Tower of Zanid (7 page)

“Thanks indeed,” said Fallon as he put the card away with studied nonchalance, hardly glancing at it. Kastambang explained: “Come, sir, and I’ll thrust you and him, masked, into a room alone, so that neither shall know the other’s face or have witnesses to the other’s perfidy. Do you own a decent suit of festive raiment?”

“I can get by,” said Fallon, mentally reviewing his wardrobe. This would be a chance to entertain Gazi in style, and stop her yammer about never going out!

“Good!” said the banker. “At the beginning of the twelfth hour on the morrow, then. Forget it not, the twelfth hour.”

Krishnan law might lack the careful refinements that Earth had developed to protect the accused, but none could deny its dispatch. The duelists pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid fines, in lieu of being bound over on more serious charges.

On his way out, the Yeshtite, a fellow named Girej, stopped at the witness bench and said to Fallon: “Master Antane, abject apologies for my unmannerly words last night. When I came to my senses I recalled that ‘twas you who with your bill struck up the brand of the accursed Krishnan Scientist when he’d have transfixed me therewith. So thank you for my poor life.”

Fallon made a nevermind gesture. “That’s all right, old man; merely doing my duty.”

Girej coughed. “To aby my discourtesy, perhaps you’d let me buy you a cup of kvad in slender token of my gratitude?”

“You don’t even have to be grateful to do that, if you’ll wait around until this next case is disposed of.”

The Yeshtite agreed, and Fallon was called up to the stand to testify about the robber. (The one whom he had speared was too badly hurt to be tried, and the other was still at Jarge.) The prisoner, one Shave, being taken
in fiagrante delicto
, was tried at once and convicted.

The magistrate said: “Take him away, torture him until he reveals the name of his other accomplice, and strike off his head. Next case.”

Fallon slouched out arm in arm with Girej the Yeshtite; he always encouraged such contacts, in the hope of picking up useful information. They wandered over to a tavern where they restored their tissues while Girej garrulously reiterated his gratitude. He said: “You not only save a citizen of our fair albeit windy city, Master Antane, from an untimely and unjust end—you also saved a fellow-guardsman.”

“Why, are you in the Guard too?”

“Aye, sir, and in the Juru Company, even as you are.”

Fallon looked sharply at the man. “That’s odd. I don’t recall seeing you at any of the drills or meetings, and I don’t often forget people.” The last statement was no boast. Fallon had a phenomenal memory for names and faces, and knew more Krishnans in Zanid than most locally born Zaniduma.

“I have for some time been on special duty, sir.”

“What do you do?”

The Yeshtite looked crafty. “Oh, I’m sworn to secrecy and so won’t tell you, craving your pardon. I’ll admit this much: that I guard a door.”

“A door?” said Fallon. “Have another.”

“Aye, a door. But never shall you learn where ‘tis, or what it opens unto.”

“Interesting. But look here: If this door is as important as all that, why does the government use one of us to watch it? Craving
your
pardon, of course. I should think they’d post somebody from Kir’s private guard.”

“They did,” said Girej with a self-satisfied chuckle. “But then early this year came these alarums regarding the barbarous Ghuur of Qaath, and all the regulars have been put upon a war footing, Kir’s guard’s been cut to less than half, his surplus stalwarts being dispersed, some to the frontiers, others to train new levies. Hence Minister Chabarian sought out reliable members of the watch, of my religious persuasion, to take the places, of the soldiery.”

“What’s your religious persuasion got to do with it?”

“Why, only a Yeshtite—but hold, I’ve spoke too much already. Drink deep, my Terran friend, and foul not that long proboscis by thrusting it into matters alien to it.”

And that was all that Fallon could get out of Girej, though the fellow hugged Fallon at parting and swore he’d be at his service in any future contingency.

“Gazi!” called Anthony Fallon as he re-entered his house.

“Well, how now?” came her irascible voice from the back.

“Get your shawl, my pretty, for today we shop.”

“But I’ve already marketed for the day…”

“No, no vulgar vegetables. I’m buying you fancy clothes.”

“Art drunk again?” asked Gazi.

“How’s that for a gracious response to a generous offer? No, dear. Believe it or not, we’re invited to a ball.”

“What?” Gazi appeared, fists on hips. “Antane, if this be another of your japes…”

“Me? Japes? Here, look at this!”

