The Thin Executioner

CHAPTER NINE

Shihat was a godsforsaken eyesore. The northernmost town of Abu Aineh, it was at the meeting point of three nations, so it should have been a vibrant, exciting city, where the best of different cultures mixed and merged. But the eastern lands of Abu Nekhele were swampy and fetid. The wealthier Um Nekhele lived farther west, and the majority of trade went via the as-Sudat. As for Abu Safafaha, that was a country of savages, and the hardened traders crossing the border to sell skins and rare creatures or birds brought nothing of cultural value to the town.

Shihat was an ugly maze of barracks, trade centers, and markets. Soldiers patrolled the streets, checking papers, searching for border rats. Any traders entering Abu Aineh by the as-Surout had to stop in Shihat to pay a tithe. Without signed, stamped papers to prove payment, they couldn’t leave the city.

It should have been a simple procedure, but corruption was rife. It wasn’t enough to present your wares and pay a tithe. You needed to bribe a string of officials and soldiers. Traders rarely made it out of Shihat in less than three days.

The streets were always full. Taverns and bordellos did a roaring business. Fights often broke out among frustrated travelers. Traders were mugged or killed. Mounds of rubbish were left to rot, and wild dogs lapped from pools of blood.

After half an hour there, Jebel wanted to burn the place to the ground. It was even worse than Fruth, which he would have thought impossible just thirty minutes earlier.

“They live like animals,” he stormed to Tel Hesani, watching naked children chase a chicken down the middle of a street overflowing with sewage. When they caught the chicken, they ripped its head off and squirted each other with blood.

“Worse than animals,” Tel Hesani agreed.

“I can’t understand how they don’t all die from disease,” Jebel said.

“Many do,” Tel Hesani said. “Dozens die each week and are tossed into large pits on the outskirts of the town. If rumors are to be believed, local butchers raid those pits and feed cuts of the dead to their customers.”

Jebel almost vomited. “Did we bring food of our own?” he asked.

“We have strips of dried meat and canteens of fresh water,” said Tel Hesani. “We’ll find an inn and eat in our room.”

“Can’t we push on immediately?” Jebel asked.

“It will be night soon,” Tel Hesani said. “The border rats from Abu Nekhele and Abu Safafaha — traders who do not wish to pay a tithe or who are transporting illegal goods — try to sneak around Shihat in the darkness. Soldiers hunt for them — it passes for sport up here. We would probably wind up with our throats cut and our bodies dumped in a marsh. Or worse.”

Jebel shuddered at the thought of ending up on a butcher’s hook. “So be it. But try to find a clean inn.”

“I will do my best, master, but it might be easier said than done.”

The pair spent the next hour trudging the grimy streets of Shihat, going from one rundown inn to another. All were overflowing with rowdy traders and ugly, leering women. Alcohol flowed more freely than water — in some inns they didn’t even bother with water except to mop up the blood and mess.

“Let’s just take a room here,” Jebel said eventually, as they were about to pass another filthy hovel. He had seen men staring at them and figured it was only a matter of time before someone stabbed him and laid claim to his slave.

Tel Hesani opened the door for Jebel and bowed as the boy entered. Then he hurried in after him. Tel Hesani had traveled widely, but he’d never been in a place as foul as Shihat, and he felt almost as edgy as Jebel did.

They found themselves in a large, squalid room. There was a bar at one end, where a group of men and women stood, chattering loudly and drinking from grimy mugs. Tables were set in rows in the middle of the room. A dead pig lay across one of them. Its stomach had been sliced open a day or two ago, and three bloodstained, cackling children were rooting around inside its carcass, searching for any juicy tidbits that had been overlooked.

Closer to the door, people lay on mats and tried to sleep. It was difficult, what with drunks stumbling over them and cockroaches scurrying everywhere. There were cleaner mats by the walls, set on benches, but these were more expensive, and only a few were occupied. One person on a mat was dead — an old woman with skeletal limbs. Her body would be moved when the mat was needed and not before.

“Maybe we should take our chances with the border rats,” Jebel muttered.

“I’m tempted to agree with you, my lord,” Tel Hesani said. “But as disgusting as this hovel is, our chances of surviving the night are better inside than out.”

