"Th‘ wise man thinks, an' then he says, ‘Hae y' a goat?‘
" ‘A goat?'
" ‘Aye, a goat.'
" ‘Ah hae a goat.'
"Move it i‘ th' house, too.‘
"An‘ once again, th' wise man refuse‘! say more.
"So th‘ man, noo puzzled sorely, wander't back't' his wee home, an‘ thinkit. But 'cause th‘ sage i' truly wise, he move th‘ goat i' wi‘ him an' th‘ coo.
"An‘ noo he truly canna stand it, f'r his house is e'en smaller.
"So again, he goes back't‘ th' wise man, an‘ asks f r help, sayin't 'Ah hae a wee house, noo wi‘ a coo an' a goat i‘ it, an' i's bleedin‘ crowded, an' Ah canna stand it.‘
"An‘ th' wise man think't, an‘ then he says, 'Hae y‘ chickens?'
‘Chickens?'
‘Aye, chickens.'
‘Aye, Ah hae chickens.'
" ‘Move 'em i‘ th' house. Come't‘ ponder, i' y‘ hae ducks, an' swans, an‘ pigs, hae them i' the house ae well.‘
"An‘ despite th' man's pleadin‘, th' wise man sayit noo more.
"But th‘ man goes back home, an' puts th‘ chickens in th' house. An‘ noo i's worse, i's so bad i's intolerable. Thae's no room left i' th‘ house f'r th' man, i's so crowded.
"An‘ he journeys back yet again't' th‘ wise man, an' says, ‘Ah canna stand it! M' wee house hae naught but animals i‘ it, an' there's noo room ae all f'r me! Noo, Ah'm pleadin't, help me!‘
"An‘ th' wise man sayit, ‘Go home, an' take all th‘ animals oot ae th' house.‘
"An‘ thae's all he'll say.
"An' th‘ man rush't home, an' clear oot all th‘ animals, an' y‘ ken whae he discovered?
"He still hae a wee house.
"But noo it's entire full ae animal shit!"
Marl stared at Kilgour for long moments. She had been warned. She should have known. But...
"What does that have to do with patience?"
"Y‘ listened all th' way through, di'nt y‘?"
Cind was the first to spot Kilgour's gravsled as it sped up the dirt track toward them.
"It's over, isn't it," Sten said, just a bit sadly.
"It is. It was time to come back anyway, since we were out of stregg. But we've still got three containers of the herbed anchovy pate't right here in my pack with the dead soldiers. We could've stayed out another week on that wonderful tastebud-tingling delight you had to go and discover."
"So I made a mistake. The label made it look trick. Cut me some slack—I'm the one who brought the adobo."
‘True, and forgotten if not forgiven," Cind said. "Now, all we have to do is explain why we're sunburned in places nobody gets sunburned climbing rocks."
"The cover story is that we were learning how to ski nekkid. Not that anybody better ask."
Sten turned serious. "Thanks, Cind. Five days—I wish we would have had five fives. This'll be something to remember in a few weeks.
"When things... heat up again. A good reminder that it doesn't have to be crazy all the time."
Her answer was a kiss.
Sten pulled her tight And the gravsled grounded, so neither of them had to continue the thought that something like this might never happen again for them.
They had expected just Alex. Instead, Ida ploomped out of the front passenger seat beside him. She was even fatter than the last time Sten had seen her, and her brightly colored gown was even more expensive. Obviously her vitsa—family/band—hadn't completely lost its senses, and she remained as chieftain— Voivode.
She may have been fat, but she unloaded from the gravsled as smoothly as she had moved years ago as a Mantis operative with far fewer years and kilos.
Of course, she did not greet Sten with any sort of compliment, any more than she would have met Kilgour without an insult
"You are still disgustingly outdoorsy," was all she said. Then she looked Cind up and down.
"So you are the one."
"I don't know," Cind said. "What is the one?"
Sten intervened. "Ida, since when are you vetting my life?"
"I always did, imbecile. You just weren't smart enough to realize it."
"Oh."
"She appears all right," Ida judged. "A good companion. A man should not sleep alone. Nor a woman."
"Th‘ coo's snapp't, gettin' all sentimental an‘ a'," Kilgour said. "Pinch'd m‘ thigh on th' way out."
Ida merely sneered at Kilgour's cheap lie.
"Greetings out of the way," she said, "can we get out of this clottin‘ snow and somewhere close to a fire and some alk?"
The four loaded, and Kilgour lifted the gravsled back for Otho's castle, where Sten was quartered. Ida—who hadn't, of course, offered to get in the back and let Sten ride up front— swiveled around to eye him.
"So. It is finally time to end all this nonsense with the Emperor, eh?"
"You go right to it, don't you?" Sten said.
"Enough is enough. It was barely tolerable back then for the Rom, with all these laws and beings with their borders and boundaries who start wars for this clot who dubbed himself Emperor. And back then all of them were considered sane, at least by the thinking of the gadje. We Rom always knew better. Freedom cannot be served by making laws and fences.
"The Empire had become too much for us, even before that bastard on Prime went mad. There had been discussions at tribal gatherings of this. Perhaps it is time for the Rom to move on."
‘To where?"
"Beyond." She gestured upward, forgetting about the gravsled's roof and putting a minor dent in it. "Beyond the Empire, beyond where it stretches now, beyond where it will ever reach. It is time to search out treasures and beings we can't even imagine. This little Empire has suddenly become hard to breathe in."
Sten suddenly had a dizzying, entrancing vision of swirling, unknown galaxies, stars, and systems whispering the invitation to adventure, instead of this seemingly endless series of wars and slaughter. Beyond. It drew his soul like a magnet.
"Load the ships with our most precious and compact trading goods, fuel them and slave some barges as tankers, and set a one-way course," Ida continued. "I have heard stories some Voi-vodes have already convinced their tribes to move on, and it is true that some vitsa are not seen at council anymore. After all, it is said we Rom did not originally come from the worlds of men."
She turned back to the subject at hand. "But that is a matter for later, after we have killed this gadje who's called himself Emperor too long. Here is the situation for us Rom, Sten. We have come to serve the star of freedom. Which, at least for the moment, means you and your allies. If that changes—or if you change—then we shall reevaluate the situation."
"Thank you," Sten said. "I accept."
"We hae also," Alex said, without taking his eyes from his piloting, "heard frae Wild. He offer'd‘t' set doon, but Ah advised him to hang offworld. P'raps th‘ fewer who ken we hae a bargain wi' th‘ king of the smugglers, th' better it might be."
"Good," Sten approved. "We'll send one of the Bhor ships up to pick him up and any lieutenant he wants for a strategy session when it's set."
He settled back in his seat.
The forces of rebellion were gathering...
"I have," Sten began, "what, for want of a weaker term, might be a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one."
The seven beings listening to him were dwarfed in Otho's great banquet hall, which could easily hold two thousand Bhor in cheerful riot.
The hall would have satisfied the most critical Viking as an acceptable place for Valholl, even though the roof wasn't made of war shields, and there wasn't a goat with aquavit-flowing teats handy. Far overhead were monstrous wood-beamed ceilings, with skylights in the roof, now snow-covered from the driving storm outside. Four huge fireplaces that it seemed a tacship could park in roared at each corner of the building, and the AM2-powered radiators that provided the real warmth were hidden behind false stonework.