The City of Gold and Lead (The Tripods) Read Online Free PDF

doing. I went inside, and looked about me. It was darker than the taverns on the waterfront, full of tobacco smoke and crowded with dim figures, some sitting at tables and others standing by the bar counter. As I went up to look more closely, I was addressed from the other side of the bar. The speaker was a very big, very fat man, wearing a leather jacket with sleeves of green cloth. In a rough voice, with an accent that I could barely understand, he said, “What is it, then, lad?”
    Moritz had given me some coins of the money used in these parts. I did what seemed the safest thing, and ordered a Dunkles, which I knew to be the name of the dark ale that was commonly drunk. The stein was largerthan I had expected. He brought it to me, with ale foaming over the side, and I gave him a coin. I drank, and had to wipe foam from my lips. It had a bittersweet taste, which was not unpleasant. I looked around for Ulf, peering into the many dark recesses, whose paneled walls carried the mounted heads of deer and wild boar. I thought for a moment I saw him, but the man moved into the light of an oil lamp, and was a stranger.
    I felt nervous. Having a Cap I was, of course, counted as a man now, so there was no reason why I should not be here. But I lacked the assurance of someone who had been truly Capped and was aware, of course, of my difference from all these others. Having established that Ulf was not one of the figures sprawling at the tables, I was eager to be away. As inconspicuously as possible, I put the stein down and began to move toward the street. Before I had gone a couple of paces, the man in the leather jacket roared at me, and I turned back.
    “Here!” He pushed over some smaller coins. “You’re forgetting your change.”
    I thanked him, and once more prepared to go. By this time, though, he had seen the stein, and that it was two-thirds full.
    “You’ve not drunk your ale, either. Are you saying it’s a poor brew?”
    I hastily said no, that it was just that I was not feeling well. To my dismay, I realized that others were taking an interest in me. The man behind the bar seemed partly mollified, but said, “You’re not a Württemberger, by the way you talk. Where are you from, then?”
    This was a challenge for which I had been prepared. We were to hail from outlying places, in my case a land to the south called Tirol. I told him this.
    As far as allaying suspicion was concerned, it worked.
    From another point of view, though, it was an unfortunate choice. I learned later that there was strong feeling in the town against the Tirol. The previous year at the Games a local champion had been defeated by a Tiroler and, it was claimed, through trickery. One of the others standing by now asked if I were going to the Games, and I incautiously said yes. What followed was a stream of insults. Tirolers were cheats and braggarts, and they spurned good Württemberg ale. They ought to be run out of town, dipped in the river to clean them up a bit . . .
    The thing to do was to get out, and fast. I stomached the insults and turned to go. Once outside I could lose myself in the crowd. I was thinking of that and did not look closely enough in front of me. A leg was stretched out from one of the tables and, to the accompaniment of a roar of laughter, I went sprawling in the sawdust that covered the floor.
    Even that I was prepared to endure, though I had banged one knee painfully as I landed. I began to get to my feet. As I did so, fingers gripped the hair that grew up through my Cap, and shook my head violently to and fro, and thrust me down once more to the ground.
    I should have been thankful that this assault had not dislodged the false Cap and exposed me. I should also have been concentrating on what really mattered—gettingaway from here and safely and unnoticed back to the barge. But I am afraid that I could think of nothing but the pain and humiliation. I got up again, saw a face grinning behind me, and swung at him