Return to Fanglith

TEN

Carolus sent Reyno to Isaac ben Abraham, inviting him to contest with "a youth who is truly marvelous at calculations." Ben Abraham answered in writing, which Faid read to his master; reading was something else the Saracen could do and Carolus couldn't. After commenting that it was unimportant to him whether someone else could calculate faster or not, ben Abraham said it would amuse him to take me on. He offered to bet fifty gold bezants or an equivalent in Pisan solidi.

Carolus the stonecutter was a careful man who would bet only what he could afford to lose, even when it seemed almost certain that he wouldn't. And he felt very uncomfortable at the thought of betting fifty bezants. He sent back word that he would bet only twenty. Reyno had almost nothing of his own to bet, but borrowed two bezants from his master, Carolus was grumpy about lending it, and I suspect he only did it to keep Reyno from trying to borrow elsewhere and being questioned. He felt uneasy about word of the contest getting out.

Ben Abraham, smelling Carolus's uncertainty, decided he could probably beat me, and got Carolus up to thirty against his own sixty. Then, in amusement, he agreed to cover Reyno's small bet at odds of three to one. All of this was arranged through Reyno as courier.

Carolus was to pay me a sixth, or ten bezants, if I won. I wasn't sure what he'd try to do if I lost, but I couldn't see any chance of that happening.

The contest was to take place in the office of Isaac ben Abraham, shortly after the hour called "sext"-local midday, as far as I could tell. After eating an early lunch, we walked there through spring sunshine. I was impressed by ben Abraham's offices. They were clean, and there were decorative woven cloths called tapestries on some of the walls.

I was even more impressed with Isaac ben Abraham. He was the biggest man I'd seen yet on Fanglith, and the tallest except for a Norman knight named Brislieu. Besides which, he looked as if, under the fat, he'd be very strong physically. His face went with an age of about fifty or fifty-five, but his long black hair had only scattered threads of gray. He also had a bigger, thicker beard than I'd ever imagined, and wore the richest clothes, topped by a long, far-trimmed, brown velvet cape. All in all, when he spoke in his rich bass voice, people were likely to pay attention.

And it was obvious that he washed, he and the man who ushered us into his office. I'd never seen a clean Fanglithan before. I hadn't realized there were any.

He had his servant pour wine for us. It was weak and kind of watery-intended for flavor, not to get anyone tight. After Carolus introduced us, ben Abraham looked me over with eyes that were shiny black. "Larn," he said, as if tasting the name. "What is your age?"

"I am a few days short of nineteen."

"And you are already very fast?"

"Very," I answered.

"By the design of your crucifix, I take it you follow the Church of Rome, yet it appears that you bathe. How is that?"

I had no idea what a safe answer might be, but l had to say something. "I was told to by the Abbot of St. Stephen at Isere. For a rash I get sometimes." I crossed myself when I'd said it, the way I'd learned to do at the monastery, and changed the subject. "I'm ready to contest when it is time."

I'd no sooner said it than the cathedral bells began to ring. A cathedral is a large church-a building in which the Christians carry out important religious activities. Cathedrals apparently always have a bell tower. The people of Fanglith don't have clocks. They read the hour by the shadow on an etched metal plate set in the sun. They also measure intervals of time by the flow of sand through a narrow opening between adjacent glass hemispheres. But most people simply go by the ringing of bells in the city's cathedral. These are rung several times a day to tell the people when it's time to pray.

As soon as the bells had stopped ringing, Carolus and Key no lowered their heads and began to pray out loud. I didn't know the prayers, but it was expected of me so I did the best I could: I recited a poem, "The Greening of Dancer's Desert," in Evdashian:

'Twas on the planet Dancer In the System Farness Meth, There spread a windswept desert Named the Emptiness of Death, The director, Kalven Denken, Wearied by its furnace breath, Swore to plant its desolation, End the Emptiness of Death He never dreamed what it would cost, Nor the kind of coin. In faith, Had he known, he'd not have sworn To plant the Emptiness of Death…

I kept going until the others stopped, and when we were done, Garolus scowled at me suspiciously. Isaac ben Abraham looked on with interest, and again with that hint of amusement.

"What heretical tongue was that?" Carolus demanded.

It smelled like trouble for sure. My answer was as much a surprise to me as to him, and based on what Arno of Courmeron had said at the monastery two years earlier. "That was Aramaic," I told him. "The language of our Lord Jesu Christ."

I could only hope Carolus didn't speak Aramaic. He frowned. "It sounded like Saracen to me," he said suspiciously.

It was Isaac ben Abraham who answered. "It does indeed. We Jews speak Aramaic in our churches and homes, in the reading of the Talmud. Also, we speak it in trade with Jews of other lands. From his dialect, obviously Larn learned it in the Holy Land, from Syrian monks, whose tongues are not colored by any vernacular." He looked at me with respect. "Truly, I am impressed."

I was more than impressed. I was relieved, but also a little worried. I couldn't imagine what reason Isaac ben Abraham might have had for lying me out of trouble.

After that, the contest was an anticlimax for me. We were to calculate in rounds-the best of nine would win. In each round, ben Abraham would pose a problem and we'd both calculate the answer. Then I'd pose one. If we tied a round, each of us winning a half, then we were supposed to replay the round until one of us won both halves.

But of course I won right away. I didn't know what to expect from Isaac ben Abraham then, or his household guards. I only hoped I wouldn't have to use my stunner. But what he did was pay Carolus and Reyno what they'd won, weighing out the coins to satisfy Carolus that they hadn't been shaved. Reyno was practically dancing, and Carolus's usually sour face was actually smiling as he paid me my ten gold bezants.

Then ben Abraham had wine poured again. "And what will you do with your winnings, young Larn?" he asked.

"I'm not sure how much I can buy with ten bezants," I told him. "I'd like to buy food-fresh meat, cheese, fish, and flour. And dried fruit, if I can get any. And rent a donkey to take it to friends I know, who are hungry."

Carolus looked at me as if I was crazy, but didn't say anything. Ben Abraham looked at me as if he'd like to know what I was really all about. Reyno looked at me as if he didn't really see me; his thoughts were on the girl he might be able to marry now.

By evening I had a donkey loaded with freshly butchered beef, a huge round cheese, dried fish, dates, olives, and other foods I'd bought in the market. Plus two daggers, two short swords, and a set of cheap local clothes for all three of us. The short swords were way the most expensive: a bezant each. Except for a dagger that I'd fastened to my belt, all of it was loaded in two big baskets slung across the donkey's back. They almost hid the donkey.

And I also owned the donkey! I hoped I could bring him back to the market and sell him for what I paid for him. But if I simply had to let him loose, that would be okay too, because I still had two of my gold pieces left.