Jebel sighed. “Very well. Let’s get mats by the wall and make the best of things.”

“If I might make a suggestion, sire,” Tel Hesani murmured. “I think we should ask for a mat on the floor. We don’t want people to know that we’re wealthy.”

Jebel didn’t like the thought of sleeping on the floor, where cockroaches and other foul insects would have an easy time finding him, but he knew that it was sound advice. Nodding glumly, he fell in behind the slave and followed him as he headed for the bar to haggle for a mat.

As they were picking their way past the tables, a large man with a half-shaven head and two stumps where his little fingers should be put a hand on Tel Hesani’s chest and stopped him. The man was an Um Safafaha — every male in that country of savages had his little fingers amputated when he came of age. Looking up slowly from the card game he was involved in, the man sneered, “We don’t let slaves sleep here.”

Tel Hesani said nothing, only looked at his feet. There was nothing he could do in this position. Slaves had no rights in Abu Aineh. If the savage decided to kill him, only his master could fight or argue on his behalf.

“Please,” said Jebel quietly. “We don’t want trouble. We just want a mat.”

The Um Safafaha glared at Jebel, then looked around. Seeing no one else with the pair, he smiled viciously. “Are you traveling alone, boy?”

Jebel gulped. Like any honorable Um Aineh, he tried never to lie, but he sensed this wasn’t a time for the truth. “No,” he wheezed. “We’re part of a trading party.”

“I don’t think so,” the Um Safafaha said. The other men at the table had carried on playing, but something in the savage’s tone alerted them to the possibility of bloodshed. Since a good fight was the only thing better than a game of cards, they focused on the young um Wadi and his tall, silent slave.

Jebel was afraid, but he thought fast. In a fair fight, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He could try to bribe his way out, but if the Um Safafaha knew about the gold and silver they were carrying, he’d kill Jebel and take it all. If they ran, they’d never make it to the door. He thought about calling for the law, but he was sure that soldiers were well paid by the innkeepers to turn a blind eye to matters such as this.

Jebel decided to try a bluff. If he joked with the Um Safafaha and offered to get him a drink while they waited for the rest of his party to turn up, he might buy them some time. The savage would probably return to his game and lose interest in Jebel and Tel Hesani. But before he could chance the bluff, somebody spoke from the table beside him.

“I would be very careful, good sir, if I were you.”

“Most cautious indeed,” said another voice.

The Um Safafaha and Jebel both glanced sideways. They saw two sharply dressed men, one clad in a long green tunic, the other in a red shirt and blue trousers. The pair were eating from a basket of exotic food and supping wine from crystal glasses. They raised the glasses and said, “Your health, sir.”

The savage squinted. The men were of slight build, with delicate hands, the sort of people he’d normally knock over rather than walk around. But there was something about these two which made him wary.

“It don’t pay to poke your nose into other people’s business,” the Um Safafaha growled.

“That is the truth of truths, wise sir,” the man in the tunic agreed. “The very truth, indeed, by which my partner and I lead our modest lives. In your position, we would under any other circumstances take a grave view of one who presumed to interfere in our private affairs.”

“But in this case, my noble friend,” the other man said, smoothing back the hairs of a light mustache, “we feel compelled, in the spirit of cross-border relations, to intercede. We have spent much time in your country and developed something of a… I hesitate to say love… a fondness for your people.”

“In short,” the first man concluded, “we would rather not see you killed. Especially since you are so close to us that the spray of your blood might stain our recently purchased finery.”

The Um Safafaha blinked dumbly. Jebel and the rest of the card players stared. Tel Hesani kept his head down. The two men at the neighboring table just smiled.

“You think this Um Aineh pup could kill me?” the Um Safafaha finally roared. “That’s an insult!”

“Not at all,” the man in the trousers tutted. “I am guessing you have not spent much time in Abu Aineh. You do not know how to interpret their tattoos.”

“The boy bears the brand of a quester,” the man in the tunic said, pointing to Jebel’s arm. “It is the mark of one questing to Tubaygat — Tubga, as I believe it’s known in your fair land.”

