"Trinket." Croaker resumed pacing. He mused, "I remember Trinket. But just the name. We were at the Stair of Tear. We got word that Trinket was surrounded. In the east. We were busy with Harden. I don't know if I even mentioned it in the Annals."
Ha! A chance to show off. "You did. One sentence. That's it, though. You said Whisper had taken Rust and Trinket was surrounded."
"Whisper. Yes. She'd been Taken only a little while." He had been there to help set up the Taking. "That's one for Lady. She would know if there was anything between those two."
"Trinket was female," Hagop told us. "What's Longshadow?"
Croaker frowned.
I said, "He never gets all the way naked but I'm pretty sure Longshadow is a he. Physically."
The Old Man offered me a daggers look. Damn! But the Taglians were way off in a corner sulking. None of them caught my slip. Hagop was not on the list of three, either, though. I hastened to amend myself. "But Smoke is the only one who ever saw him in the flesh. And he ain't talking."
"He still alive?" Hagop asked.
"Barely," Croaker said. "We keep him alive. Men have come back from comas before. That's it, Hagop? All that time and travel. That's all you got me?"
"That's the way she goes sometimes, boss." He grinned. "Oh. I almost forgot. They did give me a coffin full of papers and stuff that night have belonged to some of the people who maybe could have turned into Longshadow if he was ever one of the Eighteen. The stuff is all packaged and labeled in case some wizard decides he wants to use them."
Croaker's face lit up like a bonfire. "You shithead." Grinning, he yelled, "Otto, send them guys home, why don't you? Bonharj, the rest of you, what the hell are you doing hanging around here? Your people want to see you." He told me, "Guess we ought to ship that stuff down to Lady. She'll know what to do with it."
Otto hustled the Taglians out of the warehouse. They seemed baffled by the Liberator's sudden generosity. Me too.
Hagop said, "Now how about you guys telling what's been happening?"
I said, "A whole lot. But nothing big and dramatic. We keep nibbling them to death."
"Is Mogaba really the head honcho of Longshadow's army?"
"Absolutely. He's one kickass sonofabitch, too, only Longshadow won't let him run loose. He has to mess with us secondhand, mostly, letting Blade do his dirty work."
"Huh? Blade? Like in Blade of Blade and Mather and Swan?"
"Oh. Yeah." I glanced at the Old Man, whose expression had gone stony. "Yeah. Blade defected while you were gone."
"Let's get back to the Palace, Murgen," Croaker said. "We have work to do."
92
Croaker did not say much as we walked, though he did snarl at people who dared stare at the Shadar and his white-devil companion. We northerners are so few that even after years few of the commoners have yet seen any of us. And, of course, we have done very little to dispel our evil reputation.
Some intellectuals inside the priesthoods have argued that the friendship of today's Black Company is as deadly to Taglios as was the enmity of its remote forbears.
Their complaint may have merit.
We were coming up to the Palace. Croaker kept grumbling to himself, mostly because so little had come of the expedition. That had been his pet and his expectations had run away with him. He asked, "How long are your in-laws going to hang around?"
I was not going to make him happy. "For the duration. They want their slice of Narayan Singh." The Old Man still distrusted Uncle Doj.
"They know about Smoke?"
"Of course not! Damnit... !"
"Keep it that way. You find his library again yet?"
I had mentioned having stumbled onto that. "Not yet." Fact was, I had made no more than a token effort. I had too much else on my mind.
"Try a little harder." He knew. "Don't spend so much time with Smoke. And I think it might be useful to look at those old Annals before we head south."
"How come you never looked for the library yourself? You've had years."
"I heard it got destroyed the night that Smoke got mauled. Now it looks like that must have happened in some other room. The Radisha wouldn't mislead me about something like that. Would she? Nah."
We paused while a Vehdna cavalry regiment passed in review outside the Palace. It had come from upcountry somewhere and was just paying its respects before taking the field. The robes and turbans of the troopers were clean and gaudy. Their lances were all brightly pennoned. Their spearheads gleamed. Their mounts were beautiful, admirably trained and perfectly groomed.
"Too bad pretty don't win wars," I said. The Black Company is not pretty.
Croaker grunted. I glanced at him. And surprised what might have been a teardrop in the corner of his eye.
He knew what awaited all those brave young men.
We crossed behind the horsemen, stepping carefully.
One-Eye met us in the hall way outside Croaker's apartment. "What's the word?"
Croaker shook his head. "No magic answers."
"We always get to do it the hard way."
I told him, "I'm supposed to look for that library room I found the other night. You got something to help keep me from getting confused?"
He looked at me like that might be a tall order. "I already gave you something." He indicated the yarn on my wrist.
"That was for your spells. There's probably still a bunch of Smoke's left over, too."
The runt thought about that. "Could be. Give me that." His gaze fell on my amulet as I removed the yarn. "Jade?" He held my wrist momentarily.
"I think so. It belonged to Sarie's grandmother, Hong Tray. You never met her. She was the old Speaker's wife."
"You been wearing this all these years and I never noticed?"
"I never wore it till Sarie... Until the other night. Sarie wore it sometimes, though, when she wanted to dress up."
"Ah, yes. I recall." He frowned like he was trying to remember something, then shrugged, went off into a shadow and muttered to the yarn for a while. When he returned he said, "That ought to get you through anybody's confusion spells. Except maybe your own."
"What?"
"You had any of your attacks lately?"
"No. Not that I remember." I offered the amendment because I had had them before without being aware of them. Apparently.
"You had any new ideas about what caused them? Or who you kept running into when you went back to Dejagore?"
"I was escaping from the pain of losing Sarie."
One-Eye laid one of his more intense stares upon me, just the way he had whenever he helped fish me out of the past. Evidently he was not convinced.
I asked, "Is it suddenly important again?"
"It never stopped being important, Murgen. There just hasn't been time to pursue it."
Nor was there now.
He said, "We just have to let you take charge of yourself, to watch out and do the right thing in a crunch."
One-Eye being totally serious? That was spooky.
Croaker had lost interest. He was back at his charts and figures. But he did reiterate, "I want to see those books before we hit the road."
I can take a hint, sometimes. "I'm on my way, Boss."
93
I stopped in to make sure Smoke was still breathing. I fed him while I was there. Keeping him fed and clean was now my cover for being there should someone like the Radisha ever penetrate One-Eye's network of spells, much augmented since I had begun working with the old wizard. Then I tried to recall the various twists and turns I had taken the night I found Smoke's library. My memories were not clear. That had been a time of stress and a lot had happened since.