Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [91]
“When I have grown up, is it?” Growling under his breath, Simna divested himself of pack, sword, and raiment and slipped beneath the sheets of the spacious bed. It was still warm from the recent accelerated departure of its former occupant. That did not trouble Simna ibn Sind, who had slept on mattresses swarming with insomniac rats.
He fell asleep still angry, and dreamed of falling into a bottomless well filled with unending buckets of jewels and precious metals. It would have been a good dream, should have been a good dream, except for one pesky vexation.
Ehomba was there also, kneeling at the edge of the well looking down at the swordsman as the latter tossed coins and gems about like colored candy. The herdsman was not laughing derisively, nor was he heaping calumny upon Simna for indulging wholeheartedly in his base desires. All the impassive, compassionate herdsman was doing was smiling.
In his sleep, Simna ibn Sind tossed and muttered, unconsciously infuriated without knowing why.
Breakfast was served in the room by household staff. Sitting up naked in the big bed, the swordsman favored the pretty servant who brought their food with a come-hither grin. Greatly to his chagrin, she ignored him completely. He did not let her rejection prey upon him. He never did. Anyway, it made good sense. Since they were ensconced upstairs, she was most likely not the downstairs maid.
“Not bad,” he told his companions as he masticated fresh rolls with jam and butter, aepyornis egg, bacon, and fruit. As was his nature, he had completely forgotten the brief but heated disputation with Ehomba of the night before.
In his corner, Ahlitah chewed fastidiously on a large leg of raw ox that the landlord had managed to scrounge from the kitchen. Ehomba sat on the floor with his back against the couch as he ate. In between bites and conversing with Simna, he cast occasional glances in the direction of the rear bedroom. The maid had delivered food to its occupant, but whether that worthy was even awake, much less dining, he did not know. As soon as he finished his own food, he would look in on the man they had rescued.
“You are right, Simna. Everything is quite good.” The herdsman set a nearly empty glass of milk aside. “You should thank Knucker. He paid for this.”
“Thank him?” Sitting up in the bed, the swordsman grunted. “We saved his miserable life at the risk of our own. He should be the one thanking us. But of course, he can’t do that, because it would take too much of the worthless wretch’s liquefied brain to string two words together.”
“On the contrary, not only can I string two words together, I can tie them in assorted semantic knots if the need should arise.”
Simultaneously, Ehomba and Simna looked toward the back-bedroom door. Only an indifferent Ahlitah did not glance up from his food. What the two men saw there came close to stunning them both into silence.
Knucker the Knower stood in the portal, but it was not the Knucker they knew. How he had bathed using only the pitcher and basin in the tiny inner bathroom they did not know, but bathe he had. Somehow he had even managed to clean up his clothing along with his body. A knife or razor had been used to remove the ugly stubble from his face. For all they knew, it might also have been the tool of choice utilized to dislodge the significant growth of unidentifiable greenish material from his teeth, which gleamed more or less whitely as he smiled at his saviors.
“I remember everything now.” Stepping into the room, he staggered slightly before bracing himself with one hand against the doorjamb. A rapidly steadying finger pointed. “You—you’re Etjole Ehomba. I heard him”—and he indicated the staring swordsman—“call out your name. And you, you are Slumva—no, Simna. Simna ibn Sind.”
Setting aside the last vestiges of his breakfast, the swordsman slid out of the bed and began to dress,