There had been some mumbling as she approached. She arrived in time to hear a speech from a hulking man, weighty in the arms and shoulders, barefaced but with a heavy mop of black hair. “So, Jun, whut I dunget is wat’s the dif we killer r’not. Ol Pry Eye, he wans rid of her, alri’. Why we got to fine sumplace to keep her livin’?”
“He says she knows stuff. Mebbe he needs to talk to her. So we find ’er, we grab ’er, we haul ’er off someplace, I dunno where, tie ’er to a tree, mebbe. We come ever couple days ’n’ feed ’er. Prior, he says it won’ take but a day, mebbe two, an’ he’ll com ast questions.”
The one called Jun was taller than the others. When he turned his head, she saw his face profiled against the light. Knobby nose, thin lips, scant brows, long light hair pulled back and tied with a thin band of something, maybe a thong of leather. She would know him again.
The youngest one spoke. “Didy say we cudd’n have some fun wit’er?” He was only a spotty-faced youth, but he had that same knobby nose and thin lips. Jun’s son, perhaps? Or nephew? Definitely at the age when women’s bodies occupied a very large share of male mental capacity, if one were not a Tingawan.
“Shut, Jamis,” said Jun. “We do whut the prior says. He pays us better’n most. He allus has. When he says kill’m, we kill’m. When he sez no, thas whutty means, is no. When he gives a man gold, that man stays bought! If he don’t stay bought, he’s usual dead inna day or so.”
“But you tole me I cud kill the nex wun! I wuz jus—”
“I said mebbe an’ I know what you wuz jus. You’re s’pose to be hep, n’that means you do zackly whut I say do when I say do and you don’ kill nobody ’less I say so.”
Precious Wind slipped back into the trees to think it over. She had hoped Bear could not have been implicated in the business of Xulai’s abduction because he had not had time to meet anyone who could have, in the words of the trio by the fire, made him “stay bought.” Bear had not needed to meet anyone, however. The “anyone” had met him. The prior. The prior who took all the abbot’s messages, all his letters, who screened those who saw him and those who didn’t. When had he turned Bear around? Bear hadn’t mentioned questioning the prior himself about the money Justinian had sent, but that did not mean Bear had not done so! He might well have done so that first night. Before Xulai had explained about Mirami to the abbot the next morning. Was that the real reason for Bear’s annoyance at Xulai during that meeting? Anyone conspiring with Mirami or her people would not want her history so concisely spelled out.
Now she faced an ethical dilemma: what should one do about three men who killed other people when paid to do so? It would be far better if they were no longer available to the gentleman who had sent them, but it would also be better if that gentleman did not know what had happened to them. Oh, no. If they turned up dead, that would look very odd to the gentleman. Almost suspicious. Far better if it didn’t work out that way.
She sat quietly, waiting until the fire burned down, until the blanket-wrapped bundles made only sleeping noises, then slipped silently into their camp carrying a single tightly sealed vial. Each man had a water flask. One by one, she uncorked them, dropped in a pinch of powder from the vial, then restored the corks. The men had no other water with them. In the morning, or even during the night, they would drink water from their flasks. The thin man would wake first. Then the bulky one. The young one last. Boys his age slept long.
The herb she had used was called Y’kwem, a small, inconspicuous trailing plant with minuscule yellow blossoms. It grew in a few places in the Ten Thousand Islands and nowhere else that she knew of. Ingesting the powdered root had the effect of reinforcing personal characteristics. The peaceful became more passive. The kindly became saints. The amusing became hilarious. The killer became a slaughterer. The herbalist who had taught Precious Wind had said, “Those who drink Y’kwem become wagons without brakes, laden with stone, each at the top of his personal hill.” The word “kwem” meant “halter” or “brake” or “restraint.” The prefix meant simply “without.” No chain, no barrier, nothing in the way. Free to do as their own natures dictated. Heedless children were sometimes referred to as y’kwem.
Well, it was in the hands of fate. They would do as they liked. She went back to her horse between the two huge stones and led him past them into a narrow wash well hidden from the road, where she made her own fireless camp. She slept well until dawn, when she was awakened by shouting, then screaming, then the panicky whinny of horses, everything subsiding into silence.
She took a large water bottle from her saddlebag and went back to the other campsite once more, still hiding among the trees. She did not approach the barely smoking fire, reading the signs of what had happened from a distance. The tall one lay in his blankets, dead, his throat slit. Next to him, the bulky man was on his knees with a knife in his back and his hands tight around the throat of the young one. Bulky wakes up, decides to kill thin man, probably father or uncle of young one; young one sees him do it, knifes him, fatally but not immediately, and gets choked to death before Bulky dies.
Stepping softly, leaving no footprints, she went from water bottle to water bottle, emptying them on the ground, rinsing them
