“You think they survived all that time back in the mountains?”
“The deer did. The bear did. Foxes, too.”
“Two females and one male isn’t much to breed from.”
“I’ve told all the shepherds to keep their eyes open. If they see any more of them, they’re to let me know.”
Stavia shook her head, reaching a tentative hand into the pen. A pink tongue came out and licked her fingers. Dark eyes completely surrounded by white woolliness blinked at her. “Tame,” she said. “Completely tame.”
“Which argues people close by, don’t you agree, Stavia? That’s what we all think. We don’t think they’re wild survivals. We think they belong to people. Not bandits. Not Gypsies. Settled people, somewhere.”
“There was a showman came to do carnival in Marthatown, Septemius Bird. He’d traveled down this way years and years ago. He told me there were settled people south of here. In the valleys, beyond the badlands. But that would be quite a long way south. They shouldn’t be within miles of you.”
“I was told to stay out of there and keep the flocks out of there, but no one ever said….”
“According to Septemius, the people living there are not the kind of people we’d want to… well… take in.”
“Ah. From the way you sound, not the kind we’d like to take over, either.”
Stavia nodded. “I gathered their way of life wouldn’t be anything we could either change or much approve of. I’m trying to remember what Septemius said. Something like ‘sparse and unprofitable.’ Whatever he meant by that.”
“It tells me where the spies are probably from.”
Stavia nodded, thinking hard. If people from the south were within spying distance of the sheep camp, it would be foolish for her to make a two-man foray in that direction. An immediate report on the spies should go to Emmaburg, for the Town Council, and to Marthatown, for the Joint Council. Probably the dogs should be sent as well. Women’s Country couldn’t lose this chance to add other animals to the limited number available to them. Septemius would be arriving within the next few days, and she could probably get him to carry both reports and dogs.
Chernon would leave the wagon before it came within sight of the camp, go east, and make a smoke to guide her to him. She had told those at the camp she was meeting her co-explorer elsewhere. Even though he would be disguised as a servitor, it would be better if no one from the camp actually saw him. She didn’t want his name mentioned in some future report, or for someone to be so put off by his manner that it would cause problems later—when she was back in Marthatown and he in the garrison.
Or, later, when he’d returned to them through the gate. He might. It was possible. After the few weeks or months of traveling together, he might stop this garrison-but-no-garrison flailing about and come back. As for her, it wasn’t really a breach of trust. She’d be doing the job she’d been sent to do. No guilt, she assured herself. No one cheated. The exploration would get done, just as she’d promised. Her mind ran over this well-worn track without convincing herself. If she were being honest, she’d admit the whole thing was a risky, possibly dangerous bit of foolishness.
Meantime, however, since it would probably be several days before Septemius would arrive, she could spend a day or two reconnoitering the lands south, edging up on the badlands, getting some ideas. Something was going on here. Something the Council would need to know about.
SUSANNAH’S THREE TEENAGED BOYS, CAPABLE, Dutiful, and Reliable—known to themselves as Cappy, Doots, and Rel—were committing one of the major sins known to the Holylanders, that of going out into the devil’s country on a bit of exploration and pillage. Though, as they had pretty much convinced themselves, they might well be doing All Father’s work of justice and recovery. Three of the dogs were gone and it was likely the devil-spawn women had taken them for demonish reasons of their own.
Their determination covered no small amount of guilt. It was they who had taken the dogs with them in a previous foray, which had included spying on a sizable herd of sheep and making off with one good little he-lamb, not even weaned yet. They’d been milking one of their own mama sheep for the critter ever since, though they’d about got him onto grass by now. Hard though it had been for the Elders to accept, Holyland ewes bred by the rams from devil’s country had healthier lambs than they did when dutifully served by Holyland rams. Everyone just had to admit it because it was true. Just the last five or ten years there’d been all these sterile ewes or ewes dropping dead lambs. Then Retribution had found a young ram wandering around in the badlands. He’d brought it back, there’d been this big yelling match among the Elders about whether they could use it or not, and finally they’d put it in a pen with just a few of Elder Brome’s ewes to see what happened. What happened was healthy lambs, and another yelling match about whether the devil was trying to trick the Holylanders or not.
Well, Elder Brome won that one. Since then it’d got to the point the Elders didn’t even fuss about using outside rams anymore. Whoever brought one in got rewarded; the Elders did a service over the ram to make it fit and dedicate it to All Father’s purposes. Evidently the devil’s country rams hadn’t caught any demonish diseases, because they got the job done. The general opinion among the Elders now was that all animals were made divinely immune to devilishness because they couldn’t sin anyhow.
Which wouldn’t help the boys any if the Elders found out the dogs were gone. The dogs might be immune from wickedness, but the boys weren’t; the scars on their backs