He showed her the invitation; Gazi threw her arms around Fallon’s neck and squeezed the breath out of him. “My hero! How came you upon this? You stole it, I’ll warrant!”.

“Why is everybody so suspicious of me? Kastamhang gave it to me with his own pudgy hand.” Fallon straightened the kinks out of his vertebrae. “It’s tomorrow night, so come along.”

“Why the haste?”

“Don’t you remember—this is bath day? We must be clean to attend this do. You don’t want the banker’s jagaini to sneer at you through her lorgnette—so don’t forget the soap.”

“The one good thing you Earthmen have brought to Krishna,” she said, bustling about. “Alack! In these rags I’m ashamed to enter a good shop to purchase better garments.”

“Well, I won’t buy you an extra intermediate set of clothes, so you can work your way up through the shops step by step.”

“And have you really the wealth for such a reckless expense?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I can get the stuff at cost.”

They rattled back across town, passing the Safq. Fallon gave the monstrous edifice only a cursory glance, not wishing to reveal an excessive interest in it before Gazi. Next they clattered past the House of Justice, where the heads of the day’s capital offenders were just being mounted on spikes on top of a bulletin-board. Below each head, a Krishnan was writing in chalk the vital statistics and the misdeeds of its former owner.

And then into the Kharju, where the sextuple clop of the hooves of the ayas drawing the carriages of the rich mingled with the cries of newsboys selling the
Rashm
, and pushcart peddlers hawking their wares; the rustle of cloaks and skirts; the clink of scabbards; the faint rattle of bracelets and other pieces of heavy jewelry; and over it all the murmur of rolling, rhythmic sentences in the guttural, resonant Balhibo tongue.

In the Kharju, Fallon found the establishment of Ve’qir the Exclusive and pushed boldly into the hushed interior. At that moment Ve’qir himself was selling something frilly to the jagaini of the hereditary Dasht of Qe’ba, while the Dasht sat on a stool and grumped about the cost. Ve’qir glanced at Fallon, twitched his antennae in recognition, and turned back to his customer. Ve’qir’s assistant, a young female, came up expectantly, but Fallon waved her aside.

“I’ll see the boss himself when he’s through,” he said. As the assistant fell back in well-bred acquiescence, Fallon murmured into Gazi’s large pointed ear: “Stop going over those fabrics. You’ll have the old
fastuk
raising the price.”

A voice said: “Hello, Mr. Fallon. Is Mr. Fallon, yes?”

Fallon spun round. There was the white-haired archeologist, Julian Fredro. Fallon acknowledged the greeting, adding: “Just sightseeing, Fredro?”

“Yes, thank you. How is project coming?”

Fallon smiled and waved toward Gazi. “Working on it now. This is my jagaini, Gazi er-Doukh.” He performed the other half of the introduction in Balhibou, then switched back to English. “We’re dressing her properly for a binge tomorrow night. The mad social whirl of Zanid, you know.”

“Ah, you combine the business with the pleasure. Is this a part of the project?”

“Yes. Kastambang’s party. He’s promised me information.”

“Ah? Fine. I have invitation to this party too. I shall see you there. Mr. Fallon—ah—where is this public bath I hear about, that takes place today?”

“Want to see the quaint native customs, eh? Stay with us. We’re, on our way to one after we finish here.”

The
ci-devant
feudal lord completed his purchase, and Ve’qir came over to Fallon rubbing his hands together. Fallon demanded the best in evening wear, and presently Gazi was pirouetting slowly while Ve’qir tried one thing after another on her unclad form. Fallon chose a spangled skirt of filmy material so expensive that even Gazi was moved to protest.

“Oh, go on!” he said. “We’re only middle-aged once, you know.”

She threw him a look of venom but accepted the skirt. Then the couturier fitted her with a gold-lace
ulemda
set with semiprecious stones—a kind of harness or halter worn by upper-class Balhibo women on the upper torso on formal occasions, adorning without concealing.

At last Gazi stood in front of the mirror, turning slowly this way and that. “For this,” she said to Fallon, “I’d forgive you much. But since you’re so rich for the nonce, why get you not something for yourself? ‘Twould pleasure me to pick a garment for you.”

“Oh, I don’t need anything new. And it’s getting late…”

“Yes you do, my love. That old rain-cloak of yours is unfit for the veriest beggar, so patched and darned is it.”

