"Oh, at the Little. They came out of Mar. It wasn't much of an audience."
"It wasn't much of a talking line, I heard."
"That's true. But there was one girl… still, you know how they are, they will say they are sworn to purity until their tour is done."
"They say that if they aren't interested. What they say to a handsomer man is quite another thing."
"That's not what your sister said."
"Hey! That's not funny. You know she's getting married at Festival."
"Stop it, you two! Or I won't cycle you off duty on Festival First Night."
The chatter changed course into safer channels: the upcoming new year's festival; a jeweler who gave good deals on trinkets suitable for wooing jarya companions; a flower seller who had given good advice about a certain herbal that gave off an arousing perfume; the cockfights and horse races meant to take place on Festival Third Day; the demise of their favorite rice-wine seller in an unexpected fall from the upper story of his warehouse; the preparations of one of their party for his appearance in a talking line on the last night of the festival, which mostly had a great deal to do with properly gathering and sewing together stiff nai leaves to make the traditional bristling wrist guards.
These young men, like all the rest of the early-morning travelers and indeed most of Olossi's population, were ignorant of the magnitude of the threat that stride by stride marched nearer. It seemed Olossi's council really did like to hoard its secrets, even when knowledge might save lives. It did not, on the whole, make him trust them, neither the Greater Houses or the Lesser.
"Look! There!" said the fourth young man, who up until now had said the least.
They had gone a ways up the slope and could look back with enough command of the height that the wide plain and the curves of the river winding through it made a striking scene. Sunlight glittered on the river. The sea was a vast sheet of calm water, bluest beyond the delta's mouth. Over Olossi, a reeve circled, dipped, and descended for a landing.
Joss swung around to look up along the road. A fair stretch ahead of them, where the going got steepest, a rider moved at a leisurely pace. The rider was leading two spare horses, one of which had the bulky outline of an animal laden with supplies. As he watched, she reached the turn where the road bent sharply right to run east parallel below the escarpment.
To his companions he said, "Let's get moving."
43
Horas spent a dreary evening stuck in hall while Master Yordenas made him repeat his report twice like a simpleton who couldn't understand two words rubbed together, and while the party of four argued. At length it was agreed that someone really had to go back to Olossi to make sure the mercenaries got the hells out of town and well away from anyplace where they might have a hand in disrupting the larger plan.
"There aren't many of them," said Horas. "I don't see why they're such a threat."
"Ten would be too many," said Toban. "You were given strict instructions."
"We'll have to send a reeve to oversee their departure," said Weda. "You ought to go, Horas. You know the Olossi council master better than the rest of us do."
"You just don't want to stir your fat ass out of here," he retorted. But he thought of the Devouring girl, and stirred restlessly in his chair. Yet those thoughts drew up from the well of his memory the stark gaze of that woman under the awning, the clerk with her brush and blank scroll. Her gaze had left him raw and shriveled. "Let someone else go. I'm due a break from running messages."
He pushed back from the table and took his leave. He thought of checking in on Tumna, but there were loft masters, the hall's chief fawkner and his assistants, to tend to injured birds. Anyway, he was tired and cranky. Before the lamps could burn dry, he retired to his usual cot in the barracks. The musty smell of his mattress, the angle of the wedge propped under his neck, the feel of his beads wrapping his wrists: these brought sleep and chased away bad dreams.
In the morning, he woke with a clear head and a niggling sense of disgust with himself. What a fool he was to have let that Devouring girl get away without paying for her passage! Thinking of her got him stiff all over again. He was no better than a child, flinching at shadows. Indeed, he could not really identify what had gotten into him yesterday. Likely it was sour wine curdled in his stomach whose gassy effusions had made him believe that a gaze from a meek clerk had power beyond what was natural. Strange how a good night's rest and a comfortable meal could set things right.
He rose early and told Toban that it was best for he himself to go back and personally supervise Master Feden and the council. "I'll even follow the troop for a day, make sure they're really getting gone."
"No matter to me who goes," said Toban. "You might think about giving that eagle of yours some rest, though."
"Yah. Yah."
Toban was a withered stick who hadn't any juice left in him. He wouldn't understand about lusting after a woman, the kind you didn't get a chance to gorge on more than once or twice in your life. Tumna was ragged, surly, and slow from the oversized feeding the chief fawkner had stupidly insisted on last night, but she was strong enough for another day of flying.
Ragged the eagle was, and slow, and cranky at being roused early, but the pair took their distance easily and circled over Olossi soon after dawn. Every Assizes Tower was required to maintain a perch for eagles, and space enough for flight in and out, but Olossi's council had always begrudged Argent Hall their due. First he thought of landing outside the walls, but then he'd have to walk. He had made this turnaround and steep approach enough times that he knew how to bank the turn just right and give a last hop of height in the landing, just before the gap of Assizes Court opened below. They made it, even if the landing was hard. He left Tumna hooded on the perch and commandeered a pair of young guards to escort him to Master Feden's compound, always difficult to find in the twisting streets of Olossi.
After a bit of confusion at the compound gate, he was led to a spacious courtyard and seated at a low table shaded by a cloth awning. Platters of fruit and soup and porridge and dried sourfish were brought. A slender slave girl poured khaif and leavened it with a spicy tincture of moro milk. He gave her a good look-over, but she wasn't anything compared with the Devouring girl, hardly worth mentioning. He set to without waiting.
It was a reasonably good feast, not perfect. The sourfish had a proper bite, but the flat cake was bland. The nai porridge was sharp with kursi, but the soup hadn't any cut to it at all and only a pair of trifling leeks when any decent cook would have layered them on to give a morning kick. Still, the fruit was ripe, moist with juices.
"Good to see you enjoying the food, Reeve Horas," said Master Feden, entering.
"Couldn't eat last night," said Horas as he pulled the tough strings from a globe-fruit and gulped down its sweet pulp.
"I'll join you." Master Feden gave a command, and a small, wiry-haired dog whose coat was a mixture of gray, white, and black settled down, its gaze fixed on its master. Seating himself on the only other pillow, Feden took his khaif without milk or spice and dismissed the girl. "How can I aid you this morning? Is there a message from Argent Hall?" His hand trembled as he lifted the cup, but after he sipped at the hot khaif, the trembling eased and he set down the cup with a firm hand.
"Uh." Horas swallowed the last of the luscious globefruit and licked the sticky sap off his lips. "Just need to make sure the mercenary company departs for the south. Master Yordenas isn't wanting any trouble with them."
"I shouldn't think they're likely to give any trouble." Master Feden glanced across the courtyard as he said it, but there wasn't anyone over there except a pair of guardsmen loitering under the arcade, out of the sun. "Have more khaif?"