"There's no doubt," the Radisha admitted to a priest of Rhavi-Lemna, a goddess of brotherly love, "that the Liberator has been sending troops raised among the devout to pursue his feud with Blade." News from the war zone was still far away. "He's blatant about it, it's true, but you people keep going along with it."
A priest in vermilion grumbled, "Because Blade has been promised the protectorship here when the Shadowmaster triumphs. He'll exterminate us all. If he's still alive."
"Which brings us to the crux again, doesn't it? Even though my brother has become a competent commander and a corps of experienced officers has developed, neither the soldiers themselves nor the people believe we can defeat the Shadowmaster without the guidance of the Black Company. We're still in a position where we're compelled to let darkness wrestle darkness, hoping our kind of darkness triumphs and we can control it after it does so."
Rhavi-Lemna was a reasonable goddess. It would not be natural for her priests to be firebrands. But the Gunni have a hundred gods and goddesses, great and small, and some of them are a lot less tolerant. Someone shouted, "We should kill them now! They're a greater danger to our way of life than any masked sorcerer eight hundred miles away."
There were still many Taglians who had not served in the armies nor traveled south to see what legacy the Shadowmasters had left in the lands retaken from their rule. Men who did not believe simply because they preferred something else to be true.
This was an unending squabble that might not be settled in my lifetime. There was a war on and as long as we did not yet have it won the "Kill them now!" school of thinking would remain a distinct minority. But the "Kill them later!" school had plenty of members.
"There aren't more than fifty or sixty of them," the Radisha countered. "How hard can it be to dispose of them once they've outlived their usefulness?"
"Pretty damned hard, I imagine. The Shadowmasters haven't managed. Neither have the Deceivers."
"Steps are being taken."
Interesting. I had not seen any sign of that.
Time to cruise days gone by, then.
Away I went. Skipping like a seven-year-old girl, toes coming down every hour or so as I headed toward the last time I checked on the Woman. There was not much there. A lot of the same stuff. One idea after another bounced off Cordy Mather in the deeps of night, every one rejected by Mather, and the more vigorously so the better the Woman seemed to like them.
Of more interest was the fact that she had started looking for Smoke. In fact, she was getting suspicious, though not yet in any major way. Mather kept telling her we were all right and must have made some arrangement to look out for Smoke. We would not just let the old boy starve.
"They hate him, dear. He did everything he could to undercut the Black Company."
"They would find a crueler way to get even. After they woke him up. So he could appreciate the pain."
Cordy echoed my thoughts perfectly. Starvation would do fine but I wanted him conscious while he went.
Waking up to find himself in our hands might just be enough. He would have a shit hemorrhage.
All the way back to my last visit I found nothing particularly exciting. The Woman never said anything interesting except when she was finished using Mather and then she said nothing original. Yet I could not help thinking that something was going on.
She was the Radisha Drah. Her whole life had been spent aware that everything she said or did might be observed by someone who did not wish her well.
I skipped back to today but did not find anything to hurry back to the Old Man.
There would be some excitement when the news from Charandaprash arrived. People would stop thinking as clearly and carefully. I would be back.
I took a dive into Smoke's old hiding place before I left. The old Annals were right where I had hidden them.
Interesting to note, though, as I departed, that there were crows all over the Palace district.
One-Eye was still cursing when I came out. Cursing again, I learned, as I let myself down from the rear of the wagon. A different wheel was stuck. We had moved several miles. I was bone dry. I lifted the lid on One-Eye's waterbarrel. There was not much there. The little that remained was pretty nasty. I drank it anyway.
I walked around to where One-Eye was abusing a fresh crew of victims. "You little shit. Quit barking at the help. They'll stuff that damned hat down your throat and I'll end up having to walk. Where's the Old Man?"
35
"Crows all over, eh?" Croaker mused. "Interesting. Guess it doesn't surprise me."
"Hers?" There were crows around us right now. Naturally. He would not let Lady run them off.
"Probably."
"Are they all nowadays?"
"Take it for granted. You won't be unpleasantly surprised. Tell me about Longshadow." The last sentence was not verbal at all but in the finger speech we had learned way back when Darling, the White Rose, was with the Company. We employed it sparingly anymore and I had not thought of using it to get around the crows. It was so obvious when you considered it. There would be no way for the critters to relay the signs.
Nobody believed that the birds understood what they relayed now. They just carried the words.
My fingers were no longer as nimble as once they had been. I had a hard time telling him that Longshadow had done a turnaround and was all business now, calm and sane and decisive.
"Interesting," he said. He looked up the pass. The Prince's troops, in the vanguard, had sprung a Shadowlander ambush. The fighting was getting heavy. The column was crushing up behind it. This could get bad.
I looked at the slopes rising to either hand. If Mogaba had a lot of men up there he could embarrass us easily.
"He doesn't," Croaker said, as though I had spoken my thoughts.
"You're getting spooky." He wore most of the fancy Widowmaker armor most of the time now. There was hardly ever a time when he did not have a crow on his shoulder. He seemed to know his favorites because he always had tidbits for them.
"When I have to play a role I try to live it." He began talking with his fingers again. "I want you to find Goblin. It is critical."
"Huh?"
He signed, "I would do it myself but there is no time." Aloud, he added, "These delaying tactics are working very well for Mogaba. This pass is just too damned tight." He turned away, strode up the stalled column. The Prahbrindrah Drah was about to get talked to like a new recruit.
Suddenly, over his shoulder, he shot, "Where're your in-laws, Murgen?"
"What?"
"Where are they? What're they up to?" He used colloquial Taglian, which meant he did not care what Thai Dei heard. Or specifically wanted him to know about the query.
"I haven't seen them." I glanced at Thai Dei. He shook his head. "Maybe they went home."
"I don't think so. If that was the case the rest of these clowns would be gone with them. Wouldn't they?"
I did not think so but there was no need arguing the point. Croaker would never be comfortable with the Nyueng Bao. I told him I would keep an eye out and would let him know if I learned anything, then moved along.
I ran into Sleepy on the way back to One-Eye's wagon. "Hey, kid. How you doing?" I had not seen him since I gave him his assignment that night in Taglios. He had been working with Big Bucket, helping oversee the special forces teams. He looked tired but still not old enough to be a soldier.
"I'm tired and hungry and beginning to wonder if being buttfucked by my uncles really was worse than this."
Anybody who could sustain a sense of humor after what Sleepy had suffered was all right by me.
I wondered if he would ever go back and kill them. I doubted it. That sort of thing was acceptable in this bizarre southern culture.