One-Eye said, “He’s going to try to sell you something, Croaker.”
I grinned. “We’ll have some fun with him while he tries. Watch them. Be friendly with them. Find out whatever you can. Where’s Lady gotten off to now?”
I was too fussed. She wasn’t far off. She was standing aside, inspecting our new acquisitions from another angle. I beckoned her. “What do you think?” I asked when she joined me. Swan’s eyes popped when he got a good look at her. He was in love.
“Not much. Watch the woman. She’s in charge. And she’s used to getting her own way.”
“Aren’t you all?”
“Cynic.”
“That’s me. To the bone. And you’re the one made me that way, love.”
She gave me a funny look, forced a smile.
I wondered if we’d ever recover that moment on that hillside so many miles to the north.
We were just coming back to the river, after having walked past the Third Cataract, when Willow joined me as I walked my horse. He eyed the big black nervously and got around where I would be between it and him. He asked, “Are you guys really the Black Company?”
“The one and only. The evil, mean, rude, crude, nasty, and sometimes even unpleasant Black Company. You never spent any time in the military, did you?”
“As little as I could. Man, last I heard there was a thousand of you guys. What happened?”
“Times got hard up north. A year ago we were down to seven men. How long ago did you leave the empire?”
“Way back. Me and Cordy bugged out of Roses maybe a year after you guys were in there after that Rebel general, Raker. I wasn’t much more than a kid. We sort of drifted from one thing to another, headed south. First thing you know, we was across the Sea of Torments. Then we got into some trouble with the imperials, so we had to get out of the empire. Then we just kept drifting, a little bit this year, a little bit that. We hooked up with Blade. Next thing you know, here we are down here. What’re you guys doing here?”
“Going home.” That was all I needed to tell him.
He knew plenty about us if he had come to us knowing Taglios was on our itinerary but not our final destination.
I said, “In a military outfit it’s not acceptable behavior for just anybody to walk up and start shooting the shit with the commander any time they feel like it. I try to keep this outfit looking military. It intimidates the yokels.”
“Yeah. Gotcha. Channels, and all that. Right.” He went away.
His Taglios was a long way off. I figured we had time to sort his bunch out. So why press?
Chapter Twenty-two: TAGLIOS
We returned to the river and sailed down to the Second Cataract. Faster traffic had carried the word that the boys were back. Idon, a bizarre strip of a town, was a ghost city. We saw not a dozen souls there. Once again we had come to a place where the Black Company was remembered. That made me uncomfortable.
What had our forebrethren done down here? The Annals went on about the Pastel Wars but did not recall the sort of excesses that would terrify the descendants of the survivors forever.
Below Idon, while we waited to find a bargemaster with guts enough to take us south, I had Murgen plant the standard. Mogaba, as serious as ever, got a ditch dug and our encampment lightly fortified. I swiped a boat and crossed the river and climbed the hills to the ruins of Cho’n Delor. I spent a day roaming that haunted memorial to a dead god, alone except for crows, always wondering about the sort of men who had gone before me.
I suspected and feared that they had been men very much like me. Men caught in the rhythm and motion and pace, unable to wriggle free.
The Annalist who recorded the epic struggle that took place while the Company was in service to the Paingod had written a lot of words, sometimes going into too great a detail about daily minutiae, but he had had very little to say about the men with whom he had served.
Most had left their mark only when he recorded their passing.
I have been accused of the same. It has been said that too often when I bother to mention someone in particular it is only as a name of the slain. And maybe there’s truth in that. Or maybe that’s getting it backward. There is always pain in writing about those who have perished before me. Even when I mention them only in passing. These are my brethren, my family. Now, almost, my children. These Annals are their memorial. And my catharsis. But even as a child I was a master at damping and concealing my emotions.
But I was speaking of ruins, the spoor of battle.
The Pastel Wars must have been a struggle as bitter as that we had endured in the north, confined to a smaller territory. The scars were still grim. They might take a thousand years to heal.
Twice during that outing I thought I glimpsed the mobile stump I had seen from the wall of the Temple of Travellers’ Repose. I tried getting closer, for a better look, but it always disappeared on me.
It was never more than a glimpse from the corner of my eye, anyway. Maybe I was imagining it.
I did not get to explore as thoroughly as I wanted. I was tempted to hang around but the old animal down inside told me I did not want to be stranded in those ruins after dark. It told me wicked things stalked Cho’n Delor’s night. I listened. I went back over the river. Mogaba met me at the shore. He wanted to know what I had found. He was as interested in the Company’s past as I was.
I liked and respected the big black man more with every hour. That evening I formalized his hitherto de facto status as commander of the Company infantry. And I resolved to take Murgen’s Annalist training more seriously.
Maybe it was just a hunch. Whatever, I decided that it was time I got the Company’s internal workings whipped into order.
All these natives, lately, were afraid of us. They carried old grudges. Maybe farther down the river there was somebody with less fear and a bigger grudge.
We were on the brink of lands where the Company’s adventures were recalled in the early lost volumes of the Annals. The earliest extant picked up our tale in cities north of Trogo Taglios — cities that no longer exist. I wished there was some way I could dig details of the past out of the locals. But they were not talking to us.
