“You don’t like him, do you?” Kostia asked, nodding her head to show him she already knew the answer. They were passing through the tall wooden gate which closed the fortification against the world outside, the servitor-guard looking them over carefully and seeming reassured at the sight of the young women and the aged man. “You don’t like him one bit.”
“He’s a… well, he’s a difficult lad to get to know.”
“Oh piss,” Tonia announced in a no-nonsense voice. “Piss and sour milk and sheep-shit. You knew him half an hour after we picked him up, Septemius Bird. You had him all figured out. Him with that wounded child look, those pouting lips, those heavy eyes. Did get hurt some as a child, probably. Found out it made people feel guilty, so he kept right on getting wounded, here and there, now and then. A little obvious suffering to make mama and sister pay attention. Stavia saw that and took to him, mothering as much as sex, I’d say. There’s lots of the Great Mother in Stavia.”
“I agree,” said Kostia. “So then he grew up, refusing to heal, keeping the pitiable parts of him foremost, where they’d draw his mama’s attention, and his sister’s, and probably Stavia’s as well. Good mind, behind all that, and he knows she’s not stupid, so he begged books. That makes her guilty for it’s against the ordinances, and her guilt means she’s going to hurt him again, and that gives him a hold on her.”
“But he won’t do anything dishonorable, despite what he’s already done and is about to do,” Tonia drawled. “Brave, pitiable boy, no he won’t. So there she is, caught in the middle, feeling she’s been the one to hurt him most, all her fault. Oh, sheep-shit, Septemius, you know all about it.”
“At your age,” he announced, “it would be considerate to be less wise. I take some comfort from the fact that you will both undoubtedly be driven to ill-considered and reproachable behavior by some future romantic attachment.”
“At your age,” Kostia said, “you might as well stop mincing words. There’s something about him puts me off. A kind of destructive audacity about him.”
“Or behind him,” Septemius agreed. “For all he’d like us to think this is an illicit trip, I’d bet anything you’d like that his officers know all about it. Maybe they even sent him.”
They were silent a time, exchanging significant glances. “I feel you’re probably right, Uncle. But it’s Stavia I’m concerned about,” mused Tonia. “I’m worried about her.”
“And there she is,” said Kostia, gesturing down the narrow, dusty alley they were on toward an equally dusty square compassed about with wool sheds and sheep pens. Stavia stood at one corner of the earthern plaza, talking with a middle-aged woman dressed in leather trousers and a loosely woven woolen cape. Both looked up at their approach, Stavia at first frowning, then smiling, as though she was glad to see them but had not expected them quite so soon.
“Septemius,” she called, drawing the woman with her. “I’d like you to meet the camp manager, Marietta. Septemius Bird, his nieces, Tonia and Kostia. The gentleman in the back of the wagon is the elder Bird.” She leaned through the door. “How are you, Bowough? You’re looking better than when last I saw you!”
“It’s the medical miss, isn’t it? Come in, my dear, come in.” He reached for her hand, tugging her over the seat and into the wagon where she crouched beside him, taking note of his improved health while Septemius conferred with the manager about the possibility of doing a little show for the camp residents. Marietta was delighted and willing to pay. Keeping up morale in this isolated place was one of her major concerns.
“You picked him up?” Stavia whispered to Tonia, who had come back into the wagon with her. “Chernon?”
“Oh yes. He left us half a day out, Stavia. He’s gone eastward to make some signal for you. That is, if you’re still sure you’re going off with him this way. Kostia and I don’t recommend it.”
“Still telling my fortune?” Stavia asked, not really upset. “Come, now. He’s a dear old friend, brother of a dear old friend, and he’s counting on me.”
The young women shook their heads at her but didn’t say anything more. Stavia had that bland and unresponsive face which often masked with an appearance of politeness the most implacable sort of obstinacy. No point in wasting one’s voice. “What have you been doing here?” Tonia asked instead, detouring the boggy place in their relationship. “It seems very remote.”
“I’ve been collecting plants, inspecting the camp, treating the people and the animals, writing reports, and I’m about to go off to collect a few more plants and explore to the east before returning home again,” Stavia said in a carefully cheerful and totally uninterested voice that said, better than words could have done, “Don’t talk to me about not going, because my mind is completely made up.” Then she smiled, a Stavia smile, more herself. “Before I do that, though, I’ll treat you and the family to dinner. How does roast lamb sound?”
“If it didn’t sound good, what?”
“You could have a nice dish of local greens,” Stavia laughed. “Which would probably smell like sheep. Everything does.”
The lamb was roasted over an open fire. It was tender and delicious, oozing with succulent fat which ran down their fingers to their wrists and dripped off their chins. They had the dish of local greens as well, which smelled of sun and herbage and not at all of sheep, as well as porridge flavored with drippings and onions and garlic. When they were done, Septemius opened out the stage from the side of the wagon. As an overture, Bowough played a reedy accompaniment upon a squeeze organ while the gray dogs danced soberly on all fours and the white ones hopped about on either their front or back legs, laughing the while with lolloping tongues. Then
