She sighed. “I don’t doubt it. Now go.”
He scowled at her, then at Chall as if he had murder on his mind, but thankfully he turned and started away. Maeve watched him go then gave a shake of her head. “That’ll be trouble later.”
“Seems to me that’s trouble all the time,” Chall said. “Gods, Maeve, what happened to you?”
She looked at him, feeling a bit defensive. “What happens to all of us, Chall—time. That’s all.”
“Still,” he said, “I wouldn’t have ever thought to see you let yourself be bullied by some…some ape that looks too stupid to know how good he’s got it. Or even read for that matter.”
She gave him a smile at that. Chall could be sweet sometimes, too—though always, without fail, only when he didn’t mean to be. “No,” she said, “maybe not. But it’s better than a public torture and an even more public execution.”
“If you say so,” Chall said dubiously, staring off in the direction her husband had gone.
She waved a hand dismissively. “Forget Hank. He’s a fool, but fools are easy enough to control. Now, why don’t you tell me why you’ve come.”
He gave her a wink. “Missed me, did you?”
She stared at him. “I refused your proposal and married an ape. What does that tell you?”
Chall winced at that. “Right, on to business then. Though,” he went on, getting that shifty look he sometimes—nearly always—got, “it’s a bit of a tale, and I’ve had quite a walk, and I’m a bit thirsty. I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible, that is, if maybe you had something…”
She sighed. “Hank had the boys over a week ago. I’m pretty sure they left something or another.”
He smiled. “It’s good to see you, Maeve.”
She stared at him, fat and in purple trousers, his shirt and pants covered in dust from the road, and found, to her surprise, that despite everything, despite all the times she had considered strangling him, it was good to see him. She shook her head. “Come on, you bastard.”
***
A short time later they were sitting at the small table in Maeve’s home, using the only two chairs which had survived Hank’s regular drunken rages. She held a cup of hot tea in her hand while Chall took a large, unceremonious gulp from the half-drunk bottle her husband and his friends had left. He opened his mouth as if he would speak then paused, beginning to brush dust off his shirt and pants, straightening his droopy, stained collar, making a big production of it. One of the things she most definitely hadn’t missed about the magician was his need to primp and be the center of attention, even if that attention led to black eyes and headaches—black eyes for him and headaches for anyone who happened to be unfortunate enough to listen to his ramblings.
She took a sip of her tea then frowned, putting it down. Never had liked the stuff. She’d tried it often enough, but like so many aspects of her life, she could never seem to do the thing that she knew was best for her. Proof of that much, at least, sat directly in front of her, purple trousers and all. “You figure you’ll get around to the story anytime soon, or should I take a quick nap?”
Chall paused from where he was running a finger across his teeth and winced. Then, finally, he proceeded to tell her about the vision, having to be prodded, from time to time, to get back on track and stop cursing some random innkeeper who he had apparently—and to no one’s surprise but his own—managed to piss off enough to take a candlestick to him. As Maeve listened to him take forever dancing around the point as if it were a game he was playing, she found herself envious of the woman as she wouldn’t have minded taking a few swings at him herself.
But once he’d finished, she was no longer envious. Instead, she was worried. Worried and mad—furious, really, though at who or at what she wasn’t sure—and more than a little confused. It was difficult, in fact, for her to know what exactly she was feeling, so twisted up were her emotions. On the one hand, she had told herself that she was done with all of that, with all those people. From that side, she thought it was only right that someone was trying to kill her ex-commander, thought that it was a wonder there wasn’t already a career path for that exact thing, that folks couldn’t take classes on it. On the other, though, she found herself worried, worried for him, mostly, and that, she believed, was what made her angry. He was a murderer. A cruel murderer, an adulterer, and worse, a man who had gloried in his own sins. She should not care what happened to him at the least or even should have wished to help those seeking his life.
But she did care. Partly this was because the same men which sought his life sought hers as well. Mostly, though, it was because she cared for him. For reasons she could not explain even to herself, she cared for him, and the thought of something happening to him did not sit well with her, not at all. And that wasn’t even to mention the boy, whatever poor youth had found himself sucked up in the man’s wake, much the same way that she and Chall and the rest had. It wasn’t that they had chosen to follow him exactly. Certainly she did not remember ever making a conscious decision to do so. Instead, it was as if the man were some great whirlwind or cyclone driving its way across the land and she and those others who they had traveled with—some alive, most not—had simply been pulled along by the force of him, had been swept up
