Waga finally put down the stylus, stood up, and rasped out, “Here’s how it is, my children. Two and a half thousand gold pieces over three days. And only one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six in expenses. Five hundred and four little round gold pieces over three days. Not bad, my children, not bad.”
No one moved. Waga walked away from the desk, sat down in a corner, and vigorously rubbed his dry palms together.
“I have happy news for you, my children,” he said. “Good times are coming, abundant times … But we’ll have to work hard. Oh, so hard! My elder brother, the king of Arkanar, has decided to exterminate all the learned men in our kingdom. Well, he knows best. And anyway, who are we to argue with his august decisions? However, we can and must capitalize on this decision. And since we’re his loyal subjects, we shall serve him. But since we’re his subjects of the night, we will not neglect to take our small share. He will not notice and will not be angry with us. What did you say?”
No one moved.
“I thought that Piga sighed. Is that true, Piga, my son?”
Someone fidgeted and cleared his throat in the dark. “I didn’t sigh, Waga,” said a coarse voice. “Why would I—”
“You wouldn’t, Piga, you wouldn’t! That’s right! Now is the time to listen to me with bated breath. You will all leave here and begin difficult labors, and then you will have no one to advise you. My elder brother, His Majesty, through the mouth of his minister Don Reba, promised us a considerable sum for the heads of certain escaped fugitive learned men. We must deliver these heads to him and make the old man happy. On the other hand, certain learned men wish to hide from my elder brother’s wrath and will spare no expense in doing so. In the name of mercy, and in order to relieve my elder brother’s soul from the burden of additional villainies, we will help these people. However, if his majesty also needs these heads in the future, he will receive them. For a good price, a very good price …”
Waga stopped talking and bowed his head. An old man’s slow tears suddenly started flowing down his cheeks.
“I’m getting old, my children,” he said with a sob. “My hands tremble, my legs buckle beneath me, and my memory is beginning to fail me. I’d forgotten, completely forgotten, that a noble don has been languishing amongst us in this stuffy, cramped little room, and that he cares nothing for our financial affairs. I will go now. I will go and rest. In the meantime, my children, let us apologize to the noble don.”
He stood up and bowed with a groan. The others also stood up and also bowed, but with obvious hesitation and even fear. Rumata could practically hear the whirring of their dull, primitive brains as they vainly attempted to keep up with the meaning of the words and deeds of this hunched old man.
Of course, it was a very simple matter: the outlaw had taken advantage of an extra opportunity to bring to Don Reba’s attention the fact that in the ongoing massacre, the night army intended to work together with the gray forces. And now, when the time had come to give specific instructions, to name the names and dates of the campaigns, the presence of the noble don became irksome, to say the least, and he, the noble don, was invited to quickly state his business and clear out of there. A dark old man. A terrifying old man. And why is he in the city? thought Rumata. Waga can’t stand the city.
“You’re right, honorable Waga,” Rumata said. “I must be on my way. However, I’m the one who should be apologizing, since I’ve come to trouble you about a completely trivial matter.” He stayed seated, and everyone who was listening to him remained standing. “I happen to need your advice. You may sit down.”
Waga bowed again and sat down.
“The case is as follows,” Rumata continued. “Three days ago, I was supposed to meet a friend of mine, a noble don from Irukan, in the Territory of Heavy Swords. But we never met. He’s disappeared. I know for a fact that he had safely crossed the border from Irukan. Perhaps you know what has become of him?”
Waga didn’t respond for some time. The bandits wheezed and sighed. Then Waga cleared his throat. “No, noble don,” he said. “We know nothing of this matter.”
Rumata immediately stood up. “Thank you, honorable Waga,” he said. He stepped into the center of the room and put a pouch with ten gold pieces onto the desk. “Before I leave, I have a favor to ask: if you do find anything out, let me know.” He touched his hat. “Good-bye.”
When he was almost out the door, he stopped and casually said over his shoulder, “You had been saying something about learned men. Something just occurred to me. I have the feeling that by the king’s efforts, in another month it will be impossible to find a single decent bookworm in Arkanar. And I made a vow to establish a university back home after being healed from the black plague. If you’d be so kind, whenever you get ahold of some bookworms, let me know first, and only then tell Don Reba. It’s possible that I’ll select one or two for the university.”
“It’ll cost you,” said Waga in a honeyed voice. “The product is rare, flies off the shelf.”
“My honor is worth more,” Rumata said haughtily and left.
Chapter 3
It would be very interesting, thought Rumata, to catch this Waga and take him back to Earth. Technically, it wouldn’t be difficult. We could do it right now. What would he do on Earth? Rumata tried to imagine it. Take a bright, air-conditioned room with mirrored walls that smells like pine needles or the sea, and toss a huge hairy spider inside it. The spider presses down to the gleaming floor, looks around frantically with its beady eyes, and then—what else can it do?—scurries sideways into the darkest corner and crouches down, menacingly displaying its poisonous mandibles.
