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Both big men laughed, and the newcomer said, “It’s where they ask you questions, only they’re pretty easy on everybody today, I figure.”
“On myself as well. It may be so. It will be worse the next time, I am sure.”
The newcomer was spreading butter over a quarter of the long loaf. He said, “They have you in the hot room today?”
The warder shook his head.
“I do not think the hot room. I was questioned on a horse by Abanja, which was not as bad as I feared. Afterward here by Siyuf, Abanja, and others whose names are not known to me. It was worse then. Siyuf is a hard woman.”
“That’s this Trivigaunti that’s taking over,” the warder explained to the newcomer. “Generalissimo Siyuf, and she’s got the calde doing everything she says.”
“They’re supposed to be here helping us out,” the newcomer protested.
“They’re helping themselves, if you ask me.”
The newcomer raised his buttered quarter-loaf. “Here, try some, Upstairs. You hear what we just said?”
“Thank you. I could not fail to do so.”
“Well, that’s why the hoppies made it easy for me. They ain’t sure where they stand yet.”
“This is your police? Vironese police?”
“Yeah. Only all of a sudden they’re working for the Rani, maybe. They don’t know, and neither do we.”
The warder cleared his throat. “Anyhow, it’s all here. Red in the bottle, and here’s your tumbler on top. There’s pigs’ feet, too, in the square dish, and lots of other stuff. Yell if you want anything.”
“I sure will,” the newcomer told him, and chuckled as the iron door closed behind him. “Keep a sharp eye on me, Peeper. Make sure I don’t get out.”
“This is good bread,” Sciathan said. “Very good. I thank you for it.”
“Sure.” The newcomer was heaping noodles and brisket onto his plate.
“I wish that I could repay you. I have no means.”
The newcomer looked up at him. “You been in clink before?”
“Last night. My arms were chained about a pole, and I was made to sleep upon the ground. There was grass, not as hard as your floor, I am certain.”
“Only a lot colder. Had to be. I was pretty warm, even on the floor.”
“Cold, yes.” Sciathan took another bite of bread; it was soft and white, with a thick brown crust that required chewing.
“I had my mort with me, too, and she kept me warm. You say you ate already?”
It was a moment before Sciathan was able to swallow. “On a horse. A slice of gray meat between bread, bread not as good as this. We had spoken about the Common Tongue, Abanja and I, this language in which you and I converse. She said that my meat was also common tongue, which she thought amusing.”
“Wait a minute.” The newcomer poured the extra sauce from its small side dish into his plate. “Want me to put you some noodles in here? You’ll have to eat ’em with your fingers. We only got the one fork.”
“I should not.” Sciathan wrestled against temptation. “I must tell you there have been many, many days on which I have eaten less than the gray meat. Always we eat little, and often we do not eat at all.” He swallowed again, this time only his own saliva. “But, yes. I would like these noodles very much, and it will not trouble me to eat them with my fingers.”
“You got it.” The newcomer forked noodles into the sauce dish. “You know, I been wondering why you’re so weedy, and I hear the rice is bad in Palustria. You come looking for food?”
“Eating makes one heavy.” The concept was so simple and so basic that Sciathan had trouble formulating it. “One no longer flies well. I am a Flier. That is your term.”
The newcomer gave him a sceptical look. “They don’t never come down, and they’re spies anyhow, everybody says.”
“I am not a spy. Even Siyuf does not think that.”
“Then you better muzzle that clatter about being a Flier. Somebody might believe you.” The newcomer passed the sauce dish up to Sciathan, “I put a little bit of smoked turtle on top there for you. They give me a little bit of that, too, smoked turtle and onions. If it makes you too thirsty, we can get Peeper to fetch water.”
“I have never eaten this.” Sciathan dipped up the brown concoction with two fingers and tasted it. “It is delicious.”
“Maybe I ought to try some myself.”
“I have spoken of becoming heavy,” Sciathan muttered, “but why should I not? My wings will not fly again.”
The newcomer peered at him. “You really are a Flier, huh? They go up in the big airship and catch you?”
Sighing, Sciathan shook his head. “We landed to question them. I knew that it would be hazardous.” More swiftly than a conjuror’s transformation, his wizened face twisted to display a corpse’s rictus. “Hello, Auk.”
“Hi. You really can do this. Jugs and Patera swore you could, but I guess I didn’t believe ’em.”
“Do you need help?”
“Nah.” Finding the empty stare that had become Sciathan’s unsettling, the newcomer returned to his plate. “Tell ’em it’s going fine, and I’ll give a signal when I know which one.” He mopped up sauce with a piece of beef hoping she would be gone before he finished. “I’ll send Peeper to fetch something, too. Be better to get him out of the way.”
“So hungry, this tiny man.”
The newcomer chewed brisket into submission. “He’s got more meat on him than you.”
“I’d like some soup. I’ll ask Grandmother.”
“Do that,” the newcomer said.
Sciathan blinked and grabbed, discovering that the sauce dish was about to slide off his lap. He made himself breathe deeply. “This is not expected.”
The newcomer nodded without looking up. “What’s that?”
“When one flies too high, one grows faint. Now too I felt faintness. Could your food be drugged?”
“No,” the newcomer said.
“You spoke to me several times. I replied, but I do not recall what you said, or what I said.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Sciathan finished his smoked turtle and started in on his noodles. “I have no reason to trust you. You might be a spy.”
“Sure.”
“I have received good food from you, for which I thank you very much. It is better to be spied upon than beaten.”
“You can say that again.”
“There is nothing I know that I have not told Siyuf and Abanja. Why am I confined?”
The newcomer lifted the lid of another dish. “You like cheese? He gave me some of that, too.”
“I have eaten more than suffices already. I have not even finished the bread you gave.”
“Here.” The newcomer offered a blue-streaked, whitish lump. “Try some of this with it.”
“Thank you. We make good cheese in my home, but I have not eaten any in a long while.”
“Now you listen up, Upstairs.” The newcomer poured four fingers of brandy into his tumbler. “These Trivigauntis you talk about, Abanja and Siyuf? I never seen either one of ’em. I don’t know ’em from dirt, but I know about this place here, and the hot room, and the courts and beaks, and all that. If you want to tell me what you did and what’s going on with you, I just might be able to scavy you a couple answers. If you don’t want to, dimber here. Only don’t ask me stuff I don’t know, why’m I confined and that clatter.”
“You desire to know my crime. I have done nothing wrong.”
“Then if they’re keeping you here, it’s ’cause they’re afraid of what you’d do if you got out. What’s that?”
“I would resume my searching for the man called Auk. That is all. They know this.”
“You going to chill him when you find him?”
Sciathan leaned over the side of his bunk to look down at the newcomer. “Is this equivalent to kill? The softer sound instead of the hard sound at the top of the mouth?”
“Yeah. It’s what this holy sibyl that taught us would say was a alternate pronunciation.”
“No, I would not chill him. I would tell the masters of the airship above this city that they must take me, with this man Auk and those he chooses, to Mainframe.”
“Wait up.” The newcomer cleaned his ear with the nail of one forefinger. “To Mainframe? I ain’t sure I heard you right. Say it again.”