They didn’t know how to take me. A woman talking hard was something new.
Somebody shot an obnoxious question from the back.
“All right. A position statement. That should save time. My religious attitude is indifference. I’ll stay indifferent as long as religion ignores me. My position on social issues is the same. I’m a soldier, one of the Black Company, which contracted with the Prahbrindrah Drah to rid Taglios of the Shadowmasters. My Captain fell. I replaced him. I will fulfill the contract. If that statement doesn’t answer your questions then you probably have questions you have no right to ask.
“My predecessor was a patient man. He worried about offending people. I don’t share those qualities. I’m direct and unpleasant when aroused. Questions?”
They had them. Of course. They yammered. I picked a man I recognized, one who was offensive and was not loved by his peers. He was a bald Gunni in scarlet. “Tal. You’re being unpleasant. Stop it. You have no legitimate business here. None of you have, really. I said I have no interest in religion. You have little cause to be interested in things military. Let’s leave each other to our own competences.”
Beautiful Tal played his part as though rehearsed. His response was more than offensive, it was a direct challenge predicated upon my sex, speaking to my failure to commit suttee.
I tossed him a Golden Hammer, not to the heart but to the right shoulder. It spun him around and knocked him down. He screamed for more than a minute before he passed out.
It got real quiet. Everyone, including poor fuddled Narayan, stared at me wide-eyed.
“You see? I’m not my predecessor. He would have remained polite. He would have clung to persuasion and diplomacy long past the point where a demonstration is a more effective way to communicate. Go tend to priestly matters. I’ll tend to making war and to wartime discipline.”
That should not be hard for them to figure out. The Company’s contract made the Captain virtual military dictator for a year. Croaker had not used the power. I did not expect to. But it was there if needed.
“Go. I have work to do.”
They went. Quietly. Thoughtfully.
“Well,” Narayan said after they left. “Well.”
“Now they know I’m no fainter. Now they know I’m mission-oriented and don’t care who I stomp if they get in the way.”
“They’re bad men to make enemies.”
“They make the choice. Yes! I know. But they’re confused. It’ll take them a while to decide what to do. Then they’ll all get in each other’s ways. I’ve bought time. I need intelligence sources, Narayan. Find Ram. Tell him I want those men he brought to me earlier. It’s time to look at those sites.” Before he could argue, I added, “And tell him if he plans to keep on being my shadow he’d better learn to ride. I expect to be moving around a lot, now.”
“Yes, Mistress.” He hurried off, paused just before he left, looked back, frowned. He was wondering who was using who and who had the upper hand. Good. Let him. While he was wondering I’d get my foundations set solidly.
The men in the mess hall all stared at me with varying degrees of awe. Few met my gaze. “Rest while you can, soldiers. The sands are running through the glass.”
I went to my quarters to wait for Ram.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Croaker stared into the drizzly night, fingers nervously twisting strands of grass. One of the horses made a sound out there. He thought about walking over there, mounting up bareback, riding away. He would stand a fifty-fifty chance of staying ahead.
Except that things had changed. Now Catcher did not have to catch up physically.
He held up the figure he had made, a man shape two inches tall. The grass gave off a garlic odor. He shrugged, flipped it out into the rain, took more strands of grass from a pocket. He had made hundreds now. Grass figures had become a sort of measure of time.
A steady banging came from behind him. He turned away from the night, walked slowly toward the woman. She had produced a set of armorer’s tools from somewhere. This was the second day running she had spent building something. Obviously black armor, but why?
She glanced at the horse figure he was twisting. “I may get you some paper and ink.”
“Would you?” There was a lot he wanted to set down. He had grown used to keeping a journal.
“I may. That’s no pastime for a grown man.”
He shrugged, put the horse aside. “Take a break. Time to check you over.”
She no longer wore robes. She was outfitted as she had been when first he had met her, in tight black leather that somehow left her sex ambiguous. Her Soulcatcher costume, she called it. She hadn’t bothered with the helmet yet.
She set her tools aside, looked at him with mischief in her eyes. “You sound depressed.” The voice she chose was merry.
“I am depressed. Stand up.” She did. He peeled away the leather around her neck. “It’s healing quickly. I’ll remove the sutures tomorrow, maybe.”
“Will there be much scarring?”
“I don’t know. Depends on how well your healing, spells work. I didn’t know you were vain.”
“I’m human. I’m a woman. I want to look nice.” Same voice but less merry.
“You do look nice.” He did not think before he spoke. Just making a statement of fact. She looked nice in the sense that she was a beautiful woman. Like her sister. He had become very conscious of that since she had changed her style of dress. That left him nagged by low-grade guilt.
She laughed. “I’m reading your mind, Croaker.”
She was not, literally. She would not be pleased with him if she was. But she had been around a long time and had studied people. She could read books from a few physical clues.
He grunted. He was getting used to it. There was no point trying hard to hide from it. “What are you making?”
“Armor. We’ll be healed enough to go soon. We’ll have great fun.”
