The Honorable Barbarian Read Online Free

began climbing the curving wall of the treadwheel, which had cleats to make the task easier. With noisy creaking, the burden slowly rose. The overseer shouted again. The convicts ceased their climbing; a pair of workers turned a winch. This slowly rotated the crane, swinging the load out over the deck of the Dragonet. More shouts, and the convicts backed down, letting the treadwheel turn the other way and the load descend to the deck. Other workers strained at a brake to keep the load from getting away. A pair of Captain Huvraka's brown-skinned sailors guided the load through the hatch and into the hold.
    Kerin picked out Huvraka by his turban. The shipmaster was a squat, thickset, powerful man with a deep-brown skin and a bristling black beard striated with gray. Besides the turban, he wore a pair of baggy trousers gathered at ankles and slippers with turned-up toes, leaving his upper body bare; the air was balmy during a late autumnal warm spell.
    Kerin started up the gangboard. Noticing him, the captain bustled over to the inboard end of the plank. "What would you?" he said in accented Novarian. "Can't you see I am loading?"
    "I thought to buy my passage," said Kerin.
    "Oh, in that case. . . ." Huvraka shouted to another member of his crew in Mulvani. The man addressed, in loincloth with a strip of fabric around his head, began issuing orders to the deckhands.
    "Now then," said Huvraka, turning back. "Whither go you?''
    "To Salimor and thence to Kuromon. The harbor master said you sail to Salimor.''
    "Aye, with stops at Janareth, Halgir, and Akkander. Are you coming alone? No wife or leman?''
    "Yea."
    "Then your fare will be twenty-six Mulvanian crowns."
    "My money is in Kortolian marks," auid Kerin. He did sums in his head and said: "That should come to about forty marks."
    Huvraka looked doubtful. "That's local market rate, no doubt; but I am giving only official rate; it is the law. According to that, your fare is coming to sixty marks."
    Kerin had been warned to haggle over the fare. He hated bargaining, which made him squirm with embarrassment; but he knew he would have to harden himself. He said:
    "I cannot afford such a sum, Captain. Hast any other passengers? I want to know with whom I must needs share quarters."
    "Nay, you are only one," said Huvraka. "You are having your cabin to yourself."
    "Well, since I'm your only passenger, 'tis either I or none. Under the circumstances, methinks you could give me passage for fifteen crowns, which would bring it down to the local rate of exchange."
    Captain Huvraka snorted. "Nay, never! If you are not paying going rate, be off with you!"
    "Very well," said Kerin, turning away. "I must needs await the next ship."
    As he started back down the plank, Captain Huvraka called: "Ho, not so fast, young man! I am abating my charges somewhat, albeit not to ridiculous figure you named. How about twenty-three crowns?"
    A half-hour's chaffer got Kerin his passage for forty-six marks. Then he set out to find the maker of dolls to whom the taverner had referred him.
    When he finally found the man's house, he approached its door with lagging steps, horribly embarrassed to ask for doll's clothes. When he hesitated, his hand outstretched to pull the bell rope, a sharp, stabbing pain in the buttocks made him jump.
    "Go on, craven!" tinkled Belinka's voice.
    He rang the bell. The dollmaker, a stout man with a fringe of gray hair around a bald scalp, admitted him. Kerin squared his shoulders, stuck out his chest, and told the proprietor:
    "Sir, I need a dress for a poppet about so high." He held his fingers apart at what he thought was Belinka's stature. Squirming, he added: "For my little niece."
    The man shouted over his shoulder: "Ricola! Have we a spare frock for one of the Queen Thanudas?"
    "Aye, methinks so," mumbled a woman's voice. The dollmaker's wife appeared with a mouthful of pins, holding a piece of cloth on which she had been sewing. She rummaged in a pile of miscellany and held up