“Yes, Provost,” mouthed Jacent, set back by the fury but too curious to let this opportunity pass. “Is this about the ghosts?” he whispered.
Boarmus spun on him, lipping silently, “What do you know about ghosts! Who told you….”
Jacent flushed and stuttered, aware he had erred yet again. “I saw,” he whispered. “We were exploring….”
Boarmus drew him close. “You! You were down in the old barracks? You were with that girl who was killed? That boy who disappeared?”
Jacent quivered on the cusp of denial, unable to bring it off.
“Tell me,” grated the Provost, gripping the young man’s head painfully with both hands. “Quiet as a moth! Whisper me everything!”
Fringe dealt with the children-in-baskets matter as she had often dealt with other confusions, by refusing to think about it. She had learned not-think as a child and she used it now. She would not-think about the children or the baskets, she would not-see them again. She became very busy with other things.
Though Danivon had sought an opportunity to talk to her about the Enforcers’ life, as a prelude—he confessed to himself—to another intimate encounter, he took a close look at her shuttered face and gave up the notion. She was in there somewhere, but not immediately available. No point in wasting effort.
In any event, there was no time, for fishponds appeared along the shore, separated from the river and one another by dikes topped with walkways of mud and reeds. Along these walkways the Fisher Folk of Salt Maresh stalked with their burdens of spears and nets. Behind the ponds, in spaces cleared from the reed beds, drying racks stood laden with their strong-smelling burdens among shifting veils of smoke. As the Dove came around a curve in the river, the travelers could see the village on a platform set high on pilings. Storklike men with shaven heads came out of their houses as the Dove approached, the delicate reed-woven houses making a lacy backdrop to their ominously still figures.
“The Fisher Folk do not bear children,” Danivon said to the twins as he cocked his Enforcer’s bonnet to the correct angle and gave his coat a twitch. “Their religion requires them to be neutered and eschew sensuality.”
“They live spiritual lives,” said Curvis in a cynical tone, “constantly inspired by the voices of their kindred upon the heights.” He too wore Enforcer dress.
“It’s the children from Choire, then, that renew their population,” said Fringe.
Danivon nodded. “Choire retains only those with the finest voices, sending the rest down to become Fisher Folk. The complaint is that Choire has recently been sending far too many.”
He raised a hand in greeting. The Head Fishers returned the greeting with grim faces. The Dove tied up at a piling set in the shallows alongside the stilt-high village.
As soon as the plank had been lowered, Danivon and Curvis went across to the village platform where they were offered ceremonial cups of the local beverage and a catalog of complaint, the latter repeated over and over in more or less the same words for some little time. When the complainants were talked out, the two Enforcers beckoned Fringe from her listening post at the rail, assigned her the role of threatener in the upcoming negotiations, and bade her follow as they rounded up the excess youngsters for return to the heights.
“Where?” Danivon demanded of the Head Fisher who stood beside them on one long leg, the other drawn up, foot in hand.
“There,” the Fisher gestured, waving at the reed beds beyond the fishponds. “We told them to build themselves shelters as they would.”
“Hospitable of you,” grunted Fringe, drawing her polished boot from the mud with some difficulty. “A bit soggy out there, isn’t it?”
“We have limited room in the village,” snorted the Head Fisher, and indeed, the woven village above them had seemed overcrowded. “They’re old enough to take care of themselves. You’ll find them through there,” and he pointed toward a break in the reed beds, a well-cleared path.
Danivon swore mildly and stalked off along the dike between the ponds, the other two Enforcers following. The path was obviously well used, with many layers of cut reeds laid crisscross into the spongy soil and tramped down to make solid footing. Though clear, the path was by no means straight, and within moments they had lost sight of the village and were surrounded by dark clattering stalks that stood in impenetrable walls.
Danivon found himself walking as softly as possible, stopping every few steps to listen.
His nose said someone … No. Something else was on the path, ahead of them.
“What?” whispered Fringe, watching his face.
He made a face, shrugged, put a finger to his ear to tell them to listen.
The sound came as though he had commanded it, a deep swallowing, as of breath gulped into an enormous maw.
“What in hell?” murmured Curvis.
“Where?” whispered Danivon, palms up.
The other two pointed in slightly different directions.
Fringe grimaced. “What was it?”
“Gaver?” asked Danivon of Curvis.
“Gavers don’t make a sound like that. They roar.”
They went even more quietly, passing a group of huts that were no more than piled bundles of reeds, unskillfully hollowed to offer shelter. This cluster of squalid dwellings was empty, but another could be seen in a haze of smoke down the trail.
They went toward it, only to stop in their tracks.
“What’s that smell?” said Fringe, her nose wrinkling.
“Three guesses,” offered Danivon, carefully approaching the nearest hut. He put his head inside only briefly, then came away swiftly to stand beside them, gulping air.
“What?” asked Fringe.
“A body,” muttered Danivon. “What’s left of one.” Fringe felt a chill upon her skin. “There,” she said, catching movement at the corner of her eye.
It was a youngster, scrambling away into the reeds with frantic haste.
Curvis took two long steps and brought him back by the scruff of his muddy shirt.
Off in the reeds, the sound came again.
“How long has this been going on?” Danivon asked the mud-bedaubed youngster, who only shivered and gasped, unable to answer.
“Let him alone,” said Fringe, gathering the
