"Besh," Grinsa said, turning to the older Mettai. "I want you to watch Torgan for me. If he does anything that seems… unusual, anything at all, let me know. And if you need to use magic against him, you have my permission."
"I understand," Besh told him.
Torgan glared at each of them in turn. "Damn you all to Bian's demons."
Ignoring him, Grinsa turned to Sirj and nodded. Sirj began to dig through the rubble, pulling out broken wooden beams, half-burned blankets and pieces of furniture, and occasionally pots or pans. Grinsa sorted these things into piles, and tried to clear away some of the stone that littered the road. After only a few moments, Sirj pulled from the ruins the body of what might have been an old man. The smell was so bad that the Mettai turned away and gagged, though he managed to keep from being ill. Grinsa reached into his carry sack and pulled out an old shirt, which he tore into wide strips. He handed one to each of his companions, and they tied them around their faces. Then they went back to work.
"This is pointless," Torgan said, his voice carrying through the ruins. Several of the Fal'Borna looked up from their work.
Grinsa barely even glanced his way. "Keep quiet, Torgan."
"At least let us work, too," the merchant said. "Sitting here doing nothing… I might as well help."
"Not here," Grinsa said. "Not near me."
"Fine then. Let us go down the street." He waved a hand in Besh's direction. "Your friend here will keep an eye on me, won't you, Besh?"
Grinsa turned to the old man. "Are you willing to do that?"
Besh nodded. "Yes. I'd rather be helping, too. And I won't let him get away. I killed Lici with magic. I can kill this one, too."
Clearly he said this more for Torgan than for Grinsa. Grinsa didn't really believe the old man would kill Torgan. But the merchant scowled again and began to walk away.
"Be careful," Grinsa said, lowering his voice. "I really don't know what he's capable of doing."
"All right." Besh walked after the merchant toward the pyre.
Grinsa and Sirj returned to their grim work, and for a long time neither of them spoke other than to ask for help with a heavy object or warn each other of a splintered end of wood or a stray nail.
At midday, the bells in some of the gates rang, though not all of them. One of the Fal'Borna children working nearby explained that the other gates had been been so badly damaged that their bells didn't work anymore. Q'Daer and Jasha joined them, both of them looking weary and somber.
"We should be going soon," Q'Daer said.
Grinsa had stopped working for the moment, but Sirj did not. "They need our help," the Mettai said.
"I know they do," Q'Daer told him, his voice hard. "But it's more important that we find the other merchants and keep this from happening again."
Sirj had pulled out a long, charred piece of wood. He paused now, holding it as he stared at the young Weaver. Then he threw it on the pile of beams and nodded, exhaling heavily. "You're right."
"Where's Torgan?" Jasha asked, looking around for the other merchant.
Grinsa indicated the end of the lane with a nod. "He's down there, with Besh."
Jasha scanned the street, shading his eyes with an open hand. "Where?" Grinsa turned to look. "They were just… Damn." He started down the lane. "Come on," he called to the others. "This might take all of us."
Chapter 19
Besh didn't relish the idea of keeping watch on the one-eyed merchant, but with Grinsa and the others, including Sirj, busy helping with the bodies and the wreckage, he could hardly refuse. As he followed the Eandi to the end of the lane, he scanned the ground surreptitiously. With stone and dust and debris scattered everywhere, it wouldn't be easy for him to grab a handful of earth. He'd spoken bravely of using magic to control the merchant if the need arose, but if he couldn't find dirt, he wouldn't be able to do anything at all.
Torgan walked a few paces ahead of him, his head down and his shoulders hunched. He seemed to be muttering to himself, no doubt still put out by Besh's threats. The old man barely recognized himself. Only a season before he'd been in his home village of Kirayde, playing with his grandchildren and tending his garden. Now, for the second time in less than half a turn, he'd threatened someone's life. The last time he'd done it, he'd made good on his threat. Would it come to that again? Was he a killer now?
Look what you've done to me, Lici. Look what I've become.
"Is it magic that does it?" Torgan asked suddenly, his voice so low that Besh wasn't certain he'd heard him correctly.
"What?" Besh said, walking quickly to catch up with the man.
"It's like you're one of them now. You act like the Fal'Borna and like that Forelander. You said you'd kill me if you had to."
"I was only-"
"I know what you were doing. And I'm asking you if it's the magic that makes all of you like that. You have power over people, is that it? You're stronger than the rest of us, because you can conjure and the rest of us can't. Is that what makes you threaten and bully?"
Besh would have laughed had Torgan not sounded so earnest and so hurt. He had never thought of himself as a bully; he still didn't. But here was this great brute of a man-Torgan was a full head taller than Besh and he probably weighed half again as much-claiming that Besh had browbeaten him.
"Have you ever used your size to intimidate others?" Besh asked him. "Perhaps to get your way in a negotiation?"
Torgan glanced his way, though only for an instant. "Maybe. I don't know."
"We use what weapons we have," Besh said. "I'm not a big man, Torgan. And I'm probably older than you are by four fours, perhaps more. But I wield powerful magic. That's my strength. I'd be mad not to use it, wouldn't I?"
The merchant shrugged. "I suppose."
Reaching the end of the lane, they found three young Fal'Borna men digging through the rubble. All of them bore cuts and scrapes on their arms, and one of them had a nasty burn on the side of his face that he must have gotten the night the pestilence struck. It had healed somewhat, as if treated by magic. But it looked as if it still hurt, and Besh thought it likely that the man would bear the scar for the rest of his life. The three men stopped working as Besh and Torgan approached.
Off to the side, the pyre smoldered, its dark smoke still staining the sky overhead.
"We've come to help if we can," Besh said. The men stared back at him, saying nothing.
"We can do whatever you need us to do. We can dig. We can pile the things you find."
"We're searching for the dead," one of the men said, his voice flat.
"We can search as well. Or we can place the bodies you find on the pyre. As I say, we've come to help."
"We don't want you touching them," said the burned man. Torgan bristled. "Well, then-"
Besh laid a hand on the merchant's arm, silencing him.
"I understand," Besh said. "If I was in your position, and two Eandi men came offering help, I'd probably send them away, too. But we're here, and you've a grim, difficult task to complete. So perhaps we can help in some other way."
The third Fal'Borna looked at the other two, a question in his bright yellow eyes. After several moments, the scarred man shrugged.
"Fine then," he said. "You can dig over there. Call us if you find anything. Or anyone."
"We will, of course," Besh said. He started toward the ruins the man had indicated.
Torgan was close behind him. "Ungrateful bastards," he whispered. "We should have just left them to do it alone."
Besh said nothing, and soon they were fighting their way through the massive pile of shattered stone and twisted wooden beams. Almost as soon as they began to pull away some of the rubble, Besh caught the foul scent of rotting flesh. There was at least one body beneath the wreckage.
"Damn," he muttered.