She rested a hand on his cheek. "I'm more basic than you think."
"Oh?"
Change of voice, businesslike, masculine, at odds with the invitation. "I have eyes everywhere. I know every word spoken by anyone who interests me. A while back I arranged for Longshadow to be diverted while Howler visited Spinner and cut Longshadow's webs of control."
"Damn! He'll hit Dejagore with everything."
"He'll lie low and pretend he's unchanged. The siege costs him nothing. He'll be more interested in improving his position in relation to Longshadow. He knows Longshadow will destroy him when he's no longer useful. We'll have fun. We'll poke around and make them chase their tails. When the dust settles, maybe there'll be no Longshadow, no Shadowspinner, no Howler, just you and me and an empire of our own. Or maybe the spirit will move me some other direction. I don't know. I'm just having fun with it."
He shook his head slightly. Hard to believe, but it sounded true. Her schemes could kill thousands, could distress millions, and to her it was play.
"I'll never understand you."
She giggled the giggle of a girl with nothing between the ears. She was neither young nor empty-headed. "I don't understand myself. But I gave up trying a long time ago. It's distracting."
Games. From the first she had been involved in tortuous maneuvers and manipulations, to no obvious end. Her great pleasure was to watch a scheme flower and devour its victim. Her only plot to fail had been the one meant to displace her sister. And she had not failed completely then because she had survived, somehow.
She said, "Soon Kina's followers will start arriving. We'll have to be somewhere else. So let's go down to Dejagore and cause some confusion. We ought to get there about the time Spinner figures he's ready to make an independent move. Be interesting to see how it goes."
Croaker did not understand but did not ask. He was used to her talking in riddles. She let him know what she wanted him to know when she was ready to tell him. No point pressing her. He could do little but bide his time and hope.
"It's late," she said. "We've done enough for today. Let's turn in."
He grunted, not eager. The place gave him the creeps when he thought about it, which meant every night as he fell asleep. Which meant at least one potent nightmare. He would be glad to get out.
Maybe out there he could vanish-if he could think of a way to hide from the crows.
Fifteen minutes after the lamp went out Soulcatcher asked, "Are you awake?"
"Yeah."
"It's cold in here."
"Uhm." It always was. Most nights he fell asleep shivering.
"Why don't you come over here?"
The shivering worsened. "I don't think so."
She laughed. "Some other time."
He fell asleep worrying about how she always got her way instead of about the temple. His dreams were more troubling than nightmares.
Once he wakened momentarily. The lamp was alive again. Soulcatcher was murmuring with a clatch of crows. The subject seemed to be events in Taglios. She appeared pleased. He drifted off without understanding what it was about.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Neither potential campsite was perfect. One had been fortified before, in ancient times. For centuries people had carried the stone off for use elsewhere. I chose that site.
"Nobody remembers the name," I told Ram as we rode toward town. "Makes you think."
"Huh? About what?"
"The fleeting nature of things. Taglios' entire history could have been influenced by what happened there and now nobody remembers the name."
He looked at me oddly, straining for understanding. He wanted to understand but he didn't have the capacity. The past was last week, the future tomorrow. There was no reality in anything that happened before he was born.
He was not stupid. He seemed big and dull and slow but possessed an average intellect. He just had not learned to employ it.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm just being moody." He understood moody. He expected it. His wife and mother had been "moody."
He did not have time now to think, anyway. He was too busy staying on his horse.
We returned to the barracks. There was another crowd looking for their loved ones. Narayan was handling them efficiently. They eyed me curiously. Not at all the way they had looked at Croaker. Him they had hailed Liberator everywhere. Me, I was a freak without the sense to know she was not a man. I would grow on them. Just a matter of creating a legend.
Narayan caught up with me. "There was a messenger from the palace. The prince wants you to dine with him tonight. Someplace called the grove."
"Oh?" That was where I had met him first. Croaker had taken me. The grove was an outdoor place frequented by the rich and influential. "Request or order?"
"Invitation. Will you do me the honor of, like that." "Did you accept?"
"No. How could I guess what you'd want to do?" "Good. Send a message. I accept. What time?" "He wasn't specific."
It would slow me down but I might accomplish something that would save fussing and feuding later. At least I'd learn how much grief I could expect from the state. "I'm going to sketch out the camp I want built. We'll send one company plus five hundred recruits to start. Pick whoever you think we should get out of the city. That mess outside. How's it going?" "Well enough, Mistress." "Any volunteers showing?" "A few."
"And intelligence? Have you gotten anything started?"
"Lot of people want to tell us things. Mostly about foreigners. Nothing really interesting."
"Keep at it. Let me do those sketches. After that I'll make a list to give the Prahbrindrah. After
that I'll make myself presentable." Around here somewhere would be my imperial getup, that I'd worn last time, and my coach, that we had brought down from the north and had left here when we had marched on Ghoja.
"Ram, before we went south I had several men help me make special armor. I need to find them again."
I went to work sketching and estimating.
The coach was not as impressive with a four-horse team but people did gawk. I had enough skill to make hooves strike fire and to set a glamor running the coach's exterior. The fire-breathing skull of the Company blazed on both doors. The steel-rimmed wheels and pounding hooves rumbled thunderously.
I was satisfied.
I reached the grove an hour before sunset, entered, looked around. Just like last time, the cream of Taglian society had come out to rubberneck. Ram and a red rumel man named Abda, of Vehdna background, were my bodyguards. I did not know Abda. He was with me because Narayan said he was good.
They had spruced up. Ram cleaned up nicely when you held a knife to his kidneys. Bathed, hair and beard trimmed, in new clothes, he cut a handsome figure. But Abda did not improve much. He was a shifty-eyed little villain who looked like a villain no matter what.
I wished I had brought a Gunni bodyguard, too, to make a symbolic statement. You can't think of everything when you're rushed.
The Prahbrindrah rose as I strode up to him. He smiled. "You found me. I was concerned. I wasn't specific about where we'd meet."
"It seemed logical I'd find you where we met before."
He eyed Ram and Abda. He had come alone. A measure of his confidence in his people's reverence? Misplaced confidence, maybe.
"Make yourself comfortable," he invited. "I've tried to order things I think you'll like." He glanced at Ram and Abda again, perplexed. He did not know what to do about them.
I said, "Last time I was here somebody tried to kill Croaker. Forget them. I trust their discretion." I had no idea whether I could trust Abda or not. Didn't seem smart to make a point of it, though.