Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower #4) - Page 12

1

Two nights after arriving in the Barony of Mejis, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain rode their mounts beneath an adobe arch with the words come in peace inscribed above it. Beyond was a cobblestone courtyard lit with torches. The resin which coated these had been doctored somehow so that the torches glowed different colors: green, orangey-red, a kind of sputtery pink that made Roland think of fireworks. He could hear the sound of guitars, the murmur of voices, the laughter of women. The air was redolent of those smells which would always remind him of Mejis: sea-salt, oil, and pine.

"I don't know if I can do this," Alain muttered. He was a big boy with a mop of unruly blond hair spilling out from under his stockman's hat. He had cleaned up well – they all had – but Alain, no social butterfly under the best of circumstances, looked scared to death. Cuthbert was doing better, but Roland guessed his old friend's patina of insouciance didn't go very deep. If there was to be leading done here, he would have to do it.

"You'll be fine," he told Alain. "Just – "

"Oh, he looks fine," Cuthbert said with a nervous laugh as they crossed the courtyard. Beyond it was Mayor's House, a sprawling, many-winged adobe hacienda that seemed to spill light and laughter from every window. "White as a sheet, ugly as a – "

"Shut up," Roland said curtly, and the teasing smile tumbled off Cuthbert's face at once. Roland noted this, then turned to Alain again. "Just don't drink anything with alcohol in it. You know what to say on that account. Remember the rest of our story, too. Smile. Be pleasant. Use what social graces you have. Remember how the Sheriff fell all over himself to make us feel welcome."

Alain nodded at that, looking a little more confident.

"In the matter of social graces," Cuthbert said, "they won't have many themselves, so we should all be a step ahead."

Roland nodded, then saw that the bird's skull was back on the horn of Cuthbert's saddle. "And get rid of that!"

Looking guilty, Cuthbert stuffed "the lookout" hurriedly into his saddlebag. Two men wearing white jackets, white pants, and sandals were coming forward, bowing and smiling.

"Keep your heads," Roland said, lowering his voice. "Both of you. Remember why you're here. And remember the faces of your fathers." He clapped Alain, who still looked doubtful, on the shoulder. Then he turned to the hostlers. "Goodeven, gents," he said. "May your days be long upon the earth."

They both grinned, their teeth flashing in the extravagant torchlight. The older one bowed. "And your own as well, young masters. Welcome to Mayor's House."

2

The High Sheriff had welcomed them the day before every bit as happily as the hostlers.

So far everyone had greeted them happily, even the carters they had passed on their way into town, and that alone made Roland feel suspicious and on his guard. He told himself he was likely being foolish – of course the locals were friendly and helpful, that was why they had been sent here, because Mejis was both out-of-the-way and loyal to the Affiliation – and it probably was foolish, but he thought it best to be on close watch, just the same. To be a trifle nervous. The three of them were little more than children, after all, and if they fell into trouble here, it was apt to be as a result of taking things at face value.

The combined Sheriff's office and jail o' Barony was on Hill Street, overlooking the bay. Roland didn't know for sure, but guessed that few if any hungover drunks and wife-beaters anywhere else in Mid-World woke up to such picturesque views: a line of many-colored boathouses to the south, the docks directly below, with boys and old men line-fishing while the women mended nets and sails; beyond them, Hambry's small fleet moving back and forth on the sparkling blue water of the bay, setting their nets in the morning, pulling them in the afternoon.

Most buildings on the High Street were adobe, but up here, overlooking Hambry's business section, they were as squat and bricky as any narrow lane in Gilead's Old Quarter. Well kept, too, with wrought-iron gates in front of most and tree-shaded paths. The roofs were orange tile, the shutters closed against the summer sun. It was hard to believe, riding down this street with their horses' hoofs clocking on the swept cobbles, that the northwestern side of the Affiliation – the ancient land of Eld, Arthur's kingdom – could be on fire and in danger of falling.

The jailhouse was just a larger version of the post office and land office; a smaller version of the Town Gathering Hall. Except, of course, for the bars on the windows facing down toward the small harbor.

Sheriff Herk Avery was a big-bellied man in a lawman's khaki pants and shirt. He must have been watching them approach through the spy hole in the center of the jail's iron-banded front door, because the door was thrown open before Roland could even reach for the turn-bell in the center. Sheriff Avery appeared on the stoop, his belly preceding him as a bailiff may precede My Lord Judge into court. His arms were thrown wide in the most amiable of greetings.

