"On the other hand," Yorick pointed out, "we could have been much rougher about it, too. I didn't get my licks in, Major."
Rod cut another length of rope from the coil on the shelf. "You'd think Cholly would keep some tape around here."
"What for?" Yorick shrugged. "This isn't his ordinary line of work, you know."
"Yeah, you've got a point." Rod reached down for Thaler's ankle. The sergeant slashed a kick at him, but Rod was expecting it now. He leaped aside, caught the ankle as it passed, and bent it on up toward Thaler's buttocks. "Come, come, now! Do you really think I'm such an innocent? Haul a little on that other rope, will you, Yorick?"
The Neanderthal yanked Thaler's wrists up toward his shoulder blades. The sergeant made a whinnying sound, and his legs relaxed. Rod whipped them together with the rope, then ran a length from ankles to wrists, pulled so that Thaler's legs were bent. "Now for those nifty new knots I've been practicing!"
"Change! Innovation! Always gotta go for the new stuff," Yorick grumbled. "You Sapiens are all the same! I'll stick to the good old tried-and-true ones, thank you."
Rod sneaked a peek. "If that's your idea of an old knot…"
"I meant really old. You Sapiens never even learned 'em!…There! All neatly packaged. Roll over, pretty boy!" He flipped Thaler onto his back. "We don't trust you not to yell." He pinched Thaler where he had the most flesh available. The sergeant opened his mouth in a bleat of sheer surprise, and Rod jammed a handkerchief into it. Yorick grabbed Thaler's head and held it still, while Rod wrapped another handkerchief over his mouth and around behind his head, tying it with a square knot. "Sorry you're going to be feeling so dry, especially with all that beer just overhead. But don't worry, somebody's bound to find you, right after breakfast."
Yorick tucked his hands under Thaler's shoulders and nodded to Rod who caught Thaler's knees. They both heaved up and carried the sergeant over under the stairs, where it was nice and dark.
Gwen's thoughts sounded in Rod's head, disappointed: Didst thou truly need be so rough?
'Fraid so, dear, Rod thought back. Didn't you see what his psyche was doing when you woke him up?
Gwen was silent a moment. Then: Aye, indeed. The feeling of helplessness, of being totally without defense.
Rod nodded. Psychologically, he can handle this much better than your mental knockout, with no visible means. This, he can comprehend; it's ordinary to him. He can deal with it. He shrugged. But we had to make it convincing.
An thou sayest it. Gwen sighed. Shall I tell thee, then, what his thoughts were?
That, I'd like to hear. Rod strolled back toward her, beckoning Yorick, and sat down, with the length of the basement between them and Thaler. The Neanderthal settled beside him, and Rod breathed, "Aloud, but softly, so the big guy can hear, but his victim can't."
"What do you mean, my victim?" Yorick snorted.
"I kind of got the gist, while we were questioning," Rod went on, "but I missed the details."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing!" Yorick grinned. "I wondered why you gave up so easily."
Gwen just stared at him.
"I wasn't kidding, dear," Rod said softly. "We were being gentle."
"Relatively," Yorick agreed. "But then, everything is relative, isn't it? According to the anthropologists, I'm even a relative of yours."
"Removed," Rod said quickly. "Several times removed—but not far enough."
"Aw, you're just a stickler about the straight line of descent," Yorick groused.
"Sure." Rod shrugged. "It's mine. We've got a common ancestor—but you guys branched off into a dead end road that fizzled out."
"If you can call a hundred thousand years 'fizzling out,'" Yorick snorted. "As to its being a dead end—well, at least we left Terra in good shape, when we ran off."
"Gentlemen!" Gwen held up her hands, one palm toward each mouth. "Will it please thee to hear what our sergeant did outside the Wall, yestermorn?"
"Yeah, that would be nice." Rod turned back to her, all attention. "He never went anywhere near the Sun-Greeting Place, did he?"
"Not by a league," Gwen confirmed, "nor a dozen leagues, for all that."
Yorick frowned. "Spare me the suspense. What was he doing outside the Wall?"
"He did perform the role of a courier," Gwen explained.
"The General-Governor had sent him to bear word to the Chartreuse tribe." She turned to Rod, frowning. "Tis an odd name for a color."
"Unchartered territory," Rod agreed. "So what was he telling the Chief?"
"Yeah." Yorick frowned. "Why the hell did he have to go out in the middle of the night?"
"For that," Gwen explained, "the Chartreuse tribe had borrowed a great sum from the General's—'bank,' did he call it?"
"Savings," Rod explained. "Think of embers banked, to be saved through the night, dear."
'"Tis an odd word, yet an odder thought." Gwen turned to him, frowning. "Why do these folk not keep their money themselves? Wherefore must they give it to others to save for them?"
"Too much chance of thieves," Rod explained. "This way, instead of always worrying about robbers, they only have to worry about the banker—and they always know where he is."
"Almost always," Yorick qualified.
"Well, true," Rod admitted. "Anyway, it's much more efficient."
"An thou sayest it," Gwen sighed, "though I bethink me I'll comprehend thy 'gravity' sooner than thy banks."
"Just think how the Wolmen feel. So the Chartreuse tribe owes the Bank of Wolmar a lot, huh?"
"Aye, yet they did have the wherewithal to repay stored in the bank. Naetheless, they had sent to ask for the…" she scowled "… for the… 'interest rate?'… on the loan, as it did compare with the 'interest rate' they did receive, on their saved money." She frowned. "What is this 'interest rate,' my lord? Doth it denote the degree of attention the Chief doth pay to the Banker?"
Rod had to swallow hard. "I suppose you could say that, dear. What it means, though, is how much the bank is paying the Chartreuse tribe for the use of its money."
Gwen stared. "But why would the bank wish to use money?"
"Same reason any of us would," Yorick sighed.
"To invest, dear," Rod explained, "Say, to buy shares in a captain's trading voyage. He wants to make the voyage right now, not in ten years, which is how long it would take him to save up the money by himself."
"Then this bank will make more money from the captain?"
"A lot more, and it'll deal with lots of captains, not just one."
Gwen frowned, eyeing him strangely, then sighed. "An thou sayest it. I ken the meaning of the words, but I do not ken the manner of thought that doth produce it."
Rod said "I'm not certain about it, myself."
"Yet wherefore doth the bank pay the Chartreuse for the use of their money, whiles the tribe doth pay the bank for the use of its money? It doth but go about and about in a circle, my lord! It maketh no sense!"