“‘For love of Donovan buigh,’” Bridget ban quotes her.
But the Shadow shrugs. “He is many enough that more than one may love him.”
“He joined the fight only when you fell fighting as him,” the Hound points out. “I think he fought for love of you.”
“Think what you wish, Red Hound. Little enough do you know of such things.”
Méarana laughs and the others all turn to her. “I told you,” she says with a pluck at her harp stings. “It was they who finally joined him. He put on the colors of Geshler Padaborn only after Ravn fought truly for the Revolution. Tell me, Dark One, though I think I already know, why you came here this night to tell us this tale; for I see it has no end to it.”
The Ravn shows white teeth. “Is it not oobvious? Gidula has Donovan buigh and has taken him to his citadel. He left me behind when he passed through Delpaff. I was no more use to him, but for sake of my former use he did not ‘retire’ me. Sentimental old fool! What mere planetary prison can hold the likes of me? A throat cut here; a palm crossed there … Steel and silver won me free. The Delpaffonis do not even know I have escaped.” She hugs herself. “Ooh, I am soo clayver!”
Bridget ban returns to her chair and sits. “And you desire what of me, O so clever one?”
“You know. You have known this while. To free Donovan from Gidula’s citadel, of course. I am very good, but I cannot do that alone.”
Bridget ban barks an involuntary laugh. “But the two of us might? What are the chances of two snowballs in hell?”
“Very good, I think. On the Groom’s Britches, our legends say Hel is froozen.”
“Would your friends nae help?” Méarana asks the Shadow. “What of the other rebels?”
“Domino Tight would help, for old times’ sake. Perhaps Big Jacques, simply for the challenge. And he might persuade Little Jacques. They are old collaborators. But of Dawshoo and Oschous and the others, I am unsure. Dawshoo would not believe in Gidula’s treachery; and Oschous, who I believe has deduced much already, may see Padaborn as a potential rival. But for me … This is for me to do. Donovan and I are gozhiinyaw. How do you say it in Gaelactic? ‘Brothers-because-they-have-spilt-blood-for-each-other.’”
“Blood brothers,” Méarana tells her.
“Ah, so. Blood brothers.” She looks to Bridget ban through lowered eyes. “A close relationship, and one he shares of old with others. It makes, I think, you and I blood-sisters-in-law.”
The Red Hound smiles crookedly. “I hae ne’er heard of such a law. Where is Gidula’s citadel?”
“On Terra.”
Méarana stops playing. Bridget ban tosses her head back. “And so he receives the gift he has always wanted. He makes his hajj to Terra, after all! Tell me. Why would he wish to be freed, or if freed ever to leave that place?”
“Ooh, I can think of a reason, maybe even two.”
Bridget ban crosses her arms, flings one leg over the other. “’Tis nae possible. Terra lies in the Triangles, in the heart of the Confederation, no more than a day or two from Dao Chetty, New Vraddy, Old 82 … No, he may as well be held in the Perseus Arm.”
“Mother!”
“Nae, wean. We lost him long ago. If he were anywhere here in the Periphery … If he were even in the Wild, as I was … If he were even in the Confederal borderlands … If I even thought yon Ravn has told us the whole truth … I’d owe him that much to fish him out. But not to the Triangles, darling. Not to the Triangles. Only three Hounds have ever gone there—and but two ever returned, and only one hale.”
“But you should…”
“If he is half the man he once was, he is more likely to come to us than that we should go to him. He has escaped more tight places than most men have e’er squeezed into. Friend Ravn glossed over her escape from a Delpaffoni prison as if it were no great thing; but Delpaff is one of the oldest colony worlds, barely younger than Dao Chetty herself. It was no ramshackle frontier stockade our Ravn claims to have slipped from. And what she could accomplish, Donovan could accomplish nine times over.”
“Do not be soo sure, Hound. Gidula’s citadel staffs three Shadows and over a hundred couriers and magpies.”
Bridget ban cocks her head at her prisoner. “You have a strange way of persuading me to attack it.”
“But Mother…!”
Bridget ban slaps the arm of her chair. “Don’t be such a fool, Méarana! While ye’ve been a-playing that harp, yon Shadow has been playing you. What if the whole purpose of this farrago has been to lure a Hound of the Ardry to stick her haid in the Lion’s Mouth? What chance then that it remain attached to her shoulders?”
Ravn speaks quietly. “I give you my woord.”
“Oh, there’s hard currency for you.”
Olafsdottr sighs and her eyes retreat and look inward. “I have failed, then. Will you at least allow me to leave this place? My honor demands that I make the effort, even if it is doomed.”
“Is blood, then, thicker than oaths?” Bridget ban asks.
“Thick enough. Gidula dissolved my oath to him when he abused kaowèn to punish me. He made a most grievous error.”
Bridget ban nods. “I can see he did.”
“What was the error?” Méarana asks.
Graceful Bintsaif tells her. “Never do your foe a small injury.”
Olafsdottr grins. “That which does not kill me,” she says, “has made a grave tactical error.”
Bridget ban nods as if to herself, then glances at her protégé. “Yes,” she says finally to Olafsdottr. “There are some few points we still need to discuss; but after that … Yes, you may leave with my blessing.”
The Shadow laughs out loud. “Yayss. One more faction added to that stewpot of a Revolution cannot help but advantage the League. Well, it cannot help but advantage the enemies of the Names, wherever they may dwell. But please, Mistress Hound, do not confuse enmity for the Names with a disloyalty to the Confederation.”
“You know which matters want discussion, of course.”
The Shadow flips her hand. “Oh, ‘vestiges,’ one supposes. But I know no more about them than what Domino Tight downloaded to my shenmat.”
“But that is so much more than we have ever heard of them that I cannae but suppose there may be one or two other details that we would find interesting.”
“I will tell you what is mete for you to know. Does the League too practice kaowèn?”
Bridget ban stiffens. “Only in restricted cases; not with the gay abandon of the Confederation.”
“Ooh. You are oonly a wee bit pregnant, then?”
The door opens then to admit Mr. Wladislaw and another man wearing the red-and-yellow livery of Clan Thompson, although in his case the colors are muted to tawny and break his silhouette with camouflage patterns. It is difficult to see him straight. He and Bridget ban lock eyes for a moment and he shakes his head very briefly and waits orders.
The Ravn chuckles. “Is my flier missing? Perhaps I walked.”
“Ignore her jibes, Mr. Tenbottles. She is overimpressed with her own cleverness.”
“Are ye quite sure, Frannie-ban, that she is o’er-impressed?”
“Ne’er ye mind that, Hang. Resume your duties.”
“Before we eat,” suggests Méarana, “can we nae take a rest break?” As they rise, she says to Ravn Olafsdottr, “I have been wanting to ask you about the poetic form you have been using to chant the story. ’Tis very different from what we use in the League. It teeters on the verge of prose but ne’er quite topples in.”