Liss grinned. "I no doubt sounded a madwoman when I first rode in shrieking. Thanks be for my chancellery tabard. I'm glad they listened. I didn't wait to see."
"So we learned. The divine was done in by then—"
"You weren't much better," muttered dy Cabon.
"—so we took their charity for the night. Never ceases to amaze me, when people with so little share their bit with strangers. Five gods rain blessings upon 'em, for they'd just had their allotment of bad luck for a year at least.
"I talked them into loaning a mule to the divine, though they sent a boy along to be sure it got back again, and we started for Maradi in the morning, following Liss. I'd have preferred to chase you, Royina, but not unequipped as we were. I wanted an army. The goddess must have heard me, for we found one a few hours later, coming up the road. The provincar of Tolnoxo loaned us mounts, and you can believe I jumped to join his troop. Would have saved steps to let them come to us back at the village, for we passed through there again in the afternoon—returned their mule, at least, which made its owner happy." He glanced at dy Cabon. "I probably should have sent dy Cabon on to the temple at Maradi—he might have caught up with Liss—but he refused to be parted from me."
Dy Cabon growled reluctant agreement under his breath. "I wasted two miserable days in dy Tolnoxo's baggage train. The parts of me that meet a saddle were pounded to bruises by then, but even I could see we were following too slowly."
"Yes, despite all my howling." Foix grimaced. "The Tolnoxans gave up at the border, claiming the Jokonan column would break up into a dozen parts and scatter, and that only the men of Caribastos, who knew their own country, had a chance of netting them. I said we only needed to follow one part. Dy Tolnoxo gave me leave to take my horse and try it, and I almost did just to defy him. Should have; I might have caught up in time for Lord Arhys's welcoming fete. But the divine was mad to get me back to Maradi, for all the good that proved to be in the end, and I was worried about Liss, so I let myself be persuaded."
"Not mad," dy Cabon denied. "Justly worried. I saw those flies."
Foix huffed in exasperation. "Will you leave off about those accursed flies! They were no one's beloved pets. There were a million more in the manure pile they came from. There is no shortage of flies in Tolnoxo. No need to ration 'em!"
"That's not the point, and you know it."
"Flies... ?" said Liss, bewildered.
Dy Cabon turned to her in eager, and irate, explication. "It was after we left dy Tolnoxo's troop and came at last to the temple house in Maradi. The next morning. I came into Foix's chamber and found him drilling a dozen flies."
Liss's nose wrinkled. "Ick. Wouldn't they squash?"
"No—not—they were marching around. In a parade array, back and forth across the tabletop, in little ranks."
"File flies," murmured Foix, irrepressibly.
"He was experimenting with his demon, that's what," said dy Cabon. "After I told him to leave the thing strictly alone!"
"They were only flies." Foix's embarrassed grin twisted. "Granted, they did better than some recruits I've tried to train."
"You were starting to dabble in sorcery." The divine scowled. "And you haven't stopped. What did you do to make that Jokonan's horse stumble?"
"Nothing counter to nature. I understood your lecture perfectly well—your god knows you've repeated it often enough! You can't claim that turmoil and disorder didn't freely flow from the demon—what a splendid pileup! No, nor that it didn't result in good! If your order's sorcerers can do it, why can't I?"
"They are properly supervised and instructed!"
"Five gods know, you are certainly supervising and instructing me. Or at least, spying and badgering. Comes to much the same thing, I suspect." Foix hunched. "Anyway," he returned to his narrative, "they told us in Maradi that Liss had ridden to the fortress of Oby in Caribastos, thinking it the likeliest place to find the royina. Or if not the royina, someone fit to pursue her. So we followed, as fast as I could make dy Cabon ride. We arrived two days after Liss had left, but we heard the royina was rescued and safe at Porifors, so took a day to rest the divine's bruised saddle parts—"
"And yours," muttered dy Cabon.
"And followed on to Porifors," Foix raised his voice over this, "on a road that the march of Oby told us was perfectly safe and impossible to miss. The second part of his assurance proved true. Daughter's tears, I thought the Jokonans had come back for a rematch, and we were going to lose the race this time, within sight of our refuge."
Dy Cabon rubbed his forehead in a weary, worried gesture. Ista wondered if his morning's dangerous parching had left him with a lingering headache.
"I am very concerned about Foix's demon," said Ista.
"I, as well," said dy Cabon. "I thought the Temple could treat him, but it is not to be. The Bastard's Order has lost the saint of Rauma."
"Who?" said Ista.
"The divine of the god in Rauma—it is a town in Ibra, not far from the border mountains—she was the living agent of the god for the miracle of—do you remember that ferret, Royina? And what I told you about it?"
"Yes."
"For weak elementals that have taken up residence in animals, to force the demon into the dying divine who will return it to the god, it is sufficient to slay the animal in his or her presence."
"Thus the end of that ferret," said Ista.
"Poor thing," said Liss.
"It is so," dy Cabon admitted. "Hard on the innocent beast, but what will you? The occurrences are normally quite rare." He took a breath. "The Quadrenes use a related system to rid themselves of sorcerers. A cure worse than the disease. But, once in a great while, a saint may come along who is gifted by the god with the trick of it."
"The trick of what?" said Ista, with a patience she did not feel.
"The trick of extracting the demon from a human mount and returning it to the god, and yet leaving the person alive. And with the soul and wits intact, or nearly so, if it goes well."
"And... what is the trick of it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
Ista's voice grew edged. "Did you sleep through all your classes in that seminary back in Casilchas, dy Cabon? You are supposed to be my spiritual conductor! I swear you could not conduct a quill from one side of a page to the other!"
"It's not a trick," he said, harried. "It's a miracle. You cannot pull miracles out of a book, by rote."
Ista clenched her teeth, both infuriated and ashamed. "Yes," she said lowly. "I know." She sat back. "So ... what happened to the saint?"
"Murdered. By that same troop of Jokonan raiders who overtook us on the road in Tolnoxo."
"Ah," breathed Ista. "That divine. I heard of her. The march of Rauma's bastard half sister, I was told by one of the women captives." Raped, tortured, and burned alive in the rubble of the Bastard's Tower. Thus do the gods reward Their servants.
"Is she?" said dy Cabon in a tone of interest. "I mean... was she."
Liss put in indignantly, "What blasphemy, to slay a saint! Lord Arhys said that of the three hundred men who left Jokona, no more than three returned alive. Now we see why!"