Amazingly, her breath was still sweet, although he was sure his was sour. A great deal more came clear about what had passed between them last night, indeed it did, and he wrapped his arms around her and settled her closer.
A hard rapping, tat tat tat tat tat, sounded on the outer doors.
'The hells!' he swore.
She cocked her head to one side to listen, then grinned and stretched. 'Take your pleasure while you can, Marshal, for they will be clamoring for you as soon as you blink.'
Didn't anything ruffle her feathers? Neh, surely not. She had more courage than he'd ever know. She'd faced the creature that tried to kill her, and won its trust.
She began to gather the clothing tossed here and there about the
tiny sleeping chamber. He stood and caught her lightly by the wrist. She looked at him, studying his face.
'Listen, Verena,' he said. 'I thank you for what you offered me. I'm glad for it. But I'm marshal now, and I have to think whether it's best for the hall that I share such a relationship with a fawkner who works under my authority. I just don't know. It all came on me so suddenly. I'm not sure how to negotiate these currents, much less rebuild the hall after Marshal Yordenas tried his best to destroy it.'
'You're honest. I appreciate that.'
'I'm not saying that-'
'Joss. I'm looking for a pleasant way to pass the evening now and again, that's all. I think you're pretty well accustomed to women's admiration, so you have to believe me — even if it's difficult for you to do so — that I'm not looking for more than that. Nor will I sit around pining for you. And maybe this isn't such a good idea. We have enough complications as it is. It's true enough that Argent Hall needs us all to work hard and together if we mean to restore it to what it ought to be. We have forty eagles or more come home to the hall looking for new reeves, and a raft of hopeful candidates knocking at the gates-'
The pounding resumed, a thapping that made his head hammer right between the eyes.
She grinned. 'I would have thought you held your wine better than this. Go on.' She handed him the vest she'd unlaced last night, then tugged on her own pair of leather trousers.
'Marshal Joss?'
'I'm coming!'
He dressed, then tossed the coverlet back on the sleeping mat and decided to roll it up and store it away later. Verena picked up the empty pitcher and the pair of tumblers, slid the door open with a foot, and marched across the outer chamber of the marshal's cote to the outer door. Joss, trying to smear the muzziness out of his eyes, stepped into the outer chamber and slid the inner door shut just as she slid open the outer door. A pair of reeves and a fawkner in a linen coat stood on the covered porch.
The fawkner said, 'Morning, Rena,' as Verena stepped past him and hunted for her sandals by the stairs. 'That cursed Tumna is still hanging about. We were thinking she'd fly on off to the mountains
like any normal bird that's lost its reeve does, but maybe she's gone rogue. She's looking for someone else's head to rip off.'
Verena turned to give the other fawkner a hard stare. 'She's a good bird. Don't go thinking otherwise.'
The two reeves watched this exchange with interest, grinning first at the fawkners and then at Joss. He ignored them and sat down in front of the cluttered desk that was the marshal's worktable, but all he could do was to stare in disgust at the hopeless disarray: two pots of unstoppered ink turning to sludge; a writing brush left uncleaned so its fine hair tip had dried into a twisted horn; a pile of paper needing a clerk to read to him; a mug filled with chits, each one marked with a name so he could resolve a long-standing dispute over duty rosters; a pair of blue and black glass-bead bracelets — what in the hells were those doing here?
'You didn't waste much time,' said the older reeve, sauntering in when he hadn't been invited. 'The story in the hall this morning goes that she got you drunk last night and hauled you off by the — Eiya! A new version of the usual tale, I admit, but with the same ending.'
Joss squinted up at the man he thought of as 'the Snake'. 'Volias. Greetings of the day to you, too. Why are you hammering on my door?'
'That was Siras, here.' He gestured to the younger reeve, who was still standing at the threshold.
'Come in,' said Joss wearily, beckoning to Siras and the old fawkner, whose name he had forgotten. Verena's footfalls crunched away down the gravel path. 'I'm not awake yet.'
'I'll fetch tea and soup from the cook,' said Siras hastily and, without attempting to come in, he took himself off.
'Is the news that bad?' asked Joss, eyeing first the Snake's smirking face and then the old fawkner's serious expression.
Unexpectedly, the old man smiled. His was a sweet smile rather like a child's. 'Neh, Marshal. It's a good morning when we wake up to know we're shed of Yordenas and the rest of his hateful crew.'
'I admire you fawkers and reeves who stuck it out despite everything for the sake of the eagles and the hall,' said Joss. 'You did well. I mean that, Geddi.' The name surfaced at last.
'Begging your pardon, it's Askar. Geddi is taller and about twenty years younger by my reckoning.'
Volias snickered.
'Why are you here to plague me?' asked Joss. 'Didn't I send you back to Clan Hall?'
'Commander sent me right back again. There's trouble everywhere, Joss.'
'Wherever I see your ugly face. Aui! I recall now. You returned yesterday. High Haldia is fallen to an army larger and better-disciplined than the one that attacked Olossi.'
'That's right,' said Volias more soberly. 'That we managed a victory here in the South and sent that second army into flight is by the mercy of the gods.'
' 'By the mercy of the gods, and the cunning of the out-lander,'' added Askar. 'As it says in the tale. After you've had a sip of tea and a swallow of soup, Marshal, there's duty rosters to sort out. The fawkners would like to talk to you about the injured eagles. The senior reeves need to talk to you. The training master wants a word about how to sort out so many novices at one time. The hall steward needs your imprint to ask for a tithing increase since we're feeding so many new novices and eagles, with more to come. And besides there are a hundred new young hopefuls still waiting in the western parade grounds, each one eager to try for an eagle.'
'Amazing how they will come,' said Volias in a thoughtful tone, spoken in a way that made even Joss want to know what had provoked those words. Then he laughed scornfully, ruining the effect. 'Eh! So this morning when passing out rice balls among them, Darga and Medard got to talking in loud voices about how that cursed eagle — Tumna — slaughtered her very own reeve. They did go into detail of what the remains looked like. A puncture wound in the chest big enough to slither through, which eels were doing. His head half ripped off, dangling by a few tendons, and one arm clean gone. By the time they were through talking, a good twenty of those bright-eyed innocents had slunk out the gates heading for home.'
Joss grunted, feeling the headache reemerge. 'Askar, have we a clerk who can read all these contracts and correspondence, and write replies?'
'Neh, Marshal. Marshal Alyon did have a good clerk on retainer from the temple of Sapanasu in Olossi, but when Yordenas came in
he sent the man packing and kept that Devouring girl to read his letters for him.'
'And read more of him besides, I am sure,' said the Snake with his habitual sneer.
Joss felt his anger rising. Siras clattered up the steps, kicked off his sandals, and brought in a tray of tea and soupy which he set on the desk in the last cleared space.
'Well now, Volias,' said Askar in his same serious tone, 'you might think so, and many did think so, but I'm not so certain. I doubt the Devouring girl danced to Yordenas's melody.'
The Devouring girl.
All memories of the sweet night he had spent with Verena vanished like so much chaff blown away under a stiff wind. Hoping his hand's tremor would be interpreted as exhaustion and wine-sickness, he sipped at the tea. The cook had kindly brewed thin medallions of ginger with a sprinkling of dried purple arrowroot flowers, good for hangovers.
'With your permission, Ruti will fly me into Olossi this morning so I can go to the temple of Sapanasu and see about them sending us a clerk for the work needs doing here,' continued Askar. He went into detail about what
