Страница 47 из 69
"Don't let it eat me! Please! Please!"
Hank swore softly. The mouse was sentient and, therefore, feeling all the emotions and thinking all the thoughts of a doomed human.
"I'm i
"It may be telling the truth," Hank said. "Can't we just keep it in a cage until we come back?"
"The laborer is worthy of his hire," the owl said, quoting the Bible.
She opened her beak and caught the falling mouse in a razor sharp grip. She then degutted the creature, but not before it had cried, "Help me! Help me!"
"You've spoiled all my fun," Barabbaz said to the owl.
Bargma was too busy swallowing the mouse to reply.
They slept the rest of the night and part of the day in the barn. Hank took his turn as sentinel an hour after dawn. He had trouble getting back to sleep but finally managed. The deer had gone to a woods across the fields behind the farmhouse. They would stay there until the raiders (a euphemism for assassins, Hank thought) returned. If they returned.
Hank was awakened when the farmer's wife and daughter brought in breakfast. He ate the hot cabbage soup, bread, butter, jam, and nuts with gusto and drank the warm milk with less pleasure. The two women took out the chamber pots, emptied and washed them, and brought them back. The humans, a hard-looking bunch, sharpened their weapons and boasted of their exploits. The hawks went hunting but promised to be back by nightfall.
Hank, Blogo, and Sharts went over the diagrams provided by Glinda until they knew them by heart.
Supper was cabbage soup, ca
During the day, Hank observed through a window the hordes of people and animals walking or riding toward Wugma. They were on their way to hear Erakna and others speak at a war rally in the city square. The raiders pla
Hank had plenty of time to satisfy his curiosity about the Rare Beast. He gave him some Quadling tobacco since the fellow had run out of it during his trek from the south.
Blogo said, "Thanks. This Gillikin stuff rips out your throat."
Sharts was sitting cross-legged in a corner, his eyes closed, apparently going through some sort of mental exercises. Blogo felt free to be friendly with Hank while his chief did not notice them.
Blogo came from an area isolated by mountains in the west where the borders of Quadlingland and Winkieland met. As far as he knew, his people had always been there. They had never been very numerous because, he thought, the females bore only one child during their lifetime.
"I don't know why," Blogo said, looking like a chimpanzee when he gri
Hank thought that his original ancestors had been made by the Long-Gones. At least, that was the only explanation he had for this anomaly. He did not voice it, however. Blogo might be offended. Hank also thought that the extreme warlike tendencies of Blogo's people were partly responsible for their diminishing population.
"We seldom leave our kingdom," Blogo said. "But Kama and I, he was my very good friend though too given to practical jokes, he and I decided to see what the outside world looked like. Three months later, Kama was killed by a sow that thought he was after her brood. Actually, he was. Not to eat, understand. We weren't ca
Tears ran down his hairy cheeks.
"If I may ask," Hank said, "how did it happen that you became an outlaw?"
"Oh, that!"
Blogo shook his head, and the red cock's comb waved.
"It was all because of a joke. After Hama died, I traveled on the road to Suthwarzha. I wanted to see Glinda so I could be one of her bodyguards. I'd heard that it'd be a cushy position, and there were plenty of good-looking women there. But on the way I fell in with some garrison troops, and we all got drunk. They decided they'd play a trick on their commanding officer. They didn't like him at all, and they knew he was with a woman. But when it came time to pull the joke, they weren't so drunk that they didn't have some second thoughts. So I told them what cowards they were and said I'd do it. It seemed like fun at the time. I sneaked into the hut where this officer was on top of a woman, and I squirted turpentine on his bare tail. That sure stopped his lovemaking, haw, haw, haw!"
Blogo wiped his eyes and said, "But the joke was on me. Those clowns had barred the door on the outside when I went in. The officer tried to kill me, so, naturally, I had to defend myself. He was a big guy, almost as tall as your chin, but I broke his neck. The woman was screaming, and the soldiers on duty were coming. I couldn't get the door open, so I tore out the planks in the wall and took off.
"If I'd been just a human, I might have gotten away with it. How could those drunks have identified me? But I stand out like a leopard among sheep, a wart on Glinda's face. I was wanted. The government had an intense desire to separate my head from my neck. Governments, you know, take everything very seriously. No sense of humor. So I wandered around in the woods, almost got eaten by a tiger, and then met Sharts..." He looked at the giant to make sure that he was concentrating inwardly, "... the Shirtless," he whispered.
Hank hesitated, then said, "Uh, Sharts mentioned something about the Very Rare Beast. What's that?"
Blogo's eyes widened, and he bared his teeth. He held his hot pipe by the bowl, and he said, "How'd you like this shoved all the way up to your liver?"
"Sorry. No offense meant," Hank said.
"Well, there's plenty taken. How'd you like to step outside and take me on? I've torn men bigger than you into little strips!"
"That'd be stupid, no offense meant," Hank said.
He walked away shaking his head.
Shortly before sunset, the farmer and his son pushed a wagon into the barn. After the doors were closed, Hank, Blogo, and Sharts lay down with the weapons and Sharts's shirts on the floor of the wagon. They were covered with hay over which was piled a few layers of an early-season indigenous fruit. While the three crypto-passengers breathed through cracks in the floor, the wagon was pushed out of the barn and hitched to four of the farmer's deer. And they were on their way.
Hank could hear the crowds on the road and the occasional talk of his compatriots walking behind the wagon. The farmers going to the big rally did not sound as happy as Erakna would have liked. There was no laughter, and there were many complaints, though he noted that no one said anything directly about the queen. Doubtless, there were spies and agents provocateur among them.
After what seemed a long time but was probably only an hour, the wagon stopped. Hank could hear the gate guards asking the farmer some questions. Abraam said that he intended to sell the fruit to the crowd during the rally. If he did not sell all of it tonight, he would tomorrow at the market. Would the guards care to sample some of the fruit? Take some home for their families? The guards said that they would.
Hank hoped that they wouldn't stick their spears through the fruit to find out if there was any contraband. They did not, and, after they had lightened the load somewhat, they told Abraam to go on and have a good time.
They were within the walls and passing very slowly through noisy obviously drunken crowds. The halts were frequent. But, inside an hour, or so it seemed, the wagon halted, and Abraam knocked three times on the side of the wagon. Hank came up out of the hay and fruit like Lazarus rising from the tomb. Very stiffly and wondering, "What next?"