The Um Safafaha’s gaze lingered on Jebel’s coiled tattoo. When he looked up at the boy’s face again, he was less aggressive than before. “You’re going to the fire god’s mountain?” he asked.

Jebel nodded. The savage with the half-shaven head spat on the floor. Then he put his bare right foot on the spit and smeared it into the boards. Jebel knew enough about the man’s customs to recognize this as an apology.

“I was only having fun with you,” the Um Safafaha grunted.

“That’s all right,” Jebel said, trying not to stutter.

“Luck be with you on your quest,” the savage said, then turned back to his cards and glowered at the other players. No one was foolish enough to mock him, and the game resumed as if it had never been interrupted.

Jebel turned to face the two men and smiled shakily. “Thank you,” he said.

“Think nothing of it,” the man in the tunic chuckled, then moved up the bench. “Would you care to sit with us and partake of our modest feast?”

“Your servant is welcome too,” the man in the trousers said.

“He’s a slave, not a servant,” Jebel said, taking his place.

“That makes no difference to us,” the man said. “We’re all slaves of the gods. We’d happily share our table with even the lowest of men. Who knows the day when we might be demoted to their ranks?”

Jebel wasn’t comfortable with the idea of eating at the same table as a slave, but he didn’t want to be impolite to the strangers who had saved his life, so he said nothing as Tel Hesani sat down opposite him, for all the world a free and equal man.

“Well, young sir,” the man in the tunic said. “Introductions are in order. My grandfather, rest his spirit, told me to never break bread with someone unless you know their name. I am Master Bush, and this is my good friend and business partner, Master Blair.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Jebel replied. “I’m Jebel Rum, and this is my slave, Tel Hesani.”

“I hope you don’t mind that we intervened,” Master Bush said, offering the basket to Jebel, then to Tel Hesani. “We’re well aware that questers are more than capable of solving their own problems, but we felt on this occasion that you might… not exactly need… but welcome our modest interjection.”

“The Um Safafaha are a beastly bunch,” Master Blair said, not lowering his voice, even though the savage sitting nearby might overhear. “We thought it would save time if we pointed out your brand to him and spared you the nuisance of having to prove your undoubted strength and courage in a needless, tiring fight.”

“Your help was appreciated,” Jebel said, biting into a delicious leg of chicken. “It’s been a long day and I’m not at my sharpest. I wasn’t sure how to handle him. If you hadn’t spoken up when you did…”

“Oh, I’m sure you would have taken care of matters on your own,” Master Bush laughed. “We just did you… not even a favor… shall we say a very minor service. This is a town of savages. We kinsfolk have to look out for one another.”

“You’re from Abu Aineh?” Jebel asked. “I thought you might be, by the way you spoke, but you don’t look like Um Aineh.”

Both men were small. Master Bush was light skinned, only slightly darker than Tel Hesani, with bright blue eyes. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he sported a fine goatee beard, so thin that Jebel missed it at first glance. Master Blair was darker, but he wore trousers, rare for one of Jebel’s countrymen. His hair was cut to his shoulders, and his mustache was carefully maintained. Neither man was tattooed. Jebel had never seen a pair like this, but if he’d had to guess, he would have said they were from the far west of Abu Nekhele.

“Oh, we’re Um Aineh sure enough,” Master Blair sighed. “But from the border with Abu Rashrasha. We were born on the banks of the as-Burdah. We both come from mixed backgrounds — our family trees are laden with all sorts of rascals — hence our appearance. Also, since we spend most of our time traveling abroad, we removed our tattoos with acid many years ago — it pays to be able to pretend you’re a native of other parts in lands where Um Aineh are less than welcome.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Jebel said quickly.

Master Bush waved his apology away. “Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first to mistake us for foreigners. Even some of our own family don’t recognize us on the rare occasions when we return home.”

Masters Bush and Blair spent the next couple of hours engaged in friendly chat with Jebel and Tel Hesani, although the slave didn’t say much. They told Jebel that they were traders. They had been given the title of Master many years ago by the high lord of Abu Judayda, after they had delivered a shipment of medicine to the city-state during a time of plague.

