It was bright, sunny and warm as I went down to the waterfront to see what had come in with the morning's catch. Here amongst the crowds and the shouting and the noise of the gulls, I bought a couple of small octopus and a few scrappy heads and bits of fish tails.


I had no real idea what the fish were and I had to make out that these were for my cat. I don't think that the trader believed me. He gave me the usual up and down look that said the one word: barbarian. I didn't care. We haggled over the price and I pretended not to understand what he meant until he finally threw up his hands in frustration and let me have the scraps for nothing. I thought of asking for something to wrap them in but one look at the expression on his face told me to use my own. I handed a few bronze coins over for the octopus and slipped clumsily back into the crowds behind me.


Biloba's Baisse, that's where these little babies were heading! All I needed was a collection of suitable vegetables, a bit of space to cook them and, ideally, a pinch of saffron. The last item was unlikely. I wandered casually back through the market picking up a few tomatoes, a pepper and a handful of miniature aubergines on the way.


The problem with squid is that it can be really tricky to skin if it's not fresh. Mind you if it's not fresh, it can be pretty tricky to keep down (if you get my meaning). By the time that I had squeezed my way through the crowds down at the waterfront and had puffed my way up towards the Via Andea, both I and the squid had warmed up a fair bit.


I hurried for my rooms and braved the corridor of cats that were all awake and waiting. It was as if some sixth sense had informed them that there was an ageing primate heading their way wilting under the weight of a couple of small squid and a good supply of fish heads. Perhaps it was the smell. After all I was coming in down the wind.


I had to remove the waxed canvas bag with the fish in from my pack in order to retrieve my key as it had somehow managed to slip to the bottom of my day sack. The cats showed interest. I know that they were trying to mask it with a look of mild indifference but I could see feral hunger in many pairs of eyes. The other thing that I could see there was contempt. The stupid monkey was bound to drop something as he wrestled with the door.


It was, I am ashamed to say (after all do I really care what the cats think about me) with a certain sense of achievement that I made it into my room without dropping anything. A large number of emotionless green eyes turned away and their owners resumed a position of quiet coolness on the floor.


“Stupid cats,” I thought.


“Stupid primate,” thought the cats.


Inside, the room looked as though a bomb had gone off. The point of origin appeared to be my day sack, which I could see ripped and crumpled against the wall to my left where it clearly had been flung. On the floor where I had originally left it, I could see a good proportion of its contents in various stages of damage, destruction and spillage.


There was a pile of fine dark powder that had been smeared across the floor. It first I could not recall what it was but then I remembered that it was the volcanic sand that I had gathered as a gift for one of my daughters. Yes, I had a strange view on presents but it was what we did.


A pile of clothes were slumped a good distance from most of everything else. They were gathered in that way that you might pick up a pile of dirty washing from the bottom of a damp clothes pile. If it was possible, they seemed to reflect the stiffness and distance and the arm’s length carriage of the person who had moved them.


“OK,” I found myself speaking aloud, “whoever did this is obviously Xandrian.”


I visually trawled though the detritus that had previously been snug and secure in my day sack, noting the various damage and tears, fractures and spills that seemed to exhibit a rough correlation with the distance away from the original location of the day sack. The furthest item and probably the most damaged, was my copy of ‘De Re Coquinaria’, my preferred cookbook. It was another of those heavy objects that I insisted on taking everywhere with me. The battered cover was not immediately visible and as it lay slumped on the wooden floor I could see a number of pages had been ripped out and some simply ripped. There were pages all around the room.


Oddly enough, a summary of the political writings of Cronos of Mar (another of my favourite books) lay undamaged on the bed. I would be tempted to say that it had been placed there, almost with care: possibly with reverence. Perhaps I was reading too much into it. It was only a slim book and fairly unobtrusive.
My observations were cut short by a sound that came from the bathroom. I froze externally although internally anything that could move either jumped or started moving faster. I guess I was too stressed to think of the consequences because I leapt through the doorway with my arms up in some fat bloke macho position that was halfway between Chineve martial arts and northern world pugilism. On my face I hoped was an expression of grim determination and anger. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a very frightened man making warding gestures with his hands and arms but I had no time to dwell further on him.