“I’ll bet.” He felt a twinge in his chest.. He was almost healed. There had been none of the complications he had expected. He had begun taking forced exercise.
“We’re the gadflies here, love. The chaos factor. My beloved sister and the Taglians know nothing about us. Those clubfooted Shadowmasters know I’m here but they don’t know about you. They don’t know what you’ve accomplished. They think I’m a nuisance floating around in the dark. I doubt they’ve entertained the notion that I could be restored.”
She rested a hand on his cheek. “I’m more basic than you think.”
“Oh?”
Change of voice, businesslike, masculine, at odds with the invitation. “I have eyes everywhere. I know every word spoken by anyone who interests me. A while back I arranged for Longshadow to be diverted while Howler visited Spinner and cut Longshadow’s webs of control.”
“Damn! He’ll hit Dejagore with everything.”
“He’ll lie low and pretend he’s unchanged. The siege costs him nothing. He’ll be more interested in improving his position in relation to Longshadow. He knows Longshadow will destroy him when he’s no longer useful. We’ll have fun. We’ll poke around and make them chase their tails. When the dust settles, maybe there’ll be no Longshadow, no Shadowspinner, no Howler, just you and me and an empire of our own. Or maybe the spirit will move me some other direction. I don’t know. I’m just having fun with it.”
He shook his head slightly. Hard to believe, but it sounded true. Her schemes could kill thousands, could distress millions, and to her it was play.
“I’ll never understand you.”
She giggled the giggle of a girl with nothing between the ears. She was neither young nor empty-headed. “I don’t understand myself. But I gave up trying a long time ago. It’s distracting.”
Games. From the first she had been involved in tortuous maneuvers and manipulations, to no obvious end. Her great pleasure was to watch a scheme flower and devour its victim. Her only plot to fail had been the one meant to displace her sister. And she had not
failed completely then because she had survived, somehow.
She said, “Soon Kina’s followers will start arriving. We’ll have to be somewhere else. So let’s go down to Dejagore and cause some confusion. We ought to get there about the time Spinner figures he’s ready to make an independent move. Be interesting to see how it goes.”
Croaker did not understand but did not ask. He was used to her talking in riddles. She let him know what she wanted him to know when she was ready to tell him. No point pressing her. He could do little but bide his time and hope.
“It’s late,” she said. “We’ve done enough for today. Let’s turn in.”
He grunted, not eager. The place gave him the creeps when he thought about it, which meant every night as he fell asleep. Which meant at least one potent nightmare. He would be glad to get out.
Maybe out there he could vanish-if he could think of a way to hide from the crows.
Fifteen minutes after the lamp went out Soulcatcher asked, “Are you awake?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s cold in here.”
“Uhm.” It always was. Most nights he fell asleep shivering.
“Why don’t you come over here?”
The shivering worsened. “I don’t think so.”
She laughed. “Some other time.”
He fell asleep worrying about how she always got her way instead of about the temple. His dreams were more troubling than nightmares.
Once he wakened momentarily. The lamp was alive again. Soulcatcher was murmuring with a clatch of crows. The subject seemed to be events in Taglios. She appeared pleased. He drifted off without understanding what it was about.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Neither potential campsite was perfect. One had been fortified before, in ancient times. For centuries people had carried the stone off for use elsewhere. I chose that site.
“Nobody remembers the name,” I told Ram as we rode toward town. “Makes you think.”
“Huh? About what?”
“The fleeting nature of things. Taglios’ entire history could have been influenced by what happened there and now nobody remembers the name.”
He looked at me oddly, straining for understanding. He wanted to understand but he didn’t have the capacity. The past was last week, the future tomorrow. There was no reality in anything that happened before he was born.
He was not stupid. He seemed big and dull and slow but possessed an average intellect. He just had not learned to employ it.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m just being moody.” He understood moody. He expected it. His wife and mother had been “moody.”
He did not have time now to think, anyway. He was too busy staying on his horse.
We returned to the barracks. There was another crowd looking for their loved ones. Narayan was handling them efficiently. They eyed me curiously. Not at all the way they had looked at Croaker. Him they had hailed Liberator everywhere. Me, I was a freak without the sense to know she was not a man. I would grow on them. Just a matter of creating a legend.
Narayan caught up with me. “There was a messenger from the palace. The prince wants you to dine with him tonight. Someplace called the grove.”
“Oh?” That was where I had met him first. Croaker had taken me. The grove was an outdoor place frequented by the rich and influential. “Request or order?”
“Invitation. Will you do me the honor of, like that.” “Did you accept?”
“No. How could I guess what you’d want to do?” “Good. Send a message. I accept. What time?” “He wasn’t specific.”
It would slow me down but I might accomplish something that would save fussing and feuding later. At least I’d learn how much grief I could expect from the state. “I’m going to sketch out the camp I want built. We’ll send one company plus five hundred recruits to start. Pick whoever you think we should get out of the city. That mess outside. How’s it going?” “Well enough, Mistress.” “Any volunteers showing?” “A few.”
“And intelligence? Have you gotten anything started?”