“We do not mean to give the impression that we are humanitarians,” Master Bush purred. “We love the roll of a gold coin between our fingers as much as the next man. But when the need is great, how could anyone of good conscience not do all in his power to help?”

The traders spent a lot of their time outside the Great Kingdoms, south and west of Abu Kheshabah, and north of the al-Meata mountains, from which they had only recently returned.

“There’s a fortune to be made up north,” Master Bush said.

“We just haven’t figured out how,” Master Blair laughed. “Everyone knows the mountains are laden with ore, waiting to be tapped. The trouble is, nobody’s been able to locate it, and even if we knew where it was, it snows so much that you could only mine there maybe two months out of any given year.”

“But that’s using traditional mining techniques,” Master Bush added. “We’re on our way to Abu Saga to investigate the matter more thoroughly. We’re convinced that there are other ways of burrowing, making it possible to work all year round.”

The pair of traders went wherever the lure of swagah led them. They bought and traded anything they could lay their hands on — jewels, weapons, clothes, fruit, wine…. They had dabbled in it all.

“We’ve made and lost a couple of fortunes already,” Master Bush shrugged.

“It’s the game we’re interested in, not the profit,” said Master Blair. “We could have retired years ago if we’d wished.”

“But then what would we do for fun?” Master Bush asked.

They were interested in Jebel’s quest and asked many questions about what had prompted him to undertake it and the route he intended to follow. They couldn’t offer any advice about how to navigate the Abu Nekhele swamplands.

“We’ve always steered clear of swamps,” Master Bush said. “Mosquitoes don’t agree with us.”

Master Bush told Jebel not to buy their winter clothes in Hassah. “You can get everything you need in Jedir. Few travelers go that way, so the prices are lower.”

“And I’m certain swagah is a serious consideration on so long a quest,” Master Blair said. “You need to save wherever you can, yes?”

“That’s all right.” Jebel smiled. “We’ve got plenty of—”

“Thank you,” Tel Hesani interrupted. “We were worried about how to finance the rest of our trip, as we brought very little swagah with us. We will heed your advice and save our small supply of coins for farther along the road.”

“Most questers struggle with funding,” Master Bush sighed. “In our experience, the wealthy are the least likely to take to the wilds on a near-fatal quest.”

Later that night, Masters Bush and Blair joined in the game of cards, which was still going strong. The players greeted them suspiciously, but when Master Blair lost nineteen silver swagah on his third hand, expressions changed, more wine and ale was poured, and everyone settled down for a good night’s gambling.

“Here, my friends,” Master Blair said dolefully, handing a couple of swagah to Jebel. “Find decent mats for yourselves and a couple for us by one of the walls.”

“I can’t—” Jebel began.

“Take it,” Master Blair insisted. “I’d only lose it to these cunning card sharks if I held on to it.”

The other players laughed at the barbed compliment. Jebel bowed gratefully, then pushed to the bar with Tel Hesani to order four of the inn’s best mats.

“Why did you lie earlier?” Jebel asked Tel Hesani as they lay down, picking dead insects out of the folds of their thin covers.

“Our finances should be our own affair,” Tel Hesani replied. “It is always better to proclaim less than you possess.”

“But they’re our friends,” Jebel said. “We don’t have to lie to them.”

Tel Hesani smiled tightly. “I have spent time with many travelers and found that those who travel widest generally boast the least.”

Jebel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling Masters Bush and Blair liars?”

“I would not dare make such a baseless accusation,” Tel Hesani said. “But I have been to a couple of the nations south of Abu Kheshabah of which they spoke. I do not remember them in quite the same way that the good Masters do. And I have no memory of there being a plague in Abu Judayda anytime recently.”

“I’d be careful what I said in your place,” Jebel growled. “Your head will end up on an executioner’s block if you go around questioning honest Um Aineh.”

“I will hold my tongue in the future, my lord,” Tel Hesani said stiffly, and left his next comment — that he didn’t believe the pair were Um Aineh — unsaid.

Making himself as comfortable as he could, Jebel lay down, closed his eyes, and tried to drown out the noise and stench of the inn so that he could hopefully grab some sleep and escape the rotten squalor of Shihat in his dreams.