Of course, first of all Waga would search for the resentful people. And of course, the stupidest of the resentful would seem to him too clean and unsuitable for use. You know, the old man might sicken. He’d probably even waste away. Although who can tell? That’s the thing—the psychology of these monsters is very much a dark forest. Holy Míca! Making sense of it is much more difficult than making sense of the psychology of a nonhumanoid civilization. All of the actions of these men can be explained, but they are fiendishly difficult to predict.
Yes, maybe he’d die from melancholy. Or maybe he’d look around, adapt, figure out how things stand, and get a job as a ranger in some national park. After all, it can’t be the case that he doesn’t have a single small, harmless hobby—which only gets in his way here, but there could become the meaning of his life. I think he likes cats. He keeps a whole herd of them, they say, in his lair, and he has a special keeper for them. And he even pays this keeper, although he’s stingy and could have simply threatened him. But what he’d do on Earth with his monstrous lust for power—that’s hard to know.
Rumata stopped in front of a tavern and was about to go in, but then realized that his coin purse was missing. He stood in front of the door in complete confusion (he just couldn’t get used to such occurrences, although this wasn’t the first time) and spent a long time digging through his pockets. There had been three pouches, with ten gold pieces in each. He gave one to the procurator, Father Kin, and another to Waga. The third one had disappeared. His pockets were empty, all gold buckles had been carefully cut off his left pant leg, and the dagger had disappeared from his belt.
Then he noticed two storm troopers standing nearby, gawking at him and grinning stupidly. The employee of the Institute couldn’t care less, but the noble Don Rumata of Estor went berserk. For a second he lost control of himself. He took a step toward the storm troopers, and unconsciously raised his hand, clenching it into a fist. Apparently, his face had become horrifying, because the mockers shied away, grins frozen as if they’d been paralyzed, and hurriedly ducked into the tavern.
Then he became frightened. He had only been this scared once in his life, when he—at the time still the second pilot of a passenger starship—felt his first attack of malaria. God knows where this disease had come from, and after two hours filled with surprised jokes and quips he was already cured, but h
e had never forgotten the shock that he, a perfectly healthy man who had never been sick, felt at the thought that something had gone wrong inside him, that he had become defective and had somehow lost unilateral authority over his body.
But I didn’t mean to, he thought. I wasn’t even considering it. They weren’t even doing much—OK, so they were standing around, so they were grinning. Grinning very foolishly, but I probably did look completely ridiculous digging through my pockets. I was this close to cutting them down, he suddenly realized. If they hadn’t cleared out, I would have cut them down. He remembered that on a recent bet, he had split a dummy dressed in Soanian double armor from top to bottom with a single sword stroke, and he felt the skin on his back crawl. They would have been lying here like pig carcasses, and I’d be standing here with a sword in my hand and wouldn’t have known what to do. Some god! Turning into a savage …
He suddenly noticed that all his muscles ached, as if after hard labor. Now, now, calm down, he told himself. Nothing happened. It’s over. Just an outburst. A momentary outburst, and it’s all over. After all, I’m human, and humans are still animals. It’s just my nerves. My nerves and the tension of the last couple of days … But mostly, it’s the feeling of a shadow creeping over us. I can’t tell whose shadow, or where it’s coming from, but it’s creeping over us, inexorably so.
This inexorability was palpable everywhere. It was palpable in the fact that the storm troopers, who had until very recently cowardly stuck close to their barracks, now strolled freely with their axes in plain sight in the middle of the street—a place where previously only noble dons were allowed to walk. And in the fact that all of the city’s street singers, storytellers, dancers, and acrobats had disappeared. And in the fact that the residents had stopped singing political ditties, had become very serious, and knew exactly what was needed for the good of the state. And in the sudden and inexplicable port closure. And in the fact that “angry mobs” had sacked and burned all the curiosity shops—the only places in the kingdom where it had been possible to buy or borrow books in all the languages of the empire, and in the ancient and now dead languages of the native people of the Land Beyond the Strait. And in the fact that the jewel of the city, the gleaming tower of the astrological observatory, now protruded into the sky like a black rotten tooth, burned down in an “accidental fire.” And in the fact that over the last two years, the consumption of alcohol had grown four-fold—in Arkanar, legendary for its rampant alcoholism since ancient times! And in the fact that the eternally oppressed, persecuted peasants had totally burrowed underground in their villages of Sweet Smells, Heavenly Shrubs, and Celestial Kisses, and didn’t even dare leave their mud huts for the necessary field labor. And finally, in the fact that the old vulture Waga the Wheel had moved to the city, sensing a big haul. Somewhere in the bowels of the palace, in luxurious apartments, sits a gouty king who hasn’t seen the sun for twenty years for fear of everything in the world. His own great-grandfather’s son, he giggles half-wittedly and signs one horrifying order after another, dooming to an agonizing death the most honest and selfless people. Somewhere over there, a monstrous abscess has matured and any day now will rupture …
Rumata slipped on a piece of cantaloupe and looked up. He was on the Street of Overwhelming Gratitude, in the domain of respectable merchants, money changers, and master jewelers. The street was lined with solid old-fashioned houses that had benches and storage sheds, the sidewalk here was wide, and the road was paved with granite blocks. The people he usually encountered here were noblemen and the rich, but right now a dense crowd of excited commoners was pouring toward Rumata. They carefully walked around him, glanced at him obsequiously, and many bowed just in case. The upper-story windows were full of fat faces, whose curiosity had been piqued and was now satisfied. Someone in front was shouting peremptorily: “Go on, keep walking! Break it up! Go on, quick!”
