He considered pretending amnesia, rejected it. He had given himself away by responding to Nepanthe. Some fast thinking was in order.
As he clambered aboard the barge, Ragnarson said, "Michael, you handle a blade damned good."
"Sir?"
"I've never seen anybody go to draw with Mocker."
"Wasn't a draw. He was tiring."
"That's why I stopped you. Where'd you learn?"
"My father's fencing master. But I'm not that good, really. At the Rebsamen...."
"You impressed me. You men. Get this sonofabitch cast off. We've got to disappear before they find out I told them a pack of lies."
Nepanthe slackened her fussing. Mocker took the opportu-nity to look around.
He didn't like what he saw.
Haaken leaned against the deckhouse, a piece of grass between his dark teeth, staring. Varthlokkur stared from the bows. Reskird, directing the bargemaster, stared. They didn't have friendly eyes.
The safest course would be to tell ninety percent of the truth.
He was confused. Nepanthe was babbling all the news since his capture. It piled up dizzyingly. She and Ethrian had been kidnapped by agents of Shinsan? Possibly by Chin, his supposed rescuer. Though he tried, he couldn't make the evidence of his own kidnapping indict Chin. If the Tervola had stacked it against Haroun, he had stacked it perfectly. The accusation against Bragi could be due to misinformation....
When it came to question time he told the exact truth. All he held back was his feeling that it hadn't ended, that he still had to make up his mind which way to jump.
For the moment he leaned toward his old companions, despite bin Yousif's apparent perfidy. He could be on Bragi's side without being on Haroun's.
"Get those lazy bastards rowing," Bragi yelled at Reskird. "Damn." He slapped at a mosquito. It was everybody's hobby. "Let's get some miles behind us before those clowns change their minds."
Mocker frowned puzz.ledly.
"Stealing a march, old buddy. One from Haroun's book. Kind of hate doing it to Aristithorn. He's not a bad guy. The others.... They deserve whatever they get."
"Self, am wondering what old friend blathers about. Is getting more governmentalized all time, till cannot speak with meaning."
"I made a deal with the junta that took over when we got rid of the Fadema. We finished what we came for. We got Nepanthe. Only reason we've been hanging around is we couldn't get out. So I told them, let us go home, we'll leave without bothering you anymore. If they didn't, I'd whip on them from behind the whole time they were trying to handle Necremnos. Argon's in a bad way. They'd didn't have muchchoice. My boys have been turning them every way but loose. They didn't have any stomach left for storming the Fadem, against my bows, with the Necremnens behind them. So they agreed. Ahring and TennHorst are moving out already.
"Of course, if they saw a chance to plunder us back, they'd jump on it. So hurry, damnit, Reskird."
"What about Necremnens?" Mocker asked.
Ragnarson grinned. "Their bad luck. They didn't show up because we needed help. They came to plunder. And they'd jump us too, if they thought they could get away with it. Old Pthothor hedged every time I tried to pin him down about designating plunder areas."
"Old friend is right. Trick is worthy of Haroun."
"Think they'll report to Pthothor?" Haaken asked after they debarked and joined the escort Ahring had left for them. The Necremnen rivermen were wasting no time heading upstream.
"Not unless he heads them off," Bragi replied. "Those boys are scared. They're homeward bound."
Later, as they hurried along a road raised above rice paddies, Visigodred's roc made a clumsy landing a few hundred yards ahead. Marco tumbled off, landed with a hearty splash and heartier cursing. He came boiling up the embankment, blood in his eye. He fell back. Sputtering, he tried again.
"Goddamned overgrown buzzard, you did that on purpose. We're gonna bring this pimple to a head. You're lower than snake puke, you know that, you big-ass vulture?"
He slipped again. Splash!
"Throw him a rope," Ragnarson suggested.
The bird quietly preened, ignoring everyone.
"I'm gonna carve out your gizzard and make me giblet stew," Marco promised. Soldiers helped him dry off. He bowed mockingly toward Ragnarson.
"Got a word for you, chief," he said. "And that's get your butt home. That creep Badalamen is kicking ass all over Hammad al Nakir. And El Murid told him to wale on Kavelin next." He snatched a lance from,-a trooper, rushed the bird, whacked it between the eyes. "Listen, bird, if I wasn't allergic to walking...."
Ragnarson waved his companions past and hurried onward. Marco was still cursing when they passed out of earshot.
The army gulped huge distances daily. Ragnarson walked himself, to demonstrate that anyone could manage. The columnbecame strung out. Plains riders came for a look, but withdrew when they saw the Thing and the Egg prowling the column's flanks.
Ragnarson halted near Throyes, sent a party to the city for supplies, and to inform the Throyens of Varthlokkur's presence. The Throyens might have been tempted otherwise. The loot of the Fadem was considerable.
Mocker went along.
He had been given plunder money and he knew Throyes of old. He knew its gaming houses well.
It was in one of those that the Throyen Nine contacted him.
The emissary was fatter than he. Sweat rolled off him in rivers, and he smelled. Flies loved him. Yet men made way for him when he approached the table where Mocker, having an apparent run of luck, was amazing the house with his bets.
The man watched during three passes of the dice. Then he whispered, "I would speak with you, fat man."
"Hai! Is case of kettles calling pot black. Begone, ponderous interrupter of...."
"You want these people to check your dice?"
Mocker rattled the bones slowly, wondering if he could resubstitute without the fat man noticing.
"Come. We have to talk."
Mocker collected his winnings, apologized to the onlookers. The house didn't object, which was surprising. He was into it deep.
He did manage to switch dice before departing.
He followed the fat man outside and into an alley....
He grabbed the fatter man, laid a dagger across his throat. "Self, being old skulker of alleys, take steps first, before trap springs," he murmured. "Speak. Or second, redder mouth opens under first."
The bigger man didn't seem perturbed. "I speak for the Hidden Kingdom."
Mocker had wondered if the contact would ever come. He hadn't done much to please Lord Chin.
"Speak." He didn't relax.
"The message comes from the Pracchia. A directive. Dispose of the man named Ragnarson."
"And in case of possibility former adherent, self, has changed mind?"
"They have your son. You choose which dies."
"Pestilential pig!" He drew the blade across the fat man's throat.
But when he turned to flee he found someone blocking his path. The man threw dust into his face.
He collapsed.
Endlessly repetitive, droning voices told him what he had to do....
"Here he is," Haaken called. Several Kaveliners joined him in the alley. "The fat guy must be the one he left with. Poul, look out for the Watch. This other one looks like Mocker nailed him before he went down."
A soldier knelt beside Mocker. "He's alive, Colonel. Looks like he got knocked in the head."
"Check his purse."
"Empty."
"Funny. It's not like him to get caught this easy. Here. Blood. Looks like he hurt a couple more, but they got away." He stirred a third body with his foot. Mocker's sword still pierced its heart. "What the hell was he doing down an alley with somebody he didn't know? With that much money on him? And why the hell didn't they kill him?"
"Colonel...." Poul shouted too late.
The Watch identified the man with Mocker's blade in him as a notorious cutpurse. The fat man was an important magistrate. They took detailed depositions. Their mucking around enraged the managers of the gaming house. The police wanted to hold Mocker. Blackfang fumed and stormed and threatened to have Varthlokkur roast their tongues in their mouths. They finally released Mocker on condition that his deposition would be presented as soon as he recovered.