Then there was a raucous outbreak that sounded like crows squabbling.
I pounded on the door.
The noise stopped instantly. "Enter."
I did so in time to see a huge crow flap out the one small window in Croaker's cell. A twin of the first perched atop a coatrack that looked like it had been rescued from the gutter. Croaker did not much care about material things.
"You wanted me?"
"Yeah. Couple of things." He spoke Forsberger from the start. Thai Dei would not get it but Cordy Mather would if he happened to be listening. And so would the crows. "We're going to pull out before sunrise. I've decided. A few of the top priests are starting to think I won't do them the way Lady did, so they're trying to push a little here and there, test the waters. I figure we'd better hit the road before they get me tied up in knots."
That did not sound quite like him. When he made deaf-mute signs as he finished I knew the speech was for other consumption even if it was factual.
Croaker pushed a folded scrap of paper across. "Take care of that before we go. Make sure you don't leave any evidence to tie it to us."
"What?" That did not sound good at all.
"Be ready to move. If you really have to drag the in-laws along have them ready to go, too. I'll send word."
"Your pets tell you anything I need to know?" Like I did not know that they were not his pets at all but spies or messengers from Soulcatcher.
"Not lately. Don't worry about it. You'll be the first to know."
This was one of those points where the paranoia grabbed me. I could not be sure of the actual relationship between Croaker, Soulcatcher and those crows. I had to take him completely on faith at a time when my faith in everything was being tested severely on every hand.
"That's it?"
"That's it. Make sure you've got everything you need. It won't be long."
I opened the scrap of paper by the light of one of the few lamps illuminating the corridor between Croaker's apartment and mine. I made no attempt to keep Thai Dei from seeing it. He is illiterate. Plus the note was written in the formal language of Juniper, as though to a bright six-year-old. Which was lucky for me since I have only a vague familiarity with the language, from documents dating back to the time the Company spent there, before I joined.
Soulcatcher was dead in those days. I suppose that is why Croaker chose to use that language. It was one he felt she was unlikely to know.
The message itself was simple. It instructed me to take the Annals I had recaptured from Soulcatcher, who had stolen them from where Smoke had had them hidden from us, and conceal them in the room where we had kept Smoke hidden.
I wanted to go back and argue. I wanted to keep them with us. But I grasped his reasoning. Soulcatcher and everyone else with an interest in keeping us and those Annals apart would assume that we would keep them close till we could decipher them. Out there in the field we would not have time to worry about protecting them. So we might as well hide them in a place that, right now, only the Radisha knew existed.
"Shit," I said softly, in Taglian. No matter how many languages I learn I always find that word useful. It has pretty much the same meaning in every tongue.
Thai Dei did not ask. Thai Dei almost never does.
Behind me, more than the next lamp away, Croaker came out of his cell with a black blob perched on his shoulder. That meant he was going to see somebody native. He thought the crows intimidated the Taglians.
I told Thai Dei, "This is something I have to handle myself. Go tell Uncle Doj and your mother that we'll be leaving sometime during the night. The Captain has decided."
"You must accompany me partway. I cannot find my way in this great tomb." He sounded like he meant it, too.
Nyueng Bao keep their feelings well hidden but I saw no reason why someone who had grown up in a tropical swamp should feel at home inside an immense pile of stone. Especially since all his past experience with cities and big buildings had been negative in the extreme.
I hurried to get him back into territory he knew well enough to walk alone. I had to get into Croaker's cell fast, before he and his feathered friend returned. That is where we were keeping the books right now. We did not want anyone to know we had them though Soulcatcher surely suspected if she was aware that they had been stolen from where she had hidden them.
What a convoluted game.
I felt my wrist to make sure I still wore the loop of string that was really an amulet One-Eye had given me so I would be immune to all the spells of confusion and misdirection around the chamber where we kept Smoke.
Even before I collected the books, noting that Croaker had shooed all crows, closed the window and covered it with a curtain, I was thinking how best to conceal them once I had them where Croaker wanted them to go.
It would not be long after we left that the Radisha would start wondering who was taking care of the wizard now. My bet was that she would start looking for him. She was stubborn enough to find her way to the room.
Though she had shown little interest in Smoke lately she had never given up hope of bringing him back. If we enjoyed many successes against the Shadowmaster she would want his help even more.
Everything we did seemed to have potentially unpleasant consequences.
8
When the Old Man decides to move he moves. It was still tomb dark when I left the Palace and found him waiting with two of the giant black stallions that had come down from the north with the Black Company. Specially bred during the Lady's heyday, with sorcery instilled into their very bones, they could run forever without getting tired and could outrace any mundane steed. And they were almost as smart as a really stupid human.
Croaker grinned down at my in-laws. They were completely nonplussed by this development. How were they supposed to keep up?
Kind of pissed me off, too. "I'll handle it," I said in Nyueng Bao. I handed Thai Dei my stuff, climbed the monster Croaker had brought for me. It had been a long time since I had ridden one but this one seemed to remember me. It tossed its head and snorted a greeting. "You too, big boy." I took my stuff from Thai Dei.
"Where's the standard?" Croaker demanded.
"In the wagon with One-Eye. Sleepy put it there before—"
"You let it out of your control? You don't ever let it out of your control."
"I was thinking about giving Sleepy the job." Standard-bearer was one of the hats I wore. And not one of my favorites. Now that I am Annalist I should be passing it on. Croaker has mentioned that himself on occasion. "Give me your stuff now," I told Thai Dei once I had mine settled in front of me.
Thai Dei's eyes got big as he realized what I intended.
I told Mother Gota and Uncle Doj, "Stay on the stone road all the way and you'll catch up with the army. If you're stopped show the soldiers your papers." Another innovation of the Liberator. More and more people involved in the war effort were being given bits of paper telling who they were and who was responsible for them. Since hardly anybody was literate the effort did not seem worthwhile.
Maybe. But the Old Man always has his reasons. Even when those are simply to confuse.
Croaker realized what I was doing just as I extended my hand to help Thai Dei climb. He opened his mouth to raise hell. I said, "Don't bother. It ain't worth a fight."