The two fellows carrying the chest put it down.
"I fear they are everywhere," said the captain.
"Who?" I asked.
"The Delta Brigade," he said.
I myself, in a paga tavern or two, some days ago, had dropped this expression, mentioning it as though it were one I had heard somewhere, and was curious to understand. I was pleased to note that it was no common currency in Ar. Such are the wings of rumors.
"You think the afternoon's attack was the work of this Delta Brigade?" I asked. "Surely," he said.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"Dissidents, or renegades, doubtless," said the captain, "traitors to both Cos and Ar."
"I see," I said.
"I suspect veterans of the delta campaign," he said, "or scions of disaffected cities, such as Ar's Station."
"I am from Ar's Station," said Marcus.
"But you are an auxiliary," said the captain.
"True," said Marcus.
"Perhaps Marlenus of Ar has returned," I said. I thought that an excellent rumor to start.
"No," said the captain. "I do not think so. Marlenus was not, as far as we know, in the delta. I think it is more likely to be veterans of the delta, of which there are many in the city, or fellows from the north, from Ar's Station or somewhere."
"Perhaps you are right," I said. The captain was a shrewd fellow, and thusly an unlikely candidate to enlist in my efforts to initiate rumors, or at least this particular one. To be sure, even a fellow of genuine probity, one who is unlikely to nourish, reproduce, transmit, or credit a rumor in its infancy, may find himself uncritically accepting it later on, when it becomes "common knowledge," so to speak. Are we not all the victims of hearsay, even with respect to many of our most profound «truths»? Of our thousands and hundreds of thousands, of such "truths," how many have we personally earned? How many of us can determine the distance of a planet or the structure of a molecule?
"I will have a wagon sent for the bodies," said the captain.
"Yes, Captain," I said.
The captain regarded the delka, scrawled on the wall, with anger.
"It is only a scratching, a mark," I said. "No," he said. "It is more. It is a defiance of Cos, and of Ar!"
"Of Ar?" I asked.
"As she is today," he said.
"But perhaps not of the old Ar," I said.
"Perhaps not," he said.
"You have met men of Ar in battle?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "And it is a mark of the old Ar, the Ar I knew in war, the Ar of spears and standards, of rides and marches, of dust and trumpets, of tarns and tharlarion, the Ar of imperialism, of glory, of valor, and pride. That is why it is so dangerous. It is a recollection of the old Ar."
"The true Ar?"
"If you wish," he said. Then he exclaimed, angrily. "They have been defeated! She is dead! She is gone! How dare they remember her?"
He looked up and down the street. It now seemed deserted. I did not doubt but what word of what had occurred had spread.
"How dare they resist?" he asked.
"There seem few here now," I said.
"They are there, somewhere," he said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Guard yourselves," he said.
"Thank you, Captain," I said.
"They may be anywhere," he said.
"Surely there are only a few," I said, "perhaps a few madmen who cannot understand the barest essentials of the most obvious realities, political and prudential."
"They are verr," he said. "But not all of them. Some pretend to be verr. Some are sleen, disguised in the skins of verr."
"Or larls," I said, "patient, unreconciled, dangerous, capable of action."
"Cos, too, has her larls," said the captain.
"I do not doubt it," I said.
"Had I my way," he said, "we would have finished Ar. She would have been done with then, forever. There would be nothing here now but ashes and salt. Even her name would be excised from the monuments, from the documents, from the histories. It would be as though she had not been."
"It is hard for a man to be great who does not have great enemies," I said. "And so Cos and Ar require one another, that each may be greater than they could otherwise be?" he asked.
"Perhaps," I said.
"There was no glory here," he said. "We did not win this victory in storm and fire, surmounting walls, breaching gates, winning Ar street by street, house by house. It was not we who defeated Ar. It was her putative own who betrayed her, in jealousy and intrigue, in ambition and greed. Ideas and lies defeated Ar. It was done through the sowing of confusion, the propagation of self-doubt and guilt, all suitably bedizened in the meretricious rhetorics of morality. We taught them that evil was good, and good evil, that strength was weakness, and weakness strength, that health was sickness, and sickness health. We made them distrust themselves, and taught them to believe that their most basic instincts and elemental insights, the most essential and primitive promptings of their blood, were to be repudiated in favor of self-denial and frustration, in favor of vacuous principles, used by us as weapons against them, in favor stultifying verbalisms, to cripple and bleed them, and entrap them in our tolls. And thus, betrayed by those who sought advancement in the destruction and dissolution of their own community, abetted by the well-intentioned, the simpleminded, the idealists, the fools, they put themselves at our mercy, at that of another community, one not so foolish, or not so sickened, as theirs. I saw strong men gladly setting aside their weapons. I saw citizens of Ar singing as their gates burned, as they tore down their walls with their own hands. That is no honest victory for Cos, won at the walls, at the gates, in the streets. That is not a victory of which we can be proud. That is a victory not of steel but by poison."
"You are a warrior," I said.
"Once," he said.
He turned and looked at the shop. "When the bodies are removed," he said. "I think I shall have this shop burned."
"There are adjoining buildings," I said.
"Ah, yes," he said. "We must avoid incidents. We must keep the verr pacified, lest they learn how they are milked and shorn."
"Surely you do not believe the merchant is involved with the Delta Brigade," I said.
"No," he said. "I do not really believe that."
"And the slain men?" I asked.
"Well-known brigands," he said, "insults to the armbands they wear."
"And what report will you make of this?" I asked.
"Heroes, of course," said he, "slain by overwhelming odds."
"I see," I said.
"There is a game here," he said, "which I shall play/ I have no wish to lose my post. You see, the sickness of Ar infects even her conquerors. We must pretend to believe the same lies."
"I understand," I said.
"And even if I did not make such a report I do not doubt but what it would be something to that effect which would eventually reach the tent of Myron, my polemarkos."
"He is a good officer," I said.
"Yes," said the captain/ I had always heard this of Myron. To be sure, I had gathered that he had once been too much under the influence of a woman, a mere slave, who had been named Lucilina. She had been captured and was now owned by a common soldier in the retinue of Dietrich of Tarnburg. No longer was she a high slave, pampered and indulged. She was now a low slave, and among the lowest of the low, and was worked hard. She must often kneel and fear whipping. It was said, too, that in the arms of her master, well handled and mastered, she had discovered her womanhood. I doubted that Myron, for his part, would again make the mistake he had made with her. I did not doubt but what his women would now be well kept in their place, at his feet. They would kneel there, I did not doubt, in all trembling and subservience, and be in no doubt as to their collaring.
Again the captain looked angrily at the furrowed wall, the tracing of that triangle, the delka.
"Captain?" I said.
"How many do you think are in the Delta Brigade?" he asked.
"I do not know," I said. "Surely no more than a few."