upward facing downward, maybe a fawkner as marshal is not such a bad thing.'
Etad nodded. 'Rena stuck it out through the months we suffered under Yordenas. She never truckled to him or his lackeys. Yet neither did she beat herself bloody trying to go against them when it would have done no good.'
Joss knew Arda cursed well because of all the years they'd served together at Clan Hall. He could see a grin forming on her face.
'And also,' she began, 'since your mention of a hieros naturally brought devouring to mind-'
'Don't say it!'
She laughed and did not say one word about who had tumbled whom and what had transpired after. He plunged into a discussion of how soon the Naya Hall reeves should start being sent out on patrol with more experienced reeves, and how else they might be used to free up experienced reeves for more difficult tasks, and how Clan Hall was going to attempt to create larger units for coordinated ventures.
'Reeves were never meant to be soldiers,' said Joss, 'nor is it anything I wish for, but we can't exactly ask that army's leave to come stand for judgment at our assizes. Nor can we stand aside and do nothing.'
They were thoughtful. They had good ideas, and they laid them out sensibly. They understood how bad things were in the north, and how what was bad would overflow to flood them. He was relieved when they had said all there was to say for the moment. He and Tohon went to the parade ground and he whistled down Scar and got him harnessed while the Qin soldier watched. Joss was restless; he needed to do something, to do more.
Zubaidit had walked into danger just as Marit had that day more than twenty years ago when she'd been killed by outlaws. It was the Hieros and Captain Anji who had loosed Bai on this impossible mission to kill Lord Radas. Aui! She'd gone gladly enough. She wasn't his to fret over. Even so, he could not stop thinking of how sweet she was to hold in his arms. Yet when he
remembered kissing her, he fell also into erratic flashes of memory of nights fireside with Marit, only a blanket between them and the earth. Had he really been so young once? Such a cursed innocent fool? Would he ever stop dreaming of her, seeing her trapped in the body she'd worn then, the body and spirit he had loved in a way he could never hope to find again?
Scar chirped interrogatively, catching his mood. Joss tugged on the last hook and buckle and stepped out to join Tohon.
'You're brooding,' said the scout.
'So I am. I like to be aloft.'
'Hard to stand and watch,' agreed Tohon. 'A man gets used to riding on at the break of day. Comes to think that movement and noise is where life is, when after all there's life in stillness and quiet, too.'
'Wise words, my friend. Listen. We'll have a pair of days to wait, and I am sure you will want to report immediately to whichever chief commands the militia camp, but if you don't have to go there straightaway I might as well let you know I'm thinking of taking a turn out to the temple of the Merciless One first.'
Tohon grinned. 'Don't mind if I do. No hurry for me. I don't belong to the captain's regular troop.'
'You don't?'
'No. I was transferred over to Captain Anji's command in the Mariha princedoms. Before that, I served Commander Beje.'
'Ah.' There was a useful piece of information, all unwittingly spilled. But after all, did a man as canny as Tohon ever reveal anything he did not mean to? Hard to know.
'Need we bring gifts or fripperies or coin to the temple?' Tohon continued.
'Neh. It's shameful to offer coin for what's freely given.'
'Then how do they live, there in the temple?'
'Folk offer tithes to all the temples. Every young person who has celebrated the feast of their Youth's Crown serves a year as apprentice in one temple or another, and their family pays a tithe to feed and clothe them. A few serve longer, in the manner of debt slaves. A very few serve their entire lives.'
'Like Zubaidit,' observed Tohon.
'Why do you say so?' asked Joss sharply. 'Her contract was bought out.'
Tohon stroked the straggle of hairs that served him as a beard. That part of the contract paid for in coin. But surely it's easier to
count sheep on a distant hill grown dense with snowflower bushes than to measure the extent of a person's service to a god.' His gaze was easy but his understanding keen. 'She's already taken, my friend.'
Joss flushed. 'I didn't say-'
Tohon chuckled. 'Not in words. But I can judge the lay of the land pretty well.'
Joss scratched behind an ear, a nervous habit he thought he'd lost as a child. 'You traveled with her a fair way. Did she ever — ah-' The hells! He sounded like a love-struck youth! Wheedling after any mention of the object of desire. And her almost young enough to be his own daughter had he married and begotten a child by the age of twenty, as most folk did. As Tohon no doubt had done.
'It's true we talked about many things and many people. She's a cursed interesting woman to talk to. But she never once mentioned you.'
'I'm put in my place.'
'Maybe. But I thought it strange.'
'You thought what strange?'
'That she never once mentioned you, for you're an important man whose acts all of Olossi has reason to be grateful for. It either means she never thought of you at all, or that she thought of you enough to deliberately not speak of you.'
After three days slogging in the mire — he lost two men to sand traps and one to snakebite — Arras pulled his men back to the main encampment at Saltow and left them to clean their filthy gear while he and Sergeant Giyara, in all their mud, reported to Commander Hetti.
'We probed as well as we could.' He stood in the sun, because he dared not smear with mud the commander's fancy rug. 'Barriers have been erected on the eastern causeway in four spots.'
'That won't be a problem.' Hetti lounged on a field couch under an awning. 'The question before us is how are we to defend the perimeter once the city is ours? How impenetrable are the wetlands?'
'We didn't penetrate to the worst areas. Where you think there's firm ground there's a sucking mire, and where it looks unstable might well be the only safe path. I lost three men, in a
cautious foray against no resistance. We have no local coopera-tors, but we'll need guides to be effective. Or we'll need to kill any locals who do not cooperate with us, so they can't use their knowledge against us. Still, it could be impossible to track them if they retreat into the swamps.'
'Dirty, too.' The commander was a stout man no longer in fighting trim. He had a bottle of wine on hand and no cups, nor did he offer drink to Arras or the sergeant. His attendants were sour-looking men content with their idleness. There were a pair of painted women, too, of the kind who trade sex for jewels and coin. 'We'll take command of the locals in the same way we took command of Toskala. Assign hostages to every company. That'll keep the rest in order.'
'Toskalan hostages?' Arras glanced around the bustling camp, with folk he had thought were camp followers or hirelings hard at work: cleaning harness, husking rice, pounding nai, braiding rope, hauling water and wood; the endless round of tasks necessary to keeping a soldier ready to move.
'You were assigned none?'
'We were not. We do everything ourselves.'
'Ah. Your companies reached Toskala late. You've what-? Three hundred men?'
'Three companies, Commander. We're slightly understrength, having only three hundred and nineteen. I could absorb new recruits.'
'I've only myself to offer as a swordsman,' said the commander with a genial laugh as his gaze flashed to the young women, who pretended to smile. No doubt Commander Hetti had fallen prey to the aging man's need to see himself as a youthful contender in the other ancient art of swordcraft.
'Have you made any attempts to recruit dissatisfied locals, Commander?'
'Eiya! We've enough trouble with them scuttling in at night and stealing our chickens!'
'Have you? We've recorded no such depredations in our encampment.'
T suspect those cursed Toskalan hostages are turning a blind eye to the pilfering or even helping it along, if
