"No. We believe the sisterhood will be very interested in the tidings we bring." He was resilient. Already he had begun to recover himself.
"Come with me. Stay close. Do not stray. You know that an exception is being made. I alone can shield you once we go inside." She led them down, inside, into the great chamber where so often she had faced Gorry's worst, and where all the convocations of the cloister took place. "You will wait here, within the confines of this symbol." She indicated the floor. "If you stray, you will die." She went in search of Gorry.
Logic told her Gorry was not the one to inform. Gorry ran a bit short on basic sense. But tradition and custom, with virtually the force of law, demanded that she deal with her instructress first. It was up to Gorry to decide whether or not the situation required the attention of Senior Koenic.
Perhaps fate took a hand. For Gorry was not alone when Marika found her. Three sisters were with her, including Khles Gibany, who was her superior. "Mistress," Marika said, after impatiently working her way through all the appropriate ceremonials, "I have just come from the wall, where I watched a band of savages pursue three tradermales across the river. Deeming it unlikely that tradermales would be abroad in this weather and near Akard unless they had some critical communication to impart, I helped them to escape their pursuers and allowed them to scale the snowdrifts to the top of the wall. Upon inquiry, I learned that they did indeed bear a message from their senior addressed to the Akard cloister."
"And what was this message, pup?" Gorry asked. Her tone was only as civil as she deemed needful before witnesses. These days Gorry was civil only when appearances required. The passing of time made her ever more like Pohsit.
"I did not enquire, mistress. The nature of the situation suggested that it was not for me to do so. It suggested that I should turn to sisters wiser than I. So I led them down to the main hall, where they might shed the chill in their bones. I told them to wait there. They did suggest that their senior wished them to relate their message before the assembled cloister. It would seem the news they bring is bad."
Gorry became righteous in the extreme. Outsiders allowed into the packfast! Male outsiders. Her sisters, following the lead of Khles Gibany, proved to be more flexible. They shushed Gorry and began questioning Marika closely.
"I can tell you no more, sisters," she said, "unless you wish to review my feelings while I stood upon the wall, and the consequent reasoning which lent credence to them."
Gibany rose and manipulated herself onto her crutches. "I will be back soon. I agree with your feelings, Marika. There is something afoot. I will speak with the senior." She departed.
While Gorry glared daggers at Marika for further unsettling her life, the other two silth continued questioning her. They were only killing time, though. Already it was in the paws of Senior Koenic.
They saw the implications Marika had seen. The implications Gorry wished to ignore.
Once upon a time, years earlier, Khles Gibany had told Marika, in response to a question about Gorry: "There are those among us, pup, who prefer to live in myth instead of fact." Marika saw that clearly now.
Tradermales liked silth even less than the run of meth. The silth stand on male role assumption was harder than any packstead female's. The message brought by these males would have to be earthshaking, else they would not have come. And these days earthshaking news meant news about the nomads.
The myth-liver was the first to articulate what everyone was thinking. "The damned Critza fester has been overrun. They are trying to get us to take them in. No, say I. No. No. No. Let them stay out there in the wilderness. Let them fill the cookpots of savages. It is their ilk who have armed the grauken."
Grauken. Marika was startled to hear the word roll off a silth tongue.
"I do not believe they bear tidings of the fall of Critza, mistress. They did not look dispossessed. They just look exhausted and distressed." She did not put much force into her statement. She was being extremely careful with Gorry these days. And striving to build goodwill among the other sisters.
Gibany returned. "We are to report to the hall. We will hear what the males have to say. Nothing will be decided till they have spoken."
II
The leader of the tradermales, who made Marika so uneasy, called himself Bagnel. He was known to some of the sisters. He had spoken for his packfast before, though Marika did not recall having ever seen him anywhere but in that far clearing.
Another lesson: pay attention to everything happening. There was no telling what might become important in later days.
Bagnel's history of dealing with silth had led to his selection as leader of his mission.
"There were seven of us who left Critza," he said, after explaining his circumstances. "Myself and our six strongest, best fighters. Nomads caught our wind immediately, though we followed your own example and traveled by night. Four of us fell along the way, exhausted, and were taken by savages. We could not stop to help."
Gorry made nasty remarks about males and was ignored by all but a small minority of the assembled sisters. Clever Bagnel had placed a debt upon Akard with his opening remarks. He implied that the news he carried was worth four of his brethren's lives.
"Go on," the senior told him. "Gorry. Restrain yourself."
Marika stood behind her instructress, as was proper, and was embarrassed for her when she heard someone remark, "Old Gorry is getting senile." It was an intimation that Gorry would not be taken seriously much longer. Though Marika nursed her own black hatred, she felt for the old female.
"The journey took two days-"
"This is not relevant," the senior said. "If the tidings you bear are worthy, we will be in your debt. We are not here to trade. Be direct."
"Very well. Four days ago the nomads attacked Critza again. We drove them off, as we have before, but this time it was a close thing. They have acquired a quantity of modern weapons. They caused us a number of casualties. Their tactics, too, were more refined. Had they been more numerous the fortress would have fallen."
The senior stirred impatiently, but allowed Bagnel to establish the background. Silth exchanged troubled glances and subdued whispers. Marika felt the fur on her spine stir, though she did not quite understand what was being said.
Bagnel's gaze strayed her way several times while he spoke. That did nothing to make her more comfortable.
"We took prisoners," Bagnel continued. "Among them were several huntresses of standing. Upon questioning them we made several interesting discoveries. The most important, from the viewpoint of the sisterhood here, was the unmasking of a plan for an attack upon Akard."
That caused a stir, and considerable amusement. Attack Akard? Savages? That was a joke. The nomads would be slaughtered in droves.
"One of those prisoners had been in on the planning. We obtained all the details she knew." Bagnel drew a fat roll of hide from within his coat. He stripped the skin away to reveal a sheaf of papers. "The master directed that a copy of her testimony be given you." He offered the papers to the senior.
"You appear to take this more seriously than seems warranted," Senior Koenic said. "Here we are in no danger from savages, come they singly or in all the hordes of the north."
"That is not true, Senior. And that is why we risked seven fighters sorely needed at Critza. Not only have the nomads acquired modern weapons; they are convinced that they can neutralize most of your power. They have both silth and wehrlen with them and those will participate in the attack. So our informant told us. And she was incapable of invention at the time."