Sam shook his head at her, wishing he had not asked her, for she could not be rational about it. Still, even accepting that a good part of what she said might be true, it still didn’t mean Phaed was involved.
She murmured, “Not that I could prove which ones they killed with their own hands. I could only say for sure they planned killing, hour on hour, night on night …”
She could not prove it. Sam heard that, forgetting what else he had heard. His own dad was probably not part of any of this. Bad things happened in Voorstod, he no longer doubted, but his own dad was not part of it. Perhaps he was even being used by these conspirators.
Maire went alone to the Wilm clanhome, refusing Sam’s company but taking the letter with her.
“So what do we do now?” cried China. “What will you do, Maire? Dare you return?”
“Dare I? No. I don’t dare. I’m terrified. But of course I’ll return,” Maire’s eyes were sunk deep, and her face was drawn. “To save the boy, of course. And not because he’s Sam’s … you know. Simply because he is. The thing is, my going back may not save him. I know those men. We can’t trust their word. I’ll have to think of a scheme to get him out safely.”
“What will they do to you, when they get you back?” Africa wanted to know.
“Only their vengeful prophet knows for sure. Awateh, they call him, the prophet of the Almighty, head of the whole butcher shop. He’ll have the last word on what happens to me. Still, I don’t think they’d kill me right away. They must have some reason for wanting me back besides merely killing me. They could have done that here.”
She went back to Sam, trembling from fear, and Sam comforted her, telling her he wouldn’t let her go alone. He would have gone with her even had she gone blithely, with a song on her lips. This was what Theseus had promised him. He knew it. “I’m going with you, Mam. I will not let you go there alone. Depend upon it.”
She wept on his shoulder, while he looked over her head at the wall. It was time for him to meet his father. The man his father. Phaed Girat. He told himself he wanted to know the truth, even while he assumed he already knew the truth. Dad was much maligned, not that Maire hadn’t had some right on her side, but she’d no cause to think all the evil of Voorstod dwelt in Dad’s skin and hung on his bones. No doubt Mugal Pye was a villain, but no doubt Sam and Phaed, once they were together, could put it right. Thereafter, Maire said things to him, and he to her, neither of them understanding the other, her thinking he was going along to protect her, and him thinking there was nothing, really, to protect her from.
Maire wanted delay. The longer she could delay, the better, so she told herself. She had no intention of going directly to Voorstod. Her only reason for going at all was to guarantee the boy’s safety, so she was determined not to put herself at risk until Jep Wilm was free. Though Mugal Pye had promised no harm would come to the boy, Maire trusted him no more than she trusted the wind not to blow on any given day.
Between herself and Sam, they kept Ilion hanging and hanging for days at a time, while messages went back and forth between Ilion and Mugal Pye and, secretly, between CM and Ahabar. Even though Maire agreed to go almost at once, she told Ilion she would not go alone, and Sam needed some time to take care of matters at Settlement One before he could depart. To Ilion, the whole matter seemed pointless, so he didn’t question this excuse. Luckily for Jep, the conspirators had allowed for a considerable period of time for the old woman to make up her mind. They had thought they might have to send a few slices of the boy, quite frankly, before she’d be jostled into action, and her early acquiescence had startled them agreeably. They didn’t see that having Sam with her made any difference. He would make another hostage, if they needed one. Within limits, they were willing to be patient.
It was only days before they were to leave when Saturday Wilm came to Maire with a pronouncement.
“I have to go with you,” said Saturday.
“Never, child. I’ll not endanger another of you.”
“It has nothing to do with danger, Maire Girat. It has nothing to do with what I want, or Jep wants, even. It has to do with the God. It is the God tells me to go, where Jep is. There’s something there I have to do. Wherever Jep is, I have to go there. You must stay outside of Voorstod until we return, both of us, but before Jep leaves there, I must go to him.”
Maire shook her head. She would not consider it.
Saturday gritted her teeth. “Maire, everything you told me about Voorstod, all the killings, all the maimings and the slavery, do you want it to go on? Do you want the Gharm to go free? Maire, do you want the killing to stop? Maire, are wee babies to be safe in Voorstod? Maire, are the bombs to stop going off in Green Hurrah and killing the children?”
The older woman looked at the girl, shaken.
“How do you know these things?”
“Some of them you told me! I guess the God told me some things. What any person in Hobbs Land knows, the God knows. What you know, the God knows, Maire. Everything we know becomes all one thing, the thing the God knows, and what the God
