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Three masts were square-rigged. The aft mast was fore-and-aft rigged and was used to help the steering. There was no bowsprit.
Altogether, it was a strange-looking craft. But once one was accustomed to it, one saw it was as beautiful as a ship of the sea.
It was as formidable, too, for the Bird carried five large ca
Hung from davits were two long liferollers and a gig, all wheeled and with folding masts. If the Bird was wrecked it could be abandoned and all the crew could scoot off in the little rollers.
Green wasn't given much time for inspection. He became aware that a tall, lean sailor was regarding him intently. This fellow was dark-ski
Presently, the nasty customer, seeing that Green was not going to notice him, walked in front of him so that he could not help being a
«Friend,» said Green, affably enough, «would you mind standing off to one side? You are blocking my view.»
The fellow spat grixtr juice at Green's feet.
«No slave calls me friend. Yes, I am blocking your view, and I would mind getting out of the way.»
«Evidently you object to my presence here,» said Green. «What is the matter? You don't like my face?»
«No, I don't. And I don't like to have as a crewmate a stinking slave.»
«Speaking of odors,» said Green, «would you please stand to leeward of me. I've been through a lot lately and I've a delicate stomach.»
«Silence, you son of an izzot!» roared the sailor, red-faced, «Have respect toward your betters, or I'll strike you down and throw your body overboard.»
«It takes two to make a murder, just as it takes two to make a bargain,» said Green in a loud voice, hoping that Miran would hear and be reminded of his promise of protection. But Miran shrugged his shoulders. He had done as much as he could. It was up to Green to make his way from now on.
«It is true that I am a slave,» he said. «But I was not born one. Before being captured I was a freeman who knew liberty as none of you here know it. I came from a country where there were no masters because every man was his own master.
«However, that is neither here nor there. The point is that I earned my freedom, that I fought like a warrior, not a slave, to get aboard the Bird. I wish to become a crew member, to become a blood-brother to the Clan Effenycan.»
«Ah, indeed, and what can you contribute to the Clan that we should consider you worthy of sharing our blood?»
What indeed? Green thought. The sweat broke out all over his body, though the morning wind was cool.
At that moment he saw Miran speak to a sailor, who disappeared below decks and come out almost at once carrying a small harp in his hand. Oh, yes, now he remembered that he had told the captain what a wonderful harpist and singer he was, just the man that the Clan, eager for entertainment on the long voyages, would be likely to initiate.
The unfortunate thing about that was that Green couldn't play a note.
Nevertheless he took the instrument from the sailor and gravely plucked its strings. He listened to the tones, frowned, adjusted the pegs, plucked them again, then handed the harp back.
«Sorry, this is an inferior instrument,» he said haughtily. «Haven't you anything better? I couldn't think of degrading my art on such a cheap monstrosity.»
«Gods above!» screamed a man standing nearby. «That is my harp you are talking about, the beloved harp of me, the bard Grazoot! Slave! Tone-deaf son of a laryngiteal mother! You will answer to me for that insult!»
«No,» said the sailor, «this is my affair. I, Ezkr, will test this lubber's fitness to join the Clan and be called brother.»
«Over my dead body, brother!»
«If you so wish it, brother!»
There were more angry words until presently Miran himself came down to the middeck. «By Me
«We will cast dice to see who is the lucky man,» said the sailor, Ezkr. Gri
Ezkr seemed to agree with Green that he could not have had worse luck. Chewing grixtr so rapidly that the green-flecked slaver ran down his long chin, Ezkr a
12
FOR A MOMENT Green thought of leaving the ship and making his way on foot.
Miran protested loudly. «This is ridiculous. Why can you not fight on deck like two ordinary men and be satisfied if one gives the other a flesh wound? That way I won't stand the chance of losing you, Ezkr, one of my top topmen. If you should slip, who could take your place? This green hand here?»
Ezkr ignored his captain's indignation, knowing that the code of the Clan protected him. He spit and said, «Anybody can wield a dagger. I want to see what kind of a man this Green is aloft. Walking a yard is the best way to see the color of his blood.»
Yes, thought Green, his skin goose-pimpling. You'll likely see my blood all right, splashed from here to the horizon when I fall!
He asked Miran if he could withdraw a moment to his tent to pray to his gods for success. Miran nodded, and Green had Amra let down the sides of his shelter while he dropped to his knees. As soon as his privacy was assured, he handed her a long turban cloth and told her to go outside. She looked surprised, but when he told her what else she was to do, she smiled and kissed him.
«You are a clever man, Alan. I was right to prefer you above any other man I might have had, and I could have had the best.»
«Save the compliments for afterwards, when we'll know if it works,» he said. «Hurry to the stove and do what I say. If anybody asks you what you are up to, tell them that the stuff is necessary for my religious ritual. The gods,» he said as she ducked through the tent opening, «often come in handy. If they didn't exist it would be necessary to invent them.»
Amra paused and turned with an adoring face. «Ah, Alan, that is one of the many things for which I love you. You are always originating these witty sayings. How clever, and how dangerously blasphemous!»
He shrugged, airily dismissing her compliment as if it were nothing.
In a minute she returned with the turban wrapped around something limp but heavy. And within two minutes he stepped out from the tent, clad in a loincloth, leather belt, dagger and turban. Silently, he began climbing the rope ladder that rose to the tip of the nearest mast. Behind him came Ezkr.
He did get some encouragement from Amra and the children. The Duke's two boys cried out to him to cut the so-and-so's throat, but if he was killed instead, they would avenge him when they grew up, if not sooner. Even the blond maid, Inzax, wept. He felt somewhat better, for it was good to know that some people cared for him. And the knowledge that he had to survive and make sure that these women and children didn't come to grief was an added stimulus.
Nevertheless he felt his momentarily gained courage oozing out of his sweat pores with every step upward. It was so high up here, and so far down below. The craft itself became smaller and smaller and the people shrank to dolls, to upturned white faces that soon became less faces than blanks. The wind howled through the rigging and the mast, which had seemed so solid and steady when he was at its base, now became fragile and swaying.