"As have I, Forelander," Besh said. "Perhaps once you've left the Fal'Borna you'll come to see how the Mettai live."
"Perhaps," Grinsa said, knowing that it probably wouldn't happen. "If there's to be war it wouldn't be wise for us to cross back into Eandi land."
Besh shrugged, seeming to concede the point. "No, it probably wouldn't be." He shook his head again. "I meant what I said before: This isn't like my people. I can't imagine what would make any Mettai fight for either side."
Grinsa didn't know what to say.
"We never did find a way to defeat Lici's plague," the old man went on a moment later. He turned to Sirj. "I don't suppose there's anything to be done about that."
The younger man shook his head. "Not unless you want to risk staying in Fal'Borna land."
"Don't," Grinsa said. "I admire you both for even considering it, but the Fal'Borna aren't to be trifled with."
"No, they're not," Sirj said. "Never mind our people, I'm not even sure why the sovereignties would do this."
"Blood and bone," Besh whispered.
Sirj looked at him. "What?"
"They're attacking because of Lici, because of what her plague has done.
"You don't know that," Sirj said.
But Grinsa could hear doubt in the younger man's voice. For his part, the gleaner thought that Besh was right, though it hadn't even occurred to him to wonder about this until now.
"You know how the last of the wars ended," Besh said, his voice bleak. "The Eandi wouldn't dare attack unless they knew that the Fal'Borna had been weakened. It has to be because of this pestilence Lici conjured."
Grinsa sensed where Besh was going with this. "You still need to go back, Besh. You can't risk staying here."
"With all respect, Grinsa, it's not your place or the Fal'Borna's to tell us what we can and can't risk. I swore an oath to stop Lici from doing any more harm."
"And you did that!"
"I killed her," Besh said. "That's all. Her plague is still spreading, and now there's to be a war. Her war." He looked at Sirj. "You know I'm right, don't you? You know that we can't just leave, not now."
"I don't know that Q'Daer and I can keep you safe," Grinsa told him before Sirj could answer.
Besh frowned. "I don't recall asking you to. There's a reason why the Eandi sought an alliance with the Mettai. You've seen just a hint of what our magic can do. Believe me when I tell you that we're not to be trifled with either."
Grinsa had to smile. Besh was right: He and Sirj hadn't asked for any protection, and since another a'laq had declared them friends of the Fal'Borna, they didn't need anyone's permission to remain in the clan lands.
"Forgive me," he said. "I shouldn't have assumed that you'd need us to protect you. As your friend, I'd like you to go back to your home, where you'll be safer. But of course it's your choice to make."
Besh nodded. "Sirj and I will speak of this further. We'll let you know what we decide."
Grinsa still heard a touch of ice in the old man's voice, so he merely nodded in return and left them. One way or another, they'd be leaving soon and he wasn't ready yet.
Long before he reached his sleeping roll, however, he saw Torgan striding toward him. Grinsa knew just what the merchant was going to say and he had no desire to hear any of it. He kept walking, pretending that he hadn't noticed. After only a few moments of this, however, Torgan began calling to him. Heaving a sigh, Grinsa stopped and faced the man.
He'd been thinking about this for so long. More than once, he had thought he finally had the courage to do it. He'd gone to his carry sack fully intending to pull out the scrap of basket and take it to the white-hairs. But always something stopped him: lack of nerve, guilt, questions about whether it would even do any good.
These last, at least, had vanished in S'Vralna. The scrap of basket he carried would surely kill them. That much he now knew for certain. But the rest…
Guilt should have meant nothing to him. The Fal'Borna would kill him without hesitation; why should he feel any remorse for striking at them first? And though the Forelander had once argued for his life and for Jasha's, he had since shown himself to be much like the white-hairs of the Southlands. He seemed perfectly willing to trade Torgan's life for his freedom and that of his family. And why shouldn't he? Torgan was wise enough to know that he'd have done the same in the man's position. But then why should Torgan feel any pangs of conscience at taking the man's life in order to save his own?
That left his nerve, or rather, his lack thereof. This was not something he could overcome with logic, or by cataloging the ways in which the white-hairs had earned his enmity these past few turns. This cut to the very core of who and what he was. And for some time now Torgan had known that he was a coward. For years he had denied it to himself, citing as proof his refusal to flee Medqasse even when he knew that the coinmonger who eventually took out his eye was hunting him. Really, though, he had been more fool than hero at the time. He'd believed he could evade the man and his henchmen, and there was nothing courageous in the way he had cried and groveled, pleading for mercy when at last they caught up with him. But only recently, since that first night just outside of C'Bijor's Neck when he had watched the Y'Qatt city burn, had he known for certain.
He had long expected to die old and fat, happy and rich. Then he'd bought those damned baskets from Y'Farl in the Neck, and in a matter of days his world had crumbled. A wiser man-perhaps a braver man-would have embraced death in the face of all that had happened to him since then. He was fat still, but happy and rich were lost to him, possibly forever. And yet even now, he was terrified of dying.
He could start again, buy new wares, earn back the riches he'd lost. His desire to live reflected his belief that he could find wealth and happiness once more. That's what he told himself.
But he knew better. Fear controlled him, not hope. He didn't want to live so that he could overcome all he'd endured these past few harrowing turns. He wanted to live because the thought of dying unmanned him. It stole his breath and turned his innards to water. It wasn't so much that he wanted to live as that he simply didn't want to die.
Torgan would never accept that he was a killer. Whatever he did to get away from the Fal'Borna the white-hairs drove him to do. War was coming to the plain. An Eandi army was marching toward the Silverwater, and Torgan hoped that they would lay waste to every sept they encountered. Damn the white-hairs to the Deceiver's realm-let every last one of them burn in Bian's fires and be tortured by his demons. He hated them all, and, he knew, they hated him. If he returned to E'Menua's sept, he'd be killed, not because he had sold cursed baskets to the Y'Qatt or to Fal'Borna living in the small sept he'd visited in the north, but simply because he was Eandi. White-hairs and dark-eyes. It was simply the way of things.
He no longer had time for guilt or doubt. And knowing what was coming, understanding with the certainty of a condemned man that the remainder of his life could now be counted in days, hours, hoofbeats, he found his nerve.
"Gather your belongings," the Fal'Borna Weaver told them. "We'll be leaving shortly."
Torgan and Jasha had barely spoken in days. Up until now, the young merchant's hostility had bothered him a good deal. But this once Torgan was glad that the young merchant was nowhere near him when he reached into his sack and pulled out the scrap of burned basket. His hands were trembling violently. No doubt the color had drained from his face, leaving him ashen. It didn't matter. Jasha wasn't there to see any of it.
He'd give the white-hairs one last chance to let him go. They de-served-
"No," he said aloud. He wasn't going to lie to himself. He didn't believe that they deserved any consideration at all. But he remained too frightened of what he was about to do; he would give them this last opportunity because the only way he could do this was to convince himself that he had no other choice.