While I moped around Cho’n Delor One-Eye found a southern bargemaster willing to carry us all the way to Trogo Taglios. The man’s fee was exorbitant, but Willow Swan assured me I was unlikely to get a better offer. We were haunted by our historical legacy.
I got no help from Swan or his companions unearthing that.
My notion for unmasking Swan and his gang gradually made very little headway. The woman forced them to stay to themselves, which did not please Cordy Mather. He was hungry for news from the empire. I did find out that the old man was called Smoke, but never got a hint of the woman’s name. Even with Frogface on the job.
They were cautious people.
Meantime, they watched us so closely I felt they were taking notes whenever I bellied up to the rail to increase the flow in the river.
Other concerns plagued me, too. Crows. Always, crows. And Lady, who hardly spoke these days. She pulled her turns at duty with the rest of the Company but stayed out of the way otherwise.
Shifter and his girlfriend were not to be seen. They had disappeared while we unloaded at Thresh — though I held the disturbing certainty that they were still around, close enough to be watching.
What with the crows and all our arrivals anticipated I had the feeling I was being watched all the time. It was not hard to get a little paranoid.
We rode the rapids of the First Cataract and swept on down the great river, into the dawn of Company history.
My maps called it Troko Tallios. Locally they called it Trogo Taglios, though those who lived there used the shorter Taglios, mostly. As Swan said, the Trogo part refers to an older city that has been enveloped by the younger, more energetic Taglios.
It was the biggest city I had ever seen, a vast sprawl without a protective wall, still growing rapidly, horizontally instead of vertically. N
orthern cities grow upward because no one wants to build outside the wall.
Taglios lay on the southeast bank of the great river, actually inland a little, straddling a tributary that snakes between a half-dozen low hills. We debarked in a place that was really a satellite of the greater city, a riverport town called Maheranga. Soon Maheranga would share the fate of Trogo.
Trogo retained its identity only because it was the seat of the lords of the greater principiate, its governmental and religious center.
The Taglian people seemed friendly, peaceable, and overly god-ridden, much as Swan and Mather had described in brief exchanges during our journey. But underneath that they seemed to be frightened. And Swan had told us nothing about that.
And it was not the Company that was their terror. They treated us with respect and courtesy.
Swan and party vanished as soon as we tied up. I did not have to tell One-Eye to keep an eye on them.
The maps showed the sea only forty miles from Taglios, but that was along a straight line to the nearest coast, west across the river. Down the river’s meander and delta it was two hundred miles to salt water. On the map the delta looked like a many-fingered, spidery hand clawing at the belly of the sea.
It is useful to know a little about Taglios because the Company ended up spending a lot more time there than any of us planned. Maybe even more than the Taglians themselves hoped.
Once I was convinced we would be secure doing so I ordered a break at Taglios. The rest was overdue. And I needed to do some heavy research. We were near the edge of the maps in my possession.
I discovered that I had come to count on Swan and Mather to show me around. Without them I was forced to rely on One-Eye’s pet devil. And that I did not like. For no reason I could finger, I did not entirely trust the imp. Maybe it was because his sense of humor so closely reflected his owner’s. The only time you trusted One-Eye was when your life was at stake.
I hoped we were now far enough south that I could chart the rest of our course to Khatovar before we resumed travelling.
Lady had been the perfect soldier since the encounter on the river, though not much of a companion otherwise. She was shaken badly by the Howler’s return and enmity. He had been a staunch supporter in the old days.
She was still caught in the purgatory zone between the old Lady and the new that had to be, and the heart was not bound in the same direction as the head. She could not find her way out and, much as I ached for her, I did not know how to take her hand and show her.
I figured she deserved a distraction. I had Frogface shop for a local equivalent of Opal’s Gardens and he astonished me by finding one. I asked Lady if she would be interested in a real social evening out.
She was amenable, if not excited after so many months of neglect. Not thrilled. Just, “I don’t have anything better to do, so why not.”
She never was the social sort. And both my maneuver on the river and my evasions through attention to duty had not left her pleased with me.
We did it decked out, with drama, though without as much uproar as we had raised in Opal. I did not want the local lords taking offense. One-Eye and Goblin behaved. Frogface was the only clear evidence of sorcery. None of that nastiness we had shown in Opal. Frogface went along in his capacity as universal translator.
One-Eye decked his pet out in a costume as flamboyant as his own, one that mocked Goblin’s dress subtly. It seemed to state that this was how nice Goblin could look if he would get over being a slob.
Taglios’s elite went to see and be seen in an olive grove past its prime bearing years. The grove bestrode a hill near old Trogo. A hot spring fed a score of private baths. It cost a bundle to get in when you were not known, most of that in bribes. Even so, it was two days after I asked before room could be found for us.
We went in the coach with Goblin and One-Eye up top and squads of four Nar each marching before and behind. Murgen drove. He took the coach away after he delivered us. The others accompanied us into the grove. I wore my legate’s costume. Lady was dressed for the kill, but in black. All the time with the black. It looked good on her, but times were I wished she would try another color.
