Elmo joined us after a quick look around the perimeter. “Bad?” he asked.
“Can’t tell for sure. He’s full of holes. Lost a tot of blood. Better have One-Eye make up some of his broth.” One-Eye makes an herb and chicken soup that will bring new hope to the dead. He is my only assistant.
Elmo asked, “How did it happen, Candy?”
“They fired the stable and jumped us when we ran out.”
“I can see that.”
Cornie muttered, “The filthy murderers.” I got the feeling he was mourning his stable more than the patrol, though.
Elmo made a face like a man chewing on a green persimmon. “And no dead? Raven is the worst? That’s hard to believe.”
“One dead,” Candy corrected. “The old guy. Raven’s sidekick. From that village.”
“Flick,” Elmo growled. Flick was not supposed to have left the fortress at Deal. The Captain did not trust him. But Elmo overlooked that breach of regulations. “We’re going to make somebody sorry they started this,” he said. There wasn’t a bit of emotion in his voice. He might have been quoting the wholesale price of yams.
I wondered how Pickles would take the news. He was fond of Flick. Darling would be shattered. Flick was her grandfather.
“They were only after Raven,” Cornie said. “That’s why he got cut so bad.”
And Candy, “Flick threw himself in their way.” He gestured. “All the rest of this is because we wouldn’t stand back.”
Elmo asked the question puzzling me. “Why would the Rebel be that hot to get Raven?”
Doughbelly was hanging around waiting for me to get to the gash in his left forearm. He said, “It wasn’t Rebels, Elmo. It was that dumbshit captain from where we picked up Flick and Darling,”
I swore.
“You stick to your needlepoint, Croaker,” Elmo said. “You sure, Doughbelly?”
“Sure I’m sure. Ask Jolly. He seen him too. The rest was just street thugs. We whipped them good once we got going.” He pointed. Near the unburned side of the stable were a dozen bodies stacked like cordwood. Flick was the only one I recognized. The others wore ragged local costume.
Candy said, “I saw him too, Elmo. And he wasn’t top dog. There was another guy hanging around back in the shadows. He cleared out when we started winning.”
Cornie had been hanging around, looking watchful and staying quiet. He volunteered, “I know where they went. Place over to Bleek Street.”
I exchanged glances with One-Eye, who was putting his broth together using this and that from a black bag of his own. “Looks like Cornie knows our crowd,” I said.
“Know you well enough to know you don’t want nobody getting away with nothing like this.”
I looked at Elmo, Elmo stared at Cornie, There always was some doubt about the stablekeeper. Cornie got nervous. Elmo, like any veteran sergeant, has a baleful stare. Finally, “One-Eye, take this fellow for a walk. Get his story.”
One-Eye had Cornie under hypnosis in seconds. The two of them roamed around chatting like old buddies.
I shifted my attention to Candy. “That man in the shadows. Did he limp?”
“Wasn’t the Limper. Too tall.”
“Even so, the attack would have had the spook’s blessing. Right, Elmo?”
Elmo nodded. “Soulcatcher would get severely pissed if he figured it out. The okay to risk that had to come from the top.”
Something like a sigh came out of Raven. I looked down. His eyes were open a crack. He repeated the sound. I put my ear next to his lips, “Zouad...” he murmured.
Zouad. The infamous Colonel Zouad. The enemy he had renounced. The Limper’s special villain. Raven’s knight-errantry had generated vicious repercussions.
I told Elmo. He did not seem surprised. Maybe the Captain had passed Raven’s history on to his platoon leaders.
One-Eye came back. He said, “Friend Cornie works for the other team.” He grinned a malific grin, the one he practices so he can scare kids and dogs. “Thought you might want to take that into consideration, Elmo.”
“Oh, yes.” Elmo seemed delighted.
I went to work on the man next worse off. More sewing to do. I wondered if I would have enough suture. The patrol was in bad shape. “How long till we get some of that broth, One-Eye?”
“Still got to come up with a chicken.”
Elmo grumbled, “So have somebody go steal one.”
One-Eye said, “The people we want are holed up in a Bleek Street dive. They’ve got some rough friends.”
“What are you going to do, Elmo?” I asked. I was sure he would do something. Raven had put us under obligation by naming Zouad. He thought he was dying. He would not have named the name otherwise. I knew him that well, if I didn’t know anything about his past.
“We’ve got to arrange something for the Colonel.”
“You go looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. Remember who he works for.”
“Bad business, letting somebody get away with hitting the Company, Croaker. Even the Limper.”
“That’s taking pretty high policy on your own shoulders, isn’t it?” I could not disagree, though. A defeat on the battlefield is acceptable. This was not the same. This was empire politics. People should be warned that it could get hairy if they dragged us in. The Limper and Soulcatcher had to be shown. I asked Elmo, “What kind of repercussions do you figure on?”
“One hell of a lot of pissing and moaning. But I don’t reckon there’s much they can do. Hell, Croaker, it ain’t your no nevermind anyway. You get paid to patch guys up.” He stared at Cornie thoughtfully. “I reckon the fewer witnesses left over, the better. The Limpet can’t scream if he can’t prove nothing. One-Eye. You go on talking to your pet Rebel there. I got a nasty little idea shaping up in the back of my head. Maybe he has the key.”
One-Eye finished dishing out his soup. The earliest partakers had more color in their cheeks already. Elmo stopped paring his nails. He skewered the stablekeeper with a hard stare. “Cornie, you ever hear of Colonel Zouad?”
Cornie stiffened. He hesitated just a second too long. “Can’t say as I have.”
“That’s odd. Figured you would have. He’s the one they call the Limper’s left hand. Anyway, I figure the Circle would do most anything to lay hands on him. What do you think?”
“I don’t know nothing about the Circle, Elmo.” He gazed out over the rooftops. “You telling me this fellow over to Bleek is this Zouad?”
Elmo chuckled. “Didn’t say that at all, Cornie. Did I give that impression, Croaker?”
“Hell no. What would Zouad be doing hanging around a crummy whorehouse in Oar? The Limper is up to his butt in trouble over east. He’d want all the help he could get.”
“See, Cornie? But look here. Maybe I do know where the Circle could find the Colonel. Now, him and the Company ain’t no friends. On the other hand, we ain’t friends with the Circle, neither. But that’s business. No hard feelings. So I was thinking. Maybe we could trade a favor for a favor. Maybe some big-time Rebel could drop by that place in Bleek Street and tell the owners he don’t think they ought to be looking out for those guys. You see what I mean? If it was to go that way, Colonel Zouad just might drop into the Circle’s lap.”
Cornie got the look of a man who knows he is trapped.
He had been a good spy when we had had no reason to worry about him. He had been just plain old Cornie, friendly stablekeeper, whom we had tipped a little extra and talked around no more nor less than anyone else outside the Company. He had been under no pressure. He hadn’t had to be anything but himself.
“You got me all wrong, Elmo. Honest. I don’t never get involved in politics. The Lady or the Whites, it’s all the same to me. Horses need feeding and stabling no matter who rides them.”
“Reckon you’re right there, Cornie. Excuse me for being suspicious.” Elmo winked at One-Eye.