He bowed deeply to them (Cuthbert said later he was afraid the man might overbalance and go rolling down the steps; perhaps go rolling all the way down to the harbor) and wished them repeated goodmorns, tapping away at the base of his throat like a madman the whole while. His smile was so wide it looked as if it might cut his head clean in two. Three deputies with a distinctly farmerish look about them, dressed in khaki like the Sheriff, crowded into the door behind Avery and gawked. That was what it was, all right, a gawk; there was just no other word for that sort of openly curious and totally unselfconscious stare.

Avery shook each boy by the hand, continuing to bow as he did so, and nothing Roland said could get him to stop until he was done. When he finally was, he showed them inside. The office was delightfully cool in spite of the beating midsummer sun. That was the advantage of brick, of course. It was big as well, and cleaner than any High Sheriff's office Roland had ever been in before . . . and he had been in at least half a dozen over the last three years, accompanying his father on several short trips and one longer patrol-swing.

There was a rolltop desk in the center, a notice-board to the right of the door (the same sheets of foolscap had been scribbled on over and over; paper was a rare commodity in Mid-World), and, in the far comer, two rifles in a padlocked case. These were such ancient blunderbusses that Roland wondered if there was ammunition for them. He wondered if they would fire, come to that. To the left of the gun-case, an open door gave on the jail itself – three cells on each side of a short corridor, and a smell of strong lye soap drifting out.

They've cleaned for our coming, Roland thought. He was amused, touched, and uneasy. Cleaned it as though we were a troop of Inner Barony horse – career soldiers who might want to stage a hard inspection instead of three lads serving punishment detail.

But was such nervous care on the part of their hosts really so strange? They were from New Canaan, after all, and folk in this tucked-away corner of the world might well see them as a species of visiting royalty.

Sheriff Avery introduced his deputies. Roland shook hands with all of them, not trying to memorize their names. It was Cuthbert who took care of names, and it was a rare occasion when he dropped one. The third, a bald fellow with a monocle hanging around his neck on a ribbon, actually dropped to one knee before them.

"Don't do that, ye great idiot!" Avery cried, yanking him back up by the scruff of his neck. "What kind of a bumpkin will they think ye? Besides, you've embarrassed them, so ye have!"

"That's all right," Roland said (he was, in fact, very embarrassed, although trying not to show it). "We're really nothing at all special, you know – "

"Nothing special!" Avery said, laughing. His belly, Roland noticed, did not shake as one might have expected it to do; it was harder than it looked. The same might be true of its owner. "Nothing special, he says! Five hundred mile or more from the In-World they've come, our first official visitors from the Affiliation since a gunslinger passed through on the Great Road four year ago, and yet he says they're nothing special! Would ye sit, my boys? I've got graf, which ye won't want so early in the day –  p'raps not at all, given your ages (and if you'll forgive me for statin so bald the obvious fact of yer youth, for youth's not a thing to be ashamed of, so it's not, we were all young once), and I also have white iced tea, which I recommend most hearty, as Dave's wife makes it and she's a dab hand with most any potable."

Roland looked at Cuthbert and Alain, who nodded and smiled (and tried not to look all at sea), then back at Sheriff Avery. White tea would go down a treat in a dusty throat, he said.

One of the deputies went to fetch it, chairs were produced and set in a row at one side of Sheriff Avery's rolltop, and the business of the day commenced.

"You know who ye are and where ye hail from, and I know the same," Sheriff Avery said, sitting down in his own chair (it uttered a feeble groan beneath his bulk but held steady). "I can hear In-World in yer voices, but more important, I can see it in yer faces.

"Yet we hold to the old ways here in Hambry, sleepy and rural as we may be; aye, we hold to our course and remember the faces of our fathers as well's we can. So, although I'd not keep yer long from yer duties, and if ye'll forgive me for the impertinence, I'd like a look at any papers and documents of passage ye might just happen to've brought into town with ye."

