“You going looking for them?” Tracker asked.
“No. If they haven’t come back in two days or pulled the roof in on us, we’ll go ahead without them. I don’t want to be seen around them. There’ll be people here who remember them.”
We got pleasantly buzzed. Toadkiller Dog seemed capable of drinking people under the table. Loved his beer, that dog. Actually got up and moved around when he didn’t have to.
Next morning, no Goblin. No One-Eye. But plenty of rumors. We entered the common room late, after the morning crowd and before the noontime rush. The hostler had no other ears to bend.
“You guys hear about the ruckus over in the east end last night?”
I groaned before he got to the meat of it. I knew.
“Yeah. Regular wahoo war party. Fires. Sorcery. Lynch mob. Excitement like this old town hain’t seen since that time they were after that General What’s-it the Lady wanted.”
After he went to pester another customer, I told Tracker, “We’d better get out now.”
“What about Goblin and One-Eye?”
“They can take care of themselves. If they got themselves lynched, tough. I’m not going poking around and getting myself a stretched neck, too. If they got away, they, know the plan. They can catch up.”
“I thought the Black Company didn’t leave its dead behind.”
“We don’t.” I said it, but maintained my determination to let the wizards stew in what juice they had concocted. I did not doubt that they had survived. They had been in trouble before, a thousand times. A good hike might have a salutary effect on their feel for mission discipline.
Meal finished, I informed the proprietor that Tracker and I were departing, but that our companions would keep the room. Then I led a protesting Tracker to the wagon, put him aboard, and when the boy had the hitch ready, headed for the western gate.
It was the long way, through tortuous streets, over a dozen arched bridges spanning canals, but it led away from yesterday’s silliness. As we went I told Tracker how we had tricked Raker into a noose. He appreciated it.
“That was the Company’s trademark,” I concluded. “Get the enemy to do something stupid. We were the best when it came to fighting, but we only fought when nothing else worked.”
“But you were paid to fight.” Things were black-and-white to Tracker. Sometimes I thought he had spent too much time in the woods.
“We were paid for results. If we could do the job without fighting, all the better. What you do is, you study your enemy. Find a weakness, then work on it. Darling is good at that. Though working on the Taken is easier than you would think. They’re all vulnerable through their egos.”
“What about the Lady?”
“I couldn’t say. She doesn’t seem to have a handle. A touch of vanity, but I don’t see how to get hold of it. Maybe through her drive to dominate. By getting her to overextend herself. I don’t know. She’s cautious. And smart. Like when she sucked the Rebel in at Charm. Killed three birds with one stone. Not only did she eliminate the Rebel; she exposed the unreliable among the Taken and squashed the Dominator’s attempt to use them to get free.”
“What about him?”
“He isn’t a problem. He’s probably more vulnerable than the Lady, though. He don’t seem to think. He’s like a bull. So damned strong that’s all he needs. Oh, a little guile, like at Juniper, but mostly just the hammer-strokes type.”
Tracker nodded thoughtfully. “Could be something to what you say.”
Twenty-Five
The Barrowland
Corbie miscalculated. He forgot that others beside Case were interested in his fate.
When he failed to show for work various places, people came looking for him. They pounded on doors, tapped on windows, and got no response. One tried the door. It was locked. Now there was genuine concern.
Some argued for kicking a break-in up the chain of command, others for moving now. The latter view prevailed. They broke the lock and spread out inside.
They found a place obsessive in its neatness, spartan in its furnishings. The first man upstairs yelped, “Here he is. He’s had a stroke or something.”
The pack crowded into the little upstairs room. Corbie sat at a table on which lay an oilskin packet and a book. “A book!” someone said. “He was weirder than we thought.”
A man touched Corbie’s throat, felt a feeble pulse, noted that Corbie was taking shallow breaths spaced far more widely than those of a man sleeping. “Guess he did have a stroke. Like he was sitting here reading and it hit him.”
“Had an uncle went like that,” someone said. “When I was a kid. Telling us a story and just went white and keeled over.”
“He’s still alive. We better do something. Maybe he’ll be all right.”
A big rush downstairs, men tumbling over men.
Case heard when the group rushed into headquarters. He was on duty. The news put him in a quandary. He had promised Corbie... But he could not run off.
Sweet’s personal interest got the news bucked up the ladder fast. The Colonel came out of his office. He noted Case looking stricken. “You heard. Come along. Let’s have a look. You men. Find the barber. Find the vet.”
Made you reflect on the value of men when the army provided a vet but not a physician.
The day had begun auspiciously, with a clear sky. That was rare. Now it was cloudy. A few raindrops fell, spotting the wooden walks. As Case followed Sweet, and a dozen men followed him, he barely noted the Colonel’s remarks about necessary improvements.
A crowd surrounded Corbie’s place. “Bad news travels fast,” Case said. “Sir.”
“Doesn’t it? Make a hole here, men. Coming through.” He paused inside. “He always this tidy?”
“Yes, sir. He was obsessive about order and doing things by the numbers.”
“I wondered. He stretched the rules a bit with his night walks.”
Case gnawed his lip and wondered if he ought to give the Colonel Corbie’s message. He decided it was not yet time.
“Upstairs?” the Colonel asked one of the men who had found Corbie.
“Yes, sir.”
Case was up the stairs already. He spied Corbie’s oilskin packet, without thinking started to slide it inside his jacket.
“Son.”
Case turned. Sweet stood in the doorway, frowning.
“What are you doing?”
The Colonel was the most intimidating figure Case could imagine. More so than his father, who had been a harsh and exacting man. He did not know how to respond. He stood there shaking.
The Colonel extended a hand. Case handed the packet over. “What were you doing, son?”
“Uh... Sir... One day...”
“Well?” Sweet examined Corbie without touching him. “Well? Out with it.”
“He asked me to deliver a letter for him if anything happened to him. Like he thought his time was running out.
He said it would be in an oilskin packet. On account of the rain and everything. Sir.”
“I see.” The Colonel slipped fingers under Corbie’s chin, lifted. He returned the packet to the table, peeled back one of Corbie’s eyelids. The pupil revealed was a pinprick. “Hmm.” He felt Corbie’s forehead. “Hmm.” He flicked several reflex points with his finger or fist. Corbie did not respond. “Curious. Doesn’t look like a stroke.”
“What else could it be, sir?”
Colonel Sweet straightened. “Maybe you’d know better than I.”
“Sir?”
“You say Corbie expected something.”
“Not exactly. He was afraid something would happen. Talked like he was getting old and his time was running out. Maybe he had something wrong he never told nobody about.”