"English?" he asked. "I've heard the English are tall, and I never seen clothes like yours before."

Instead of answering, I asked a question of my own. "Ever hear of a Norman named Arno of Courmeron? I'd like to find him. I've heard he brings war horses here, to ship to Sicily."

He shrugged. "Not many Normans take the sea route. Most go over the Cenis Pass and south through Italy. Brigands and barons are more to their liking than storms and Saracen pirates."

I nodded, remembering what I'd heard of Saracens. They were a military people whom the Normans had warred with on Sicily. It was the Saracens whom Arno had fought in the battle that had won him his knighthood, at a place called Misilmeri.

"But Normans have shipped horses out of Marseille a time or two," the man went on. "It's faster than overland. No doubt they'd do more of it if horses were better sailors. They get sicker'n a pregnant woman at the slightest seas, and are likely to go down and break a leg."

Marseille, he'd said. We'd hit it right. "Are you a sailor?" I asked.

"Aye." He gestured at his companion. "We both are, though Marco here finds it hard to get hired anymore. Lost a thumb in a bight, and don't neither row nor haul ropes so well as he did. Though better'n you'd maybe think."

I hadn't understood every word he'd said, but enough. The other man removed his right hand from his armpit, where he'd been keeping it warm, and displayed the scarred nub, red and ugly, where once a thumb had been.

"How can I get some food?" I asked. "Quite a lot of food."

The talkative sailor snorted, and eyed me even more curiously. "How much is a lot? All you can eat and drink you can buy at an inn, if you've got a few coppers. And the market is in the middle of town. While if it's a shipload you want…"

"I have no coppers," I told him. "I'll have to see what I can do to get some."

"What do you do?" he asked. "Clearly you're no farmer, nor no sailor, I'll wager. You're no knight nor sergeant, nor mercenary neither, going about without weapons." His eyes traveled up and down me. "A monk, I'd say, except your clothes ain't monkish. And what else is there?" He shook his head. "It's sure you're no merchant."

"Mercenary's closest," I told him, and an idea struck me. "I'm a bodyguard. If a merchant wants his person kept safe, he'll do well to hire me."

"Is that so?" An eyebrow had raised. "Jesu knows you're a big one, and maybe strong, though I might say you don't look the type. Not a scar to be seen," He paused. "Nor any weapon at all, unless you carry one of them little daggers hid in your clothes, and they be mainly useless in a fight."

I didn't answer, just squatted down beside them. I'd talked too much already. I had no business claiming to be a fighting man on this world; someone might easily call my bluff. And unless I was willing to use my stunner or pistol, which was undesirable, I could be dead in a hurry. Hand-foot art was nothing to face a trained swordsman with, and the odds wouldn't be good against a skilled knife fighter either.

It was most of an hour before the gate opened, and by that time it looked as if the weather might clear. The clouds seemed thin again, and in places blue showed through. I didn't even say goodbye to the two sailors, just walked inside and followed the muddy road, which became a muddy street.

Marseille smelled bad. I'm sure that not all the water in the street was rain. It seemed as if these people didn't have much idea of sanitation, and I was glad we'd used the broad spectrum immunoserum in the medkit.

There weren't many people on the street yet, but most that I did see seemed lively enough and not unhappy. One young guy, a year or two younger than me by his looks, was striding along whistling, his step springy. His clothes were red and yellow beneath their grime.

"Hello, young sir," I said. "Can I ask you a question?"

He stopped and looked me over. I stood about a head taller than him. "Ask away," he answered.

"I'm looking for a merchant who will hire me. I do calculations very quickly." It seemed to me that that was a safer thing to advertise than martial skills.

The young guy looked interested. "Calculations?" he said. "Well, that can be useful. My own master has a Saracen slave to do calculations for him. His abacus is different from ours, and he's very quick."

Our conversation wasn't as neat and direct as I'm telling it here. His pronunciations were a bit different from those I'd heard before on Fanglith, and he used words that were new to me, while the Norman French I mixed with my Provencal gave him a certain amount of trouble. So a couple of times we had to stop and sort out meanings with each other.

Anyway, an idea began to develop. "Very quick, you say," I said, referring to the Saracen slave. "I am quicker. I calculate more quickly than anyone in Marseille!"

His eyebrows arched. "You think so?"

"I know it." I took the communicator off my belt, a military model with a microcomputer built in. "Give me a problem."

"Add seven to itself nine times."

I didn't need to use the micro for that. "Nine sevens added to seven equals seventy."

He looked impressed, but also uncertain. It occurred to me that he couldn't do arithmetic himself, so he couldn't tell whether I was right or not. I cocked an eye at him. "Is your master's slave faster than that?"

"I think not. Your answer was virtually instantaneous."

"Who is the fastest calculator in Marseille?"

"A merchant and shipowner named Isaac ben Abraham, a Jew from Valencia. He uses an abacus of beads upon rods, like the Saracen, which is much swifter than the boards and disks that others use."

"Does he wager?" I asked.

His face went instantly thoughtful. "Would you bet against him?" he asked back.

"If we're going to talk about things like this, we should know each other's names. Mine is Larn."

"Mine is Reyno. Would you? Bet against him?"

"I have nothing to bet," I answered. "But if you do, or if others wish to bet, for a percentage of their winnings I would contest against this-Isaac?"

"Isaac ben Abraham. Let me take you to my master, Carolus the Stonecutter. He sometimes wagers, but he will wish first to see the horse run."

"Of course," I said. "Take me to him." Meanwhile I was recording our conversation. It would be useful to speak Provencal better, including speaking it without a mixture of Norman French.

He nodded, and we began to walk briskly in the direction he'd been going. "I could stand to win a bet," he said. "I am in love with Margareta, the youngest daughter of Henrico the mason, and she with me. We wish to marry. But first I must have money, and soon, before her father promises her to someone else. She is already fifteen, though small for her age," he went on.

"In her family the women mature late."

Already fifteen. Jenoor had been sixteen, would have been seventeen soon now. Again I had that empty feeling. Where would we be if she and Piet had escaped with us? Together on some more or less civilized world, probably Grinder. Compared to Fanglith, Grinder would seem like home.

I spent the quarter-mile walk to Reyno's master's feeling sorry for myself, hardly aware that Reyno was whistling again. The stonecutter's place was two stories high, and set back from the street about thirty feet. The front yard was partly filled with blocks of rough-cut stones, some of them partly recut, and the ground was littered with chips and shards. A short stocky man, wearing a rough leather apron and holding a hammer and chisel, was examining one of the blocks as if looking for the right place to attack it. Reyno tossed him a cheery "good morning" and led me past; the man was not Carolus.

As you might expect, the building was made of stone, its blocks cut to roughly the same size. The stout plank door was open and we went in. There was more work space inside, with blocks lying around on the dirt floor. The windows were large, probably for light, and had no glass; the shutters I'd noticed, which opened back against the outside walls, were apparently all there was to close them with.