The Legend of El Shashi Read Online Free

Imurian root beer to an inward sigh of pleasure, I became aware I had company. Peering blearily over the rim of my silver-lipped goblet, I discerned the flawless features of Rubiny o’Telmak and coughed involuntarily, spluttering beer upon the table.
    I wiped my mouth upon my sleeve.
    “Learned our manners from a swineherd?” she greeted me. I was trying to decide if the table was moving, or if it was my head imitating a rowboat upon my shoulders. “How is farm life? Still growing your scrawny vegetables in the mountains?”
    I swallowed, and tried to hide my soil-blackened fingernails beneath the tabletop. “Goosh, er, hello Rub–”
    “’Goosh’? Had a drop too much, Arlak Sorlakson?”
    People were turning on their benches, sensing entertainment at hand.
    “Prob’ly.”
    “Hopeless, that’s what you are! And you know what they say. He who can’t hold his beer, can’t hold a woman.”
    Shame I could not punch a certain woman! Who had warned her of my arrival had done me an ill service. While it was beneath the daughter Telmak’s station to wait upon customers, baiting customers was clearly a coin of another stamp. Her long Roymerian skirts, gathered close to her trim waist and embroidered in painstaking detail by the labour of her own fingers with scenes of traditional country life such as beekeeping, beer-brewing, keg-wrestling at the Doublesun Cahooday festival, and hawking, swished as she moved closer to my bench–the better to inspect my inebriated state, I imagined.
    At least I had seen the pumphouse! I no longer stank of three days of eating the dust of my jatha team. Proudly, I wore my new jerkin over a clean rumik, belted neatly at the waist, and a travel-worn but acceptable pair of thexik trousers that formed the basic wardrobe of nigh every man in the room.
    I grunted like an articulate hog at my goblet, “I haven’t any problem–”
    “But I hear you do have a particular problem,” Rubiny cooed, arched of eyebrow as she played to her audience. “A rather … small … problem. Haven’t you, peasant boy?”
    People sniggered loudly. The room suddenly felt hot. The clever tongue of a trader served me well in the marketplace, but in her presence it became nought but a stout plank. I blurted out, “Wait just a stinking span!”
    “Now, now, watch your tone,” she warned. “I’m the daughter Telmak and you would do well to remember your station. It’s you who’re doing the stinking around here , you dung-shovelling simpleton!”
    Laughter beat against my ears. A dim recollection of my earlier resolve percolated through my addled wits and assumed a deadly new form. I stumbled to my feet, slurring, “To Hajik with you, wench!”
    She gasped.
    “Leave me, I –”
    “What?”
    My eyes were pinned to her torso. I had forgotten how attractively her dress moulded itself to her fine figure. “Leash … me …”
    Rubiny drew back a step, drawing ragged breath, and crossed her arms across her chest as if to ward off my lascivious gaze. Then her brow drew down and she snapped, “What? No invitations this season? Highsun approaches!”
    I blinked several times. Processing a simple thought took forever. “What for?”
    “What do you mean, what for?”
    “Waste my breath, Shrubbiny, I would.”
    Her voice rose as the breath of a storm wind snapping at one’s cloak. “How dare you mangle my name like that, you worthless, striploose male! You’re sloshing with beer!”
    “Quite.” Care had fled hand in hand with common sense. Had I not started this fight? Four large goblets of strong beer spoke up for me: “You’ve something to say, shrub–Rubinshee?”
    “Say? To you?” Rubiny drew herself up. Her response achieved a shrilling pitch that pained my ears. “Will you not declare your undying love and devotion, as before? Have you tossed a copper for a few shop-worn lines from some halfwit ulule? Or composed an ode to the beauties of your own nose? Don’t embarrass me again! Last time