The Two of Swords: Part 9 Read Online Free PDF

but I could. It’s like peeing. You might not mind, but I would.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He grinned. “Don’t be,” he said. “I’m pretty much up to date on commissions, and I never do anything on spec. Great art, I’ve always felt, is like a pearl; thousands of layers of creativity and sensibility built up around an inner core of money.”
    “Write that down before you forget it. Anyway, I’m sorry. I hate to think I’m depriving posterity of a masterpiece.”
    He looked at her carefully, as if assessing whether she’d bear his weight. “You don’t like my stuff, do you?”
    “Not a lot, no.”
    “Interesting. I know you like Procopius. Did I ever mention he’s my cousin?”
    “Oh, God.”
    “Don’t be like that. Do you only go for the heavy stuff, or do you sometimes like something with a tune in it?”
    She smiled. “I love tunes. I just don’t like yours much.”
    “Fair enough.” He nodded judicially. “I don’t, either. I think they’re trivial and derivative. But in one pan of the scales we’ve got you and me, and in the other about a million people who think they’re wonderful. So I’d venture to suggest that you and I are probably wrong.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But what I think about a whole lot of things doesn’t really matter a damn, so that’s all right.”
    “Quite. So, what do you do on long journeys?”
    “I take plenty of books. For a trip like this, I’d bring at least thirty pounds, by weight.”
    He nodded again. “I think being bored is about the worst thing that can happen to you.”
    “Yes. Well, not quite. I’ve been raped three times and tortured twice, and once I was three days in a derelict barn with multiple stab wounds. But boredom is very bad, yes.”
    “I see.” He pursed his lips. “In that case, I suggest we play Frame-of-Reference.”
    She blinked. “I don’t know that one.”
    “Oh, it’s great fun. I say three things, lines from poems or titles of books or characters from plays, and you say a fourth, which has got to be connected to the other three. Then I say a fifth, and you say a sixth, and so on. The trick is, when it’s your turn, to change the frame of reference so I can’t follow. Like, I say Diacritus, then Phemia on board ship, then Santor counting the stars; all arias from
The Wedding of Heaven and Hell
. But then you say Cinentia, which changes the frame of reference to Sanippo’s
Eclogues
, and of course there’s only four of them, so I can’t follow. Get the idea?”
    She looked straight back at him. “I don’t think I’d enjoy that very much.”
    He looked disappointed. “Fair enough,” he said. “In that case, how about a game of Shields?”
    “You’ve got cards?”
    “Of course I’ve got cards. I’d sooner go out without my trousers on.”
    There had been a time – one which she tried not to think about, because of other, unrelated issues – when she’d made a comfortable living playing Shields with men in coaches, or on ships, or in way stations and inns. Oida, she knew for a fact, had plenty of money, whereas she was uncomfortably aware of not having a single stuiver to her name until she got back to Rasch. She clicked her tongue. “Oh, go on, then,” she said.
    There was always the sickening possibility that he was letting her win, though she was fairly sure he wouldn’t be capable of doing that. In any event, by the time they reached Mancio she could take comfort in the fact that money would be the least of her worries for quite some time. As the towers of the city resolved themselves out of the heat haze on the horizon, she thanked him for the games and said she’d be happy to take a letter of credit, if he was short of ready cash.
    He frowned at her. “Hang on,” he said. “We weren’t playing for real money, were we?”
    “I was.”
    “Yes, but—” She could see the battle going on inside his head. “I’ll write you a note,” he said sadly. “I don’t