Part 2

Besides, every time he suggested to the Duke a new and much more efficient method of doing something he ran dead into the brick wall of tradition and custom. Nothing new could be accepted unless the gods accepted it. The gods' will was interpreted by the priests. The priests clutched the status quo as tightly as a hungry infant clutches its mother's breast or an old man clings to his property.

Green could make a fight against the theocracy, but he didn't feel it was worth while to become a martyr.

He heard a familiar voice behind him calling his name.

"Alan! Alan!"

He hunched his shoulders like a turtle withdrawing his head and thought desperately for a moment of trying to ignore the voice. But, though a woman's, it was powerful and penetrating, and everybody around him had already turned to see its owner. So he couldn't pretend he hadn't heard it.

"ALAN, YOU BIG BLOND NO-GOOD HUNK OF MAN, STOP!"

Reluctantly Green told his rickshaw boy to turn around. The boy, grinning, did so. Like everybody else along the harbor front he knew Amra and was familiar with her relations with Green. She held their one-year-old daughter in her arms, cradled against her magnificent bosom. Behind her stood her other five children, her two sons by the Duke, her daughter by a visiting prince, her son by the captain of a Northerner ship, her daughter by a temple sculptor. Her rise and fall and slow rise again was told in the children around her; the tableau embodied an outline of the structure of the planet's society.

3

Her mother had been a Northerner slave; her father, a native freeman, a wheelwright. When she was five years old they had died in a plague. She had been transferred to the Pens and raised by her aunt. When she was fifteen her beauty had attracted the Duke and he had installed her in the palace. There she gave birth to his two sons, now ten and eleven, who would soon be taken away from her and raised in the Duke's household as free and petted servants.

The Duke had married the present Duchess several years after his liaison with Amra began and her jealousy had forced him to get rid of Amra. Back to the Pens she had gone; perhaps the Duke had not been too sad to see her go, for living with her was like living with a hurricane, and he liked peace and quiet too well.

Then, in accordance with the custom, she had been recommended by the Duke to a visiting prince; the prince had overstayed his leave from his native country because he hated to part with her, and the Duke had wanted to give her as a present. But here he'd overstepped his legal authority. Slaves had certain rights. A woman who had borne a citizen a child could not be shipped away or sold unless she gave her permission. Amra didn't choose to go, so the sorrowing prince had gone home, though not without leaving a memento of his visit behind him.

The captain of a ship had purchased her, but here again the law came to her rescue. He could not take her out of the country, and she again refused to leave. By now she had purchased several businesses--slaves were allowed to hold property and even have slaves of their own--and she knew that her two boys by the Duke would be valuable later on, when they'd go to live with him.

The temple sculptor had used her as his model for his great marble statue of the goddess of Fertility. Well he might, for she was a magnificent creature, a tall woman with long, richly auburn hair, a flawless skin, large russet brown eyes, a mouth as red and ripe as a plum, breasts with which neither child nor lover could find fault, a waist amazingly slender considering the rest of her curved body and her fruitfulness. Her long legs would have looked good on an Earthwoman and were even more outstanding among a population of club-ankled females.

There was more to her than beauty. She radiated a something that struck every male at first sight; to Green she sometimes seemed to be a violent physical event, perhaps even a principle of Nature herself.

There were times when Green felt proud because she had picked him as her mate, chosen him when he was a newly imported slave who could say only a few words in the highly irregular agglutinative tongue. But there were times when he felt that she was too much for him, and those times had been getting too frequent lately. Besides, he felt a pang whenever he saw their child, because he loved it and dreaded the moment when he would have to leave it. As for deserting Amra, he wasn't sure how that would make him feel. Undeniably, she did affect him, but then so did a blow in the teeth or wine in the blood.

He got down out of the rickshaw, told the boy to wait, said, "Hello, honey," and kissed her. He was glad she was a slave, because she didn't wear a nose-ring. When he kissed the Duchess he was always annoyed by hers. She refused to take it off when with him because that would put her on his level, and he mustn't ever forget he was a slave. It was perfectly moral for her to take a bondsman as a lover but not a freeman, and she was nothing if not moral.