They just "happened" to have brought all of their papers into town with them, as Roland was sure Sheriff Avery well knew they would. He went through them quite slowly for a man who'd promised not to hold them from their duties, tracing the well-folded sheets (the linen content so high that the documents were perhaps closer to cloth than paper) with one pudgy finger, his lips moving. Every now and then the finger would reverse as he reread a line. The two other deputies stood behind him, looking sagely down over his large shoulders. Roland wondered if either could actually read.

William Dearborn. Drover's son.

Richard Stockworth. Rancher's son.

Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder's son.

The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor – James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Raven-head (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath. All in order, descriptions nicely matched. The papers were handed back with profuse thanks. Roland next handed Avery a letter which he took from his wallet with some care. Avery handled it in the same fashion, his eyes growing wide as he saw the frank at the bottom. " 'Pon my soul, boys! 'Twas a gunslinger wrote this!"

"Aye, so it was," Cuthbert agreed in a voice of wonder. Roland kicked his ankle – hard – without taking his respectful eyes from Avery's face.

The letter above the frank was from one Steven Deschain of Gilead, a gunslinger (which was to say a knight, squire, peacemaker, and Baron . . . the last title having almost no meaning in the modem day, despite all John Farson's ranting) of the twenty-ninth generation descended from Arthur of Eld, on the side line of descent (the long-descended gel of one of Arthur's many gillies, in other words). To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath. These had been sent on special mission from the Affiliation to serve as counters of all materials which might serve the Affiliation in time of need (the word war was omitted from the document, but glowed between every line). Steven Deschain, on behalf of the Affiliation of Baronies, exhorted Misters Thorin, Rimer, and Avery to afford the Affiliation's nominated counters every help in their service, and to be particularly careful in the enumerations of all livestock, all supplies of food, and all forms of transport. Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath would be in Mejis for at least three months, Deschain wrote, possibly as long as a year. The document finished by inviting any or all of the addressed public officials to "write us word of these young men and their deportment, in all detail as you shall imagine of interest to us." And, it begged, "Do not stint in this matter, if you love us."

Tell us if they behaved themselves, in other words. Tell us if they've learned their lesson.

The deputy with the monocle came back while the High Sheriff was perusing this document. He carried a tray loaded with four glasses of white tea and bent down with it like a butler. Roland murmured thanks and handed the glasses around. He took the last for himself, raised it to his lips, and saw Alain looking at him, his blue eyes bright in his stolid face.

Alain shook his glass slightly – just enough to make the ice tinkle –  and Roland responded with the barest sliver of a nod. He had expected cool tea from a jug kept in a nearby springhouse, but there were actual chunks of ice in the glasses. Ice in high summer. It was interesting.

And the tea was, as promised, delicious.

Avery finished the letter and handed it back to Roland with the air of one passing on a holy relic. "Ye want to keep that safe about yer person, Will Dearborn – aye, very safe indeed!"

"Yes, sir." He tucked the letter and his identification back into his purse. His friends "Richard" and "Arthur" were doing the same.

"This is excellent white tea, sir," Alain said. "I've never had better."

"Aye," Avery said, sipping from his own glass. " 'Tis the honey that makes it so fearsome. Eh, Dave?"

The deputy with (he monocle smiled from his place by the notice-hoard. "1 believe so, but Judy don't like to say. She had the recipe from her mother."

"Aye, we must remember the faces of our mothers, too, so we must." Sheriff Avery looked sentimental for a moment, but Roland had an idea that the face of his mother was the furthest thing from the big man's mind just then. He turned to Alain, and sentiment was replaced by a surprising shrewdness.

"Ye're wondering about the ice, Master Stockworth."

Alain started. "Well, I…"

"Ye expected no such amenity in a backwater like Hambry, I'll warrant," Avery said, and although there was a joshing quality on top of his voice, Roland thought there was something else entirely underneath.

He doesn't like us. He doesn't like what he thinks of as our "city ways. " He hasn't known us long enough to know what kind of ways we have, if any at all, but already he doesn't like them. He thinks we're a trio of snotnoses; that we see him and everyone else here as country bumpkins.

"Not just Hambry," Alain said quietly. "Ice is as rare in the Inner Arc these days as anywhere else, Sheriff Avery. When I grew up, I saw it mostly as a special treat at birthday parties and such."

"There was always ice on Glowing Day," Cuthbert put in. He spoke with very un-Cuthbertian quiet. "Except for the fireworks, that's what we liked about it most."

