can you find me some nice redheaded girls?”
“Certainly! But let’s go over the details. How do you intend to pay?”
“The Halava banking house will issue a letter of credit once we view the goods.”
“Halava?” Yahey smiled. “Of course, my friend. What about delivery?”
“To the Vuravian border. We will take them from there…”
As the two men went into the details of the transaction, Vordius sat in silence and thanked his creator that Sorgius who had always helped his father in his trading business knew what he was talking about. It was unnerving for an Imperial Guard to listen in on the details of a criminal transaction, but Sorgius was like a fish in water. Vordius noted with wonder that his friend seemed to believe in the reality of what he was proposing.
“It will take time to collect the goods you want,” Yahey said. “But you can see some of the girls right away. Will that be good enough?”
“Thank you, friend. I saw a nice redhead here in the port recently. She was slender like a cypress with small breasts and a tiny waist. I saw her once and can’t forget her. She leans her head to one side when she smiles, and her voice is capricious. You would have to hear it to know what I mean.”
Vordius saw a shadow cross Yahey’s eyes, but they instantly softened again. “She sounds like the dream of any man! I have not seen her, I’m afraid, but Fire Asp will find anything you want. Perhaps not that girl, but a better one!” He looked up at the ceiling in feigned gratification.
“I bow to you from the entire Akroerty family. The barber Taney told me that our Asp is a real mensch. I see now that he was right.”
Yahey laughed courteously. “Did he tell you much about Fire Asp?” he asked craftily.
“No, he didn’t, actually. He said I’d understand when I saw him.”
“I see,” Yahey nodded. “Did you still want to see Asp?”
Sorgius shrugged. “You and I have decided everything so well already, and I don’t want to distract him from his important affairs.”
“But you are a guest,” Yahey smiled. “My master will be glad to receive you. Let me go inform him about our agreement.”
The friends were left alone in the room. The strains of music that had been coming up from the tavern below fell silent, and they could hear the sound of splashing water from outside. That, along with the barely noticeable rocking motion, indicated that they were in a part of the building that sat on a barge moored at the dock.
Vordius, tired of his taciturn role, was about to ask his friend a question, but Sorgius kicked him hard. They might be observed, and the tiniest mistake would give the game away.
Time passed, and still Yahey did not return. Sorgius looked around the room. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Vordius stood up and walked from one end of the room to the other. He walked over to a wooden panel in the wall and knocked lightly on it.
“Look here, it’s a window!” he exclaimed. “These are the shutters.”
Sorgius was about to tell him to shut up when the door suddenly opened. The friends sighed, but their relief was premature. Four large men barged into the room and held the self-proclaimed merchants’ arms behind their backs. Sorgius cried out in pain, accidentally knocking over one of the tables. The cups rolled across the floor.
“You want to see Fire Asp, do you?” Yahey growled from the doorway. His face had changed, and not for the better. “You will see him before your deaths, which will be drawn-out and agonizing if you don’t tell me right away what happened to our friend Taney and his apprentices!”
Vordius’ eyes went red. Ignoring his pain, he gave Yahey a look of hatred. “I am an officer in the Imperial Guards on a special mission, and I have a hundred of my men in ambush around this building! If we don’t walk out of here by the next watch, they will turn this den inside out!”
Yahey gave him a sugary smile. “Ambush, you say? Let’s call them together.” He looked up at the ceiling and his voice changed to a falsetto. “Men in ambush! Come out, come out wherever you are! The port ruffians have seized your officer!” He turned back to Vordius, “Now it’s your turn. Shall I open the windows so they can hear you better?”
There was a knocking sound and the shutters on the window opened. Outside, all was silent. Instead of the lights of the city, they saw only the riverbank lined with low, wooden buildings. The building they were sitting in was a boat, and it had left the capital without their noticing.
“Why don’t you say something, officer of the Guards? Is your throat dry?” Yahey stepped up to Vordius and tossed the rest of the wine in the jug in his face. The guardsman fell back and shut his eyes.
* * *
“Scoundrels! Asses! Mangy dogs!”
Vordius was beating his head against the logs that made up the wall. His efforts barely made a sound. His hands were tied behind his back, so this was the only way he could find release for his humiliation. His friend, who was in no better a position, stared at his own stomach, as if the answer to their dilemma would come from there.”
“Maggots! How dare they touch a member of the Emperor’s guard? When I get out of here, I’ll cut down the whole lot of them!”
“Go right ahead,” Sorgius said. “But we have to get out of here first.”
“So you think this a joke, do you? That’s just like you!”
“And you are being just like yourself. ‘How dare they touch me?’”
“I suppose you already have a plan?”
“I might. I’ve got three ideas I’m working on right now.” Sorgius moaned and leaned to his left. “They tie tight nots!”
“Three ideas? You’re the one who’s been knocked in the head,” Vordius leaned against the wall and laughed. “They’re going to strangle us and feed us to the fish by morning, and you say you have three ideas!” He turned and hit his head against the logs again.
This time, it was Sorgius who laughed. “Keep at it, friend, and you’ll solve our problems. Either you’ll break a hole in the wall and we’ll escape, or you’ll bust your head open. And that would be an escape of sorts.”
“Fine, oh deep thinker. What do you have? Entertain me while we’re still alive.”