As I landed (heavily and uncomfortably on my right foot) the cat looked up from inside the bath where it had been licking from the dripping tap. We starred at each other: aggression and anger and fear subsiding into embarrassment on my part. Casual indifference remained the constant in the cat’s expression although I could see a little something else there in its eyes. Is there food? I think that was the impression that I got. In my head the old man told me that cats were poor readers of human expression but I took little comfort in that. The boy in me was laughing uncontrollably at his external (and older) representation and was trying to get the word ‘pussy’ out between half strangled coughs and fits of amusement.


I turned and left the bathroom, ignoring the frightened man in the mirror who also turned and walked away.
Oddly enough, the room was exactly as I had left it a few moments before so I opened a window and looked outside. I don’t suppose I expected to see anyone dropping from the small balcony or running off down the street towards the Via Andea. I was therefore not surprised with what I saw. Just a street, no one about. A dog curled up asleep opposite the dark opening that was the entrance to the building in which I was staying.
What I did detect however, was a hint of sweat in the air of my room that I could not recognise as belonging to me. It also had a hint of chocolate in it and something else; possibly cinnamon; possibly leather. I didn’t think that it was a perfume but if it were one, I think that I would have liked it.


It was then that I noticed that I was still holding the fish. Somehow this had escaped me in the leap into the bathroom. I could feel the limp forms of the octopus also drooping sadly from my tight grip. I put them all in the sink and ran some cold water over them to cover. I then set about sorting out the mess.


Talking to the marechati was out of the question and once I had established that my secret stash of coins was still in its place under a floorboard, I saw no reason in getting anyone else involved.


I figured that the easiest way to find out what was missing was to repack what I could. I should explain here that it is a little habit of mine to pack all my belongings back into my pack each day, even when I am staying in accommodation of any sort. It helps me know where my world ends and the world around me begins. It also makes for a quick and complete exit if such is needed. (It hasn’t so far in my 53 years though.)


The volcanic sand proved to be a problem because the leather purse that I had kept it in was gone (although I later found the draw string to it hanging from the balcony). Most other items proved to be both there and intact. Ok, my cooking book was damaged badly – perhaps the perpetrator or perpetrators of this action had a problem with Apicus or his recipes. I could not find the cover anywhere however and that seemed a little odd. The only complete item that was missing was the large knife (by my standards) that the berserker Malice had given me a few weeks ago as we travelled the Xandrian Quarters. Technically, by his standards, I guess it would have been a fairly small knife.


I couldn’t see why that should have gone although weapons are expensive and stolen weapons are harder to trace than bought ones. I can’t say that I was particularly bothered about the loss. It was an extra thing to be carrying about and I knew that I was pretty unlikely ever to use it for its intended purpose. Arguably, it was a relief to be shot of the thing. I just hoped that Malice didn’t ask for it back next time we met.


I was interrupted from my thoughts by the sound of scratching at my door. I looked up to see the cat that had been drinking in my bathroom scratching and picking with its claws at the bottom of the door in an attempt to get out. As I went towards the creature it cowered and growled at me. I opened the door cautiously and it slipped out.


“Ingrate!” I shouted after it.


I locked the door once I had closed it again and decided on a cup of coffee. I couldn’t really get my head around the fact that someone had actually got into my room and rummaged about. It felt a bit like a violation. It also seemed a bit unreal and I was having real problems trying to picture someone (I felt sure that it was only one person) getting into my room and generally rummaging around.


Of course, I would have to repair my pack as it had some damage to the stitching. That wasn’t a big deal. What was a big deal was that in the middle of my musings about the burglary (I guess it was technically a burglary if I had lost a purse, a book cover and a knife) and whilst on the way to make myself a coffee, the thought of my pack had sprung to mind. What was that about? Was it a processing malfunction between my ears or some other subconscious connection that was now trying to insinuate itself into my conscious mind? I carried on for the coffee and put the thought into the ‘I’ll do it later’ set of thoughts and intentions.


What I had missed (and what the better part of my subconscious mind was trying to tell me) was that my eyes had indeed spotted a small piece of torn fabric attached to one of the buckles on the pack that had not been there when I left the room earlier that morning.


In the kitchen I heated the water on the small burner provided for the purpose and whilst waiting for it to boil, refreshed the water in which the squid and the fish heads were resting.


A knife, a book cover and a leather purse (presumably still with some of the volcanic sand inside as only about half of it had been left on the floor). For some obscure reason, I pictured a robed character pouring the sand carefully onto the wooden floorboards as he crouched in front of my pack. Why that should happen and indeed why I should even imagine it was anyone’s guess. I put it down to a decline in processing capability due to age.

