For days after carnival, Stavia went to the wall, hoping to see Chernon, hoping to hear from him that he hadn’t meant what he said, but she did not find him there.
CHERNON WAS SPENDING a lot of his time at the Gypsy camp with Michael and Stephon, loafing with them as they sat around the open fire, ready to run to Jik for another pitcher of beer or to fetch a burning splinter to light a pipe of willow, listening as they planned the possible battle with Susantown and harkening to their advice about women.
“Let her sweat a little,” Michael lectured. “She’ll come around. You act kind of like you’re aloof and hurt and a woman just can’t stand it. Every woman in the world is ready to believe anything is her fault if you just tell her it is. She’ll have to make it up to you. Just wait, you’ll see….”
It was late, and the fire was burned down to coals so that the men’s faces glowed red in the dim light. The beer made them logy and disinclined to move, and they turned slowly as Michael was hailed by someone just entering the encampment, a cadaverous man disfigured by sword cuts across both cheeks and brows. Chernon had never seen him before, but he greeted Michael and Stephon familiarly.
“So, Besset,” murmured Stephon, “we wondered when you’d be back.”
“I damn near didn’t get back,” the man complained, seating himself beside them and giving Chernon a significant glance.
“That’s Chernon,” Michael told him. “Very useful lad, Chernon. He knows Commanders have to have information, so you can say what you need to say. He’s all right. What do you mean you almost didn’t get back?” He offered the three-quarters-empty pitcher of beer and a mug.
The man addressed as Besset drank deeply, sighed, wiping his mouth on his arm. “After you arranged for me to get killed off, and that, I joined up with that Gypsy bunch the way we talked about.”
“Hell, Besset, that was over two years ago we said you’d died.”
“Well, I haven’t been anyplace close. The bunch I got in with moved around. We went up to Tabithatown and that, and then down the coast and cut back over to Annville. We picked up a man here, a man there. More’n half the men wanderin’ around with those bunches are from the garrisons, you know? And some of’ em are just gone without leave and that, and some of ‘em are like me, keepin’ in touch to let their Commanders know what’s goin’ on and that, so everywhere we went it was them tryin’ to find out what I know and me tryin’ to find out what they know.”
“And what did you all know?” drawled Stephon in a bored tone. “Not much, from the sound of it.”
“Not much,” Besset assented. “That’s true enough. All the men I talked to feel pretty much the same way. They all think the women’ve got some secret or other they’re not tellin’ and that. Most of em think it’s somethin’ religious. Like the Brotherhood of the Ram, you know? Only for women.”
“We don’t talk about the Brotherhood, Besset. Chernon here may be useful, but he’s not a warrior yet.”
“I was just comparin’.”
“Well don’t.”
“All right. That’s just what some of ‘em say, anyhow. There’s talk here and there about takin’ over and that, but nobody’s doin’ anything about it. Up north, toward Annville, they don’t even talk about it, because of that other time and that.”
“So? Where have you been?”
“Well, then we worked back east for a while, and it was pretty much the same thing.”
“You don’t look like you’ve been eating all that well,” observed Michael.
“We’re not exactly welcome in itinerants’ town, are we? On the road it’s what we can take, not what they give us. We had a couple of lucky bits, took over a wagoneer’s family for a while, but he tried to get away and then she acted up and that, so we did them, and then one night their kids run off with the animals. Well.”
“So!” said Michael again, impatiently.
“So, I’m tellin’ you. We were east of here. It was sometime back, before the Marthatown carnival and that, and we saw this wagon makin’ for Marthatown. We thought it was some wagoneer family. One man and one woman and a kid.”
“Yes.”
“There was seven of us, so Challer—he’s the one from Melissaville called himself the boss—Challer decides we should have a few games and that with the woman and kid, then take the animals over and sell them at the donkey market in Mollyburg. We followed along until it got dark, then waited while they made camp and settled down.” The man called Besset drank deeply from his mug, the foam making a white ring around his dirty mouth.
“You didn’t see who it was?”
“No, just that at least one of ’em was a woman. We heard her talkin’, but it was too dark to see anything. Then we rushed the camp, or I should say they did, because I hung back. I thought maybe if they was from around here, they might recognize me, you know?”
“What difference would that have made?” Stephon asked in an interested tone. “You didn’t intend to leave them alive, did you?”
Chernon flushed red, unnoticed in the fireglow. They were talking about murder! And Michael wasn’t even surprised!
“I guess I wasn’t thinkin’, to tell you the truth. Well, so the men rushed the camp, and all of a sudden there was fire all over the place and that and this silver thing whirlin’ around, and I heard Challer scream and then his head came bouncin’ down the hill where I was, and I took off.”
“A silver thing?” Stephon asked in an ominous tone. “That’s all you can tell us is some wagoneer had a silver thing?”
“I couldn’t see any more than that. Just this silver thing, like a
