“I met him once, long ago …” Her voice trailed away in memory. She had known him only briefly, she a young mother with two dirty children clinging to her skirts, a road-wearied trio who had walked out of Green Hurrah straight into the hands of an Ahabarian patrol. Karth had been the officer in charge. She remembered him as generous and attractive. In the intervening years she had often thought of him, regretting the vows that had prevented her responding to his unspoken invitation. She had not hesitated to send him a reminder of their former meeting, begging his help. He remembered her, so he said, and, usefully, he was in command of the garrison now.
She went on, explaining her plan to Sam. “My plan was to wait there, well-guarded in Jeramish, until Jep was brought out safe. But when Saturday involved herself, it meant we would have to do it differently. She claims she must go into Voorstod, to whatever place Jep’s being held, then they will come out together.”
“Which is no doubt the best reason of all for my going along,” said Sam, realizing he had found a suitable role for himself. “A girl that age obviously should not have to travel alone.” Not among men like Mugal Pye—whom he had liked no more than Maire had. “Now, suppose we get Jep out safely. What happens then? Do they want you to return to Voorstod and sing? Do you think they want you for some symbolic purpose? The old Maire Manone, Sweet Singer, all that.” He smiled at her, trying to cheer her.
“Certainly they want me for some purpose of their own,” she agreed. “They sought me, particularly. They took Jep because he is my grandson, to their way of reckoning, so it is clear they want me.” She turned away, not wanting her son to see the fear in her face. In a country in which children were taught to inflict pain for fun, it would be foolish for any woman to consider herself immune from receiving similar attentions. She didn’t know what they wanted with her, but she was sure there was pain in it somewhere. Still, she could not live with herself if Jep came to harm through her. “I’m frightened,” she said, wanting him to hold her. If no man had ever held her gently, surely her son could do that, now that she was old.
But Sam had never held her. He did not even think of holding her now. “But you have no idea what they want, Mam,” he said, trying to get her to look at it in a less dangerous light. “It could be something fairly innocent.”
“Oh, I’ve tried to convince myself of that,” she said. “I’ve had plenty of practice.” She was thinking how much practice she had had. We do it all the time, we women, she said to herself. We marry, and it turns out to be hell. So we hope they will stop drinking, but they don’t. We hope they will stop beating us and the children, but they don’t. We hope they will stop killing, but they see no reason to stop. Why should they, when they can sit in the tavern and tell one another how fine they are, how powerful and clever they are, how they’ll take nothing from nobody. No man’s a match for them. No woman’s enough. And nothing matters so long as they’re faithful to the Cause. Still, we women keep hoping, we keep telling ourselves maybe things are fairly innocent.
Sam’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Perhaps they want you there because too many women have left.” It was an insight, which had just come to him. “That’s possible. They want you there to tell them to come home.”
“Oh, perhaps.” She nodded, thinking about this. It made as much sense as anything else. “Perhaps so, Sammy. Perhaps there are not enough women left to breed men for the Cause’s purposes. I suppose Mugal Pye and his cronies might believe I could undo what once I did when I sang them away. Well, they can only have of me what I have to give, Sammy. As for what good you’ll do, being there, I can’t say.”
Sam couldn’t say either, but he burned to go, nonetheless.
• At first daywatch of the following morning, Saturday met Gotoit and Willum R. Quillow at the temple.
“You know what’s to do,” she told them. “The front of the temple’s still to be painted.”
“I know,” said Gotoit. “Don’t worry, Sats. Willum and me will take care of it.”
“Be alert if it needs ferfs,” Saturday said, wracking her brain for any other instructions she might remember when it was too late. “Lucky’ll know.”
“They’ve begun talking, you know,” said Willum R. “The cats.”
“Talking!”
“Well, a kind of talking. Not human talk. They haven’t the right physical structure for that. But they’ve been talking a kind of cat talk. If you listen and watch, you can understand a lot of it.”
Saturday thought Willum R. might have gone a little odd, but when she encountered Lucky and two of her kittens outside the temple, Lucky addressed Saturday in a long, complicated yowl, which Saturday found she understood perfectly well as an instruction to walk softly and smell very carefully before getting herself into anything. Saturday replied in human talk that she would do so, and Lucky nodded as though she fully comprehended what Saturday had said. She sat down and licked a front paw with every evidence of satisfaction.
“Have you got the you-know?” asked Gotoit in a half whisper.
Saturday nodded. She had the packets sewn into her chemise where they would lie next to her skin.
“That’s good then,” said Gotoit, hugging her. “It’ll be all right.”
Saturday, who was not at all sure it would be all right, returned the hug and tried very hard not to cry.
• At the third daywatch, Africa