I was taken from this disjointed thought process by the sound of water spilling over and onto the floor. There was also a cold sensation growing on the front of my lower body. I had left the water running and it had filled the basin and was now flowing freely over the edge and down the front of my trousers as I leaned against it. One of the squid watched me with its dead eye from the depths below. Can a dead eye look contemptuous?
About the same time the water started to boil. I turned off the tap and stepped away from the sink. A last wave slipped over the side and onto the floor. My shirt and my trousers were now wet down the front. That was not going to make for a good fashion statement when I went out later and I wasn’t going to consider what warmth and time were going to do to do as relatively fresh water met and evaporated with the months of filth and grime that lay in the fabric of my trousers.


I dried my hands and lifted the coffee pot from the heat. Mistake. Yes, I know that the coffee should not have been boiling and, yes, the wet cloth and heat conduction made for a moderate burn to the palm of my hand. I didn’t drop the pot however and not to be put off by a mere burglary, set about the more serious task in hand.

Preparing Biloba’s Baisse was fairly straightforward. I put a large pot on the burner and poured in some olive oil. I then chopped and added some onions to fry until they were golden. In the meantime, I started to skin the squid (always a pleasant job). I completed this without too many tears to the flesh and then removed the inner squishy bits. I separated the body from the tentacles and then removed the eyes and mouth. I cut and scored the bell and chopped the tentacles into bite sized pieces. The eyes I separated – that’ll teach ‘em to look at me with contempt - and then discarded the beak and mouthparts.


I pictured cats flinging themselves at the door as the smell of the sea and salt and fishy bits wafted through my rooms and no doubt under my door. In reality the complacent little beasts would be lying on the cool floor, barely any movement except for the occasional irritated flick of the tail. It came as a bit of a surprise then, when I felt something brush up against the back of my calves with that unmistakeable feline gesture that says something on the lines of ‘come on monkey, you know that you want to feed me!’


On the floor was a large black cat with broad jowls and a tail that pointed straight up. It was obviously a male even without at first spotting the large fury pair of balls that seemed to be wedged tightly between his back legs. He was quite a large beast and obviously fully grown and so I refrained from kicking him away. The testosterone demanded some respect and I really didn’t want to get scratched by this apparently stray beast.


What really bothered me, once I had recovered from the surprise of finding the animal at my feet, was how he had managed to get in. I hadn’t seen him earlier as I tidied the wreckage in my room earlier and I had looked in all the obvious places: under the bed and so on. He clearly hadn’t been in the bathroom with the other creature either, or I am sure that I would have noticed. I left it without a conclusion but just assumed that he must have come in with the intruder earlier and that I had just managed to miss him, being black and all that, in the dark recesses of the rooms ( not that there were many of these).


I left the sink and walked with dripping and fishy hands to the door. He followed fairly eagerly although he tried not to show it. As each fish water droplet hit the floor he ran to it and sniffed until his last run went through the open door and over towards a collection of droplets that I had flung into the passageway outside. Other cats darted out of the way. Obviously a dominant cat, I thought, as I closed the door and locked it once more before returning to the kitchen.


The squid prepared, I then dealt with the fish heads. That was pretty straightforward. A quick rinse under the tap and for those fish with obvious and large scales, a quick scrape to remove as many as possible and a quick rub of salt before dropping these with the squid back into the basin (now empty of water).


What I really puzzled about was how anyone had got into the rooms. I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head. It was most likely that the perpetrator had another key or that, perhaps, he had managed to pick or force the lock. I hadn’t noticed anything odd when I was struggling with the lock but then I was struggling with the lock whilst holding some fish over the heads of a pile of hungry cats. I tried to picture him climbing up onto the balcony from the road below. That would have required some level of athleticism, not to mention serious upper body strength. Somehow I couldn’t see it but then again perhaps that is because I couldn’t manage the task of leaping from the road high enough to catch hold of the metal edge of the balcony and then heaving myself up bodily onto it. An alternative possibility was offered by the old man in me who questioned whether I had actually left the door open when I went out earlier. I thought that a little unfair but I guess it was a possibility, however unpalatable.


