‘The debt is assured and guaranteed,’ the troupe sang, voices soaring and throat sacks booming. ‘Taking precedence over all other things. Assured unto the tenth generation.’
‘None of that tenth generation stuff,’ the Prime Priest went on, a trifle agitated. ‘I have already let it go too long. I want it paid out soon, Bondri. It will be on my conscience otherwise. It might prevent my development.’
‘I will fulfill immediately,’ Bondri sang, the rest of the troupe following his lead. So sung, it was more than an oath. It became a sacred undertaking, overriding all taboos. And ‘immediately’ meant before they did anything else at all.
Favel went on with one or two other little bequests, nothing difficult, subsiding at last into shut-eyed silence. Bondri took Favel’s head between his hands and gestured with his ears. The giligee came forward to kneel with its teeth to the back of the Prime Priest’s neck. Bondri inflated his throat sack to its fullest. At one signal, the troupe burst into full voice, drowning out the weak cries the old priest made as he departed. When the giligee had the brain-bird lying licked clean and naked on the fronds, the troupe witnessed its transfer into the giligee’s pouch, then all assisted in cleaning Favel’s delicate skull. It made an ancestor cup of remarkable delicacy and graceful shape. The eye holes were handles of delightful elegance. Bondri drank from it first, singing of certain memories he shared with Favel, then each of the troupe did likewise. As they sang the memories, the priest’s apprentices made fire – a very laborious process used only for a departure – and all took part in the ceremonial burning of Favel’s remains. There wasn’t enough fuel where they were to guarantee that no bones remained, but the wound flies and gyre-birds could be depended upon to do the rest. When everything was done as well as it could be done, carefully not looking behind them in order that there be no improper memories, the troupe began to run away south.
They had an immediate debt to pay, and the site of fulfillment would begin at the place the Loudsingers called Deepsoil Five.
Aphrodite Sells, astride a mule named Lilyflower, cursed the mule, the trail, the company, and the direction in which they were going.
‘Shut it,’ urged Myrony Clospocket. ‘Another fuckin’ squeak out of you, Affy, and I swear I’ll slit your throat.’ He fingered the knife at his waist, sounding very much as she remembered him from years before, like something elemental with mindless violence breeding just beneath his skin.
‘You don’t like it any better than I do,’ she complained. ‘We should have done a quick sunder, My.’
‘We should have done it a week ago, a month ago, before Justin got after us. I’ve decided he’s up to something nasty. We’ll be fuckin’ lucky if we get off Jubal at all.’
‘Justin just said he needed us to take care of this one thing. He said we were the only ones he could trust, us and the Spider.’ She sounded doubtful, even to herself. When Justin had given them their orders, he had not been his usual flattering self. ‘It has to be important, My. He never would’ve risked a flier to get us in there otherwise.’
‘Risk, hell! He blew up half a dozen fuckin’ Presences and then sent the flier in over where they’d been. You can pray to God nobody finds out what he did before the CHASE Commission makes its fuckin’ report.’
‘If Justin did it, he did it so’s he wouldn’t get caught. And it must be important.’
‘That’s what he said, and I paid chits for it at the time. That’s Justin. He can make shit sound like syrup. He can hold a fuckin’ mule-fruit out in front of you and swear it’s roast bantigon until your mouth waters. Oh, yeah, I paid chits for the idea then. That was before I’d been out in this fuckin’ country on this fuckin’ mule for five days.’
‘It can’t be that new to you. You said you were on the Jut for the massacre.’
‘Shut it, I told you. You want those fuckin’ Tripsingers to hear you talking about the Jut?’
‘They’re ahead of us by half a mile, My. You are in a state.’
‘Spider Geroan isn’t ahead of us. He’s behind us, and I swear to God that man’s got ears can hear a viggy fart a mile away.’ Myrony Clospocket shifted on the mule, substituting one aching set of muscles for another. ‘Besides, when Chanty and me was on the Jut, it was only for two days, and we got picked up by a quiet-boat and sung through the Jammers real fast when the killing was over. It was Colonel Lang that got it done. Same colonel who’s back in Splash One right now while we’re out here killin’ ourselves.’
‘I should’ve gone with Chanty,’ she mumbled, wiping sweat from under her ears and across her forehead. ‘At least the way he’s going down there in the south is a standard route.’
‘You didn’t want to go with Chanty,’ he snarled, mimicking viciously. ‘Oh, no, little Affy didn’t want to get mixed up with kidnapping babies and killing women.’
‘I don’t like killing,’ she said with some dignity. ‘I never have. You and Chantiforth Bins know that very well, Myrony. I never did a job with you where there was any killing, and I haven’t done any on this one. Besides, I think it shits to go grabbing babies. Why’s this woman and her kid important anyhow?’
‘Justin thinks she may be important to that Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five, that’s all. Important enough, maybe he’ll trade for her.’
‘Most unlikely,’ she drawled, putting on her pulpit voice. ‘Most unlikely for any man to put himself in peril to save some woman, particularly some woman isn’t even his wife or
