Though Rosacher would have been amused by these words years before, he was flattered by them now; yet Breque had never been much for flattery and his stance toward the dragon was pragmatic—since almost everyone believed in Griaule’s potency, he paid those beliefs lip service. Such was Rosacher’s take on the man, anyway, and this was borne out by the sense that there had been a glint of falsity in Breque’s fervent delivery.
“I never took you for a believer,” Rosacher said.
Breque sat back in the chair. “You may consider me a recent covert.”
Definitely a hint of falsity, perhaps even a degree of smugness, as if Breque felt that he had succeeded in his mission. Rosacher was tempted to deny him his success.
“My belief in Griaule has been predicated to a great degree by having observed you over the years,” Breque said. “I have never been a zealot. Indeed, I am not one now. But I would be an idiot if I were to ignore the evidence before me, evidence that tells me you’re the one man who can resolve this situation in our favor.”
The conversation continued in this vein for several minutes more, with Breque expressing confidence in him and Rosacher demurring. Once the councilman had left, Rosacher decided he did not like being coerced, cajoled by flattery, and let the folder lie for the next three days; but Breque’s words, the councilman’s assertion that he, Rosacher, had been chosen for this work, had taken hold on him and at last he opened the folder, spreading its contents on his bed: maps, details on troop concentrations and where they were deployed, estimates of weaponry available to the armies of Temalagua and Mospiel, analyses of the strengths of their key military leaders. In sum, they painted a bleak picture of Teocinte’s prospects for mounting a successful defense. From his reading of Aldo’s marginal notes, Rosacher discovered that Aldo had favored a pre-emptive attack on Mospiel. Such a strike stood little chance of succeeding, but it would cause confusion amongst the enemy, and where confusion ruled, there a perspicacious general might find a critical opportunity.
Dismayed by what he had read, Rosacher relapsed into despondency and drank a bottle and a half of wine. His thoughts went once more to Amelita, and he was pulled back into a morass of guilt and desolation. But on the following morning, before he could sink beneath the surface of grief, he had a second look through the folder. There was no point in revisiting the assessments of their enemies’ martial potential, so he focused on Aldo’s marginalia and several pages from a journal kept during his foray into Temalagua on which Aldo had scribbled some notes. The notes made little sense to Rosacher, mainly consisting of groupings of two or three words, and sometimes only a single word, but his instincts told him to keep searching. One entry near the end of the journal came to intrigue him: a name, Bruno Cerruti, punctuated by three exclamation points. Written on the page close by the name were the words, “the hunt,” and lower on the page another name, “Carlos.”
The name Cerruti had some resonance with Rosacher, but though he racked his brain, he could not recall where he had heard it; and then, as he was settling in for an afternoon nap, he remembered Jarvis telling him about a scalehunter who lived on the plain near the dragon’s hind leg. The man had gone by the nickname of Oddboy, this due to his eccentricity. He preferred the company of animals to that of men, and so had constructed a thatch-roofed house on the plain where he dwelled alone except for a menagerie of pets, all creatures peculiar to Griaule. Rosacher had never met the man and had not expected to, since Oddboy was a confirmed recluse, but he seemed to recall that his surname was Cerruti. Chances were, the scalehunter was not the same Cerruti, but it wasn’t a common name in the region and Rosacher thought it might be worth a day’s expedition to see whether or not he could be found.
Come morning, showered and, for the first time in weeks, clean shaven, armed with a hunting rifle, General Aldo’s notebook and a pair of binoculars, he set forth on horseback, riding a bay gelding belonging to the House. He skirted Griaule’s fearsome mouth and passed onto the plain, keeping his distance from the dark green cliff of the dragon’s side, its true contours obscured at the base by mounded earth and grass, and higher up by vines and moss and epiphytes, most of the blooms pale lavender in color, but some few a lurid reddish orange that stood out from their surround like points of flame. His expectations of locating Cerruti were not high, yet as he rode his mood grew less oppressive. Though it was not yet nine o’clock, the sun was a dynamited white glare that cooked a strong scent from the stands of palmetto and broke a sweat on his back and shoulders. He went slowly, stopping now and again to scan the plain with his binoculars. When he drew near the haunch, he searched the landscape more carefully, but saw no house. Oddboy had likely moved on, but Rosacher wanted to be thorough and it was good to be out in the air after such a lengthy sequestration—he decided to continue searching. By mid-day he had traveled the length of the dragon, arriving at a place where the tail was completely buried beneath earth and grass, and there he tethered the bay and made a lunch of cold pork and grapes. It had been years since he’d ventured out on the plain and he had forgotten how extensive it was. Due to the clarity of the air, the low hills that encircled the valley appeared close at hand, yet he doubted he could reach them before nightfall. A fitful breeze stirred the tall yellow grasses, occasionally blowing with sufficient force to lift a palmetto frond, but otherwise everything was still—but it was an ominous stillness. The air seemed to hold a rapid vibration, the sum of the thousand heartbeats of the predators, great and small, that watched him from hiding. While digesting his lunch, he peered through the binoculars, tracking across thorn trees, acacias, more palmettos, shrimp plants, and then was brought up short by the sight of a pair of legs clad in coarse, dirty cloth. Dropping the binoculars, he scrambled to his feet. A man stood barely ten yards away—he was tanned, lean, with brown hair falling to his shoulders, and was shirtless, wearing sandals and a pair of ill-used canvas trousers. In one hand was a game sack figured by reddish-brown stains, and in the other a long-bladed knife. Before Rosacher could react, the man closed the distance between them. He was not so young as Rosacher had thought. Gray threaded his hair and deep lines scored his face, which had not been a pretty sight to begin with—long and horsey, with a hooked nose and squinty blue eyes, the sclera displaying a faint yellowish tinge. The nose had been broken more than once, and a ridged scar ran from the corner of his left eye and down onto his neck. His mouth worked as if he were trying to rid himself of a bad taste, and when he spoke it was in a nasal twang that was pitched an octave higher than Rosacher had anticipated.
“Man could get himself killed out here,” he said. “You after getting killed?”
“No, I’m…I’m looking for someone.”
“Must be someone real important, because you’re taking one hell of a risk.” The man’s mouth worked again. “You’re that Rosacher, ain’t you?”
“You know me?”
“Seen you around. How’d you get your face fixed? Once a man gets burnt by flakes, he generally stays burnt.”
“I’m not sure,” Rosacher said. “It may be…it’s difficult to explain.”
The man grunted. “I suppose it is.” He waved at the plain with his knife. “I was you, I wouldn’t stay out here much longer. Something’s liable to bite you in half.”