By the time that these various thoughts had entertained me, the onions were golden and so I added a couple of crushed garlic cloves and left those whilst I ground up some coriander and cumin seeds in my mortar. (For its size, it was a relatively heavy thing to carry around but it was worth it when I had the opportunity to use it.) I added the crushed seeds to the pan together with a tiny pinch of asafoetida and a good splosh of garum, the wonderful amber fish sauce that they used in the Xandrian City States. It was all a matter of taste. Finally, a sprinkling of mint and parsley (from the market earlier that morning) went into the pan before I topped the pan to half full with water.


The fish heads went in and I stirred the mix and stood back to watch the larger heads bob about in the liquid. Once it had been brought up to boiling, the stock needed to simmer for about an hour before I could add the squid. I also had to get a couple of red peppers peeled and chopped to go in also. I had managed to find some long but plump sweet red peppers in the marketplace earlier and these were to be the subject of the next task.


After buying the fish I had headed towards the market, in part led by my nose and in part by simply following the flow of the crowd. The freshness of the shade in the marketplace was really quite remarkable and curiously, there was a relative quiet to the place. Of course, you could hear the traders and the haggling. Occasionally disputes arose or an animated conversation would erupt as someone expounded on the virtues of this or that herb, vegetable or spice. Yet all these things simply seemed to emphasise the silence underlying. People moved quietly about the market, in much the same way they might move around a large public building or a place of worship. Naturally enough there were the flies everywhere but even the erratic buzzing seemed to serve the overreaching silence.


In the dappled light of the lime trees overhead, I bought three peppers from one of the many stalls selling all manner of vegetables, exotic and profane. This one had such a variety of peppers and chillies in all manner of shades of reds, oranges, yellows and greens that it seemed to resemble a bright tapestry or a mosaic. For a while I just stared at it in a kind of child-like wonder.


“Looking or buying?”


A voice crept into my silence and before I could respond, it continued.


“Looking is good but buying is better...”


I looked up but could not see the owner of the voice until I noticed a movement in the colours just beside the stall. A short Ruardean woman of about my age at a guess, stepped out into view with a smile that looked sublime and bright dark eyes that somehow managed to look both tired and mischievous at the same time.


“Oh, buying for sure,” I replied, “but only after looking at these wonderful vegetables.”


I waved my arm towards the array of peppers.


“We call them fruit.” she said simply. “They are sweet and some of them are hot. A few of them are bitter but they are still fruit.”


She wore one of those traditional robes that the Ruardean woman wear. I use the term robe but it is a single rectangle of cloth that they manage to drape around themselves in a manner that stays on. I don’t remember what they are called but this one had all the colours of her produce in it and had almost the effect of camouflage so that when she first appeared it was as if she had stepped out of the display.


“I want some peppers to go in a fish soup,” I said.


The woman grimaced slightly but recovered quickly. I wondered if that was the soup or the thought of her beautiful fruit ending up in a bowl of floating fish heads.


“You will have these,” she said, handing me three long red peppers.


Though the words seemed like a command the sound of her voice was gentle, heading towards seductive. She handed them to me, brushing my palm gently with her long fingers. It was a pleasant sensation.


Her next words brought me back to the issue in hand (as it were).


“They will be three rashans.”


“Rashans?” I queried. The term was not familiar to me and I spread out the small coins that I had in my palm with a gesture to accompany them which I hoped made it clear that I didn’t understand.


She smiled once more and took from my outstretched hand the smallest coin that I had. It was small and it was a brass coin with a small square hole in the middle. I guess that was for stringing them but who knows.


“Five rashans.” She said simply, holding up the coin to me.


As far as I was concerned, and I was not a rich man by any standards, the coin was almost worthless. I couldn’t see how it could be divided further.


“I cannot give you any change for this,” she said without any concern or embarrassment, “will you take something else?”


I didn’t want anything else and I was tempted to say something along the lines of ‘keep the change’ but I felt that it would be seen as a sign of weakness or stupidity. She must have seen my dilemma because she reached across in front of me and selected a small rich burgundy and slightly box shaped pepper from her display. She handed it to me, once again brushing my skin with hers.


“Very rare and very unusual,” she said. “Take it!”


Again, there was the command with the voice of an angel. What else could I do? I am a man after all. I took it, all two rashans of it. I still didn’t know what a rashan was.


I took it and thanked her and turned to move on. As an afterthought almost, she said after me two words.


“Very hot.”


I turned back but she was gone. Behind the stall, out in the bright sunlight, I could see three old men playing some form of game in the dust and heat with a number of bright metal balls. I had caught the scent of jasmine and orange blossom.


