Аврам Дэвидсон - Peregrine - primus

Claud scratched his head, hestitated, then started after Peregrine. Appledore shrugged, began to ride on, then stopped, then swore softly, then turned round his beast. “Ah, well,” he said, “I’ve nothing against following whither Austin went. He was a goodly lad, as I-recall, though perhaps a mite prone to playing of

tricks upon his elders ... I will not say, ‘betters’. . . and it might as well be one way as another. Three heads are better than one, as Cerberus was once heard to howl.”

The way was narrow and tricky under foot, and they all kept their eyes on the ground for a while. And when they lifted them, lo, there the path forked, with one branch of the fork twisting and turning and crossing the other by a natural bridge, formed when a stream—now dry—had worn away the softer underside of a great rock.

“Now, what the Hades,” grumbled Appledore. “Are we back where we were before, only—?” He paused and scratched his head.

But Peregrine merely repeated, a trifle doggedly, “ ‘—left over right,’ ” and started to climb again, Claud following, with no more than a puzzled grunt.

“Bide a bit,” warned the sage. “There may be a spell involved here— Bide, I say—”

Spell or not, knot or not, if Austin went thisaway, then thisaway I go too.” And so they went, and this time without a repetition. The way soon widened into a road, and the road showed a few signs of having been paved, then more than a few, and at once became a broad highway set with blocks of stone, and it passed beneath an arch. And from the far side of the arch came a troop of men, one of whom bore an oar and another of whom bore a length of rope. And behind them, concealed by the arch and visible only in shadow, were the shadows of several other men, whose arms did not swing free.

“Halt, in th’ Imperial Name!”

Before Appledore could open his mouth, Claud, in his most rustic accent, said, with a gesture, “Brudder, and what be dat oddy ting which de stranger-man do tote upon he shoulder?”

Peregrine at once answered, “Why, Brudder, dat I do not know, save and unless it be s a sort of pestle for to husk grain Hey, Uncle?”

Some of the troop guffawed, Appledore shaking his head and looking not merely ignorant, but senile as well. And the Chief Petty Officer said, “One Hell of a lot of use would you be to th’ Imperial Navy, and you may lay to that. Pass, bumpkins.”

They this time did not merely pass, they skedaddled, moving as awkwardly as possible, and bumping into one another. Be

hind, the voice said, “Let’s weigh anchor. I knew this was a hare-brained scheme, setting up a press-gang at the city gate, far side. Waste one morning, and what do we see? Three singlevoyagers with hangovers, which we sling up, though fat lot o’ use they’ll prove, 1 warrant; and one old gaffer on a jackass, plus his two nevvews as don’t know a oar from their orifices.”

“Aye-aye, Chief. Arright, Chief.”

“Hawp, arreep, heep, hawp!” The press-gang took one turn of the main street, and the three others made sure to take another. “That was well-done, lad,” said Appledore. “And I was not, myself, about to do more than to commence another Proclaiming, without even stopping to think that no one had asked me to.”

Peregrine said, “Yes, Claud. What gave you the idea?”

Claud disdained even modesty. “Needn’t have gone to sea to have heard about press-gangs,” he said. And with that they all, including the Child of Abraxas, came to a sudden halt and looked at each other; and then they looked around them, at the nets hanging up here and there, at the slops-shops, and they lifted up their heads and sniffed the briny air. And then looked at each other again.

“Well, and may I never,” muttered Appledore. “And, well, that may indeed account for the still dampy oar of Ulyxes. But, may I ask, what will account for the presence of a seaport where of rights there ought to be no sea? True, certain ancient geographers, including those who wrote an history of the Argonauts, did declare and affirm that the Danube flowed into the Adriatic, but we be . . . we were ... we ought to have been, are, were, should, shite and leeks!—as far from the one as the other—”

Peregrine straightened his neck. “Be that all as it may be,” he said. “I am not one to quarrel presently with the inscrutable decrees of the Fates. Let us get us onward, then, being thankful that the commissary-major’s requisitions have left us our personal gear . . . “Ho, stranger, can you direct us to the Imperial Treasury?”

The man so hailed, a civil-looking fellow in early middle-age, eyed them with mild curiosity, said, “Certainly, sir, if you have no more pleasant way of wasting your time. Go straight down the Way till you come to the Theater, opposite which stands the

Cathedral, formerly the Temple of an Abomination, and turn left till you are facing the Pro-Cathedral, formerly the Temple of another Abomination. Here you will find yourself facing what was formerly The Baths, scene of simply undescribable scenes of nakedness and other lecheries, but now purified and the Imperial Treasury. And may I wish you joy of whatever fool’s errand and useless quest takes you thither: If you are well, I am well, and it is well.” And with that he passed on.

“Hmmm,” said Appledore. “One has the impression that he is somehow not persuaded of the fiscal integrity of the current Reign. Perhaps we should simply forget it and get a dram to drink. That journey has made my throat and tongue resemble something from the interior of Lower Libya, and during a drought, too.”

“Suit your own pleasure, but those were good mules, and Sapodilla’s second-best armor and so forth is equal to other places’ first-best, and sometimes better. I owe it to my Dadda and our native realm to salvage what we can, because we may be needing every penny we can get for something more essential than wine.”

Claud, who had been listening with an only semi-revised version of his original slack-mouthed, half-wit look, brightened at this last reference. “Whores, you mean?”

“When in Rome,” Peregrine said, simply, and, hoisting his saddle-bag, started off, accompanied by Claud, and followed, after no very long pause, by Appledore.

An old man thrust out a skinny paw at them. “Have pity, my sirs,” he whimpered, “upon a former heathen priest once lapped in the finest wool and supplied with silver and gold by the deluded, but now, after having seen the light and accepted Christian baptism, content with holy poverty, seeking only the merest modicum on which to subsist during the certainly not more than a few days remaining to him in this vale of tears and illusion: and your petitioner will ever pray for you, whenas on high. Give something.”

Peregrine withdrew the smallest coin he could find, and, the converted priest grabbing for it with something which did not seem precisely like Christian resignation, withdrew it a bit. “This is yours,” said Peregrine, “if you can advise me what to do with all these”—here he showed him the clutch of talley

sticks.

The oldster uttered an unseemly cackle. “You might use them for kindling," he suggested. Then, bethinking him that this would earn no alms, hastily assumed a more serious look, and said, “Ah, my young sir, hard upon the side of the Treasury, formerly The Baths, a scene of frenzies debilitating to more than the merely physical health in times gone by, you will observe a group of sundry citizens gathered there to discuss Sacred subjects such as Divine Theology. Enquire there for Cornelius the Cappadocian; meanwhile, forget not—Ah, thank you, thank you!” and he leapt and catched the coin with a degree of limberness which might have indicated that in his unregenerate youth he had cast many a discus, though alas probably in a condition of heathen bare-assedness: woe.