“Only one thing,” the old woman said to Claude in a low tone. “What did he really look like, this Sugoll?”
“You can’t read my mind, Angélique?”
“You know I cannot.”
“Then you’ll never know. And I wish to God,” the old man added, “that I didn’t.”
CHAPTER SIX
Late in the evening, when the giant hawkmoths and the flying squirrels played their aerial games above the wooded canyon of Hidden Springs Village, seven men bearing six heavy sacks came home to the Lowlife settlement, led by Khalid Khan. They sought Uwe Guldenzopf, but his hut was empty. Calistro the goat-boy, bringing his animals home from their browsing, informed the seven that Uwe was at the community bathhouse with Chief Burke.
“The Chief is here?” Khalid exclaimed in consternation. “Then the expedition to the Ship’s Grave was a failure?”
Calistro shook his head. He was about five years old, sober and responsible enough to know something of the great plans that were afoot. “The Chief was hurt, so he came back. Sister Amerie fixed his wounded leg, but he still must soak it many times each day… What do you have in the sacks?”
The men laughed. Khalid dropped his load on the ground with a loud clanging sound.
“Treasure!” The speaker was a wiry, shock-haired individual standing just behind Khalid, the only one of the seven not burdened down. The stump of his left arm was wrapped in a wad of dark-stained cloth.
“Let me see!” begged the child. But the men were already on their way up the flat-floored canyon. Calistro hurried his animals into their night pen and rushed to follow.
White starlight shone on a small area of open grass near the banks of the brook that was born of the hot and cold springs’ mingling; however, most of the village lay concealed in deep shadow, the homes and community buildings sheltered beneath tall pines or spreading evergreen oaks that hid them from Finiah’s Tanu sky-searchers. The bathhouse, a large log structure with a low-caved roof overgrown with vines, was built against one of the canyon walls. Its windows were closely shuttered, and a U-shaped passage kept torchlight from the interior from shining out the open door.
Khalid and his men entered into a scene of steamy cheerfulness. It seemed that half the village had gathered in here on this rather chilly evening. Men, women, and a few children splashed in stone-lined hot or cold pools, lolled in hollow-log tubs, or simply lounged about gossiping or playing backgammon or card games.
Uwe Guldenzopf’s voice rang out over the communal din. “Hoy! Look who’s back home again!” And the Lowlives raised a shout of welcome. Somebody yelled, “Beer!” And one of Khalid’s grimy contingent appended a heartfelt, “Food!” The boy Calistro was sent to roust out the village victualers while the new arrivals pushed through a gabbling, laughing mob toward an isolated tub where Peopeo Moxmox Burke sat, his long graying hair stringy in the bathhouse vapors and his craggy face atwitch as he suppressed a delighted grin.
“How,” quoth he.
“Beats me,” the Pakistani metalsmith. “But we did it.” He dropped his sack on the stone floor and opened it, taking out a lance-head rough from the casting mold. “Secret weapon, Mark I.” Turning to one of the other men, he groped in his sack and produced a handful of smaller objects, approximately leaf-shaped. “Mark II. You sharpen ’em, they’re arrowheads. We’ve got about two hundred and twenty kilos of iron all told, some of it cast like these, some in bars for miscellanea, ready for forging. What we have here is medium-carbon steel, smelted in the best antique style. We built us a forced-draft furnace fueled with charcoal and drafted with six skin bellows hooked up to decamole tuyeres. Carbon from charred bulrushes. We buried the furnace so we can go back and make more iron when we’ve a mind to.”
Burke’s eyes glistened. “Ah, mechaieh! Well done, Khalid! And all the rest of you, too, Sigmund, Denny, Langstone, Gert, Srnokey, Horai. Well done, all of you. This could be the breakthrough we’ve all been dreaming of, praying for! Whether or not the others succeed at the Ship’s Grave, this iron will give us a fighting chance against the Tanu for the first time.”
Uwe stood sucking his meerschaum, his gaze wandering over the tattered and soot-stained smelters. “And what happened,” he inquired, “to the other three of you?”
The grins of the men disappeared. Khalid said, “Bob and Vrenti stayed too long one evening at the ore pit. When we came to check up on them, they were gone. We never saw a trace of them again. Prince Francesco was off hunting for the pot when the Howlers nailed him.”
“They let us have him back, though,” said the skinny hatchet-faced man named Smokey. “Day later, poor Frankie came staggerin’ back into camp starkers. They’d blinded and gelded him and cut off his hands, and then really got down to business with hot pitch. His mind was gone, o’ course. Small hope the Howlers blinded him before they had their fuckin’ fun ’n’ games.”
“Suffering Christ,” growled Uwe.
“We got a bit back,” Denny offered. His black face flashed a wry smile.
“You did,” said the bandy-legged little Singhalese named Homi. He explained to Chief Burke, “On our way home, a Howler came at us in broad daylight, oh, maybe forty klom down the Moselle from here. All dressed up in his bloody monster suit like a great winged naga with two heads. Denny let him have an iron-tipped arrow in the guts and he went down like a rotten willow tree. And would y’believe? All that was left was this hunchbacked dwarf with a face like a stoat!”
The men grunted in reminiscence and a couple of them whacked Denny on the back. The latter said, “At least we know now that the iron works on both kinds of exotic, right? I mean, the Howlers are nothing but screwed-up Firvulag. So if our noble spook allies, ever forget who their friends are…”
There were murmurs of agreement and a few quiet laughs.
Chief Burke said, “It’s a point to keep in mind, although God knows we need Firvulag help to bring off Madame’s plan against Finiah. The Little People were agreeable to the original scheme. But I’m afraid adding iron to the equation might give them second thoughts.”
“Just wait’ll they see us take out some Tanu with the iron,” Smokey said confidently. “Just wait’ll we equalize things with them dog-collar sonofabitches! Why, the damn Firvulag’ll kiss our feet! Or bums! Or somethin’.”
Everybody roared.
An excited young voice from among the crowd of villagers shouted, “Why should we hold back on the Tanu until Finiah? There’s a caravan going to Castle Gateway in two days. Let’s sharpen up some arrows and bag us an Exalted One right away!”
A few of the others yelled approval. But Chief Burke hauled himself out of his bath like an enraged bull alligator and yelled, “Simmer down, you turkey-turd shlangers! Nobody touches this iron without permission from me! It has to be kept secret. Do you want the whole Tanu chivalry on our necks? Velteyn would send out a screech like a goosed moose if we tipped our hand. He might bring in Nodonn, even call for reinforcements from the south!”
They mumbled at this. The aggressive youngster called out, “When we use iron in the Finiah attack, they’ll know. Why not now?”
“Because,” Burke drawled, in the sarcastic tone he had once used to freeze the collops of inept fledgling advocates, “the attack on Finiah will come just prior to the Truce for the Grand Combat. None of the other Tanu will pay much attention to Velteyn’s troubles then. You know the way these exotics’ minds work. Nothing, but nothing, gets in the way of preparations for the glorious shemozzle. Two or three days before Truce, when we hope to strike, not a Tanu on Earth will come to the aid of Finiah. Not even to help their pals, not even to save their barium mine, not even to beat back humans armed with iron. They’ll all be hot to head south to the big game.”