Amra's return kiss was passionate, part of which was the vigor of asperity. "You're not fooling me," she said. "You meant to ride right by. Kiss the children! What's the matter, are you getting tired of me? You told me you only accepted the Duchess's offer because it meant advancement, and you were afraid that if you turned her down she'd find an excuse to kill you. Well, I believed you--half-believed you, anyway. But I won't if you try sneaking by without seeing me. What's the matter? Are you a man or not? Are you afraid to face a woman? Don't shake your head. You're a liar! Don't forget to kiss Grizquetr; you know he's an affectionate boy and worships you, and it's absurd to say that in your country grown men don't kiss boys that old. You're not in your country--what a strange, frigid, loveless race must live there--and even if you were you might overlook their customs to show some tenderness to the boy. Come on back to our house and I'll bring up some of that wonderful Chalousma wine that came in the other day out of the cellar----"

"What was a ship doing in your cellar?" he said, and he whooped with laughter. "By all the gods, Amra, I know it's been two days since I've seen you, but don't try to crowd forty-eight hours' conversation into ten minutes, especially your kind of conversation. And quit scolding me in front of the children. You know it's bad for them. They might pick up your attitude of contempt for the head of the house."

"I? Contempt? Why, I worship the ground you walk on! I tell them continually what a fine man you are, though it's rather hard to convince them when you do show up and they see the truth. Still...."

There was only one way to handle her; that was to outtalk, outshout, outact her. It was hard going, especially when he felt so tired, and when she would not cooperate with him but would fight for precedence. The trouble was, she didn't feel any respect for the man she could shut up, so it was absolutely necessary to dominate her.

This he accomplished by giving her a big squeeze, causing the baby to cry because she was pushed in too tightly between the two of them. Then while Amra was trying to soothe the baby he began telling her what had happened at the palace.

She was silent, except for a sharply pointed question interjected now and then, and she insisted upon hearing the details of everything that had taken place--everything. He told her things that he would not have mentioned before children--two years ago. But the extremely frank and uninhibited society of the slaves had freed him of any such restraints.

They went inside Amra's house, through her offices, where six of her clerks and secretaries worked, through the living rooms proper, and on into the kitchen.

She rang a bell and told Inzax, a pretty little blonde, to go into the cellar and bring up a quart of Chalousma. One of the clerks popped his head in the kitchen door and told her that a Mr. Sheshyarvrenti, purser of an Andoonanarga vessel, wanted to see her about the disposition of some rare birds that she had ordered seven months before. He would deal with no one but her.

"Let him cool his heels for a while," she said. The clerk gulped and his head disappeared.

Green took Paxi, his daughter, and played with her while Amra poured their wine.

"This can go on only so long," she said. "I love you, and I'm not getting the attention I'm accustomed to. You should find some pretense to break off with the Duchess. I'm a vigorous woman who needs a lot of love. I want you here."

Green had nothing to lose by agreeing with her, since he planned to be leaving in a very short time. "You're right," he said. "I'll tell her as soon as I think up a good excuse." He fingered his neck at the place where a headsman's ax would come down. "It had better be a good one, though."

Amra seemed to glow all over with happiness. She held her glass up and said, "Here's to the Duchess. May demons carry her off."

"You'd better be careful, saying that before the children. You know that if they innocently repeated that to someone and it got back to the Duchess you'd be burned in the next witchhunt."

"Not my children!" she scoffed. "They're too clever. They take after their mother. They know when to keep their mouths shut."

Green gulped his wine and stood up. "I must go."

"You'll come home tonight? Surely the Duchess will let you out one night a week?"

"Not one single night. And I can't come here this evening because I'm to meet Miran the Merchant at the House of Equality. Business, you know."