“Lot of people want to tell us things. Mostly about foreigners. Nothing really interesting.”
“Keep at it. Let me do those sketches. After that I’ll make a list to give the Prahbrindrah. After
that I’ll make myself presentable.” Around here somewhere would be my imperial getup, that I’d worn last time, and my coach, that we had brought down from the north and had left here when we had marched on Ghoja.
“Ram, before we went south I had several men help me make special armor. I need to find them again.”
I went to work sketching and estimating.
The coach was not as impressive with a four-horse team but people did gawk. I had enough skill to make hooves strike fire and to set a glamor running the coach’s exterior. The fire-breathing skull of the Company blazed on both doors. The steel-rimmed wheels and pounding hooves rumbled thunderously.
I was satisfied.
I reached the grove an hour before sunset, entered, looked around. Just like last time, the cream of Taglian society had come out to rubberneck. Ram and a red rumel man named Abda, of Vehdna background, were my bodyguards. I did not know Abda. He was with me because Narayan said he was good.
They had spruced up. Ram cleaned up nicely when you held a knife to his kidneys. Bathed, hair and beard trimmed, in new clothes, he cut a handsome figure. But Abda did not improve much. He was a shifty-eyed little villain who looked like a villain no matter what.
I wished I had brought a Gunni bodyguard, too, to make a symbolic statement. You can’t think of everything when you’re rushed.
The Prahbrindrah rose as I strode up to him. He smiled. “You found me. I was concerned. I wasn’t specific about where we’d meet.”
“It seemed logical I’d find you where we met before.”
He eyed Ram and Abda. He had come alone. A measure of his confidence in his people’s reverence? Misplaced confidence, maybe.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he invited. “I’ve tried to order things I think you’ll like.” He glanced at Ram and Abda again, perplexed. He did not know what to do about them.
I said, “Last time I was here somebody tried to kill Croaker. Forget them. I trust their discretion.” I had no idea whether I could trust Abda or not. Didn’t seem smart to make a point of it, though.
Servitors started with refreshments and appetizers. From the state of the grove you could not tell Taglios was a nation threatened with extinction.
“You look radiant this evening.”
“I don’t feel it. I feel worn out.”
“You should relax more. Take life easier.”
“Have the Shadowmasters decided to take a holiday?”
He sampled something that looked like shrimp. Where had shrimp come from, here? Well, the sea was not that far away.
Which sparked a germ of an idea. I set it aside for later examination.
The prince swallowed, dabbed his lips with a napkin. “You seem determined to make my life difficult.”
“Oh?”
“You roar ahead like the whirlwind, giving no one time to think. You rush headlong. Everyone else has to concentrate on keeping their balance.”
I smiled. “If I give anyone time to do anything but run along behind me I’ll be up to my ears in grief. None of you seem to understand the magnitude of your enemy. You all have your priorities inverted. Everybody wants to dance around and get the angle on everybody else. Meantime, the Shadowmasters are planning to exterminate all of you.”
He nibbled and pretended to think. “You’re right. But people are human. Nobody here has ever had to think in terms of external enemies. Or really deadly enemies.”
“The Shadowmasters count on that, too.”
“No doubt.”
A new course arrived, more substantial. Some kind of bird. I was surprised. The prince’s background was Gunni. The Gunni were determined vegetarians.
Watching my surroundings I spied tw
o things I did not like. There were dozens of crows among the trees. And that priest Tal I had embarrassed earlier, with several of his cronies, was watching us.
The Prahbrindrah said, “I’m under a lot of pressure because of you. Some from close quarters. It puts me in a delicate position.”
Where was his sister? Were she and Smoke riding him? Probably. I shrugged and ate.
The prince said, “It would help if I knew your plans.”
I told him.
“Suppose some important people don’t approve or don’t feel you’re the right champion?”
“It wouldn’t matter. There’s a contract in force. It will be fulfilled. And I don’t distinguish between enemies foreign or domestic.”
He understood.
Nothing got said during the next course. Then he blurted, “Did you kill Jahamaraj Jah?”
“Yes.”
“My gods! Why?”
“His existence offended me.”
He gulped some air.
“He deserted at Dejagore. That cost us the battle. That was reason enough. But he also planned to kill your sister and blame me. He had a wife. If Shadar women are foolish enough to kill themselves over men, you can tell her to fire her ghat. Any priest’s wife who has a husband like Jah had better start collecting firewood. She’ll need it.”
He winced. “You’ll start a civil war.”
“Not if everybody behaves and minds his own business.”
“You don’t understand. Priests consider everything their business.”
“How many men are we talking about? A few thousand? You ever watch a gardener prune? He snips a twig here, a branch there, and the plant grows stronger. I’ll prune if I have to.”
“But... There’s only you. You can’t take on...”
“I can. I will. I’m going to fulfill the contract. And so are you.”
“What?”
“I’ve heard that you and your sister didn’t negotiate in good faith. Not smart, my friend. Nobody cheats the Company.”
He did not respond.
“I’m not really good at games. I’m not subtle. My solutions are forthright and final.”