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 and blankets of the finest Ulinian silk, had taken a liking to the rough, unsophisticated reality offered by the Sleepy Fish’s trend-conscious owner.
“When Manum Yalik just opened this place,” Sorgius continued, “he was married to a Mustobrim woman. Her name was…” he screwed up his eyes. “I don’t remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway. So this wife was cold and unsocial, which made it difficult for her to serve guests. People were waiting for ages for their food and cursing the service. ‘Where’s my ragout?’”
“Where’s my fish!” Vordius joked.
“Exactly. ‘Where’s my fish!’ And his wife just ignored it all, carrying trays of food with this blank look on her face. That’s why her husband started calling her his sleepy fish. People started saying ‘Where are you going for dinner?’ ‘To the sleepy fish.’ That’s how the place got its name.”
“I thought that Mustobrim women were hot and spicy,” said Vordius, casting a glance at his girlfriend.
“How do you know so much about Mustobrim women?” Luvia asked him in a quiet, serious voice.”
“Oh, that’s a common misperception by people who have only heard rumors of the fair ladies of Mustobrim,” said Sorgius, stepping in to keep his friend from teasing Luvia too much. “Southerners’ blood is hotter than ours, but you can’t imagine what their religion does to them!”
“I see you can imagine it,” smiled Uni. He felt strange in his new robe, but his mother had insisted on buying it. His objections that he already had a new robe that he had purchased for the trip to Virilan were struck down because, as his mother reminded him, he might stain it at his party and then he would have nothing clean to wear.
“Maybe I haven’t read as many books as you, Little Uni, but I have personal experience that tells me there’s nothing worse than trying to restrain our natural instincts with fasts, vigils, prayers, mortification of the flesh and other unnatural obstacles. Strict rules don’t do anything but make a person angry. And when they see how everyone else lives, all they can think about is how to ruin their lives for them.”
Uni looked skeptical. “How many Mustobrims have you met in your young life?”
“Enough. Believe me!”
“I know they believe in an invisible god,” Uni smiled. “Their god has no face, but they believe he can be found in everything. Not just people, but in their actions.”
“Sounds like a hard life,” sighed Sorgius’ red-headed companion. “If we feel like sinning, all we have to do is