"Oh, I know! You'll dillydally about the whole matter, and put off acting for one reason or another, and the first thing you know, years will go by, and----"

"If this keeps up I'll be dead in six months," he said. "I'm _tired_! I have to get some sleep."

She changed instantly from anger to sympathy. "Poor dear, why don't you forget that appointment and sleep here until it's time to go back to the castle? I'll send a messenger to Miran telling him you're sick."

"No, this is something I just can't pass by."

"What is it?"

"It's of such a nature that telling you, or anybody, would spoil it."

"And just what could that be?" she demanded, angry again. "It concerns some woman, I'll bet!"

"My problem is keeping away from you women, not getting into more trouble. No, it's just that Miran has sworn me by all his gods to keep silent and of course I couldn't think of breaking a vow."

"I know your opinion of our gods," she said. "Well, go along with you! But I warn you, I'm an impatient woman; I'll give you a week to work on the Duchess, then I'm launching an attack myself."

"That won't be necessary," he said. He kissed her and the children and left. He congratulated himself on having delayed Amra that long. If he couldn't carry out his scheme in a week he was lost, anyway. He'd have to walk away from the city and out onto the Xurdimur, even if packs of wild dogs and man-eating grass cats and cannibalistic men and God knew what else did roam the grassy plains.

4

Every city and village of the Empire had its House of Equality, within whose walls distinctions of every type were abandoned. Green did not know the origin of the institution, but he recognized its value as a safety valve to blow off the extreme social pressure put on every class. Here the slave who did not dare open his mouth in the outside mundane world could curse his master to his face and go unpunished by the authorities. Of course, there was nothing to keep the master from retaliating in kind, for the slave also cast off his legal rights when he entered. Violence was not unknown here, though it was infrequent. Blood shed within these walls did not, theoretically, call for punishment. But any murderer would find that, though the police paid no attention to him, he'd have to deal with the slain one's relatives. Many feuds had had their origin and end here.

Green had excused himself after the evening meal, saying that he had to talk to Miran about getting some spices from Estorya. Also the merchant had mentioned that on his last trip he'd heard that a band of Estoryan hunters were going after the rare and beautiful _getzlen_ bird and that he might find some for sale when he returned there. Zuni's face lit up, because she desired a _getzlen_ bird even more than a chance to annoy her husband. Graciously she gave Green permission to leave.

Inwardly exultant, though outwardly pulling a long face that was supposed to suggest his sadness at having to leave the Duchess, he backed out of the dining room. Not very gracefully, for Alzo chose that moment to refuse to get out of Green's path. Green tumbled backward, sprawling over the huge mastiff, who snarled with anger and trembled with hypocritical indignation and bared his fangs with the intention of tearing Green apart. The Earthman did not try to rise, because he did not want to give Alzo an excuse for jumping him. Instead he bared his own teeth and snarled back. The hall roared with laughter and the Duke, holding his sides, tears running from his bulging eyes, rose and staggered over to where the two faced each other on all fours. He clutched Alzo's spike-studded collar and dragged him away, meanwhile choking out a command to Green to take off while the taking off was good.

Green swallowed his anger, thanked the Duke and left. Swearing that he'd rip the hound apart some day with his bare hands, the Earthman left for the House of Equality. It took all the long rickshaw ride to the temple for him to calm down.

The great central room with its three-story ceiling was full that night. Men in their long evening kilts and women in masks crowded around the gambling tables, the bars and the grudge-stages. There was a large crowd around the platform on which two dealers in wheat were slugging it out to work off resentment arising from business disputes. But by far the greatest number had gathered to watch a husband-and-wife match. His left hand had been tied to his side, and she had been armed with a club. Thus equalized, they'd been given the word to go to it. So far the man had had the worst of the match, as bloody patches on his head and bruises on his arm showed. If he could get the club away from her he had the right to do what he wanted to her. But if she could break his free arm she had him at her complete mercy.

