It had always been a mystery to Dorgoe why Tameto – a born cavalryman – walked with the swinging gait of a sailor, but he had no time to wonder about such things. Tossing the paper full of crumbs into the waves of the Fela, he turned halfway and greeted the new arrival in a pointedly polite voice.
“Tameto, my dear friend, how glad I am to see you on this delightful evening! But why, for the love of the Deity, do you always look like a man who has drunk too much Markutanian fermented milk and is desperately searching for a privy in which to relieve himself?”
“Don’t get cocky with me, you old heap of goat shit!” the general cut him off. He did, in fact, look odd, especially around the eyes, which stared into the distance without actually focusing on anything. Dorgoe guessed he’d been indulging in dramdalaki, a traditional pastime of the nomads in the Great Expanse that had become popular with soldiers serving on the Empire’s northern border. A fire was built and stones heated inside a tightly sealed leather tent. Once it was hot enough, someone took a dipper full of a liquid obtained by boiling a secret blend of herbs and poured it out over the stones. Those who had tried it said that the main thing was to stop in time, because it was easy enough for the soul to depart for the world of eternal joy beyond the clouds, leaving behind only a slightly cooked body.
Dorgoe permitted himself to hope that Tameto would, in fact, overdo it someday soon. Aloud, all he said was “So much for greetings. What did you want to say about what I proposed yesterday?”
“You think you’re smarter than the rest of us, don’t you?” said Tameto. He stepped to the railing and spat a wad of Ulin chewing bark into the river. So, you’re sending your own delegation at my expense. Did you really think I’d stand for it, you stinking boar?”
“Listen here, horse-lover,” Dorgoe growled, towering over his crude companion with his sizeable frame. “Some things will always be beyond the understanding of a military man. I put your men on the mission. Have you paid me back for that? Or did you think I wasn’t aware of the task you gave them?”
Tameto’s warlike fire left him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dryly.
“You don’t know? You’re not in the wasteland anymore, my friend, and the walls have ears. My ears. May lightning strike you and your idiotic brothers-in-arms. I had my suspicions when you came out so strongly in favor of the delegation, and now I know why you did it.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Tameto snarled. He pulled his head into his shoulders.
“I don’t intend to prove anything. I don’t have to! I’ll just toss your fools off the delegation, that’s all. Do you have any idea how many people are begging me for a chance to go?” Dorgoe’s eyes narrowed. “When I’m done, I’ll whisper a word about you to His Majesty, just to keep him informed. Can you imagine the consequences?” He paused to let that sink in. “You’ll have to play fair with me. If you want me to leave your men alone and let them do their work for you, you’ll have to help get my man over the northern border. In the position you’re in, those are strikingly fair terms.”
“May you and all the other palace eavesdroppers and parasites rot in the land of darkness!” Tameto exclaimed, his jaw muscles clenched. He closed his eyes, and after a moment asked a question that was to the point. “But in terms of trade, you aren’t against the north, are you?”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do…” Tameto said with a scowl. “Who is going, and when?”
“As soon as possible, my friend. As soon as possible. I’ll have the man brought to your camp in two weeks. It may take a day or two longer than that. He will have a letter from me, of course. Give him two reliable men and make sure that they don’t breathe a word about it. For your own sake, if for nothing else.”
“I give no guarantees,” Tameto croaked. “The Virilans don’t like outsiders. All I can do is get him there. I’m not responsible for anything after that.”
“Of course,” said Dorgoe, and his heavy face looked like a mask from a theatrical comedy. “Just get him to the border. That’s all. And make sure your two men don’t come back. Then you and I will be even.”
Tameto cursed instead of a goodbye and stomped off. Dorgoe watched him go with a mixture of laughter and contempt.
“They’re all like children,” he said to himself. “I’m surrounded by idiots.”
“Dag, brother, you’ve made it!”
Dag Vandey had tried to keep his face serious for a moment, but then lost his touch of reserve, smiled and hugged Vordius with his full embrace.
“I got some business to be done, bro, but now, when two of my friends have such important events in their lives, you know…”
He welcomed Uni, having come a second later, and pet his wheat-blonde hair.
Here he comes again, thought the interpreter with a touch of annoyance, treating me like a child.
Naughty-looking companion of Sorgius wrinkled her nose and whispered to Sorgius, “Is he your friend, really? He looks as if he came to the funeral.”
That is a sort of a funeral, dear. We all know that engagement is the first step towards the grave, the little Vuravian wanted to say but didn’t.
“If he could trade his gloomy gazes, he would have gotten rich long ago. Then, maybe, he would dump his troublesome and unpromising job as a lawyer of those sorts of ragamuffins, preventing him from seeing his friends as often as he used to,” said Vorgius instead.
“Hey ho to thee too, a leech on the people’s neck!”
Vandey stretched his arm to grasp Sorguis’s forearm, according to the Gerandian custom, but Sorgius ducked down, put his arm around his friend’s waist, and tried to pull him off the ground. Dag only rolled his eyes thoughtfully, and then, in turn, lifted Sorgius up.
“Grab the legs, Vorgius! Let’s dunk the bastard in a vat of beer!”
Vordius took the summons to repeat their old game all too seriously, and it was hard enough for Uni to get the guests seated without the almost formal occasion turning into a farce from the start.
“Did you find it fast?” He asked Vandey to put the conversation on a neutral footing.”
He nodded, “Yes! Though, as you know, I am a rare guest to such places.”
“Can you guess why they named this place the Sleepy Fish?” Sorgius Quando asked, glancing around.
“No, why?” asked Luvia Tokto, glad to finally get a word in. The whole evening had been consumed by talk of palace intrigue, war and dice games.
The red-headed girl with Sorgius also smiled with feigned interest. Inside, she was cursing the carved wooden chair that had already snagged her fox-colored silk wrap two times, causing her great emotional distress.
That was the price that people paid to eat at the famous tavern. First-time visitors to the Fish were at first put off by the simple, even crude furnishings. The chairs and tables were made of heavy, unpainted wood. The candles were cheap and smoked, leaving dark streaks on all the walls. And the floor was non-existent in places, with tables essentially set in uncovered dirt. The place looked shoddier than a flea-bitten local haunt by the river port. To make matters worse, the tables were so crowded that visitors were often on the receiving end of accidental blows by their neighbors’ elbows. No one minded, however, because that neighbor was likely to be a member of the board of the shipbuilders’ guild, there to discuss a transaction, or even a judge from the Heavenly Court, relaxing at sunset with a glass of Firanian fortified wine. For some reason, the imperial elite, more accustomed to cushions filled with the feathers of Siramian swans