"You are to tell me."
"Yes, of course. Well, sit down and take things easy while you may. Some wine?"
The room was in a hotel close to the field, a place of luxury untouched by the recent conflict. Only the ruins far to one side told of what had happened. As she busied herself with a bottle and glasses, Dumarest, ignoring the invitation to sit, crossed to the window and looked outside. It was close to dusk, the sun touching the horizon, yet activity had not diminished. Uniformed men guided and controlled traffic and pedestrians; gangs of workers cleared rubble and demolished shattered structures. They worked hard; within a few more days the city would be almost back to normal. Within a few months new buildings would have replaced the old, fresh trees taking the place of those now standing like shattered teeth.
"To the victor the spoils," said the woman at his side, where she had come to stand. Her voice was deep, almost masculine, rendered truly feminine by its musical resonance. "Look at them, Earl. Children playing with their toys. Bangs and noises in the night, the sight of flame, the trembling of the ground. Then, when it's all over, they come out of their holes and wave flags and chant songs of triumph. And they call it war."
"And you, my lady?"
"Stupidity." She handed him one of the two glasses she carried. The wine it contained was a lambent green holding the flavor and odor of mint. "Men are such fools. What has the war decided? That taxes shall be paid to one faction instead of another and to gain this so-called victory, what has it cost? A year's revenue at least to pay for the mercenaries. Two more to repair the damage. Wanton extravagance when the whole matter could have been settled by cutting a deck of cards."
Dumarest said, "An easy solution, my lady."
"Too easy, which is why they never take it. Always they need to strut and adopt their postures, make the same old threats and the same old appeals. Always they need sacrifice and blood. And always, they prate of their pride. Why are men such fools?"
"To have pride?" Dumarest sipped his wine. "Some men have little else."
"And so, because of that, it becomes more important to them than life itself. Is that what you are telling me, Earl? That a man is nothing without his pride? That rules dictated by others should determine how he should live and die? That tradition has the right to eliminate self-determination?"
Her voice had deepened, holding the raw edge of anger and acid contempt. Dumarest wondered why… not because of what she saw through the window. Earthquakes could ruin houses, and many cultures adopted a common garb, so destruction and soldiers were not unique to war. There were no dead lying in the streets, no blood staining the walls, no fragments of limbs and shattered tissue to tell of recent events. Like all mercenary-fought wars the engagement had been conducted with due consideration to those who footed the bill.
He said, casually, "If you had your way, my lady, some of us would find it hard to find employment."
"I was forgetting." Light flashed as she lifted her hand, each nail a silver mirror. "Yet how many soldiers actually kill? And what, to them, does killing mean? The touch of a finger can launch a missile to destroy a city a hundred miles distant. A child could do it, and children do. Children in uniform. Soldiers."
Dumarest watched as she poured herself more wine. Beneath the shimmering fabric of her high-necked gown her figure held the lithe grace of a feline. Her breasts, high and firm, were taut beneath the fabric above a cinctured waist, the long skirt falling over neatly rounded hips and thighs. A woman who carried little excessive fat, one whose metabolism would burn up energy as fast as it was ingested. One of indeterminate age, not young, but far from old. One, he guessed, who had lived hard and fast-as if to crowd two lifetimes into one. And she had the ingrained arrogance of a person born to the power and privilege of wealth.
Lowering the glass she met his eyes. Bluntly she said, "Well, Earl, do you like what you see?"
"Is that important, my lady?"
"No, but something else is. When you first entered this room I was watching your reflection in the window. You thought you recognised me. Correct?"
"You reminded me of someone."
"A woman?" She didn't wait for an answer. "It would have to be a woman. One with red hair, obviously, but redder than mine?" Her hand lifted to touch it and again light threw brilliance from her nails. Splintered reflections from metal inserts each honed to a razor edge and needle point. Talons Dumarest had seen before tipping the fingers of harlots plying an ancient trade. "Earl?" She was insistent. "What was her name? The woman I reminded you of, what was her name?"
"I've forgotten." A lie-he would never forget; but the subject was a dangerous one. Quickly he changed it. "I was told that you could ransom me if I agreed to help you. The guard is waiting."
"Let him wait."
"For how long, my lady?"
"Until I have decided. Until you have agreed."
"Agreed to what?"
She smiled and shook her head, a tress of hair falling to veil one eye, a strand which she lifted and replaced among the rest.
"My lady!"
"Why be so impatient, Earl? What waits for you if you leave this room? Do you prefer a cell? And afterwards the auction block and a life of contract-slavery? Or to be taken and hidden away and used by those who are not known to be gentle?"
The Cyclan? But if she knew of their interest in him then why not mention the name? A guess, he decided. Neither she nor the major was sure. The display of their seal had been a goad or a calculated stimulus to gauge his reaction. An old trick of any interrogator. Let slip a hint and then follow up; probing, using the information the victim lets fall to gain more. But what was the real connection between them? Why had he been sent to the woman?
"To help me," she said, when bluntly he asked the question. "And to help yourself at the same time."
"How?"
She stepped towards him, arms lifting to embrace him, her lips settling close to his ear. Her voice was low, a bare murmur, impossible to hear from outside or to be caught by any electronic device.
"To steal, Earl. To snatch the loot of a world."
From high to one side a man yelled. His shout drowned in the rasp and rumble of falling rubble, the pound of a pneumatic hammer thudding like a monstrous heart accompanying the snarling whine of a saw. Noise which filled the air with blurring distortions as dust veiled sharp detail.
The day had died and night reigned but still work continued under the glow of floodlights. A uniformed figure snarled a curse, then stiffened to salute as an officer barked his displeasure.
"Sorry sir, but these civilians-"
"Are our employers." The officer, young, a neat dressing on his forehead covering a minor wound, smiled at the woman at Dumarest's side. "Your forgiveness, my lady, but the man is fatigued. Battle tires a man and the war was a hard one." His hand rose to touch the dressing. "Even so he should have remembered his manners."
"You are forgiven, Captain." Her smile was radiant. "Your wound is not too serious, I hope?"
"I was lucky," he said modestly. "And medical aid was at hand."
"I'm glad of that. Well, goodnight, Captain. Perhaps we shall meet again. You are on duty here at night? I shall remember it."
"Captain Pring, my lady." His salute was from the parade ground. "If you need help be free to ask."
"A fool," she said as they moved on. "A typical soldier, Earl. A manikin to be manipulated as if it were a stuffed toy."
Dumarest stepped over a low pile of rubble. "Why don't you like mercenaries?"
"Isn't it obvious? They come and fight their stupid war and then make out they have done their employers a favor."
"And haven't they?" He smiled as he halted and turned to face her; a man taking a walk with an attractive woman, a couple engaged in idle conversation. In the darkness eyes could be anywhere. "Think of the alternative. Without mercenaries you'd need to train and equip your own forces with all the expense that entails. Those who died would be close; sons, fathers, brothers, sisters even. And those engaged in civil war tend to ignore restraints and so increase the destruction. All the employers of mercenary bands really lose is money. It is strangers who do the dying."