Green avoided the stage, because such barbarous doings made him sick. Looking for Miran, he finally found him rolling a pair of six-sided dice with another captain. This fellow wore the red turban and black robes of the Clan Axucan. He had just lost to Miran and was paying him sixty _iquogr_, a goodly sum even for a merchant-prince.

Miran took Green's arm, something he'd never have done outside the House, and led him off to a curtained booth where they could get as much privacy as they wished. He matched Green for drinks; Green lost, and Miran ordered a large pitcher of Chalousma.

"Nothing but the best for yours truly--whenever someone else is paying," Miran said jovially. "Now, I'm a great one for fun, but I'm here primarily for business. So--let's have your proposal at once, if you please."

"First I must have your solemn oath that you will tell absolutely no one what you hear in this booth. Second, that if you reject my idea you do not then use it later on. Third, that if you do accept you will never attempt later on to kill me or get rid of me and thus reap the profits."

Miran's face had been blank, but at the word "profits" it twisted into many folds and creases, all expressive of joy.

He reached into the huge purse he carried slung over his shoulder and pulled out a little golden idol of the patron deity of the Clan Effenycan. Putting his right hand upon its ugly head, he lifted his left and said, "I swear by Zaceffucanquanr that I will obey your wishes in this matter. May he strike me with lice, leprosy, lecher's disease and lightning if I should break this, my solemn vow."

Satisfied, Green said, "First I want you to arrange for me to be aboard your windroller when you leave for Estorya."

Miran choked on his wine and coughed and sputtered until Green pounded his back.

"I do not ask that you give me passage _back_. Now, here's my idea. You plan to be taking a large cargo of dried fish because the Estoryans' religion requires that they eat them at every meal and because they use them in great quantities at their numerous festivals."

"True, true. Do you know, I've never been able to figure out why they should worship a fish-goddess. They live over five thousand miles from the sea, and there's no evidence that any of them have ever been to the sea. Yet, they demand saltwater fish, won't use the fish from a nearby lake."

"There're many mysteries about the Xurdimur. However, they needn't concern us. Now, do you know that the Estoryans' Book of Gods places much more ritual-power in freshly killed and cooked fish than in smoked fish? However, they've always had to be content with the dried fish the windrollers brought them. What price would they not pay for living sea-fish?"

Miran rubbed his palms together. "Indeed it does make one wonder...?"

Green then outlined his idea. Miran sat stunned. Not at the audacity or originality of the plan, but because it was so obvious that he wondered why neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of it. He said so.

Green drank his wine and said, "I suppose that people wondered the same when the first wheel or bow and arrow were invented. So obvious, yet no one thought of them until then."

"Let me get this straight," said Miran. "You want me to buy a caravan of wagons, build water-tight tanks into them and use them to transport ocean fish back to here? Then the wagon bodies, with their contents, will be lifted onto my windroller and fitted into specially prepared racks--or perhaps, holes--on the middeck? Also, you will show me how to analyze sea water so that its formula may be sold to the Estoryans, and they can thus keep the fish alive in their own tanks?"

"That's right."

"Hmmm." Miran ran his fat, ring-studded finger over his hook nose and the square gold ornament hanging therefrom. His single eye glared pale-bluely at Green. The other was covered with a white patch to hide the emptiness left after a ball from a Ving musket had struck it.

"It's four weeks until the very last day on which I can set sail from here and still get to Estorya and back before the rains come. It's just barely possible to have the tanks built, get them convoyed down to the seashore, get the fish in and bring them back. Meantime, I can be having the deck altered. If my men work day and night we can make it."

"Of course, this is a one-shot proposition. You can't possibly keep a monopoly on the idea, once the first trip is over. Too many people are bound to talk, and the other captains will hear of it."

"I know; don't teach an Effenycan to suck eggs. But what if the fish should die?"

Green shrugged and spread out his palms. "A possibility. You're taking a tremendous gamble. But every voyage on the Xurdimur is, isn't it? How many windrollers come back? Or how many can boast your list of forty successful trips?"