Sorgius sighed and gave up trying to loosen the ropes that bound his wrists. “Here’s the first idea: lots of people don’t consider the consequences of their actions. When you deal with a person like that, you have to hit him in the head before he knows you’re there.”
“True enough,” Vordius grumbled. “I may be guilty of that. Sometimes.”
“And the second idea. This is the most realistic one. They simply don’t believe us.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like this: you come into their territory and try to fool them, so they grab you by the collar and it’s off to the knackers with you. In this world, everyone is lying all the time. Nobody believes you, even if you’re telling the truth.”
Vordius frowned and looked down. “What a stench! I never would have thought that fish could stink like that.”
“It’s probably some old stores,” Sorgius said as he tried to get a look at the roof, which was hidden in darkness. Their jailers had given them one small light, but it was not nearly enough for them to get a good look around them.
They were silent for a time.
“What about the third idea?” Vordius finally asked.
“You won’t like it,” Sorgius said slowly. “There’s a big man with his hairy paws mixed up in what happened to Uni, and he’s got rank. Probably somewhere in the palace. And he and the people under him don’t give a fig about a guardsman and his little Vuravian friend.”
“Is that even possible?” Vordius was incredulous.
“Anything’s possible. You didn’t bring your badge with you, did you?”
“You told me not to!”
“It doesn’t matter now. But if they kill you…”
“Us! They’ll kill us!”
“I’m sorry. If they kill us, it doesn’t really matter to anyone. Vordius Onato, a nicor in the Imperial Guards, disappeared while on his own time. Nobody knows what happened to him. Maybe he deserted, betrayed his beloved Emperor?”
“Oh Heavenly Deity, what have I done?”
“To them,” Sorgius pointed at the wall with his chin, “it’s all logical.”
“Only because we’re a pair of idiots! Good old Sorgius knows what to do! I wish I’d never listened to you. You’re a dead man!”
“You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to, but I still can’t see where we went wrong. I know all about the trade. I’m from Vuravia, after all. And that creeping reptile Yahey never let slip that he suspected something.”
They sat together in silence.
“Maybe Yahey is actually Fire Asp?” Vordius’ face lit up. “And if the redhead is his girlfriend, then he knew what you were after before you even opened your mouth. He was playing with us like a cat with a mouse, and we walked right in between his paws!”
“That looks like the size of it.”
“May the Shadow take you, Sorgius! This isn’t funny!”
“I didn’t say it was.”
A sudden, harsh sound made both friends jump, but it was just a door – an old door that didn’t fit its jamb and needed to be oiled. Vordius tensed his body and prepared to meet with a bitter fate ending in death, but once again he was tricked by an unexpected turn of events. A third person – small and limp – was tossed into their cell and landed in a heap on the floor, crying out in pain.
Before they had time to think, four ruffians entered the cell. They were all heavy-built and smelt of beer and unwashed bodies. One of the four squatted in front of Vordius and drew a knife out of a narrow leather sheath.
This is the end! flitted through the guardsman’s mind. He felt no fear. Instead, he looked straight in the thug’s eyes, firm in his intuitive decision that he would not look down, even when the knife went for his throat.
“You look like a carp on a hook with your eyes bugged out like that,” grinned the thug, showing his yellow teeth. His comrades chortled at what passed among them for humor. Vordius was distracted, and in that instant, the ruffian grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around and shoved his face against the wall. The guardsman saw stars.
Now he’ll take me by the hair, pull my head back and cut my throat like a sheep! Heavenly Deity, what did I do to deserve this death?
And once again, the Heavenly Deity made it clear that no man knows his own fate. The ruffian pulled his arms over his head roughly and did something to his wrists.
“Let’s have that other one!” someone said behind his back. He looked up at his arms (which were so numb he could barely feel them) and saw that the cords that had bound him were gone, leaving only red marks on his wrists. Feeling almost drunk, he breathed in deeply the smell of rotten fish and thought: How wonderful it is to be alive!
Without waiting for an invitation, Sorgius turned his back and raised his bound arms as high as he could.
“Look at him! He wants it!” the ruffian guffawed, gyrating his hips at Sorgius’ backside. His colleagues laughed loudly, and the little Vuravian went beet-red, but his humiliation did not last long, and soon the cords were gone from his wrists, too.
The ruffian put the knife back in its sheath and growled, “You know what to do. We won’t get in the way.” And with that, they were gone.
“Did any of that make sense to you?” Sorgius broke the silence. Vordius shook his head as he stared off into space. Then he leaped up and looked around their cell. The body that had entered the scene first suddenly showed signs of life and began crawling for the opposite corner. It was hindered by the fact that its hands were tied, so Vordius caught up with it easily.
He looked at it closely. “It’s a girl!” he announced.
“No!” Sorgius waved his hands as if warding off a curse. “Don’t tell me it’s…”
“Have a look for yourself!” The guardsman took an oil lamp from the wall and knelt down in front of the young woman who had joined them in their misfortune. She crawled as far from him as she could until her back hit the wall. Sorgius peered at her over his friend’s shoulder.
“Stop shaking like that!” Vordius burst out.
The young woman’s red hair was plastered to her filthy, tear-stained face. Her dress, once obviously very expensive, was torn from hem to waist, and she tried in vain to hide the bruises on her long legs.
“It’s her!” Sorgius said quietly in the voice of a man who knows he is doomed.
“Are you sure?” Vordius turned to him. “Really sure?”
