The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [138]
Today the line crawled like never before. Not only did the customs inspectors appeared about to fall asleep on their feet (while still sticking their noses into every sack), but there was a bottleneck on the dam itself, where the road workers just had to be replacing the roadway cover. A huge black-bearded caravan-bashi from Khand already realized that the customs officials – may the Almighty strike them with fever and boils! – have wasted so much of his time that he and his bactrians were not going to make it to the Islands before lunch, and therefore today's marketing was gone to the dogs. All right, why worry and fume now – it's all the Almighty's will. He told his assistant to watch the animals and goods while he was checking out the tent city.
After filling up in one of the eateries (lagman, three portions of excellent saffron meat stew and a plate of dried-fruit finger pies), he headed back but detoured to a small stage where an olive-skinned dancer dressed only in a few flying strips of cloth was undulating invitingly. Two mountain men from the Peninsula were devouring her with their eyes (especially the shapely thighs moving back and forth in an unmistakable rhythm and the slick belly), not forgetting to either spit from time to time, as if in disgust ("What do the towners find in these skinny sluts?"), or to trade heartfelt generalities on the subject of townswomen's lack of virtue. The caravan-bashi was already figuring what a closer encounter with the dancer in her tent behind the stage was going to cost him, when fate brought a Hakimian preacher out of nowhere. The bald mummy with his rotten rags and burning eyes immediately poured out a storm of denunciations on the heads of "lechers who gaze lustily on the vile show put on by our fallen sister." The 'fallen sister' did not give a damn, but the caravaner decided to retire from the scene promptly, lest the holy man brand him with some nightmarish curse.
He did want a woman something awful, though – five days of withdrawal, man! He scanned his immediate environs, and what do you know – what he was looking for was right there, a few steps away. The girl did not look like much at first glance – a skinny kid of seventeen or so with a large well-seasoned black eye to boot – but the Khandian checked out her supple figure with his trained eye and almost licked his lips openly – this, guys, was quite something! Cover her face with a rag and go ahead.
"You bored, lass?"
"Keep moving," the girl responded indifferently in a husky but pleasant voice. "I'm not in the business, buddy."
"Not in the business, or haven't had a decent offer yet? Don't you worry, I pay real well!" With a laugh, as if jokingly, he grabbed her hand with an iron grip.
The girl responded with a short tirade that would easily make a pirate bosun blush, freed her hand from the caravaner's paw with one precise learned movement, and quickly stepped back into the alleyway between a patched tent and a rickety reed-mat pavilion. Actually, there is nothing difficult about that – you have to pull away strictly in the direction of the assailant's thumb tip – but it is impressive the first time around and usually leads to proper conclusions. This time, though, the agitated caravan-bashi (some little whore will play hard-to-get with me?!) stampeded into the alleyway after his elusive prey.
Not half a minute later the Khandian was back to the plaza. He was stepping gingerly now, almost tip-toeing, hugging his right hand to his belly with his left and quietly moaning. Sorry, man, you screwed up. It is child's play for even a rookie DSD operative to dislocate the