"Not many," said Miran.

He slumped in his seat, brooding over his goblet of wine. His eye, sunk in ranges of fat, seemed to stare through Green. The Earthman pretended indifference, though his heart was pounding, and he controlled his breathing with difficulty.

"You're asking a great deal," Miran finally said. "If the Duke were to find out that I'd agreed to help a valued slave escape, I'd be tortured in a _most_ refined way, and the Clan Effenycan would be stripped of all its rights to sail windrollers and would probably be exiled to its native hills. Or else would have to take to piracy. And that, despite all the glamorous stories you hear, is not a very well-paying profession."

"You'd make a killing in Estorya."

"True, but when I think of what the Duchess will do when she discovers you've fled the country! Ow, ow, ow!"

"There's no reason why you should be connected with my disappearance. A dozen craft leave the harbor every day. Besides, for all she'll know, I've gone the opposite way, over the hills and to the ocean. Or to the hills themselves, where many runaway slaves are."

"Yes, but I have to return to Tropat. And my clansmen, though notoriously tight-lipped when sober, are also, I must confess, notorious drunkards. Someone'd be sure to babble in the taverns."

"I'll dye my hair black, cut it short, like a Tzatlam tribesman, and sign on."

"You forget that you have to belong to my clan in order to be a crew member."

"Hmmm. Well, what about this adoption-by-blood routine?"

"What about it? I can't propose that unless you've done something spectacular and for the profit of the clan. Wait! Can you play any musical instrument?"

Promptly, Green lied. "Oh, I am a wonderful harpist. When I play I can soothe a hungry grass cat into lying down at my feet and licking my toes with pure affection."

"Excellent! Though it would not be an affection so pure, since it is well known that the grass cat considers a man's toes a great delicacy and always eats them first, even before the eyes. Listen well. Here is what you must do in four weeks' time, for if all goes well, or all goes ill, we set sail on the Week of the Oak, the Day of the Sky, the Hour of the Lark, a most propitious time...."

5

To Green, the next three weeks seemed to have shifted to low gear, they crept by so slowly. Yet they should have raced by quickly enough, so full of schemes and plots were they. He had to advise Miran on the many technical details involved in building tanks for the fish. He had to keep the Duchess happy, an increasingly difficult job because it was impossible to pretend a one-hundred-per-cent absorption in her while his mind desperately looked for flaws in his plans, found oh, so many, and then as anxiously sought ways of repairing them. Nevertheless he knew it was vital that he not displease or bore her. Prison would forever ruin his chances.

Worst of all, Amra was getting suspicious.

"You're trying to conceal something from me," she told Green. "You ought to know better. I can tell when a man is deceiving me. There's something about the voice, the eyes, the way he makes love, though you've been doing very little of that. What are you plotting?"

"I assure you it's simply that I'm very tired," he said sharply. "All I want is some peace and quiet, a little rest and a little privacy now and then."

"Don't try to tell me that's all!"

She cocked her head to one side and squinted at him, managing somehow even in this grotesque attitude to look ravishingly beautiful.

Suddenly she said, "You wouldn't be thinking of running away, would you?"

For a second he became pale. Damn the woman anyway!

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, trying hard to keep his voice from cracking. "I'm too much aware of the penalties if I were caught. Besides, why should I want to run away? You are the most desirable woman I've ever known. (This was the truth.) Though you're not the easiest one in the world to live with. (A master understatement.) I would have gotten no place without you. (True; but he couldn't spend the rest of his life on this barbarous world.) And it is unthinkable that I would want to leave you." (Inexpressible, yes, but not unthinkable. He couldn't take her with him, for the simple reason that even if she would go she would never fit in his life on Earth. She'd be absolutely unhappy. Moreover, she'd not go anyway, because she'd refuse to abandon her children and would try to take them along, thus wrecking all his escape plans. He might just as well hire a brass band and march behind it out of the city and onto the windroller in the light of high noon.)