She said, “Our presence has stirred more interest than you expected.” Our advent had caused very little stir in the streets of Taglios.
She was right. Unless the grove was a major in place to spend an evening a lot of class folks had come out just to give us the eye. It looked like everyone who might be anyone was there. “Wonder why?”
“There’s something going on here, Croaker.”
I am not blind. I knew. I knew after a few minutes with Willow Swan way back upriver. But I could not find out what. Even Frogface was no help. If they did any scheming they did it when he was not around.
Except for the Nar, who had lived with ceremony in Gea-Xle, we were all uncomfortable under the pressure of so many eyes. I admitted, “This might not have been one of my brighter ideas.”
“On the contrary. It confirms our suspicions that there’s a greater interest in us than should be for simple travellers. They mean to use us.” She was disturbed.
“Welcome to life in the Black Company, sweetheart,” I said. “Now you know why I’m cynical about lords and such. Now you know one of the feelings I’ve been trying to get across.”
“Maybe I get it. A little. I feel demeaned. Like I’m not human at all but an object that might be useful.”
“Like I said, welcome to the Black Company.”
That was not all her problem. I barken back to the rogue Taken Howler, the dead unexpectedly alive and inimical. No amount of tall talking would convince me his appearance on the river was chance. He had been there to do us hurt.
Moreover, there had been an odd and unusual interest in us at least since Opal. I looked for crows.
There were crows in the olive trees, quiet and still. Watching. Always watching.
Shapeshifter’s presence in Gea-Xle, the dead again living, waiting for Lady. There were hidden schemes brewing. Too much had happened to let me believe otherwise.
I had not pressed her. Yet. She was being a good soldier. Maybe waiting...
For what?
I had learned long ago that I can find out more around her sort by watching and listening and thinking than I ever do by asking. They lie and mislead even when there is no need. More, except in her own case, I did not think she had any better idea what was stirring than I did.
The grove staff showed us to a private bower with its own hot mineral bath. The Nar spread out. Goblin and One-Eye found themselves inconspicuous posts. Frogface stayed close, to interpret.
We settled.
“How is your research coming?” Lady asked. She toyed with some plump purple grapes.
“Strangely is the only way to describe it. I think we’re right up next to the place where you come to the end of the earth and fall off the edge.”
“What? Oh. Your sense of humor.”
“Taglios is infested with chartmakers. They do good work. But I can’t find one map that will get me where I want to go.”
“Maybe you haven’t been able to make them understand what you need.”
“It wasn’t that. They understood. That’s the problem. You tell them what you need and they go deaf. New maps only run to the southern borders of Taglian territory. When you can find an old one, it fades to blank eight hundred miles southeast of the city. It’s the same even with maps so good they show damned near every tree and cottage.”
“They’re hiding something?”
“A whole city? Don’t seem likely. But it does look like there’s no other explanation.”
“You asked the appropriate questions?”
“With the silver-tongued cunning of a snake. When the blank space comes up translation problems develop.”
“What will you do?”
Dusk had come. Lamplighters were at work. I watched a moment. “Maybe use Frogface somehow. I’m not sure. We’re far enough back that the Annals are alm
ost useless. But the indicators are that we head straight for that blank space. You have any thoughts about it?”
“Me?”
“You. Things are happening around the Company. I don’t think that’s because I strut so pretty.”
“Phooey.”
“I haven’t pressed, Lady. For all there’s reason. And I won’t — unless I have to. But it would be nice to know why we’ve got one dead Taken hanging around watching us out of the bushes and another one that used to be your buddy trying to kill us back in those swamps. Might be interesting to know if he knew you were aboard that barge, or if he was working on a grudge against Shifter, or if he just wanted to keep traffic from moving down the river. Might be interesting to know if we’re likely to run into him again. Or somebody else who didn’t die on time.”
I tried to keep my tone gentle and neutral but some of my anger got through.
The first food arrived, bits of iced melon soaked in brandy. While we nibbled, some thoughtful soul gave our guardians food as well. Less elegant fare, perhaps, but food nevertheless.
Lady sucked a melon ball and looked thoughtful. Then her whole stance changed. She shouted, “Don’t eat that stuff!” She used the tongue of the Jewel Cities, which by now even the most thick-witted of the Nar understood.
Silence grabbed the grove. The Nar dropped their platters.
I rose. “What is it?”
“Someone has tampered with their food.”
“Poison?”
“Drugged, I’d guess. I’d have to check more closely.”
I went and got the nearest’s platter. He looked grim behind his Nar mask of indifference. He wanted to hurt somebody.
He got his chance when I turned back with my plunder.
A quick shuffle of feet. A thwack! of wood against flesh. A cry of pain that was little more than a whimper. I turned. The Nar had his spearpoint resting on the throat of a man sprawled before him. I recognized one of the lamplighters.
A long knife lay not far from his outflung hand.
I surveyed our surroundings. Bland faces watched from every direction.
“One-Eye. Frogface. Come here.” They came. “I want something low-key. Something that won’t disturb anybody’s dinner. But something that will have him in a mood to talk when I’m ready. Can do?”