"Is that so, is that so," Sheriff Avery said in an amazed, wonders-will-never-cease tone. Avery perhaps didn't like them riding in like this, didn't like having to take up what he would probably call "half the damn morning" with them; he didn't like their clothes, their fancy identification papers, their accents, or their youth. Least of all their youth. Roland could understand all that, but wondered if it was the whole story. If there was something else going on here, what was it?

"There's a gas-fired refrigerator and stove in the Town Gathering Hall," Avery said. "Both work. There's plenty of earth-gas out at Citgo –  that's the oil patch east of town. Yer passed it on yer way in, I wot."

They nodded.

"Stove's nobbut a curiosity these days – a history lesson for the schoolchildren – but the refrigerator comes in handy, so it does." Avery held up his glass and looked through the side. " 'Specially in summer."

He sipped some tea, smacked his lips, and smiled at Alain, "You see? No mystery."

"I'm surprised you haven't found use for the oil," Roland said. "No generators in town, Sheriff?"

"Aye, there be four or five," Avery said. "The biggest is out at Francis Lengyll's Rocking B ranch, and I recall when it useter run. It's HONDA. Do ye kennit that name, boys? HONDA?"

"I've seen it once or twice," Roland said, "on old motor-driven bicycles."

"Aye? In any case, none of the generators will run on the oil from the Citgo patch. Tis too thick. Tarry goo, is all. We have no refineries here."

"I see," Alain said. "In any case, ice in summer's a treat. However it comes to the glass." He let one of the chunks slip into his mouth, and crunched it between his teeth.

Avery looked at him a moment longer, as if to make sure the subject was closed, then switched his gaze back to Roland. His fat face was once more radiant with his broad, untrustworthy smile.

"Mayor Thorin has asked me to extend ye his very best greetings, and convey his regrets for not bein here today – very busy is our Lord Mayor, very busy indeed. But he's laid on a dinner-party at Mayor's House tomorrow evening – seven o' the clock for most folk, eight for you young fellows … so you can make a bit of an entrance, I imagine, add a touch o' drama, like. And I need not tell such as yourselves, who've probably attended more such parties than I've had hot dinners, that it would be best to arrive pretty much on the dot."

"Is it fancy-dress?" Cuthbert asked uneasily. "Because we've come a long way, almost four hundred wheels, and we didn't pack formal wear and sashes, none of us."

Avery was chuckling – more honestly this time, Roland thought, perhaps because he felt "Arthur" had displayed a streak of unsophistication and insecurity. "Nay, young master, Thorin understands ye've come to do a job – next door to workin cowboys, ye be! 'Ware they don't have ye out draggin nets in the bay next!"

From the comer, Dave – the deputy with the monocle – honked unexpected laughter. Perhaps it was the sort of joke you had to be local to understand, Roland thought.

"Wear the best ye have, and ye'll be fine. There'll be no one there in sashes, in any case – that's not how things are done in Hambry." Again

Roland was struck by the man's constant smiling denigration of his town ;iiul Barony . . . and the resentment of the outsiders which lay just beneath it.

"In any case, ye'll find yerselves working more than playing tomorrow night, I imagine. Hart's invited all the large ranchers, stockliners, and livestock owners from this part of the Barony … not that there's so many, you understand, bein as how Mejis is next door to desert once you get west o' the Drop. But everyone whose goods and chattel you've been sent to count will be there, and I think you'll find all of them loyal Affiliation men, ready and eager to help. There's Francis Lengyll of the Rocking B … John Croydon of the Piano Ranch .. . Henry Wertner, who's the Barony's stockliner as well as a horsebreeder in his own right . .. Hash Renfrew, who owns the Lazy Susan, the biggest horse-ranch in Mejis (not that it's much by the standards you fellows are used to, I wot) . . . and there'll be others, as well. Rimer'll introduce you, and get you about your business right smart."

Ronald nodded and turned to Cuthbert. "You'll want to be on your mettle tomorrow night."

Cuthbert nodded. "Don't fear me, Will, I'll note em all."

Avery sipped more tea, eyeing them over his glass with a roguish expression so false it made Roland want to squirm.

"Most of em's got daughters of marriageable age, and they'll bring em. You boys want to look out."

