Dragon - The Dragon And The Djinn Part 22

Baiju spun about on his heel.

"I brought you here," he said dangerously, "and now you will not repay me as you should?"

"I didn't make any bargain with you," said Jim. "Abu al-Qusayr told you I might be useful to you; and the only reason you helped us get here was because of that. If you've got any disagreements, go talk to him."

He switched his attention away from Baiju completely.

"Hob?" he said.

"Yes, m'lord," said a small voice from behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Baiju go pale and rigid, and his eyes opened very wide.

"That's all right," said Jim, answering both Hob and Baiju's superst.i.tious alarm at once. "I just wanted to make sure you were there and all right. It must have been pretty boring for you this trip. I know you don't sleep."

"That doesn't matter," said Hob. "Any hobgoblin is used to going a long time with nothing happening.

We just sit and think about happy things that happened to us in the past, without sleeping."

"I will wait for you downstairs in the room where everyone eats and talks," Baiju said, less pale now, but walking hastily out.

Jim had all but forgotten him already. He was coming all the way awake; and it struck him that he felt hot, sticky and uncomfortable. He would have given almost anything for a shower, twentieth-century style, but of course that was impossible.

A bath was an alternative; but the bathhouses that might be available were more trouble than they were worth. Jim only wanted to get clean. He did not want to be offered female or male company, food, drink, drugs or anything else. Particularly he did not want people pretending to help him bathe, and then asking a price for it. It was not so much the price that bothered him as the annoyance of having to get rid of such gadflies.

He could magic himself and his clothes clean-but he had been nibbling away at his magic reserves, in spite of his good intentions to use them as little as possible.

"I'm ready," he said to Brian. "How about you?"

"You should wear your mail shirt," said Brian reproachfully.

Jim looked at the pile of metal links on the floor by his mattress with sourness. That was right. He had taken that off before collapsing in sleep. Now, wearing his shirt and undershirt alone, he was quite comfortable in the pa.s.sably warm atmosphere here, and it would undoubtedly get warmer during the day.

To wear the mail shirt, with its sewn on, interior quilted padding, would be to make himself uncomfortably hot. Still, Brian was right. They were in a strange city, among strangers; and the rule of the fourteenth century, whether you were in England, the Middle East or any place else, seemed to be "Go protected, and be ready for anything."

Regretfully he put on the mail shirt. He was almost immediately p.r.i.c.kly with heat; but hopefully, his body would adjust to it during the day. Brian was on his feet, standing in the clothes he had been wearing all through the trip and moving from foot to foot impatiently.

"I am ready," Brian announced. "If you are too, let us go."

"No offense, Brian," said Jim. "But you stink."

"And so do you, James," said Brian, "though no worse than before. But it is better to stink and live than not stink and be dead. The chance will come for us to get our weapons and some other clothes or clean the ones we have. Meanwhile I need food; and I cannot believe but what you do as well."

He led the way out the door and Jim took a few long strides to catch up with him.

When they got to the coffeehouse, restaurant, or whatever it was that was part of their lodging place, it was enclosed by a circular wall of ancient marble in which were niches. Each niche had a low table and pillows on which to sit cross-legged around it. They looked about for Baiju, but he was not there.

"Well," said Jim, after they had sat down and ordered whatever was available for breakfast-Jim included a large container of cool sherbet with his. Having done this and watched their server leave, he looked around, saw no one was sitting close enough to overhear easily, and spoke to Brian in a low voice.

"Had you any plan for how we might go about finding Geronde's father here?" he asked Brian.

Brian finished gulping down what was in his mouth and answered.

"To be honest with you, James," he said, "I had planned to do as I have done all the way here so far, to search out an English knight, or at least a French or other knight of good repute, and ask his help and guidance. But this place seems singularly free of any but the local infidels. Yet we might ask."

He looked around the eating place they were in, caught the eye of the man who had served them and waved him over. While waiting, he dipped into the single dish that had been put down between Jim and himself, picked up another mouthful of it with the tips of his fingers as he would have done in England, and stuck it in his mouth. The server arrived at their table, as Brian was hastily trying to get this chewed and swallowed. Brian got it down just in time.

