Chapter thirteen
SignsThe lively time began with: “Among the damned Hamalese! I’d as lief slit their throats as look at ’em!” and ended with, “It’s so cunning a scheme I’ll be a better Hamalese than any of ’em, as Havandua the Green Wonder bears witness!”
I sighed. Deldar Jorg the Fist and his five men clustered about me, straining their harness, their faces inflamed, breathing hard. “Havandua is not of Hamal.”
“No, dom, no, that is right. I’ll allow you that.”
“So it will be Havil, or Krun — Dernun?”
The word dernun came out inquiringly and not insultingly, but it was hard enough, in its demand for their understanding, to make them snap up.
“Understood,” said Jorg, and he winked, a fine raffish leering wink that made me turn away so that they should not see the foolish smile I could
