Page 93

He wandered for a time, bereft of his grandfather’s guidance, for he had never taken this route through the city.

He was stopped twice, once by a young boy who offered to sell him some smoking herbs and more distressingly by a woman who wished to sell herself to him.

Wintrow had never been so approached before, and it was worse that the tell-tale sores of a flesh disease were plain around her mouth.

He forced himself to refuse her courteously twice.

When she refused to be put off, only lowering her price and offering him ‘any way you like, anything you fancy at all’, he finally spoke plainly.

‘I have no wish to share your body or your disease,’ he told her, and heard with a pang how cruel his honesty sounded.

He would have apologized but she did not give him time, spitting at him before she turned and flounced away.

He continued walking, but found that she had frightened him more than the city guards had.

Finally he gained the heart of the city proper.

Here the streets were paved and every building that fronted on the street had some decoration or design to recommend it.

These were obviously the public structures of Cress, where laws were made and judgements passed and the higher business of the city conducted.

He walked slowly, letting his eyes linger, and often stopping to step back into the street to try to see a structure as a whole.

The stone arches were some of the most amazing work he had ever seen.

He came to a small temple of Odava, the serpent-god, with the traditional rounded doors and windows of the sect.

He had never especially cared for this particular manifestation of Sa, and had never met a follower of Odava who would admit that the serpent-deity was but another facet of Sa’s jewel face.

Nonetheless, the graceful structure still spoke to him of the divine and the many paths folk trod in seeking it out.

So finely was the stone of this building worked that when he set his hand to it, he could scarcely feel the seam of the builders’ joining.

He stood thus for a time, reaching out as he had been trained to do to sense structure and stresses in the building.

What he discovered was a powerful unity, almost organic in its harmony.

He shook his head in amazement, scarcely noticing the group of men in white robes banded with green and grey who had emerged from a door behind him and now walked past and around him with annoyed glances.

After a time he came to himself, and realized, too, that the afternoon was fleeing more swiftly than he had expected it to.

He had no more time to waste. He stopped a matron to courteously ask her the way to the Idishi Hall.

She took several steps back from him before she answered, and then it was only with a toss of her hand that indicated a general direction.

Nonetheless, he thanked her and hurried on his way.

The streets in this part of the city had more pedestrian traffic. More than once he caught folk looking at him oddly. He suspected that his clothes proclaimed him a stranger to their town. He smiled and nodded, but hastened along, too pressed for time to be more social.

The Idishi Hall was framed by its site. A hollow in the side of a hill cupped the building lovingly in its palm.

From Wintrow’s vantage, he could look down on it.

The verdant forest behind it set off the gleaming white of its pillars and dome.

The contrast of the lush and random growth and the precise lines of the hall took Wintrow’s breath away.

He stood transfixed; it was an image he wished to carry with him for ever.

People were coming and going from the hall, most dressed in gracefully-draped robes in cool tones of blues and greens.

It could not have been more lovely if it had been a contrived spectacle.

He softened the focus of his eyes, and took several deep breaths, preparing to absorb the scene before him with complete concentration.

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. ‘Sailor-boy is lost again,’ the younger city guard observed. Even as Wintrow’s head swivelled to the man’s words, he received a shove that sent him sprawling on the paving stones. The older guard looked down at him and shook his head, almost regretfully.

‘I guess we’ll have to see him back to where he belongs this time,’ he observed as the brawny guard advanced on Wintrow.

There was a deadly softness to his words that chilled Wintrow’s heart.

Even more chilling were the three people who had halted to watch.

None of them spoke nor made any effort to interfere.

When he looked appealingly at them, seeking help, their eyes were guiltless, showing only their interest in what would happen next.

The boy struggled to his feet hastily and began backing away. ‘I’ve done no one any harm,’ he protested. ‘I simply wanted to see the Idishi Hall. My grandfather saw it and…’

‘We don’t welcome waterfront rats coming up our streets and dawdling about staring at folk.

Here in Cress, we don’t let trouble start.

’ The older man was speaking but Wintrow scarcely heard him.

He spun about to flee, but in one lunge the brawny guard had him by the back of his collar.

He gripped it hard, half strangling Wintrow and then shaking him.

Dazed, Wintrow felt himself lifted from the ground and then propelled suddenly forward.

He tucked into the fall, rolling with the momentum this time.

One uneven paving stone caught him in the short ribs as he did so, but at least no bones broke.

He came to his feet almost smoothly but not quite swiftly enough to avoid the younger guardsman.

Again he seized Wintrow, shook him and then threw him in the general direction of the waterfront.

This time he collided with the corner of a building.

The shock took the skin from his shoulder but he kept to his feet.

He ran a few staggering steps, with the grinning inexorable guard in pursuit.

Behind him the older soldier followed them almost leisurely, lecturing as he came.

It seemed to Wintrow that his words were not for him, but to remind the folk who were halting to watch that they were only doing their jobs.

‘We’ve nothing against sailors, so long as they keep themselves and their vermin to the waterfront where they belong.

We tried to be nice to you, boy, just because you are such a pup.

If you’d gone to the Sailors’ Walk, you’d have found it suited you well, I’m sure.

Now you’re bound for the waterfront anyway.

You could have saved all of us a lot of effort and yourself a lot of bruises if you’d only listened. ’

The calm reasonableness of the older man’s voice was almost more horrifying than the other guard’s efficient enjoyment of his task.

The man was as quick as a snake. Somehow he once more had hold of Wintrow’s collar.

This time he snapped the boy out as a dog flings a rat, sending him slamming into a stone wall.

Wintrow felt his head strike the stone and saw a brief flash of darkness.

He tasted blood. ‘Not a sailor,’ he blurted out. ‘I’m a priest. A priest of Sa.’

The young guard laughed. The older man shook his head in mock regret for the boy.

‘Oho. That makes you a heretic as well as waterfront scum. Haven’t you heard that the followers of Odava have no use for those who would submerge him as but a part of their own god?

I was about to tell Flav you’d had enough, but another knock or two might hasten your enlightenment. ’

The guard’s hand was closing on his collar, dragging him to his feet.

In a panic, Wintrow let his head slip through the overlarge collar and whipped his arms in as well.

He literally fell out the bottom of his shirt as the guard hauled up on the collar of it.

Fear spurred him and he scrabbled away, already running as he came to his feet.

There was a burst of laughter from the onlookers.

He had one brief glimpse of the younger guard’s surprised face and the older man’s beard split in a grin of amusement.

The old man’s laughter and the younger man’s angry shout followed him but Wintrow was running now, running full tilt.

The lovely stonework that had earlier transfixed him was now but something to pass on his way back to his ship and safety.

The wide straight streets that had been so open and welcoming now seemed designed only to expose him to pursuit.

He dodged past people on the street, and they shrank back from him and then stared after him curiously.

He ran shirtless, turning corners as he came to them, afraid of looking back lest they still be pursuing him.