you put it, they'll stay right where they are in their pouch and wait for you to stumble in the way of your friend."
"Did you say the books, Sir," asked the red-haired man of Marius, completely oblivious to this little exchange. "The books were burnt in the fall of the greatest city in the world?"
"Yes, he cares about books, this fellow," said the black-haired man. "Sir, you better look to your little boy. He's a goner, the dance has changed. Tell him not to mock his elders."
The two dancers came towards me, both as drunk as the man who had fallen. They made to caress me, simultaneously becoming with great odoriferous and heavy breathing a beast with four arms.
"You smile at our friend rolling around on the ground?" one of them asked, sticking his knee between my legs.
I backed up, barely escaping the rude blow. "Seemed the kindest thing I could do," I answered. "Being that my worship was the cause of his fall. Don't plunge into such devotions, yourself, Sirs. I haven't the slightest inclination to answer your prayers."
My Master had risen.
"I tire of this," he said in a cold, clear voice that echoed through the tapestries off the walls. It had a chilling sound to it.
All looked at him, even the struggling man on the floor.
"Indeed!" said the black-haired man, looking up. "Marius De Romanus, is it? I've heard of you. I don't fear you."
"How merciful for you," said my Master in a whisper with a smile. He placed his hand on the man's head and the man whipped himself back and away, almost falling off the bench, but now he was most definitely afraid.
The dancers took their measure of my Master, no doubt trying to gauge whether he would be easy to overwhelm.
One of them turned on me again. "Prayers, Hell!" he said.
"Sir, mind my Master. You weary him, and in weariness he is a perfect crank." I snatched back my arm as he meant to take it.
I backed away even further, into the very midst of the boy musicians so that the music rose about me like a protective cloud.
I could see panic in their faces, yet they played all the faster, ignoring the sweat on their brows.
"Sweet, sweet, gentlemen," I said. "I like it. But play a requiem, if you will."
They gave me desperate glances but no other regard. The drum beat on and the pipe made its snaky melody and the room throbbed with the strumming of the lutes.
The blond-haired man on the floor screamed for help, as he absolutely couldn't get up, and the two dancers went to his aid, though one shot his watchful darts at me.
My Master looked down at the black-haired challenger and then pulled him straight up from the bench with one hand and went to kiss his neck. The man hung in my Master's grip. He froze like a small tender mammal in the teeth of a great beast, and I almost heard the great draught of blood run out of him as my Master's hair shivered and fell down to cover the fatal repast.
Quickly, he let the man drop. Only the red-haired fellow observed all this. And he seemed in his intoxication not to know what to make of it. Indeed he raised one eye, wondering, and drank again from his filthy sloppy cup. He licked the fingers of his right hand, one by one, as if he were a cat, as my Master dropped his black-haired companion facedown on the table, indeed, right into a plate of fruit.
"Drunken idiot," said the red-haired man. "No one fights for valor, or honor, or decency."
"Not many in any event," said my Master looking down at him.
"They broke the world in half, those Turks," said the red-haired man, still staring at the dead one, who surely stared stupidly at him from the smashed plate. I couldn't see the dead man's face, but it excited me tremendously that he was dead.
"Come now, gentlemen," said my Master, "and you, Sir, come here, you who gave my child so many rings."
"Is he your son, Sir?" cried the blond humpback, who was finally on his feet. He pushed his friends away from him. He turned and went to the summons. "I'll father him better than you ever did."
My Master appeared suddenly and without a sound on our side of the table. His garments settled at once, as if he had only taken a step. The red-haired man did not even seem to see it.