Sabre sat down again, studying her. “You’ve never heard of ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, never mind ‘sorry’, have you?”
Tassin raised her chin, and he sighed. Obviously she had not. He glanced at Umgar, who clearly enjoyed their argument, and decided that they should be charging him for the entertainment.
When they arrived in Olgara’s crowded, dusty streets, Sabre helped the sulking Queen alight, and she paid Umgar a few coppers for his trouble. The wagoner grinned and wished them luck, then chivvied the tired horses on the last stretch of their journey to the market. As Tassin turned away, a burly man shoved her aside in his hurry to move past.
She shouted, “Watch where you are going, lout!”
The man turned and spat at her feet. “Dirty foreigner.”
Tassin gasped and lunged at him, her fist swinging for his chin. Startled, Sabre leapt after her, caught her just before the blow landed and yanked her back with enough force to make her teeth snick together. The man snatched a wicked-looking dagger from his belt, but backed away. Sabre pinioned Tassin’s flailing fists and scowled at the Olgaran, who turned and vanished into the crowd. Swinging the furious Queen around, Sabre shook her until her teeth rattled.
“What the hell are you trying to do, get yourself killed?”
“He pushed me! And then he insulted me!”
“So you were just going to beat him up?”
“I am a warrior queen!”
“Oh, right!” He snorted. “Damn it, you’re a half pint little girl with the brains of a flea, who couldn’t pull the skin off a banana!”
Tassin kicked him in the shin. “Let go of me, you brute!”
Sabre hopped and cursed, releasing her. She flashed him a withering look, then strode away down the street. Sabre followed, taking in Olgara’s ambience while keeping an eye on her, lest she attack some other lout who gave offence.
Jostling people, mostly clad in flowing black or blue robes, crammed the narrow streets. The women wore veils, and the dusky-skinned men were dark eyed. This city, he mused, must have been founded by an Eastern culture, perhaps Arabic or Egyptian, and, with the fall of civilisation after the war, they had returned to their old customs.
Overladen donkeys and herds of skinny goats mingled with the populace, some of whom carried baskets of cackling chickens or pushed carts. Women shopped at stalls set up outside the houses that lined the streets, and beggars shoved for positions in the doorways. The shouting, braying, bleating crowd was redolent with dung, stale sweat and musky perfume. The men all appeared to carry nasty-looking curved daggers sheathed in their belts, and their eyes darted watchfully.
Sabre yanked Tassin out of the way as she was about to be run over by a heavily laden donkey being driven from behind, and was rewarded with a scowl as she wrenched her arm free. She turned and forged through the crowd again, heading for the centre of the city. Sabre smiled and followed, thinking she was quite cute when she was angry, which seemed to be most of the time. Her childish air of regal haughtiness amused him, and he found the fact that she was so serious about it oddly endearing.
Then again, perhaps it was merely the joy of freedom that made all aspects of his liberation pleasant, even her churlishness. He pondered his new situation with a burgeoning awareness of his inferiority. Unlike those around him, he had not been born a free man. In fact, he had not been born at all. He had no parents, no childhood, and no experience of the world, other than the second-hand perception the cyber had bestowed. At times, his hand crept up to touch the brow band, wishing it gone, and he noted the way people glanced at it. He was a product of science, not a real person at all, and would have traded places with the lowliest of crippled beggars to escape what he was.