Several times and very loudly, the sunset curfew ordinance was read out at all corners of the common.
And finally, in full darkness, Naä was still slipping between the houses and along the back paths behind them, contemplating what more she might do to cause the soldiers inconvenience, when she saw Rahm.
For the first minutes behind the horses, Rahm had stumbled and crouched at the end of the rope. Then he just walked, head low and half bent over. Finally he’d come on behind them, the tall, muscular youth Naä knew as Ienbar’s helper and her friend — almost as if, bit by bit, he’d put aside some mime of weakness he’d been performing for his captors that they had not even bothered to notice. It’s amazing, Naä thought, hurrying on beside, they really haven’t looked at him once.
I could run out, take my knife, slash the rope, and the two of us could be free and off in the dark in seconds! She grasped the knife at her belt, finally pulled it loose. But whenever she squeezed the handle, picturing herself sprinting forward, she felt a glittering web of terror, a web flung up between her and the figures moving through the dark streets.
If I surprised him and he really stumbled or cried out —
If just one of them chose to look back, by chance —
If he — or I — made some accidental sound —
This bravery of the body in sight of bodies was a very different act, she realized, from the sort she’d managed earlier, with a camp half asleep under the hottest of the day’s sun.
But still, across the little span of night, not one of the soldiers had actually looked at him, so smug were they in their superiority! Naä was still thinking this when the soldiers, Rahm bound behind them, returned to the common’s edge and started across for the council house. Qualt had been right: the strongest building in the town, now it was being used as a Myetran prison. She stepped out, then stopped as though the stone wall were only feet in front of her instead of catercorner across the square. Naä stepped back into the last doorway, to watch the soldiers and her friend mount the ten stone steps and enter the plank door. Torch light flickered within. She cursed, cursed again. But there was no way to breach those well-set rocks. She turned among the houses and began to hurry down a back street.
Half an hour later, Naä was again among the dark trees, the Myetran camp before her — though, save a cook fire off over there, or a line of light under the edge of a tent to the right, it was all but invisible. She crossed between the underbrush and a back wall of canvas, that, bellying with the night’s breeze, gave a snap, then sagged. Moving closer, she heard a voice within:
“Lieutenant Kire, this will stop! I ordered them executed. You had them flogged.”
A softer voice, with a roughness to it almost menacing: “Nactor, my prince — ”
“I want no explanations! You, Kire, have been given a great opportunity, an opportunity allowed to few — to lead a brigade of Myetra. Is this how you use your officer’s privilege? This is how you’d have Myetra known? Were you not so good a soldier, things would go badly for you now — very badly. It is only your skill at arms that saves you from my anger.” There was a pause. “It’s dangerous to cross me, Kire. You know that, don’t you?”
“My prince, truly I thought — ”
“What did you think, Kire? At this point I would like to know if you were thinking at all. Personally, I thought you’d lost your mind. Did you think, perhaps, it was an accident when a fire started in the horse yard? Did you think, perhaps, it was happenstance when most of three platoons came down with dysentery in the same hour?” “My prince — ” The man’s breath came stiffly, hoarsely, uncomfortably in his throat — “all we know is that it was not the villagers I had flogged who did it. What I thought, my prince — I thought we might…learn something from them — who is responsible for the fire, the water.”
“We could take any one of them from the street and beat that knowledge from him.”
“You’ve tried that, my prince.” He drew a loud frustrated breath. “Sire, these are a peaceful people. They don’t even have a word for weapons. The tactics we are using here are inappropriate — more than inappropriate: wasteful, of our time and energy.”
“Peaceful, are they? If they have no word for them, that just means they will be that much cleverer in coming up with weapons you or I would never think to name as such. There have already been attempts at sabotage — ”
“But let me at least try a method that seems, to me, right for this situation. Let me pick out someone, gain his confidence, then send him among them so that we can learn and direct, both. Let me select a man who — ”
“Choose a woman.” Nactor’s voice was hard, almost shrill. “A girl, rather. I am not interested in confidences, Kire. I’m interested in terror, fear, and domination. And she must be terrified of you, Kire — she must know that if she displeases you in the slightest thing, then… you will kill her!” (Near Naä’s cheek the canvas snapped once more. She pulled sharply back, though more at the indifferent cruelty than the surprise. Again she moved forward.) “Peaceful! If they seem peaceful, it is because we have given them no opportunity to be otherwise. Peaceful? Ha! Get this woman. Yes — there are three things you must do to her: bed her, beat her, and let her know her life hangs by no more than your whim, a hair… a hair that can break any moment you decide. Then… well, then, use her as you will.” (In the pause, Naä tried to picture the lieutenant’s and the prince’s expressions.) “You understand, Kire: this is an order. Break her, violate her. Then, when you’ve done that, you may use her as you wish for whatever spying — or instruction — you can. And when we depart here, you will kill her — like any other soldier finished with an enemy whore. You’ve disobeyed me once, Kire. If you do it again …”
Naä heard the sounds of boots, over matting and hard- packed earth. Canvas scratched against canvas as the flap was pushed back. Kire spoke to a guard: “Go into town, Uk. Take horses and two more men — requisition a portable light from Power Supplies. And bring back some woman of Çiron — ”
The prince laughed: “Go into town and find a young and pretty one. I really think this should be rather fun — I’m going back to my tent.”
“Obey your prince.” Kire spoke to the big soldier.
Naä realized she was gripping the edge of the canvas in her fist. Stupid! she thought, and released it, hoping no one within had seen. She moved back into the darkness.
There — the guard was going toward Supplies.
Naä backed up half a dozen steps, turned, and sprinted into the trees alongside the drop that, in the autumn, became a stream — but was now no more than a marshy strip of leaves at the bottom of the night.
There’d not been much pleasure that day for Uk. In the morning he’d stuck his head out from the warmth of his sleeping bag into mist cut through with birch trees. Squatting by him the tall soldier on clean-up detail, who’d shaken him by the shoulder, said: “Your friend’s over there in the wagon — ” Uk had been confused enough to believe for a moment the man was telling him Mrowky’d come back — “if you want to see him, before we put him under.”