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my good friends, people of quality. He touched a pomander to his nose
theatrically and the girl next to him sniggered. The others traded
conspiratorial grins.
 Do you think, another chimed in,  that there are enough scents in all
Freegate to expunge their odor?
 Hopefully, continued the first.  Isn t it enough that they fill our city
with malodorous foreigners without letting them run unwatched through the
streets? Damnation, they eat our provisions, skulk through our lands and now
they spend our own money crowding us out of our own eating establishments. Is
it not infamous? Is it not absurd? We pay to support shiftless ne er-do-wells
for the sake of a fugitive sproutling Prince s lust for a Crown.
The manager was bustling in their direction with several husky porters,
alerted to trouble by one of the serving girls. Gil knew from experience who,
in a row between civilians and off-duty troops, usually wound up on the fuzzy
end of the lollipop. Not that he, Springbuck and Dunstan would be ejected;
when the Prince s identity was known, there d doubtless be grudging apologies
all around. He didn t feel like letting this presumptuous jerk get off that
lightly.
It had been a long day, and he was angry that the evening was ruined. So just
as the wit was composing his next gag, the American decided to be undiplomatic
and waggled a finger to get his attention.
Securing it, he asked,  Didn t I hear a poem about you in the marketplace
today?
The humorist s brows shot up. As he fumbled, nonplussed, for a response, Gil
continued blithely, snapping his fingers in positive recognition.  Sure, I ve
got it now. Let s see, it went:
 He s the half-blooded son of a seagoing whore whose mother s feet seldom
touched aught but the shore; For while on the deeps, of employ she d no
lack relieving all hands on the flat of her back. 
The boy screamed in wrath and the party, now a mob, surged to its feet to
punish this impudence, women hollering insults and men clapping hands to sword
hilts at this affront to their friend. The humorist s blade, a long rapier,
was half drawn when Gil caught his hand, immobilizing it, and drove a hard
right up to the solar plexus. Sword forgotten, the other doubled up, giving
Gil all the time in the world to step back and measure off a roundhouse kick.
The wit went down like a Murphy bed and Springbuck leaped up to face the
onrushing crowd as they advanced vengefully toward the American.
The fighting forms the two used confused the gentry and the porters, who d
joined the scuffle in an attempt to throw them out. Springbuck and Gil had no
wish to draw swords, but the insults had stung, and if these people wanted to
bait strangers and were messed up in the doing, that was their lookout. Hands
and feet, elbows and knees, the two had their way of the fight at first. In
close quarters the opposition kept crowding and interfering with each other.
For a few moments it was satisfying to pay back the unprovoked abuse and dish
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out a lesson.
But soon they were too hampered to move effectively and were borne backward,
crashing down on collapsing tables and held fast by sheer weight of numbers.
Through the tangle of limbs and bodies, Gil saw the jokester being helped
unsteadily to his feet by the manager; the man pulled a dirk from his sash and
handed the manager a bulging purse.
Fear froze the American as he saw that he and his companions were to be
murdered right here and now with the purchased complicity of the manager. He
redoubled his efforts to escape, without success, and wondered in disgust if
he d made his final miscalculation.
Then Springbuck, in the same predicament, saw that two of his captors had
disappeared, followed a moment later by the other two. He squinted up to see
Dunstan hurl them, one in either direction, as if they were empty suits of
clothes.
Insane light burned in Dunstan s eyes, that thing that made his own people
avoid him come to full life now. His face was covered with perspiration and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]