Roland decided he'd had enough tea and hypocrisy for one morning. He nodded, emptied his glass, smiled (hoping his looked more genuine than Avery's now looked to him), and got to his feet. Cuthbert and Alain took the cue and did likewise.

"Thank you for the tea, and for the welcome," Roland said. "Please send a message to Mayor Thorin, thanking him for his kindness and telling him that he'll see us tomorrow, at eight o' the clock, prompt."

"Aye.so i will."

Roland then turned to Dave. That worthy was so surprised to be noticed again that he recoiled, almost bumping his head on the notice-board. "And please thank your wife for the tea. It was wonderful."

"I will. Thankee-sai."

They went back outside, High Sheriff Avery herding them along like a genial, overweight sheepdog.

"As to where you'll locate – " he began as they descended the steps and started down the walk. As soon as they hit the sunshine,he began to sweat.

"Oh, land, I forgot to ask you about that," Roland said, knocking the heel of his hand against his forehead. "We've camped out on that long slope, lots of horses as you go down the turf, I'm sure you know where I mean – "

"The Drop, aye."

" – but without permission, because we don't yet know who to ask."

"That'd be John Croydon's land, and I'm sure he wouldn't begrudge ye, but we mean to do ye better than that. There's a spread northwest of here, the Bar K. Used to b'long to the Garber family, but they gave it up and moved on after a fire. Now it b'longs to the Horsemen's Association – that's a little local group of farmers and ranchers. I spoke to Francis Lengyll about you fellows – he's the H.A. president just current – and he said 'We'll put em out to the old Garber place, why not?' "

"Why not?" Cuthbert agreed in a gentle, musing voice. Roland shot him a sharp glance, but Cuthbert was looking down at the harbor, where the small fishing boats skittered to and fro like waterbugs.

"Aye, just what I said, 'Why not, indeed?' I said. The home place burned to a cinder, but the bunkhouse still stands; so does the stable and the cook-shack next door to it. On Mayor Thorin's orders, I've taken the liberty of stocking the larder and having the bunkhouse swept out and spruced up a little. Ye may see the occasional bug, but nothing that'll bite or sting . . . and no snakes, unless there's a few under the floor, and if there are, let em stay there's what I say. Hey, boys? Let em stay there!"

"Let em stay there, right under the floor where they're happy," Cuthbert agreed, still gazing down at the harbor with his arms folded over his chest.

Avery gave him a brief, uncertain glance, his smile flickering a bit at the comers. Then he turned back to Roland, and the smile shone out strongly once more. "There's no holes in the roof, lad, and if it rains, ye'll be dry. What think ye of that? Does it sound well to ye?"

"Better than we deserve. I think that you've been very efficient and Mayor Thorin's been far too kind." And he did think that. The question was why. "But we appreciate his thoughtfulness. Don't we, boys?"

Cuthbert and Alain made vigorous assent.

"And we accept with thanks."

Avery nodded. "I'll tell him. Go safely, boys."

They had reached the hitching rail. Avery once more shook hands all around, this time saving his keenest looks for their horses.

"Until tomorrow night, then, young gents?"

"Tomorrow night," Roland agreed.

"Will ye be able to find the Bar K on your own, do yer think?"

Again Roland was struck by the man's unspoken contempt and unconscious condescension. Yet perhaps it was to the good. If the High Sheriff thought they were stupid, who knew what might come of it?

"We'll find it," Cuthbert said, mounting up. Avery was looking suspiciously at the rook's skull on the horn of Cuthbert's saddle. Cuthbert saw him looking, but for once managed to keep his mouth shut. Roland was both amazed and pleased by this unexpected reticence. "Fare you well, Sheriff."

"And you, boy."

He stood there by the hitching post, a large man in a khaki shirt with sweat-stains around the armpits and black boots that looked too shiny for a working sheriff's feet. And where's the horse that could support him through a day of range-riding? Roland thought. I'd like to see the cut of that Cayuse.

Avery waved to them as they went. The other deputies came down the walk, Deputy Dave in the forefront. They waved, too.

3

The moment the Affiliation brats mounted on their fathers' expensive horseflesh were around the comer and headed downhill to the High Street, the sheriff and the deputies stopped waving. Avery turned to Dave Hollis, whose expression of slightly stupid awe had been replaced by one marginally more intelligent.

"What think ye, Dave?"