"Fellow," he said to the server, "by the way, what kind of meat is it in this you have brought us?"

"It is a tender young she-camel, masters," said the server. "One who broke a leg in the stables of Murad of the Heavy Purse, and which we were fortunately able to buy for slaughter. Is it not flavorful and good to eat?"

"Well, it is, at least, not goat," said Brian. "Tell me, do you know of any English knights here in this city?"

"English knights?" said the server, looking puzzled.

"Yes, yes," said Brian. "You know-English knights! Knights from England."

"Master," said the server, wonderingly. "Of Frankish knights I have heard; but I do not understand what you mean by these that are called English."

"I was speaking of England," said Brian, speaking the word slowly, and p.r.o.nouncing the word slowly and more loudly. "England."

"My friend is speaking of a lord from his own country," said Jim. "And that country is England-an island not far from the land of those you call the Franks."

"Is it so indeed?" said the server. "There are no Franks in Palmyra either, may Allah be thanked."

"Are you sure?" asked Jim. "Couldn't there be one around in this city who you haven't heard of?"

The server shook his head.

"If there was such a man, masters," he said, "surely I would know it, since those who pa.s.s through here in caravans, and others speak of many things, and never fail to mention those who are strangers to our land."

The server went off; but his place was almost immediately taken by Baiju, who sat down next to Jim on a cushion in the niche where they were seated, and drew his legs up in cross-legged position. He reached out and helped himself from their bowl of food.

It was only after he had taken a mouthful and eaten it that he looked at Jim and Brian.

"Now what do you plan?" he said to them.

"The fact is," Jim said, "we're looking for someone who might be here in Palmyra. He-"

"But swords, first. We must buy ourselves weapons, Mongol. As for telling him about Sir Geoffrey, you need not bother, James," said Brian. "I have already told Baiju about our search."

"When did you do that?" asked Jim.

"Oh, one of the times in the caravan, when you were talking with that wordy fellow ibn-Tariq-or should I call him a gentleman?" said Brian.

He looked at Baiju, who was industriously eating.

"Was he a gentleman?"

Baiju shrugged and took another handful of food.

"In any case I told Baiju what Sir Geoffrey would look like," said Brian, "in case he should see him. You have not seen him, I take it?"

He was still looking at Baiju, who shook his head and went on eating.

"We are at something of an impa.s.se," Brian told him. "Leave the food alone for a moment, if you please, Mongol, and give us your attention. There is reason to believe that he is in this town; but we have no idea of how to go about searching for him."

"Look!" said Baiju, pausing only briefly as far as feeding himself went, and staring at Jim and Brian.

"Look-and ask to see if anyone else has seen him."

"We just did," said Jim. "We asked the server here who brought us this food. He said that if there was someone like that in Palmyra, he would know it because those who pa.s.s through here on caravans and by other means usually stop and eat here; and the word gets out of any strangers in the land."

Baiju gave a momentary short sound that was somewhere between a cough and a laugh.

He looked around the room, and focused on the server who was busy with some people in another niche a quarter of the circle around.

"Come!" shouted Baiju.

In the other niches, the men in flowing robes eating there stopped, looked at him, looked at each other and spoke to each other in low tones which were unintelligible to Jim and Brian sitting in the booth, but which were pretty clearly-judging by the hand gestures and the facial expressions-either shocked or contemptuous statements about Baiju's manners. The server deliberately kept on doing what he was doing for a few moments, as if he had not heard, then turned and almost ran across the room to Baiju, all smiles.

"My master called?" he asked.

"Tell me," said Baiju abruptly, "are there any Frankish slaves in Palmyra?"

"a.s.suredly, there are, master," said the server. "But how many, or to whom they belong, I could not tell you. Who keeps track of slaves?"

"You told me there were no Franks in Palmyra," said Jim.

"So I did, master," said the server. "But slaves-"

He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands.

"We are looking for a Frankish slave, then, taller than you by a hand placed sideways," snapped Brian, "with graying hair that has gone halfway back on the head, and a small mustache which is perhaps pure white. It could be that he is beardless and that the hair is white. But he is not old and feeble, but still upright and strong, with blue eyes and a scar across a corner of his chin and jaw. He will have other scars as well, but this is the most notable one. Have you seen such a slave?"

