Carnifex

both like you. You don't already have a wife, do you?'

'No,' Cano shook his head. 'No wife. No girlfriend. I never had time to even look for either since I joined the Legion.'

'Well,' Rachman said, 'let's stop wasting time and get back to my father's home so you can get to know your future one.'

In the flaring light of the torch and the lamps, all reflected by the gold and polished stone of the hieros, which Cano now understood to mean 'shrine,' or perhaps 'temple,' Cano said, 'You are the strangest matchmaker I have ever heard of.'

'No, no,' Rachman disagreed. 'You should see my aunt. She has a better moustache than I do . . . though I think my beard is more manly . . . a little.'

Outside, the guards began to laugh so loudly that Cano was sure it was true about the moustache and beard on Rachman's aunt.

'Alena can read, you know,' Rachman said, as they made their way back to the entrance. 'Father insisted upon it. Me, personally, I think it was a mistake. She's too smart as it is—'

'Way too smart,' agreed one of the guards, just as the two emerged from the tunnel.

'Not bad girl,' said the other, 'just make you feel stupid. Doesn't mean to,' he shrugged.

'Good shot, too,' said the first.

'Oh, yes, very good. Also good on horse. This important; means she can keep up with husband on campaign.'

'Very important quality in wife,' the first guard agreed. That guard put a hand on Cano's shoulder. 'But better you than me, Hektontar. You see, she has the sight.'

'The dowry for my sister will be immense,' Rachman warned, changing the subject, and shooting a dirty look at the guards. 'Immense! Not that anyone else is bidding, mind you,' he admitted.

What the hell, Cano thought, I make more in a month than these people do in a year. Hell, in three or four years. And I never spend it. It might be nice to have a wife to spend it on. To see those beautiful eyes light up . . . 

Cano gulped, nervously. 'Rachman, you have to talk me through this. How do I propose?'

14/8/468 AC, Nicobar Straits, BdL Al Qamra

It was a daunting enough proposition. Alone, untended, unsupported, Chu had to take his vessel into enemy waters and simply look for trouble or, failing that, wait for trouble to find him.

'Somehow, I don't think it'll be long,' Chu said.

'What's that, Chu?' Centurion Rodriguez asked.

'Nothing . . . . oh, just that I don't think it will be too long before trouble finds us, even with the girls below and undercover.'

'You can count on it,' Rodriguez agreed, staring into the smoke that still covered the waters of the Straits. 'Sucks to be us.'

'Tonight, you figure?' Chu asked.

'Or tomorrow, or the next night. Wish we had the rest of the classis with us.'

'Yeah,' Chu sighed. 'Wish in one hand . . . '

15/8/468 AC, BdL Dos Lindas, Hajipur, Sind

'Shit me a goddamned working elevator!' Fosa screamed at his chief engineer.

'It's not that simple, Captain,' the engineer answered, sheepishly. 'Yes, we thought it would be that simple but we were wrong.'

Fosa turned around and stared out of the bridge's wide, and new, windows, looking at the menacing shadow of the Tadeo Kurita. It wasn't particularly easy to calm himself down, but he did. He turned around again and asked, 'All right; what's the problem?'

'It's the way this class, any class, really, of warships was built, way back when, Skipper. They can use the same diagrams. They can subcontract to the same subcontractors. But they're always a little different. In this particular case, we've got to modify the goddamned hangar deck and the elevator portal because it's three fucking millimeters too small. Or the elevator is three millimeters too big; take your pick.'

'How long?'

The engineer looked at the master of the shipfitters.

''nother week, Skipper. Maybe five day if go well.'

'Fuck.'

16/8/468 AC, Runnistan, Pashtia

'Why were the young men using a sheep before?' Cano asked, as Rachman fitted him with padding and a helmet in preparation for his upcoming game of buzkashi. Rachman and the other players, standing nearby holding their horses, were already suited up.

'Oh, that was just practice. For serious games we use calf . . . soaked in cold water to toughen it up . . . and filled with sand.'

'And the purpose of this is?' Cano asked.

'Show toughness and courage in front of soon-to-be wife,' said one of the other players in Cano's team. Cano thought he was one of the two guards he'd met at the hieros, the one who'd said, 'Better you than me.'

'You must pay close attention, David,' Rachman added, 'to the young men on both sides who show real fighting heart. They're playing to impress you, after all. Well . . . that and to get rid of my sister.'

Cano looked across the dusty playing field past the opposing team to where Alena sat, framed by a simple goal. She wore a long blue dress and, for the ceremony, she was veiled. Between them, in a small pit, was the corpse of the calf.

'We only play by these rules when it's part of a wedding,' Rachman explained. 'Otherwise, we fight to take the calf around a pole and bring it back within a circle we draw around the pit. For wedding, though, you must present calf, whatever's left of it . . . and of you . . . to new wife as trophy.'

'How long do I have?' Cano asked.

Rachman shrugged, 'Maybe couple days.'

A couple of days? DAYS? 'What if I lose?'

'Alena says you won't.'

'And she has the sight, remember,' added that same guard, pressing into Cano's hand a whip.

'What's this for?

'To hit people,' Rachman explained, patiently. 'Well, you're not the type to let someone hit you without hitting back, are you, brother-in-law to be?'

* * *

The morning sun was rising, the horse was limping, and had he been afoot Cano would have been staggering, when the two reached the rectangular goal beyond which sat his bride.

The rest of his team, and even the other team, and especially the crowd, all cheered themselves hoarse as Cano undraped from across his saddle the remains of the calf. The sand was long gone, an entire leg was missing, and the thing was more than half in shreds. He tossed the calf, what there was of it, through the goal and dismounted.

Rachman was there to catch him and keep him from falling over. He was also there to help him walk through the goals to claim his woman. This was as well since the various whips and fists and flailing hooves of rearing horses had fairly well shut Cano's eyes. He'd never have made it to the goal without Rachman to lead his horse.

You know, Cano thought, in a while, when it really starts to hurt, I'm going to regret this. But for now, before the serious pain begins, I've got to admit, that was fun.

Alena's father walked onto the field, approached his daughter, and lifted her to her feet by her hand.

'Does anyone object that this proven man take this woman to wife?' the father shouted.

'NNNOOO!' roared the crowd.

The father led Alena to where Rachman and Cano stood. He took Cano's hand, eliciting a small yelp as the hand had been broken. Into it he placed Alena's smaller one. There was more ceremony, a feast, and a short trip to the hieros to come, but from that moment they were married.

It was a pity Cano couldn't see well enough to note the light in Alena's eyes.

She had the sight.

18/8/468 AC, Al Qamra, Nicobar Straits

It might as well have been