Wizard and Glass

'Perhaps we could all put our heads together,' Reynolds said, putting a hand on the back of a chair. 'Kind of see if our thinking matches up.'

'I think not,' Jonas said, sweeping his cards together. He looked irritated, and Clay Reynolds took his hand off the back of the chair in a hurry. 'Say your say and be done with it. It's late.'

'We was thinking it's time to go on out there to the Bar K,' Depape said. 'Have a look around. See if there's anything to back up what the old fella in Ritzy said.'

'And see what else they've got out there,' Reynolds put in. 'It's getting close now, Eldred, and we can't afford to take chances. They might have—'

'Aye? Guns? Electric lights? Fairy-women in bottles? Who knows? I'll think about it. Clay.'

'But—'

'I said I'll think about it. Now go on upstairs, the both of you, back to your own fairy-women.'

Reynolds and Depape looked at him, looked at each other, then backed away from the table. Rimer watched them with his thin smile.

At the foot of the stairs, Reynolds turned back. Jonas paused in the act of shuffling his cards and looked at him, tufted eyebrows raised.

'We underestimated em once and they made us look like monkeys. I don't want it to happen again. That's all.'

'Your ass is still sore over that, isn't it? Well, so is mine. And I tell you again, they'll pay for what they did. I have the bill ready, and when the time comes, I'll present it to them, with all interest duly noted. In the meantime, they aren't going to spook me into making the first move. Time is on our side, not theirs. Do you understand that?'

'Yes.'

'Will you try to remember it?'

'Yes,' Reynolds repeated. He seemed satisfied.

'Roy? Do you trust me?'

'Aye, Eldred. To the end.' Jonas had praised him for the work he had done in Ritzy, and Depape had rolled in it the way a male dog rolls in the scent of a bitch.

'Then go on up, the both of you, and let me palaver with the boss and be done with it. I'm too old for these late nights.'

When they were gone, Jonas dealt out a fresh line of cards, then looked around the room. There were perhaps a dozen folks, including Sheb the piano-player and Barkie the bouncer, sleeping it off. No one was close enough to listen to the low-voiced conversation of the two men by the door, even if one of the snoring drunkards was for some reason only shamming sleep. Jonas put a red queen on a black knight, then looked up at Rimer. 'Say your say.'

'Those two said it for me, actually. Sai Depape will never be embarrassed by a surplus of brains, but Reynolds is fairly smart for a gunny, isn't he?'

'Clay's trig when the moon's right and he's had a shave,' Jonas agreed. 'Are you saying you came all the way from Seafront to tell me those three babbies need a closer looking at?'

Rimer shrugged.

'Perhaps they do, and I'm the man to do it, if so—right enough. But what's there to find?'

'That's to be seen,' Rimer said, and tapped one of Jonas's cards. 'There's a Chancellor.'

'Aye. Near as ugly as the one I'm sitting with.' Jonas put the Chancellor—it was Paul—above his run of cards. The next draw uncovered Luke, whom he put next to Paul. That left Peter and Matthew still lurking in the bush. Jonas looked at Rimer shrewdly. 'You hide it better than my pals, but you're as nervous as they are, underneath. You want to know what's out at that bunkhouse? I'll tell you: extra boots, pictures of their mommies, socks that stink to high heaven, stiff sheets from boys who've been taught it's low-class to chase after the sheep . . . and guns hidden somewhere. Under the floorboards, like enough.'

'You really think they have guns?'

'Aye, Roy got the straight of that, all right. They're from Gilead, they're likely from the line of Eld or from folk who like to think they're from it, and they're likely 'prentices to the trade who've been sent on with guns they haven't earned yet. I wonder a bit about the tall one with the I-don't-give-a-shit look in his eyes—he might already be a gunslinger, I suppose—but is it likely? I don't think so. Even if he is, I could take him in a fair go. I know it, and he does, too.'

'Then why have they been sent here?'

'Not because those from the Inner Baronies suspect your treason, sai Rimer—be easy on that score.'

Rimer's head poked out of his serape as he sat up straight, and his face stiffened. 'How dare you call me a traitor? How dare you?'

Eldred Jonas favored Hambry's Minister of Inventory with an unpleasant smile. It made the white-haired man look like a wolverine. 'I've called things by their right names my whole life, and I won't stop now. All that needs matter to you is that I've never double-crossed an employer.'

'If I didn't believe in the cause of—'

'To hell with what you believe! It's late and I want to go to bed. The folk in New Canaan and Gilead haven't the foggiest idea of what does or doesn't go on out here on the Crescent; there aren't many of em who've ever been here, I'd wager. Them are too busy trying to keep everything from falling down around their ears to do much travelling these days. No, what they know is all from the picturebooks they was read out of when they 'us babbies themselves: happy cowboys galloping after stock, happy fishermen pulling whoppers into their boats, folks clogging at bam-raisings and drinking big pots o' graf in Green Heart pavilion. For the sake of the Man Jesus, Rimer, don't go dense on me—I deal with that day in and day out.'

'They see Mejis as a place of quiet and safety.'

'Aye, bucolic splendor, just so, no doubt about it. They know that their whole way o' life—all that nobility and chivalry and ancestor-worship—is on fire. The final battle may take place as much as two hundred wheels northwest of their borders, but when Farson uses his fire-carriages and robots to wipe out their army, trouble will come south fast. There are those from the Inner Baronies who've smelled this coming for twenty years or more. They didn't send these brats here to discover your secrets, Rimer; folks such as these don't send their babbies into danger on purpose. They sent em here to get em out of the way, that's all. That doesn't make em blind or stupid, but for the sake of the gods, let's be sane. They're kiddies;'

'What else might you find, should you go out there?'

'Some way of sending messages, mayhap. A heliograph's the most likely. And out beyond Eyebolt, a shepherd or maybe a freeholder susceptible to a bribe—someone they've trained to catch the message and either flash it on or carry it afoot. But before long it'll be too late for messages to do any good, won't it?'

'Perhaps, but it's not too late yet. And you're right. Kiddies or not, they worry me.'

'You've no cause, I tell you. Soon enough, I'll be wealthy and you'll be downright rich. Mayor yourself, if you want. Who'd stand to stop you? Thorin? He's a joke. Coral? She'd help you string him up, I wot. Or perhaps you'd like to be a Baron, if such offices be revived?' He saw a momentary gleam in Rimer's eyes and laughed. Matthew came out of the deck, and Jonas put him up with the other Chancellors. 'Yar, I see that's what you've got your heart set on. Gems is nice, and for gold that goes twice, but there's nothing like having folk bow and scrape before ye, is there?'

Rimer said, 'They should have been on the cowboy side by now.'

Jonas's hands stopped above the layout of cards. It was a thought that had crossed his own mind more than once, especially over the last two weeks or so.

'How long do you think it takes to count our nets and boats and chart out the fish-hauls?' Rimer asked. 'They should be over on the Drop, counting cows and horses, looking through barns, studying the foal-charts. They should have been there two weeks ago, in fact. Unless they already know what they'd find.'

Jonas understood what Rimer was implying, but couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. Not such a depth of slyness from boys who only had to shave once a week.

'No,' he said. 'That's your own guilty heart talking to you. They're just so determined to do it right that they're creeping along like old folks with bad eyes. They'll be over on the Drop soon enough, and counting their little hearts out.'