Dave lifted his monocle to his mouth and began to nibble nervously at its brass edging, a habit about which Sheriff Avery had long since ceased to nag him. Even Dave's wife, Judy, had given up on that score, and Judy Hollis – Judy Wertner that was – was a fair engine when it came to getting her own way.

"Soft," Dave said. "Soft as eggs just dropped out of a chicken's ass."

"Mayhap," Avery said, putting his thumbs in his belt and rocking enormously back and forth, "but the one did most of the talking, him in the flathead hat, he doesn't think he's soft."

"Don't matter what he thinks," Dave said, still nibbling at his eyeglass. "He's in Hambry, now. He may have to change his way of thinking to our'n."

Behind him, the other deputies laughed. Even Avery smiled. They would leave the rich boys alone if the rich boys left them alone – those were orders, straight from Mayor's House – but Avery had to admit that he wouldn't mind a little dust-up with them, so he wouldn't. He would enjoy putting his boot into the balls of the one with that idiotic bird's skull on his saddle-horn – standing there and mocking him, he'd been, thinking all the while that Herk Avery was too country-dumb to know what he was up to – but the thing he'd realty enjoy would be beating the cool look from the eyes of the boy in the flathead preacher's hat, seeing a hotter expression of fear rise up in them as Mr. Will Dearborn of Hemphill realized that New Canaan was far away and his rich father couldn't help him.

"Aye," he said, clapping Dave on the shoulder. "Mayhap he'll have to change his way of thinking." He smiled – one very different from any of those he had shown the Affiliation counters. "Mayhap they all will."

4

The three boys rode in single file until they were past the Travellers' Rest (a young and obviously retarded man with kinky black hair looked up from scrubbing the brick stoop and waved to them; they waved back). Then they moved up abreast, Roland in the middle.

"What did you think of our new friend, the High Sheriff?" Roland asked.

"I have no opinion," Cuthbert said brightly. "No, none at all. Opinion is politics, and politics is an evil which has caused many a fellow to be hung while he's still young and pretty." He leaned forward and tapped the rook's skull with his knuckles. "The lookout didn't care for him, though. I'm sorry to say that our faithful lookout thought Sheriff Avery a fat bag of guts without a trustworthy bone in his body."

Roland turned to Alain. "And you, young Master Stockworth?"

Alain considered it for some time, as was his way, chewing a piece of grass he'd bent oversaddle to pluck from his side of the road. At last he said: "If he came upon us burning in the street, I don't think he'd piss on us to put us out."

Cuthbert laughed heartily at that. "And you, Will? How do you say, dear captain?"

"He doesn't interest me much … but one thing he said does. Given that the horse-meadow they call the Drop has to be at least thirty wheels long and runs five or more to the dusty desert, how do you suppose Sheriff Avery knew we were on the part of it that belongs to Croydon's Piano Ranch?"

They looked at him, first with surprise, then speculation. After a moment Cuthbert leaned forward and rapped once more on the rook's skull. "We're being watched, and you never reported it? No supper for you, sir, and it'll be the stockade the next time it happens!"

But before they had gone much farther, Roland's thoughts of Sheriff Avery gave way to more pleasant ones of Susan Delgado. He would see her the following night, of that he was sure. He wondered if her hair would be down.

He couldn't wait to find out.

5

Now here they were, at Mayor's House. Let the game begin, Roland thought, not clear on what that meant even as the phrase went through his mind, surely not thinking of Castles . . . not then.

The hostlers led their mounts away, and for a moment the three of them stood at the foot of the steps – huddled, almost, as horses do in unfriendly weather – their beardless faces washed by the light of the torches. From inside, the guitars played and voices were raised in a fresh eddy of laughter.

"Do we knock?" Cuthbert asked. "Or just open and march in?"

Roland was spared answering. The main door of the had was thrown open and two women stepped out, both wearing long white-collared dresses that reminded all three boys of the dresses stockmen's wives wore in their own part of the world. Their hair was caught back in snoods that sparkled with some bright diamondy stuff in the light of the torches.

The plumper of the two stepped forward, smiling, and dropped them a deep curtsey. Her earrings, which looked like square-cut firedims, flashed and bobbed. "You are the young men from the Affiliation, so you are, and welcome you are, as well. Goodeven, sirs, and may your days be long upon the earth!&q