“I see,” Gar said slowly. “In that case, Reverend, I have only one question left.”
“Ask, my friend.”
“Who empties the Scarlet Company’s collection boxes?”
14
The priest blinked with surprise at the change of topic but answered easily. “The god knows, my friend, and the goddess—but no one else, except the Scarlet Company itself.”
“And if anyone else knows, they’re not telling,” Gar said in an angry undertone as he strode down the temple steps.
Alea hurried to catch up with him. “He really doesn’t know, Gar. His mind was blank with astonishment and no knowledge of the answer filled it.”
“I didn’t detect anything else,” Gar agreed, “and it was an ambush question, sprung on him out of nowhere. If he knew the answer, it would have leaped to mind immediately, no matter how well he kept it from showing in his face.”
“Perhaps there really is no one who knows about the Scarlet Company—except the few who are in it.”
“And they do seem to be very few,” Gar agreed, “a minor element in daily life, always there at the back of people’s minds but rarely thought of—they really don’t have much to do with day-to-day living.” He halted, fists clenching on his staff and driving its heel against the stone step. “Blast! It’s all wrong, all completely wrong! It just can’t happen this way!”
Alea hid a smile.
“A society can’t exist without a government,” Gar ranted, “not even a village culture like this one! There has to be a ruler, a council of councils, an Allthing, a Parliament, a committee of the wealthy and powerful, a hierarchy of priests—something!”
“We’ve looked everywhere,” Alea demurred. “There must be someplace we’ve missed, some structure we haven’t thought of! Peace and prosperity are impossible without government, even if all it does is keep people from robbing one another and killing each other off!”
“The villagers themselves do that, in the countryside,” Alea reminded him, “and the neighborhoods seem to do the same in this town. When everybody knows everybody else’s business, you can’t get away with anything.”
“So all they have to do is gang up on the culprit and scold him into unbearable humiliation until he straightens out—and if he won’t straighten, they kick him out to live in the forests as well as he can!”
“Where he becomes a bandit,” Alea said, “but there aren’t enough of them to be much of a threat until somebody like General Malachi comes along.”
“Whereupon they all sit back and wait for the Scarlet Company to stop him,” Gar fumed. “Don’t the idiots realize that they have to band together, train for battle, elect a war leader, do something to stop him themselves?”
Alea said nothing, only fought to keep a straight face.
“They don’t, and they never will!” Gar growled.
“Come on, let’s get out of this town—so much innocence is oppressive! Let’s go out into the countryside, where wild animals fight it out and the only order is the food chain!”
“Good idea,” Alea said, “but I’d rather not be in the middle of that food chain.”
“No, the top is a much better place,” Gar said, frowning, “and right now, that looks to be General Malachi and his band.”
“I don’t want to be gobbled up by them, either!”
“Definitely not to my taste,” Gar agreed. “I’d better become a half-wit again. Let’s go, Alea. One more good look around, say five more villages, and I just might have to give up in defeat and admit there’s a planet that doesn’t need me!”
Alea swallowed her amusement and kept pace with him to the city limits.
As soon as they were out of sight of the town, they stepped into a thicket, where Gar stripped off his trader’s clothes and folded them. Alea packed them away as Gar rubbed dirt on assorted portions of his anatomy and gave his face a light powdering of grime. Then, wearing only a loincloth and a blanket, he followed Alea out onto the road. As she strode west, Gar hunched, scuttling beside her, and said, “It’s odd, although I think it’s very important to be honest with my friends, I don’t hesitate for a second to put on a deception like this for my enemies.”
“That’s nothing strange,” Alea said scornfully. “You might as well say that a warrior in battle can’t hit his enemies unless he’s willing to hit his friends, too.”
“Well, that’s so,” Gar said thoughtfully. “I’d always thought of honesty as a moral issue, not a tactical one.” “Honesty isn’t. Dishonesty is,” Alea told him. “Besides, anyone believing you’re a half-wit is doing their own deceiving. A blind man could tell you’re no idiot.”
“Why, thank you,” Gar said, somewhat surprised. “Still, it’s the ones with keen eyesight I’m worried about, not the blind.”
“If you feel any guilt, it should be for the idiots,” Alea snapped. “That’s whom you’re insulting with that disguise.”
“Well, yes,” Gar said, “but then, I am an idiot compared to some men I’ve heard of.”
And to some women who’ve heard you, Alea thought waspishly. In the same tone, she said, “Don’t let that worry you. All men are fools in one way or another.”
“And all women are wise?” Gar asked.
“If I want a wise woman, there are plenty of them in the forest,” Alea retorted, “though I’m not one to hold with potions and simples.”
“Present company excepted, of course?”
“You may not notice half the things you should,” Alea said, “but that doesn’t make you simple. You do a good job of faking, though.”
“How do you know I’m not really doing a good job of pretending not to notice?”
That gave Alea pause—but not a long one. “Because you said you value honesty with your friends.”
“Yes, but you have to weigh one good action against another,” Gar said. “It’s all right to lie about small things to keep from hurting someone’s feelings.”
Alea stopped, rounding on him. “You mean you see a host of flaws in me you don’t talk about!”
“Not flaws,” Gar said, “but traits that you might think are flaws.”
“Such as?” Alea snapped.
“Taking every chance you can to pick an argument with me,” Gar said.
“I do not!”
“You see?” Gar asked. “It’s only a matter of my perceptions, and I’m likely enough to be wrong—so if I did think you were quarrelsome, it wouldn’t be right to say so.”
“I’m not quarrelsome!”
“Perhaps not, but you do enjoy a good argument.” Gar’s eyes were alight with the pleasure of this one. “Oh, and I’m the only one, am I?” Alea’s eyes were gleaming, too. She felt angered and aggravated but felt a strange sort of relaxation, too—as though she knew no harm could come from this.
She was wrong. The two were so intent on their wrangling that they forgot to pay attention to the thoughts around them, and the patrol came upon them before they knew it.
The sound of hoofbeats and the shouts to halt finally penetrated. Alea spun with a gasp, staring at the approaching horsemen.
“Run!” Gar snapped. “I’ll keep them from following until you’re good and lost!”
“I can’t leave you to fight them alone!” Alea’s staff snapped up to guard.
“Of course you can! They won’t hurt me, though I’ll let them think they have! And how will I break free of them if you aren’t there to shoot an arrow at the right moment? Run—please!”
“Oh, all right! ” Alea huffed as she turned and dove into the roadside underbrush.
Men shouted behind her, and trotting hooves broke into a gallop. Gar roared, and Alea risked a look back. Through the screen of leaves, she saw the “half-wit” unfold into a grizzly bear, charging the leader’s horse. The beast reared, screaming with fright, and the bandit, taken by surprise, went sprawling with a bellow of pain. Gar leaped, caught the reins left-handed and hung on, dragging the horse down, then vaulting onto its back, staff still in his right hand.