The Redemption of Althalus. David Eddings

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СКАЧАТЬ certainly spread, and a burning warehouse would attract attention. He muttered a few choice swear-words, and then he left.

      He gave some thought to returning to the tavern he’d visited on his first day in Maghu and having some words with the tavern loafer who’d spoken so glowingly about the contents of Druigor’s strongbox, but he decided against it. The sting of constant disappointments he’d endured this summer were making him very short-tempered, and he wasn’t entirely positive that he’d be able to restrain himself once he started chastising somebody. In his present mood, chastisement might very well be looked upon as murder in some circles.

      He sourly returned to the inn where his horse was stabled and spent the rest of the night sitting on his bed glaring at the single piece of paper he’d taken from Druigor’s strongbox. The pictures drawn on the paper weren’t really very good. Why in the world had Druigor bothered to lock them up? When morning finally arrived, Althalus roused the innkeeper and settled accounts with him. Then he reached into his pocket. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I just remembered something.’ He drew out the piece of paper, ‘I found this in the street. Do you have any idea at all what it means?’

      ‘Of course,’ the innkeeper replied. ‘That’s money.’

      ‘Money? I don’t follow you. Money’s made out of gold or silver – sometimes copper or brass. This is just paper. It’s not worth anything, is it?’

      ‘If you take that to the treasury behind the Senate, they’ll give you a silver coin for it.’

      ‘Why would they do that? It’s just paper.’

      ‘It has the seal of the Senate on it. That makes it as good as real silver. Haven’t you ever seen paper money before?’

      A sense of total defeat came crashing down on Althalus as he went to the stable to pick up his horse. His luck had abandoned him. This had been the worst summer in his entire life. Evidently, his luck didn’t want him down here. There was wealth beyond counting in these cities of the plain, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t managed to get his hands on any of it. As he mounted his horse, he amended that thought. Last night in Druigor’s counting house, he’d had his hands on more money than he’d likely ever see in the rest of his entire life, but he’d just walked away from it, because he hadn’t realized that it was money.

      He ruefully conceded that he had no business down here. He belonged back on the frontier. Things were just too complicated down here.

      He mournfully rode his horse to the central marketplace of Maghu to trade his civilized clothes for apparel more suitable to the frontier where he belonged.

      The clothier swindled him, but he’d more or less expected that. Nothing down here was ever going to go well for him.

      He wasn’t even particularly surprised to discover when he came out of the clothier’s shop that someone had stolen his horse.

CHAPTER TWO

      His sense of defeat made Althalus a little abrupt with the first man who passed his place of concealment late the next night. He stepped out of the shadows, grabbed the unwary fellow by the back of his tunic, and slammed him against a stone wall just as hard as he could. The man sagged limply in his hands, and that irritated Althalus all the more. For some reason he’d been hoping for a bit more in the way of a struggle. He let the unconscious man collapse into the gutter and quickly stole his purse. Then, for no reason he could really justify, he dragged the inert body back into the shadows and stole all the man’s clothes.

      He realized as he walked down the dark street that what he’d just done was silly, but in some obscure way it seemed appropriate, since it almost perfectly expressed his opinion of civilization. For some reason the absurdity made him feel better.

      After he’d gone some distance, however, the bundle of clothes under his arm became a nuisance, so he shrugged and threw it away without even bothering to find out if any of the garments fit him.

      As luck had it, the city gates were open, and Althalus left Maghu without even bothering to say goodbye. The moon was almost full, so there was light enough to see by, and he struck out to the north, feeling better with every step. By dawn he was several miles from Maghu, and up ahead he could see the snow-capped peaks of Arum blushing in the pink light of the sunrise.

      It was a long walk from Maghu to the foothills of Arum, but Althalus moved right along. The sooner he left civilization behind, the better. The whole idea of going into the low-country had been a mistake of the worst kind. Not so much because he hadn’t profited. Althalus usually squandered every penny he got his hands on. What concerned him about the whole business was the apparent alienation between him and his luck. Luck was everything; money meant nothing.

      He was well up into the foothills by late summer. On a golden afternoon he stopped in a shabby wayside tavern, not because of some vast thirst, but rather out of the need for some conversation with people he could understand.

      ‘You would not believe how fat he is,’ a half-drunk fellow was saying to the tavern keeper. ‘I’d guess he can afford to eat well, he’s got about half the wealth of Arum locked away in his strongroom by now.’

      That got our thief’s immediate attention, and he sat down near the tipsy fellow, hoping to hear more.

      The tavern keeper looked at him inquiringly. ‘What’s your pleasure, neighbor?’ he asked.

      ‘Mead,’ Althalus replied. He hadn’t had a good cup of mead for months, since the lowlanders seemed not to know how to brew it.

      ‘Mead it is,’ the tavern keeper replied, going back behind the wobbly counter to fetch it.

      ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt you,’ Althalus said politely to the tipsy fellow.

      ‘No offense taken,’ the fellow said. ‘I was just telling Arek here about a Clan-Chief to the north who’s so rich that they haven’t invented a number for how many coins he’s got locked away in that fort of his.’

      The fellow had the red face and purple nose of a hard-drinking man, but Althalus wasn’t really interested in his complexion. His attention was focused on the man’s wolfskin tunic instead. For some peculiar reason, whoever had sewn the tunic had left the ears on, and they now adorned the garment’s hood. Althalus thought that looked very fine indeed. ‘What did you say the chief’s name was?’ he asked.

      ‘He’s called Gosti Big Belly – probably because the only exercise he gets is moving his jaw up and down. He eats steadily from morning to night.’

      ‘From what you say, I guess he can afford it.’

      The half-drunk man continued to talk expansively about the wealth of the fat Clan-Chief, and Althalus feigned a great interest, buying more mead for them each time the fellow’s cup ran dry. By sundown the fellow was slobbering drunk and there was a sizeable puddle of discarded mead on the floor near Althalus.

      Other men came into the tavern after the sun had set, and the place grew noisier as it grew dark outside.

      ‘I don’t know about you, friend,’ Althalus said smoothly, ‘but all this mead is starting to talk to me. Why don’t we go outside and have a look at the stars.’

      The drunken man blinked his bleary eyes. ‘I think that’s СКАЧАТЬ