The people in the crowd were talking to each other: “That’s the worst kind, they’re the real dangerous ones. They seem so quiet, well mannered, respectable—a merchant like any other—but there’s bitter poison inside!”
“What they did to him, the poor devil … I’m used to everything, but believe it or not, it made me sick to watch.”
“And they’re none the worse for it. What boys! It warms my heart. They won’t let us down.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t do it like this? After all, he’s a man, a living creature. All right, so he’s a sinner—then punish him, teach him, but why this?”
“Hey, stop that, you! Be quiet, you. First, there are people around …”
“Master, master! The broadcloth’s good, and they’ll sell it to us without raising the price if you push ’em. Although we better hurry up or Pakin’s guys will beat us to it again.”
“My son, you must not doubt. You must have faith. If the authorities are taking steps, they know what they are doing.”
They got another one, thought Rumata. He wanted to change course and walk around the place from which the crowd streamed, where they were shouting to keep walking and break it up. But he didn’t change course. He only ran his hand through his hair, so that a stray strand wouldn’t cover the stone on his circlet. The stone wasn’t a stone but a camera lens, and the circlet wasn’t a circlet but a radio transmitter. Historians on Earth saw and heard everything that the 250 operatives saw and heard on the nine continents of the planet. And therefore, the operatives were required to keep their eyes and ears open.
Jutting out his chin and splaying his swords in order to take up as much room as possible, he headed right at the people in the middle of the street, and everyone going the opposite direction hastily jumped aside and gave way. Four stocky porters with painted faces were carrying a silver-hued sedan chair through the streets. A beautiful cold little face with mascaraed eyelashes peered out from behind the curtain. Rumata tore off his hat and bowed. This was Doña Ocana, the current favorite of our eagle Don Reba. When she saw the magnificent suitor, she smiled languidly and meaningfully at him. It was possible to immediately name two dozen noble dons who, after receiving such a smile, would have rushed to their wives and mistresses with the joyful news: “All the others better beware, I’ll buy and sell them all, I’ll show them who’s boss!” Such smiles were rare and often invaluable. Rumata stopped, following the chair with his eyes. I should make up my mind, he thought. I should finally make up my mind. He shuddered at the thought of what it would cost him. But I should do it! I really should …
My mind’s made up, he thought. There’s no other way. I’ll do it tonight. He reached the weapons shop he had gone into that morning to check the price of daggers and listen to poetry, and stopped again. So that’s what it was. That means it was your turn, my good Father Hauk.
The crowd had already dispersed. The shop’s door was torn from its hinges and the windows were broken. A huge storm trooper in a gray shirt stood in the doorway, his foot planted on the doorjamb. Another storm trooper, a scrawnier one, squatted by the wall. The wind was blowing crumpled sheets covered with writing along the pavement.
The huge storm trooper stuck his finger in his mouth, sucked on it, then took it out and examined it carefully. The finger was covered in blood. The storm trooper caught Rumata’s eye and rasped affably, “Bit worse than a ferret, the bastard!”
The second storm trooper quickly snickered. A shrimpy, pale kid, uncertain-looking, with a pimply mug—it was immediately obvious that he was a rookie, a tadpole, a cub …
“What’s going on here?” Rumata inquired.
“Got a concealed bookworm,” the cub said nervously.
The giant started sucking on his finger again, without changing his attitude.
“At attention!” Rumata ordered quietly.
The cub quickly jumped up and picked up his ax. The giant thought about it but did put his foot down and stand up fairly straight.
“So who was the bookworm?” Rumata asked.
“I don’t know,” the cub said. “It was the ord
er of Father Zupic.”
“Well, what happened? You took him?”
“That’s right! We took him!”
“That’s good,” said Rumata. That really wasn’t bad. There was still time. Nothing is more precious than time, he thought. An hour buys a life; a day is invaluable. “And what did you do with him? Stick him in the tower?”
“Huh?” the cub asked in confusion.
“I’m asking, is he now in the tower?”
The pimply mug spread into an uncertain grin. The giant roared with laughter. Rumata rapidly turned around. There, on the other side of the street, Father Hauk’s corpse hung like a sack of rags from the crossbeam of a gate. A few ragged urchins, mouths wide open, gawked at him from the yard.