your running off, Wintrow. Cress can be dangerous for a sailor out and about on his lonesome. Not just a ship’s boy, but any sailor. You ought to go with him, Mild. How long can it take for him to look at a wall anyway?’
Mild looked extremely unhappy. Comfrey’s words were not an order; he did not have the power to give him an order. But if he ignored his suggestion and Wintrow got into some kind of trouble…
‘I’ll be fine,’ Wintrow said insistently. ‘It won’t be the first time I’ve been in a strange city. I know how to take care of myself. And our time is wasted just standing here arguing. I’ll meet you all back here at the boat, well before sundown. I promise.’
‘You’d better,’ Comfrey said ominously, but there was an immediate lightening of spirit. ‘You come find us at the Sailors’ Walk as soon as you’ve seen this wall of yours. Be there ahead of time. Now that you’re starting to act like a sailor on board, it’s time we marked you as one of our own.’ Comfrey tapped the elaborate tattoo on his arm while Wintrow grinned and shook his head emphatically. The older sailor thumbed his nose at him. ‘Well. Be on time, anyway.’
Wintrow knew that if anything did happen to him now, they could all agree that he’d insisted on going off by himself, that there had been nothing they could do about it. It was a bit disconcerting to see how quickly they abandoned him. He was still part of the group as they walked down the beach, but when they reached the commerce docks, the men veered like a flock of birds, heading for the waterfront bars and brothels. Wintrow hesitated a moment, watching them go with an odd sort of longing. They laughed loudly, a band of sailors out on the town, exchanging friendly shoves and gestures suggestive of their afternoon plans. Mild bounced along at their heels almost like a friendly dog, and Wintrow was suddenly certain that he was newly accepted to that brotherhood, that he had only been promoted to it because Wintrow had come to take his place on the bottom rung of the ship’s hierarchy.
Well, it didn’t bother him. Not really, he told himself. He knew enough of men’s ways to realize that it was natural for him to want to be a part of the group, to do whatever he must do to belong. And, he told himself sternly, he knew enough of Sa’s ways to know that there were times when a man had to set himself apart from the group, for his own good. Bad enough, really, that he had not so much as muttered a single word against their afternoon’s plans for whoring and drunkenness. He tried to find reasons for that but knew they were only excuses and set the whole question aside in his mind. He had done what he had done, and tonight he would meditate on it and try to find perspective on it. For now, he had a whole city to see in the space of a few hours.
He had his grandfather’s memory of the city’s layout to guide him. In an odd way, it was almost as if he walked with him, for he could see the changes that had occurred since the last time Ephron had visited this port. Once, when a shopkeeper came out to adjust the awning over his heaped baskets of fruit, Wintrow recognized him and nearly greeted him by name. Instead he just found himself grinning at the man, thinking that his belly had done a bit of rounding out in the last few years. The man glared at him in turn, looking the boy up and down as if he were affronted. Wintrow decided his smile had been too familiar and hastened on past him, heading into the heart of the city.
He came to Well Square and stopped to stare in awe. Cress had an artesian spring for its water supply. It surged up in the centre of a great stone basin, with enough force to mound the water in the centre as if a great bubble were trying to rise from the depths. From the main basin it had been channelled into others, some for the washing of clothes, some for potable water and still others for watering of animals. Each basin had been fancifully decorated with images of its purpose so that there could be no mistake in its utility. The overflow too was gathered and funnelled off out of sight into a drainage system that no doubt ended in the bay. Interspersed among the various basins were plantings of flowers and shrubs.
A number of young women, some with small children playing beside them, were taking advantage of the clear and warm afternoon to wash clothing. Wintrow halted and stood looking at the scene they made. Some of the younger women stood in the washing basin, skirts looped up and tied about their thighs as they pounded and rubbed the laundry clean and then wrung it out against their legs. They laughed and called to one another as they worked. Young mothers sat on the basin’s side, washing clothes and keeping a watchful eye on babes and toddlers that played at the fountain’s edge. Baskets were scattered about, holding laundry both wet and dry. There was something so simple and yet so profound about the scene that it nearly brought tears to Wintrow’s eyes. Not since he had left the monastery had he seen folk so harmoniously engaged in work and life. The sun shone on the water and the Caymaran women’s smooth hair, gleamed on the wet skin of their arms and legs. He gazed avidly, taking it all in as balm that soothed his roughened spirit.
‘Are you lost?’
He turned quickly to the words. They could have been spoken kindly, but had not been. One look at the eyes of the two city guardsmen left him in no doubt of their hostility. The one who had spoken was a bearded veteran, with a white stripe tracing an old scar through his dark hair and down his cheek. The other was a younger man, brawny in a professional way. Before Wintrow could reply to the query, the second guard spoke. ‘The waterfront’s down that way. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.’ He pointed with a truncheon back the way Wintrow had come.
‘What I’m looking for…?’ Wintrow repeated blankly. He looked from one tall man to the other, trying to fathom their hard faces and cold eyes. What had he done to cause offence? ‘I wanted to see the Heroes’ Frieze and the carvings on the Idishi Hall.’
‘And on the way,’ the first guard observed with ponderous humour, ‘you thought you might stop off to watch some young women getting wet in a fountain.’
There seemed nothing he could say. ‘The fountains themselves are objects of beauty,’ he attempted.
‘And we all know how interested sailors are in objects of beauty.’ The guard put the emphasis on the last three words with heavy sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you go buy some “objects of beauty” down at the Blowing Scarf? Tell them Kentel sent you. Maybe I’ll get a commission.’
Wintrow looked down, flustered. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I do, seriously, wish to take time to see the friezes and carvings.’ When neither man replied, he added defensively, ‘I promise, I’ll be no trouble to anyone. I have to be back to my ship by sundown anyway. I just wanted to look about the town a bit.’
The older man sucked his teeth briefly. For a moment, Wintrow thought he was reconsidering. ‘Well, we “seriously” think you ought to get back down where you belong. Down by the docks is where sailors “look about our town”. The street for your kind is easy to find; we call it the Sailors’ Walk. Plenty there to amuse you. And if you don’t head back that way now, young fellow, I promise you that you will have trouble. With us.’
He could hear his heart beating, a muffled thunder in his ears. He couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger, but when he spoke, it was the anger he heard, not the fear. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said brusquely. But even if the anger was stronger, it was still hard to turn his back on the men as he walked past them. The skin on his back crawled, half expecting to feel the blow of a truncheon. He listened for footsteps behind him. What he did hear was worse. A derisive snort of laughter, and a quietly mocking comment from the younger man. He neither turned to it nor walked faster, but he could feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders knotting with his fury. My clothing, he told himself. It isn’t me they’ve judged, but my clothing. I should not take their insults to heart. Let it go by, let it go by, let it go by, he breathed to himself, and after a time, he found that he could. He turned at the next corner and chose a different path up the hill. He would let their words go by, but he would not be defeated by their attitude. He intended to see the Idishi Hall.
He
