ordinands; two took off as Joss frowned. 'Aui! Did I say something laughable?'
'Neh, sorry,' said the fawkner, wiping his eyes. 'Just never thought I'd see the day when a reeve would fly in here and call himself commander of Clan Hall and not even know the proper forms, eh? Not to say we haven't been warned. I'm Kagard and that is Lenni. Let's look at your eagle, then. Anything I need know, besides that he knows the old forms better than his reeve does?'
The words rankled, but Joss kept his temper jessed. 'Scar's calm, if you're calm. I'd appreciate your opinion on these two wing feathers.'
Scar accepted their attention, and flirted a little with the younger fawkner when he approached with a pair of files. Joss coped the one trouble spot on Scar's beak, and when they were finished he allowed Kagard to direct him and Scar to an empty loft, where a haunch of deer was brought in and tossed to the eagle after Joss had leashed him to his night's perch.
They walked outside onto the landing ground, now entirely in
shadow. Lenni called an assistant out of a storehouse to pull closed the barred gate.
'It's been years since I've been at Bronze Hall,' said Joss. 'I go out the archway and over the bridge to the main island, neh?'
Kagard touched him on the elbow in a friendly way, and smiled in a friendly way, and spoke in a friendly way. 'Best you wait here for marshal's people to give the go-ahead, eh? It shouldn't take long for them to get back.'
'For the go-ahead? Is there some kind of trouble?'
'Hasn't been any trouble since marshal instituted the new measures and talked to all the town councils in Mar.'
'Was there trouble before?'
'Trouble in the Beacons and in the Ossu Hills. But we've culled out most of that trouble.'
'What manner of trouble are you talking about?' Joss asked, feeling increasingly uneasy as he looked around the expanse of ground. The islet was a rocky outcropping artificially leveled to create the landing ground for visiting eagles; there was a good launching point at the prow of the islet. The place housed a dozen separate small lofts and a storehouse and barracks and, as he recalled, stairs cut into the rock beyond the archway that led down to a stone pier where supplies could be paddled in. The folk here did a lot of fishing, too.
'Not for me to say,' observed Kagard.
Joss knew a dismissal when he heard one. He licked the taste of salt off his lips, remembering his own childhood on the coast near Haya. 'Fish for dinner tonight, I'm hoping,' he said, and got a laugh from them, as he had hoped. They weren't thawing, though. They kept a formal stance. 'Your eagles here, you've got more known family groups than any of the other halls, neh?'
'We do,' agreed Kagard.
Lenni was more voluble, perhaps seeing an opening to show off his youthful knowledge under the gaze of his seniors. 'We've got cursed good records of family groupings. They say that Bronze Hall eagles cooperate better than those of any other hall. That's why we keep visitors out here. Fewer tangles.'
'Good to hear.'
A pair of ordinands and a reeve trotted into sight under the archway. One of the lads carried a lamp. Joss strode over to meet them.
'Marshal Orhon will see you now,' said the reeve.
'Orhon?' Joss had no image of any such reeve. Not that he expected to know every gods-rotted reeve in the Hundred — obviously that was impossible — but after his years at Clan Hall he usually knew the names, at least, of the senior reeves at various halls because the legates of each hall did talk about the goings-on at their home compound. But an Orhon, out of Bronze Hall? Nothing.
How idiotic had he been to come here alone? A cursed headstrong fool, as always, acting on impulse instead of thinking. The Commander would never have acted so, but she was dead, wasn't she? So far, he was still alive.
He hefted his pack to his back and noted that they did not ask him to give up either short sword or baton as they crossed under the archway and out into the odd stillness of dusk exposed on the high rock cliff of the islet. The water swirled in white foam still visible in the gloom. Stars bloomed. There was no moon. Their footfalls made an erratic rhythm on the plank bridge. A bell tolled in the distance, ringing the last fishermen home.
On the far side of the bridge, the trail divided. They followed a track to the left, set along a cliff and lit by lamps hanging from iron posts. As they came around the headland the wind off the ocean rushed in his face, but even in the last gasp of day crossing into night it was beautiful. Far out, the ocean rolled, billows drawing whitecaps in and out of the dusk.
A cottage was set alone in the midst of low-growing seawort and clumps of berry-wax bushes. Lamps hung from the eaves. They clumped up onto the porch, where Joss pulled off his boots. The reeve, who had not introduced herself, rapped on the door. A hand bell chimed. The reeve indicated that Joss should let himself in. With a startled shrug, he slid open the door, stepped through onto mat, and closed the door.
The ocean's breathing and the wind's thrum beat in his ears as he stared at the man sitting cross-legged on a pillow in a chamber otherwise empty except for two flat pillows resting to the right of the door.
'I am Marshal Orhon.' The man had a shiny red blotch sprayed across the right half of his face. The left side of his face drooped, that eye fused shut, the skull shaved to stubble, the ear not much more than a twisted nub. His jaw didn't work properly; that accounted for his soft voice.
'Where is Marshal Nedo?' Joss asked.
If Orhon's expression changed, Joss could not interpret it. His voice's timbre did not alter. 'Her eagle was killed.'
'Was killed.'
'Deliberately killed. By raiders in the Beacons. They mutilated both bodies. To send a message.'
'We never heard-' Something in the twist of Orhon's scarred mouth cut Joss so hard he closed his lips over the rest of the pointless words he'd been about to utter.
'There is a great deal Clan Hall does not know, if indeed you are from Clan Hall as you claim. Yet you cannot even respond to the formal greeting, the one passed down through generations of reeves. One which, according to report, your eagle recognized.'
'Everyone says Scar is smarter than me, and I see no reason not to believe them on that score.'
'Sit down,' said the marshal, and Joss wondered if his voice softened. Had he found the comment amusing? The confession humbling enough?
He grabbed a pillow and sat. Voices murmured on the porch; feet thumped; the door slid open.
'Sidya!'
Sidya, once Bronze Hall's legate at Clan Hall, nodded at the marshal, not meeting Joss's eye. 'Yes, I know him. His name is Joss. He was legate from Copper Hall, in all kinds of trouble because he kept insisting on honesty and holding to the laws. He got sent off on an expedition to find out about some trouble on the roads. Last I heard before we were called back here was that he'd been named marshal of Argent Hall to try to clean the place up. As for the commander of Clan Hall, I know nothing about that, only the word we got a few weeks ago about a massacre in Toskala where the old commander was murdered. As for his claim to be the new commander — well — any reeve can name himself 'commander' but that doesn't make it so.'
Orhon did not move. It was eerie, as if he were not a living man at all but disfigured skin stretched over the wooden frame of a man.
'Do you vouch for him, Sidya? Do you think he's telling the truth?'
As the silence drew out, Joss grimaced. 'The hells! I thought we parted on amiable terms. That was three years ago, Sidya.'
The comment cracked a laugh out of her, and he glimpsed the enthusiastic woman he'd shared a bed with for about half a year.
She reached for the other pillow, tossed it down next to Joss, and sat beside him. 'I've no complaints of you, Joss. Anyhow, I broke it off, not you. I'm just-' She looked at the silent Orhon, whose one good eye did not shift focus. 'These are troubled times. I don't know who to trust, but I guess I'd trust Joss as much as anyone. I've never known Joss to be anything but honest.' She looked back at him. 'But why in the hells are you come here calling yourself commander of Clan Hall?'
'Because I'm the last person you'd think the Clan Hall council would elect?'
