‘I will move eastward then,’ Huy made up his mind. ‘I will march at dawn.’
‘The patrol galley will arrive in five days.’
‘I will see nothing from the deck of a galley. I will go on foot.’
‘I will have an escort waiting for you before the rise of the sun,’ Marmon offered.
‘No,’ Huy rejected the offer. ‘I will move faster, and draw less attention to myself if I travel alone.’ He glanced again at Storch. ‘This man can serve as a guide, if he is as reliable as you say.’
Marmon relayed Huy’s order to the spy and ended, ‘You may go now. Eat and rest, and be ready before the sun.’
When he was gone Huy looked after Storch for a long moment then asked. ‘How much do you pay such a one?’
‘Very little,’ Marmon admitted. ‘Salt, beads, a few copper ornaments.’
‘I wonder why he does it,’ Huy said softly. ‘Why he works for us when the scars of the lash are fresh upon his body.’
‘I am no longer amazed by the acts of men,’ said Marmon. ‘I have seen too much strange behaviour ever to question a man’s motives.’
‘I never cease to do so,’ murmured Huy, still looking after the spy, troubled by the man’s treachery which jarred so harshly on Huy’s own sense of honour.
Huy’s efforts to find out more about the spy over the next four days met with but small success. Storch was a silent man, speaking only when he was questioned directly, and then answering with words barely sufficient for the occasion. He never looked directly at Huy; his eyes focused to one side of Huy’s face and he looked beyond.
Huy found him a disconcerting companion, though he clearly knew every bend of the river and every fold of the ground over which they travelled.
They called at two of the forts upon the south bank, and from the men who garrisoned them Huy gleaned much firsthand intelligence. Twice they found the sign where large parties of men had crossed the river on mysterious business, and there were other small indications of secret activity which heightened Huy’s feelings of unrest.
It disturbed him that these signs were in contradiction of Storch’s assurances of quiet and stable conditions beyond the river.
They travelled swiftly and silently, slipping like a pair of forest spirits through the dense valley bush. They travelled much in the cool of evening and night and rested in the hissing heat of noon. They ate little, husbanding the contents of the corn bag and not wasting time upon the hunt.
On the fourth day they reached the summit of a small granite hillock from which they could survey a huge area of the valley floor, a panorama that stretched from escarpment to escarpment and only shaded away into the blue haze of distance. Before them the river made a mighty bight towards the south, a wide glittering loop of many miles that twisted back upon itself.
Although the loop was some twenty or twenty-five miles around, yet across the neck was less than five and beyond it stood the squat solid block of another garrison. The smoke from the cooking fires rose in a pale blue feather into the still, hot air.
Huy looked at the twist of the river for a long time, seeing the choice as between a full day’s hard slogging or a quick cut across the neck of the loop with its attendant risk.
‘Storch,’ he said, ‘can we cross the river? Are there men of the tribes here?’
The spy looked away from Huy’s scrutiny, hiding any expression. He sat very still, squatting upon the granite dome beside Huy - and Huy thought he had not understood the question.
‘It would be shorter to cut across the bend. Is it safe?’ he asked again, and Storch replied, ‘I will find out. Wait here for me.’
He returned an hour before dark and led Huy down to the river bank. Hidden in the reeds was a narrow dug-out canoe. The woodwork was rotten with worm, and it stank of old fish. Huy’s suspicion flared.
‘Where did you find this?’
‘There is a family of fishermen camped down stream.’
‘How many?’
‘Four of them, Storch replied.
‘Vendi?’
‘No, men of Sofia.’
‘Warriors?’
‘Fishermen. Old men with grey heads.’
‘You told them about me?’
‘No.’
Huy hesitated, peering into the blank stare of Storch’s eyes, trying to find a hint of treachery there.
‘No,’ said Huy, ‘we will not cross. We will go around the long way.’ It was a test. He waited for Storch’s reaction, waited for him to argue, to attempt to persuade Huy to make the crossing.
‘It is for you so say,’ Storch nodded, and began to cover the canoe with reeds.
‘Very well,’ Huy agreed, ‘take me across.’
Storch used the current to angle the frail little craft across the river. Ahead of them the cormorants beat the water with their wings in their frenzied efforts to launch into flight, while the chocolate and white jacanas scurried
