Ohotolarix nodded. "Well, this Ferghanna place we're heading for is about as far from salt water as we could go," he said.
"Pete!"
It was Eddie, calling from the space he'd kept open in the basement taproom of the Brotherhood of Thieves. Treaty celebrations meant there was just barely room for three more at the end of the long table, now that the guitar-and-drums band on the tiny corner dais had folded up. A low roar of sound came out to meet them, along with smoke, the smell of roasting meat and frying fish and fresh bread and the smells of massed humanity; Spring Indigo flinched back a little as it died away and a song bellowed out:
Head the ship to homeward
Shake out every sail
Lithe leap the billows-merry sings the gale!
Captain, work the reckoning
How many knots a day?
'Round the world-and home again
That's the Island way!
Peter Giernas touched her on one elbow, Sue on the other; she shifted Jared on her hip, smiled and headed in with them. A waiter eeled through the crowd, blinked in recognition, and half-shouted apologetically: "I'm sorry, Captain Giernas-no dogs allowed!" Perks was sticking close to his master's side, pressed against his thigh. At the words he looked up at the waiter, sensed his meaning and fixed him with a yellow-eyed glare, bristling and showing long wet teeth. Giernas made a precautionary grab for his ruff and smiled at the server.
"Don't worry," he said. "Perks here is fine, as long as I'm with him."
"Ah… oh, well, he's a war hero too, I suppose." Heroes dime a dozen, Giernas thought, as they pushed the rest of the distance and squeezed in. He didn't mind the crowding-much. It wasn't as if he had to take it for long, after all. Eddie was grinning, a little the worse for beer but not drunk by any manner of means. The voices in the background went on, as the four of them settled in:
We've fought pirates from Achaea
Bought tin 'mid Java seas
Drunk beer in Anyang taverns
In the shade of camphor trees!
Across the Line and Gulf Stream
'Round by Table Bay
Everywhere-and home again
That's the Island way!
"Here," Eddie said. "Still hot."
The plates were heaped, with roast pork and crackling, potatoes, steamed new vegetables; there were hunks of good wheat bread hot from the oven dripping with butter, and honey for dipping. Spring Indigo nibbled a piece of the bread cautiously, then bit enthusiastically.
"This is better than bannock with bear fat!" she said.
"Hell of a lot better, honey." Giernas laughed and took a pull on the mug. "Well, people, I got through to the man at the Pacific Bank, and the prize's been condemned, right enough." He brought out a folded piece of paper from a pocket of his buckskin hunting shirt. "Here it is!"
When he read out the figures, Jaditwara's eyes went wide. Eddie let loose with a Zarthani war whoop, which didn't attract as much attention as it might have, not tonight. Giernas laughed long and loud himself; it was good to be young, a well-loved father and husband… and rich. Before the war, before the Expedition, he'd been a bachelor, content enough to rent a room over the Laughing Loon in Providence for the times he wasn't rangering around and camping under a tree. Now…
Now I'm not rich like Leaton or Brandt, he thought, diving into the roast pork and savoring the longed-for taste of fresh vegetables. But I'm rich enough to be able to do what I want, eat my own mutton with my feet under my own table. And to look after my own folk without asking any man's leave to do it. That's a good feeling.
"Medals are fine," he said aloud. "But gold is sort of a more tangible mark of the Republic's feelings. Speaking of which, you're going to have to show a little more respect from now on." He took out a pin with two small silver bars on it. "It's Ranger Captain Peter Giernas from now on."
"Diawas Pithair!" Eddie swore.
He and Jaditwara leaned over to slap him on the back and shoulder. Jared patted him, too, then went back to looking around, as alert as a cricket and fearless as a badger, beating time to the chanty with pudgy infant hands; a lot of others were doing that with beer mugs:
Nightly stands the North Star
Higher on our bow
Straight we run to homeward
Our thoughts are in it now!
A jolly time with friends on shore
When we've drawn our pay;
All about-and home again
That's the Island way
Oh, that's our Island way!
The waiter came back with more beer, and a large meaty bone, rawly fresh. Giernas snaffled it off the tray before anyone else could try giving it to Perks-no sense in taking a chance of spoiling a happy occasion and the youngster certainly meant well-and handed it under the table without looking down himself. The wolf-dog's great murdering jaws took it; then slurping and cracking noises started to come from the floor by their feet. Perks wasn't what you'd call a finicky eater… but then, neither were a lot of the people here tonight. Spring Indigo was cutting up small pieces of her plateful and feeding them to Jared as she ate.
"Don't grovel too much," he said, swallowing and reaching for the mug again. "You three are lieutenants. I'm surprised the Council didn't take Prelate Gomez' job and give it to Spring Indigo here."
"Good to have gold and rank," Eddie nodded. "Now that I'm going to have a son to inherit my herds."
"Or a daughter, maybe," Jaditwara said sharply, looking at him with wry affection. "More to come, either way."
Eddie nodded, sobering a bit. "Oath-brother, Chief-Sue, Indigo, my oath-sisters-1 will miss you."
"Hell, you planning on going further away than Long Island?" Giernas said. "That's not too far for a visit now and then."
The ex-Zarthani and the woman who'd been born to the Earth People looked at each other.
"New 'Sconset," Eddie began.
"By the Silver River," Jaditwara continued.
Buenos Aires, on the Rio de la Plata, Giernas thought. Of course, no reason we should use the Lost Geezer names, now is there?
"They're handing out land there," Eddie said. "Oath-brother, you wouldn't believe the land-and veterans are all getting a full section. So I'll…" he paused, yelped like a man who'd been kicked in the shin, "… we'll have two square miles together." He set his mug down with a thump. "But it means being very far away! I've half a mind-
He cut off; Giernas was laughing again, and Sue and Spring Indigo along with him, laughing into his solemnity. Mercurial, his brows drew together in a scowl.
"Hell, Eddie," Giernas said at last. "What do you think I was about to try and talk you into? There's already a Ranger Captain here-they want another one down in New 'Sconset, to keep Hollard from falling over his thick Marine feet. They'll be needing Rangers; there's locals to deal with, not so many on the Pampas but lots up in the mountain country. Big stretch of unknown territory there! And scouting up along the coast…"
This time they all laughed; even Jared, happy because the adults were. Giernas wiped the plate with a heel of bread and belched comfortably, waving for a glass of applejack with his beer, and some of the cherry cobbler. Sue caught his eye and drooped the lid over one of hers; he put an arm around her shoulders, and one around Spring Indigo's waist. Yeah, the night is young.