"I have not, O master," said the server. "I could ask those who pay attention to such things if they know of any such? Perhaps in a day or so I would hear."

"He will reward thee," said the Mongol. "It will not be a great reward. But it will be a certain one if you have found the slave I speak. Do you understand?"

"Indeed, understanding comes clear to me, O generous and beneficent master," said the server, salaaming. "Is there any other thing I can do for you?"

"Yes," said Baiju, "bring us more of what was in this bowl."

"Yes, master," said the server. He took the empty bowl and hurried off.

Baiju leaned back against the padded wall of the niche. He sighed contentedly, looked at Jim and Brian and belched.

Brian had grown accustomed to this eastern way of expressing satisfaction with the meal. Jim had learned to control his face at this, but he still winced inside; even though he knew that here it was a way of saying, "That tasted good!"

Baiju grinned at them, a fierce and sardonic but undeniably humorous grin.

"Ibn-Tariq is here," he said. "I caught sight of him earlier in the day, before you were down."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Both Jim and Brian stared at him.

"The caravan is in?" said Jim.

"No," said Baiju. "Yet he is here."

"How could he be?" said Jim, remembering how they had pushed their camels for long hours during the day, s.n.a.t.c.hed a little food and sleep and gone on again day after day, to the limit of their endurance.

"I do not know," said Baiju. The server brought a new bowl of food and Baiju dug into it.

"I do not know," he said again, after eating a couple of mouthfuls. "It is barely possible-his camels were good, possibly as good as ours-and if he started not two days after you had been taken, as we did, but at once. If he started as the sun came up, or before, with one camel, alone but taking enough food and water. If he did that and knew the way well, it is just possible a house-dweller could be here by this time.

In any case, here he is. I saw him buying a headdress in the souk. He did not see me."

"Did he look like a man who'd pushed himself to the limit, when you saw him?" Jim asked.

"Do I?" said Baiju sardonically. "If he could make such a trip, he could be able to travel even as I do.

Do not judge the world by yourself."

"Let us go to this same merchant he visited in the souk," said Brian, "and examine his wares. Mayhap in conversation we can discover from him something he may have learned about ibn-Tariq; such as where he is lodging here in Palmyra, and even perhaps the reason for his hurrying to this place. Furthermore, it was in the souk here that Sir Geoffrey, my lady's father, was seen by the knight who brought news to her of catching sight of him. So, we ourselves might be lucky enough to catch sight of him. It may be he is no slave but a merchant, or someone concerned with one of the merchants of the souk, but hiding the fact he is an Englishman. He will be changed, perhaps-it has been over six years now-but he cannot have changed so much that I will not recognize him."

"Well enough," said Baiju. "I will eat some more here, and then we will go."

"Fine," said Jim. "In that case, I'm going to step upstairs and get that small friend you know of, Brian. I want to bring him along with us."

Baiju had stopped chewing on his latest mouthful and was staring at Jim. Jim ignored him.

"Is that wise, James?" said Brian.

"It is, if he has to act in an emergency." He looked hard at Brian to remind him of the fact that Hob was with them to carry word home on the smoke at high speed, to tell both Geronde and Angie if anything happened to them. Brian frowned, then slightly nodded.

"As you will," he said. He looked back at the second bowl, which still contained a fair amount of food.

"I might have a bite or two more myself, while I'm waiting."

Jim went upstairs. He had already decided that about the only way to manage things would be to wear the cloak that had the secret pouch for Hob on his shoulders and at the back of his neck-the same cloak he had worn with the caravan, and had in fact been sleeping in when he was captured. If he was going to be hot anyway, he might as well have Hob with him. Then if anything happened to them, the hobgoblin would be along to know of it.

It was fortunate, he told himself now, that Hob had not been in the cloak at the time he and the a.s.sa.s.sin had rolled over and over down the stony hillside. Hob would have been squashed. But then Hob must have been in his favorite spot, lying on top of the smoke of the fire in front of their tent.