She fought the canvas and tent poles with help from no one but the old cripple from the siege of Arngrere, known as Grandfather Arcot. She had a bad leg herself. Grandfather Arcot had problems with his arm, facial scars, and lacked three fingers on his right hand. The two of them were not well made for handling common camp chores.
Someone asked, “Could you use some help, then?” in heavily accented Connecten.
Kedle started to snap something in character for Kedle Richeut, nasty or sarcastic or both, but Lady Hope came to mind. Not quite sure why, she held her tongue.
The speaker was the commander of a battalion camped close by. He had watched the Vindicated arrive. It looked like he knew who she was. She thought she ought to know him, too, though she was sure their paths had not crossed before. The feeling waxed as she took his measure.
Grandfather Arcot chirped, “Little help here, please?”
The visitor stepped in as Kedle responded. He got hold of an obstreperous tent pole. “I have three hundred bored soldiers just sitting around. They’re gonna start getting into mischief if I don’t give them something to do.”
Oddly, he seemed disinterested in her as a woman but intrigued by Kedle Richeut, the Widow.
She ignored that, listened to what he said.
In her camps there was always work enough to exhaust everyone by the end of the day. To the Widow all the world was enemy territory. She insisted that the Vindicated take that to be true wherever they were. They had been warned already that trouble might be coming here.
“Why not? I’ll use whatever help I can get so long as the helpers don’t have sticky fingers.”
The visitor put on a dramatic show of being appalled. “Madam! Please! You are speaking to the chief law officer of the Mother City!”
Grandfather Arcot declared, “Not a thunderclap of reassurance to a Connecten, fella.” He lost control of the canvas he was wrangling. His eyes had gone hard.
The visitor considered Arcot’s face, hand, and arm. “Unhappy encounter with the minions of law and order?”
Kedle said, “With minions of Brothe. At Antieux.”
“Ah. Of course. Some of us can’t put the bad times behind us.”
Still wrestling canvas and poles, Kedle demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
He got no chance to reply. A small man had appeared. “Word just came in, Boss. He’s unshipping at Shartelle.”
“Hey! Bo! I really hoped he’d give it a skip. Guess he couldn’t ignore the challenge of cracking the tough nut first.”
“Just Plain Joe will be there. I’m tempted to go see him.”
“Not smart in this country. You don’t go anywhere on your own. You’re a westerner, you’re prey.” He faced Kedle. “Some crusaders are worse than most Pramans. I’m told.”
The smaller man bobbed his head nervously. “Rogert du Tancret.”
“And the Queen.”
Kedle eyed the smaller man. “I’ve seen you before.”
“I doubt that, ma’am.” His nerves worsened, though. He was lying.
She sniffed out the cleverest lies easily, these days. This man was, suddenly, desperate to be away from her.
The other interposed himself smoothly. “I would be Colonel Ghort,” he said, while the little man slipped away, studying his surroundings with ferocious care.
“All right. I remember who he is. Or was, maybe.” The little fellow had been a Brothen spy in Antieux, pretending to be a Seeker from Firaldia. He had been bold enough to engage in a doctrinal debate with Brother Candle before vanishing so completely that he might never have existed.
“He’s a good man.”
She shook her head, unsure that she had her facts right, then focused on Ghort. Pinkus Ghort. Sometimes Colonel Ghort. Lately, Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies Ghort. “I appreciate the offer of assistance. Being Khaurenese I would have no trouble accepting. The Good God knows we could use a hand. But these are the Vindicated, mostly from Antieux. Chances are they would consider you a gift from God.”
“Oh, sigh. I had nothing to do with the Antieux massacre.”
“You’re older than I am, and more experienced. You have to know that you being guilty, or not guilty, means about as much to them as it did to Bronte Doneto, whatever hat he wore whenever.”
Ghort managed a grin. “You’re probably right. It’s an awful old world, chock full of human beings, and human beings are such unreasonable, irrational beasts. Worse than the gods themselves. All right. I tried to forge some solidarity. Now I’ll go somewhere where I won’t be so much of an object of temptation.”
Kedle thought she felt the snicker of an invisible, amused entity. Hope? There must be news.
Ghort said, “Come visit me. My guys don’t hold any grudges.”
More amusement.
Kedle watched the man amble off. “What the hell was that?”
“You vamp.” Grandfather Arcot wore a big, scar-distorted grin. “Let’s talk about it after we’re done here.” He was making no headway with the tent.
“Yeah. All right. I’m coming. It’s just … That was so damned odd. I can’t figure what he wanted.”
The very air whispered, Perhaps he noted that you are a woman and recalled that he is a man. The same air slithered under the edges of the tent and lifted it up.
“There we go!” Grandfather Arcot declared. “That’s what I wanted to see. So. You’re curious, go on and visit him. You lads! Lend a hand, you don’t want to sleep in the rain.”
The Arnhander boys from Arngrere put their buckets aside.
The Widow continued to stare after the Captain-General. Hope continued to envelop her in silent amusement. Pinkus Ghort was still officially Captain-General, was he not?
What was his game?
What, for that matter, was he doing in the Holy Lands?
Maybe she would go visit, just to unravel that mystery.
* * *
Brother Candle wakened from the deepest, most satisfying, most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed since leaving Antieux. Lady Hope, faintly radiant, was shaking him. She had been in his dreams … and was here now in actuality …
She grinned wickedly. “What a wicked old devil you are, thinking like that! Too bad. We don’t have time. The enemy approaches.”
Groggily, he stumbled to Kedle’s tent. A dozen Vindicated had crowded in already, few more alert than he was. None paid the Instrumentality any heed.
Kedle was not sleepy. She was excited. Flushed. Breathing fast. “We’re all here, now. These are the facts. Pramans have been gathering in the hills to the east. They’re mostly regional, modestly armed, but led by professionals from Lucidia. They don’t know us. They just see a chance to grab some plunder.”
Brother Candle asked, “What about the others camped around here?”
Kedle did not answer the question he thought he had asked. “I sent the boys … They’re on their own. We’ll get hit first, anyhow. We’re closest to the hills.”
This must be what that old man at the hospice had meant when he said they should post sentries. Local opportunists-not necessarily Praman-considered pilgrims a resource best exploited while still muddled from travel.
“These raiders have done this before. They have the impudence to sell the captured arms in Kagure or Grove.” Ominously, “Healthy captives get sold to slavers and sent east. The rest…”
She did not have to explain.
“We have been warned.” She did not explain that, either. The Vindicated no longer asked. “We have a few hours to prepare. Let’s make a statement they’ll hear from one end of the Holy Lands to the other. These dogmatic snakes need to know that the Vindicated have come.”
Brother Candle shivered at her intensity.
“I want toddlers in Shamramdi, Begshtar, Mezket, Souied ed Dreida, even Jezdad, to wake up screaming at night because they think the Vindicated are coming. I want Indala himself pissing down his leg.”