Well that had been earlier but now as I only had one burner, I had to get the stock up to the boil first. As soon as it was rolling, I took it off the heat so that I could toast the peppers in the flames to singe the skin and make it easier to peel. (Not much easier in this case.) This being done and the peppers skinned and chopped, the pan went back on the heat for its hour. I took the opportunity to top up the liquid slightly so that now had a pan that was two thirds full.


The strange pepper that had cost me two rashans lay where I had left it on the table beside the burner. In the warmth of the room it seemed to give of a scent. It really was like jasmine and orange blossom.


There wasn’t much to do now for the hour whilst the soup cooked so I went back into the main room to read. There was another cat. This one was sitting on my bed and watched me as I approached it. It looked as though it had no intention to move and yawned at me cavernously. I resisted the urge to yawn back. Where on earth were they coming from? I hadn’t noticed or indeed left any cats in my room earlier when I went out and I was pretty sure that none had managed to squeeze in as I wrestled with the door on my return.
Deciding that perhaps I hadn’t done a close enough inspection of my rooms the first-time round, I put my book down and went to check the perimeters. How else could I explain the cats that seemed to be appearing?


The main room revealed nothing, although I did find the strings to my missing purse and a small quantity of volcanic sand on the balcony. Presumably then, my intruder had dropped from there to the road below. It was a fair way for me to have tried but I guess that it was quite possible without breaking bones for a younger and fitter person. There was a little damage to the bougainvillea that had grown up onto the railings but other than that there was nothing else to tell me. I returned to the room, leaving the windows open.
The kitchen was too small to reveal anything that I wouldn’t already have seen but it gave me a chance to check on the soup. It was bubbling lethargically. Occasionally an opaque eye would float up near the surface before returning to the depths of the pot.


There were no more cats in the bathroom. A quick glance around determined that but as I was leaving the room I saw a movement in the wall behind the enamelled hole in the floor that was the toilet. Part of the wall opened forwards and a brown head, whiskers ears and all, appeared. I tried to pay no attention to the creature as it peered into the room but it saw me and was gone in an instant. The panel had moved back almost flush with the wall and so I had to use my knife to prize it open. I did so cautiously, half expecting one or any number of cats to come flying out at any minute.


Much to my relief, there were no animals behind the panel and as I edged the thing open I could see a dark but empty passageway heading off some distance. There wasn’t much light but the entrance was big enough for me to have squeezed in (if I had wanted to). Inside it appeared to open up to a height that was at least tall enough to stand in. What it looked to be was a narrow passageway between two sets of rooms just about wide enough for a person to move along sideways. I can’t say that I would have wanted to do that myself but it did seem like a plausible way for someone to gain access to my room if they required to.


I can’t say that I would have thought a Xandrian would choose to enter a room across a traditional open toilet – I didn’t think that they had the stomach for it- but just to close this thought down, I decided to have a look in the passageway outside my room. As I opened my door, all the cats lying outside ignored me with obvious intent. I picked my way through them towards where I would have expected to find an exit but could not get to the wall until I had moved several large and aggressive looking creatures from my path with the aid of my boots.

It is probably a good idea to explain that I am not very good with space and dimension problems and so it is highly likely that I got the location of the exit to the passageway completely wrong. In fact, if there was an exit, I obviously got it wrong because there was nothing in the walls here to indicate a means of entry, either for cat or for human. I gave up and returned to my rooms, noting on route that the door showed no sign of forced entry. Inside there were now several cats, all of them heading towards, or already in, the kitchen. It was a matter of moments before they were all back outside and it was a few moments later that I realised that I had lost some of the squid that was waiting to be cooked, to the little blighters. I didn’t think that cats ate squid, but there you have it.


It seemed that pretty much an hour had passed by now and so I dropped the squid into the boiling soup, together with the peppers. I added some salt and a little pepper to taste and waited. To be honest I never know the right way to cook squid and so after about five minutes or so I started to taste the flesh. I kept doing this until it was sufficiently solid to give a little resistance to the teeth and when it no longer had that slimy consistency that it has when it is raw. Indeed, that is not exactly a hygienic way to cook squid but for texture it’s the right way. Towards the end of the cooking period, I noticed a discarded piece of squid on the floor. I picked up the half-chewed piece and dropped it into the pot. Well, it was going to be cooked for a while, wasn’t it? And I am a barbarian, am I not?