The Pharoah Contract

Making a great show of searching through his rags, Ruiz produced a small worn six-cornered coin and proffered it to the overseer. The overseer pocketed it and turned back to his charges, who had slowed their efforts slightly. The overseer shouted irritably at his subordinates; they applied their whips with vigor.

At the far edge of the cleared area stood a battered steam wagon under a ragged canopy. In the small patch of shade was a tripod, which supported a large, red clay water urn. Ruiz vaulted the wall and made his way past the prisoners, who watched him sidelong from red-rimmed eyes.

When he reached the wagon, a small scowling man with a smear of black grease across his forehead appeared from the interior of the wagon, holding a large wrench. From his rough brown robe, identical to the prisoners’ garb, Ruiz assumed him to be a trusty. Like the other freeborn prisoners, his tattoos were obscured by strips of shiny pink scar tissue, but enough remained to show that the trusty had once been a snake oil man. Ruiz repressed an apprehensive shudder.

“Ah, good sir,” Ruiz said, grinning broadly. “Perhaps you’ll help me.”

“Unlikely,” the small man said, with no change of expression.

Ruiz retained his smile. “Yon noble coercer was kind enough to sell me a measure of water.”

The trusty laughed, a short, explosive, humorless bark. “‘Noble coercer,’ indeed. You’re Rontleses’ friend?”

“Not I. I’m just a seller of dreams, just a wayfarer.”

“In that case I’ll assist you.” The trusty put down the wrench and hobbled toward the urn. Ruiz saw that his legs had been broken and allowed to heal unset.

“What did he skin you out of, our noble Rontleses? May milliscorps colonize his crotch.” The trusty held out his dirty hand. “Give me your skin, wayfarer.”

“A copper nint,” Ruiz said, and gave over his water skin, which was empty. The trusty laughed bitterly again, fished a key out of his pouch, and unlocked the urn. He turned a tap and cloudy water flowed into Ruiz’s skin. “It’s stinkwater, you know,” the trusty said conversationally. “Give you the green shits for sure.”

Ruiz received the full skin, hoping that his immunizations had been sufficiently comprehensive. “Thank you, good sir,” he said, and took a swig. It was, as promised, foul. He repressed the urge to gag. He recorked the skin and hung it about his neck.

The trusty shrugged and relocked the urn. “Don’t thank me. Or curse me when your guts turn to slime. I’d have given you some from the overseers’ private store, if I’d dared. But I’d rather not have my legs broken again; next time I might not learn to walk so well.”

Ruiz declared himself satisfied, at which the trusty looked at him as though a diagnosis of madness had been confirmed. “Well, if one’s to be a fool, better a happy fool than a sour one,” the trusty said.

“Well said. Perhaps you’d advise me?”

“Why not, so long as Rontleses doesn’t notice my absence from the belly of his junk pile.”

“What can you tell me of Stegatum? Is it a convivial town?” Stegatum was the capital of the local nomarchy, a center for processing catapple sap and other agricultural products. It lay another five kilometers down the road, and a League agent maintained an inn there.

The trusty made a gesture of dismissal and spat. “Stegatum? It’s an armpit like any other armpit. The farmers will show little interest in your wares, but a few merchants and craftsmen scratch out a living there, and, of course, it has the usual glut of dungheap nobility.”

Ruiz scratched his coin, as if thoughtful. “Can you recommend a good inn?”

The trusty laughed uproariously, which attracted the attention of the overseer. The trusty sobered instantly, picked up his wrench again, and faded back into the wagon’s depths.

Ruiz left, saluting the overseer respectfully as he passed. He wondered what sin the trusty had committed to be condemned to one of the nomarch’s slave gangs. The snake oil men were accorded greater latitude than other minor merchants — if less respect. They were commonly held to be mad, due to the constant and necessary sampling of the hallucinogens they traded in, so that their eccentricity was tolerated, and in some quarters even admired. All in all, Ruiz was happy with the disguise he had chosen, but the condition of the gimpy prisoner indicated that it was not a perfect one.