Eloise

"We'd best not leave together, in go out the front door and you take the one next to the stage. It leads to a back alley. Turn left and climb the wall. Go right and you're heading towards the field. Eglantine is expecting you." Branchard blew out his cheeks. "Look after yourself, Earl."

* * * * *

Eglantine was small, fat: his face creased like a prune, his eyes twin chips of agate, his teeth startlingly white. His ship was like his clothes; patched, worn, soiled with stains.

"Earl Dumarest." He gestured to a chair in the dingy room used as a salon. "Branchard told me about you. You want to charter the Styast, right?"

"You know it."

"But the terms of charter were a little vague. And, as yet, I've seen no money."

"The terms are what I say." Dumarest was curt. "Ten thousand ermils to the next planetfall."

"Which will be?"

"Where I say after we have left Tynar." Dumarest jingled the money; thick, octagonal coins each set with a precious gem, accepted tender on any world. "If you've changed your mind say so now. There are other ships."

"But none as cheap," said Eglantine quickly. "And, perhaps, none available. But let us not be hasty. All I know is that you want to charter my ship. To the next planetfall, you say; but that could be a world on the other side of the galaxy. Where's the profit in that? A man has to know what he's selling."

"And buying," snapped Dumarest. "From what I hear your vessel is a wreck. Maybe I'm making a mistake."

"Maybe," Eglantine shrugged and spread his ringed hands. "What man can claim that never in his life, has he made a mistake? And yet why should we quarrel? You need my vessel and I am available. All I ask is for a little information. What cargo will you be carrying?"

"None."

Eglantine hid his surprise. No cargo, which meant that Dumarest was in a hurry to get away and had no wish to travel on a normal ship. Charters were never cheap, but had certain advantages; and why should he object when the money was in plain view? Yet old habits died hard. A man willing to pay so much might be pressed to pay even more.

Then he looked again at the man before him, and changed his mind. In any game of bluff Dumarest would be the winner. In any confrontation he would never lose. There was that look about him, the hard sureness of a man who had never known the protection of House, Guild or Organization; who had early learned to rely on no one but himself.

But still he had to assert his position; as captain he was in command.

"Our destination," he said. "I must know it. Surely you can see that."

"As I said, you will be told it after we leave."

"That will be tomorrow at sunset."

"No," said Dumarest. "It will be now. Is your crew aboard? They should be. It was part of the deal. Now let's get down to it. Is the ship mine or not? Make up your mind."

Eglantine said, "I expect you would like to examine the crew."

Like the ship and the captain, the crew left much to be desired. An engineer with a blotched and mottled face, who reeked of cheap wine and had a withered hand. A handler, a boy; star-crazed and willing to work for bed and board, filling in as steward. A navigator, with rheumed eyes and a peculiar, acrid odor which told of a wasting disease. And a minstrel.

He looked up from where he sat on his bunk, as Dumarest looked through the door. Like the captain he was fat; unlike him, he had a certain dignity which made his soiled finery more of a challenge to an adversary than the outward evidence of laziness. A stringed instrument lay on his lap; a round-bellied thing with a delicate neck and a handful of strings which he was busy tuning. A gilyre of polished wood and inset fragments of nacre, once an expensive thing; now, like its owner, the worse for wear.

"Arbush," said Eglantine. "He plays for us."

"And gambles." said the man. He had a deep, pleasant voice. "And sings at times; and tells long, boring tales if it should please the company. And tells fortunes and reads the lines engraved in palms. Once I saved the captain's life. Since then he has carried me around."

Charity which Dumarest would never have suspected from the captain. Or perhaps it was not simply that. Like the boy, the minstrel was cheap labor.

He touched the strings of his instrument, and a chord lifted to rise and echo in the air.

"A song," he said. "Which shall it be? A paen or a dirge? Young love or withered discontent? Something to lift your heart or to throw a shadow of gloom over the spirits? Name it and it will be yours."

Dumarest caught the edge of bitterness, the hint of mockery. An artist reduced to the status of a beggar. If he was an artist. If the gilyre was more than just show.

"Later," said Dumarest. Outside, in the passage, he said to Eglantine. "Call the boy."

He came, wary, his eyes wide in his thin face, his attitude betraying the beatings he had suffered; the desperate need to swallow his pride in order to remain where he wished to be. Dumarest waited until they were alone and then drew coins from his pocket.