“Oh, all right.” With money in his scrip, Fallon could not long withstand the urge to buy. “Ve’qir, have you got a man’s rain-cloak in stock? Nothing fancy just good sound middle-class stuff.”

Ve’qir, as it happened, had.

“Very well,” said Fallon, having tried on the garment. “Add it up, and don’t forget my discount.”

Fallon completed his purchases, hailed a khizun, and started back toward the Juru with both Gazi and Fredro. Gazi said: “ ’Tis unwontedly open-handed of you, my love. But tell me, how got you such a vast reduction from Ve’qir, who’s known for squeezing the last arzu from those so mazed by the glamor of his reputation as to venture into his lair?”

Fallon smiled. “You see,” he said, repeating each phrase in two languages, “Ve’qir the Exclusive had an enemy—one Hulil, who preceded Chilian as Zanid’s leading public menace. This Hulil was blackmailing Ve’qir. Then the silly ass leaned too far out of a window and broke his skull on the flagstones below. Well, Ve’qir insists that I had something to do with it, though I proved to the prefect’s investigators that, at the time, I was in conference with Percy Mjipa and couldn’t have pushed the blighter.”

As they passed the Safq, Fredro craned his neck to stare at it and began to babble naively about getting in, until Fallon kicked his shins. Fortunately Gazi knew a mere half-dozen words of English, all of them objectionable.

“Where we going?” asked Fredro.

“To my house to drop off these packages and put on our
sufkira
.”

“Please, can we not stop to look at Safq?”

“No, we should miss our bath.”

Fallon glanced at the sun with concern, wondering if he was not late already. He had never gotten altogether used to doing without a watch; and the Krishnans, though they now made crude wheeled clocks, had not yet attained to watch-culture.

Gazi and Fredro kept Fallon busy interpreting, for Gazi knew practically nothing of the Terran tongues and Fredro’s Balhibou was still rudimentary; but Fredro was full of questions about Krishnan housewifery, while Gazi was eager to impress the visitor. She tried to disguise her embarrassment when they stopped in front of the sad-looking little brick house that Fallon called home, jammed in between two larger houses, and with big cracks running across the tiles where the building had settled unevenly. It did not even have a central court, which in Balhib practically relegated it to the rank of hovel.

“Tell him,” Gazi urged, “that we do but dwell here for the nonce, till you can find a decent place to suit us.”

Fallon, ignoring the suggestion, led Fredro in. In a few minutes, he and Gazi reappeared, clad in sufkira—huge togalike pieces of towelling wrapped around their bodies.

“It’s only a short walk,” said Fallon. “Be good for you.”

They walked east along Asada Street until this thoroughfare joined Ya’fal Street coming up from the southwest and turned into the
Square
of Qarar. As they walked, more people appeared, until they were engulfed in a sufkid-wrapped crowd.

Scores of Zaniduma were already gathered in the
Square
of Qarar where, only the night before, Fallon and his squad had stopped the sword-fight. There were but few non-Krishnans in sight; many non-Krishnan races did not care for the Balhibo bath-customs. Osirians, for example, had no use for water at all, but merely scrubbed off and replaced their body-paint at intervals. Thothians, expert swimmers, insisted on total immersion. And most human beings, unless they had become well assimilated to Krishnan ways, or came from some country like Japan, observed their planet’s tabu against public exposure.

The water-wagon, drawn by a pair of shaggy, six-legged shaihans, stood near the statue of Qarar. The cobbles shone where they had been watered down and scrubbed by the driver’s assistant, a tailed Koloftu of uncommon brawn, now securing his long-handled scrubbing-brush to the side of the vehicle.

The driver himself had climbed up on top of the tank and was extending the shower-heads over the crowd. Presently he called out: “Get ye ready!”

There was a general movement. Half the Krishnans’ took off their sufkira and handed them to the other half. The unclad ones crowded forward to get near the shower-heads, while the rest wormed their way back toward the outer sides of the square.

Fallon handed his sufkir to Fredro, saying: “Here, hold these for us, old man!”

Gazi did likewise. Fredro looked a little startled but took the garments, saying: “Used to do something like this in Poland before period of Russian domination two centuries ago. Russians claimed it was
nye kulturno
. I suppose one cannot have the bath without someone to hold these things?”

“That’s right. The Zaniduma are a light-fingered lot. This’ll be almost the first time Gazi and I have been able to take our bath at the same time. If you’d like to take yours afterward…”