The drum beat loud and then stopped. Marketa slowly raised the surplice. And then quickly pulled it up over her head. Freckles dotted her arms and shoulders, covering her neck and breasts in a delicate pattern. There were none lower down. The drum banged at a quicker rhythm and the girl began to pirouette and sway, like a Bacchante, like Salome. Now they saw that freckles also covered her back and nape. Her shock of hair undulated like the Red Sea just before Moses commanded it to part before him. The drum boomed loudly and Marketa froze in a pose as lascivious as it was unnatural. Among the spectators, Manfred clapped again, Rohač’s captain yelled, Amadej Baťa cried out and slapped his thighs. Huncleder cackled. Berengar Tauler began to applaud.
But that wasn’t the end of the performance.
The girl knelt and cupped her breasts, squeezing and displaying them to the audience, swaying and writhing like a snake all the while. And smiled. But it wasn’t a smile. It was a spastic contraction, a spasmus musculi faciei.
At a signal from the drum, Marketa lithely and sinuously moved from kneeling to a sitting position. The drum began to beat out a frantic, staccato rhythm and the girl writhed like a snake again. Finally, she stopped moving, tossing her head backwards and spreading her legs wide. So wide that no detail escaped the spectators. Nor any details of the details.
The display went on for some time.
Then the girl snatched up the surplice, jumped down from the table and vanished into the side room, pursued by the sounds of applause and cheers. Manfred of Salm and Rohač’s captain hooted and stamped, Berengar Tauler stood up and clapped and Amadej Baťa crowed like a rooster.
“Well?” Fridusz Huncleder got up, crossed the tavern and sat down at the table. “Well? Ever seen such a ginger one? Wasn’t the spectacle worth a ducat? While we’re on the subject, m’Lord Scharley, I only received two from you, but three of you came in. And here every pair of eyes counts—if you look, you pay. This is a revolution and we’re all equal, lord and servant… I say! I wasn’t talking to you, but to your master! Sit back down, go on carving your stick. As a matter of fact, do you have a ducat? Have you ever even seen a ducat in your life?”
It was some time before Reynevan realised whom Huncleder was addressing. And some time before he recovered from his astonishment.
“Are you deaf?” asked Huncleder. “Or just stupid?”
“The girl who danced.” Samson Honeypot brushed shavings from his sleeve. “I’d like to take her away from here.”
“Whaaaaat?”
“I’d like to assume the right of ownership of her, so to speak.”
“Right of whaaaat?”
“Too complicated?” Samson didn’t raise his voice at all. “Then I’ll say it more simply: she’s yours, and she’s going to be mine. So let’s sort it out.”
Huncleder gave him a look, a long look, as though unable to believe his own eyes and ears. He finally burst out laughing.
“M’Lord Scharley,” he said, turning his head. “What’s this pantomime? Is he always like this? Just comes out with it? Or did you make him?”
“‘He’ has a name.” Scharley proved that even the least-expected incident was incapable of putting him off his stride. “He’s called Samson Honeypot. I didn’t tell him to do anything. Nor forbade him. He’s a free man. He has the right to carry out independent commercial transactions.”
Huncleder looked around. He didn’t like either Manfred of Salm’s open chuckling, nor Amadej Baťa’s snorting, nor the splendidly amused faces of the others. He wasn’t pleased. It was easy to see it in his face.
“There’ll be no independent transactions,” he drawled. “The wench isn’t for sale, for one thing. And I don’t trade with simpletons, for another. Get out of here, dolt. Scram. Groom the horses, clean the latrine or something. This is a gambling house. If you don’t gamble, get out.”
“But that’s exactly what I had in mind,” replied Samson, as serene as a statue. “Trading in people is a matter for thugs and bloody whoresons, while gambling, in spite of its many flaws, also has its merits. In a game of chance, as the name indicates, one must rely on unfathomable chance. Aren’t you curious about unfathomable chance, Huncleder? You say you’re prepared for any game. Go on, then. One throw of the dice.”
Silence fell on the room. Grimaces of wild amusement still contorted the faces of some of the men present, but they’d stopped laughing aloud. Huncleder’s pockmarked face set and contracted hideously. With a movement of his head, he ordered his servants out of the shadows. Then he tossed a pair of dice—the same ones they had played with—in front of Samson. And picked up his own, yellow ones.
“So let’s play,” he said icily. “One throw. If you win—the girl’s yours. You won’t even have to pay extra. But if I throw a higher score than you…”
He snapped his fingers. One of the servants handed him a hatchet. Another raised a loaded crossbow. Scharley quickly grabbed Reynevan by the arm.
“If I throw more,” Huncleder finished, putting the hatchet down on the table in front of him, “I’ll chop off as many digits as I score. Fingers first, then toes as well if needs be. Depending on what I throw. And what unfathomable fate demands.”
“Hey!” said István Szécsi angrily. “What’s this? Put down those confounded yellow dice—”
“What butchery are you planning?” interrupted Habart Mol of Modřelice, Rohač’s captain.
“The dimwit wants to play!” Huncleder shouted over them. “So he will! Since he’s a free fellow. With the right to be independent. He can still quit. Admit of his own free will that he made a fool of himself and leave of his own volition. No one’s stopping him. If he doesn’t delay his departure too long.”
The captain, it was clear, might have challenged that, and the stern faces of the Hungarian and Baťa spoke for themselves. But before anyone could speak or act, Samson had shaken the dice and tossed them onto the table. One of them showed a four, the other a three.
“That’s seven,” he said with a horrifying calm, “if I’m not mistaken.”
“You aren’t.” Huncleder rattled his dice in a cup. “Four and three make seven. And regarding your fingers and toes: ten and ten make twenty. For the present.”
The dice rolled. All the men crowded around gasped in unison. Jeřábek swore.
The two yellow dice landed with the ones uppermost.
“You lost.” Samson Honeypot’s bass interrupted the deathly silence. “Fate’s not well disposed towards you. The girl is mine. Thus, I shall take her and be on my way.”
Huncleder attacked across the table with the speed of a wildcat. The hatchet blade whistled but didn’t bury itself in Samson’s temple, where it was aimed. The giant was too swift. He moved his head aside, caught Huncleder above the elbow with his left hand and squeezed the fingers holding the weapon with his right. Everybody heard Huncleder’s howl and the crunch of the bones. Samson prised the hatchet from his broken fingers, gripped it, bent Huncleder over the table and slammed the butt of the axe down on the fingers of the other hand now pressed against the tabletop. Huncleder howled even louder. Samson struck again. Huncleder fell face first onto the table and fainted.