'Why?' asked the commander.
'Because they're needed at Iron Hall! You're not the only ones with trouble! We've lost reeves to transfer, or to death. Even a pair who went missing and never returned, them and their eagles both, yet we have had sightings, and we don't think they're dead. Just… fled, more like. Run away. Cowards. There's strange goings afoot up on the plateau, although we've had no particular trouble in Teriayne yet. Some trouble in the upper reaches of High Haldia. Outlaw bands thieving and causing other trouble. The worst of it is bands of young men traveling from one place to another, scrambling in groups out of Heaven's Ridge and vanishing up into the plateau, or back again, not whisper or shout to be heard from after. You can't bring a man to trial who's done nothing but walk along the roads seeking work, not if he's caused no trouble and had no complaint brought against him. So-that's that. That's my orders, and my report.'
'Very well,' said the commander. 'Copper Hall has recalled five of its reeves but leaves me the rest. That leaves Clan Hall with-' Like most of those who had served their apprentice year as clerks in one of the temples dedicated to Sapanasu, the Lantern, she could calculate on the page. She freed a scrap of paper from an untidy stack on her table, turned it over to the rough side, and brushed marks to calculate numbers departing, numbers staying, and, it seemed, a few stray reeves actually being sent to Clan Hall.
'Under strength,' she said. 'We'll be able to fill out only three flights, including our retired and our fledgling reeves.'
'Don't look at me!' cried Iron Hall's legate. 'It isn't my fault!'
But of course she wasn't looking at him. She was looking into the unknown, gauging risk, danger, certainty, the angle of the wind, the timbre of the air.
'I do fear,' she said, looking at each legate in turn, 'that we are not yet facing the worst. Oh no. This is only the beginning.'
' Pleasant of her to say so,' said Peddo that evening at the Pig's Bladder after Joss recounted the whole of the meeting.
'You saw nothing unexpected on your escort duty?' Joss asked.
'Eiya! I did indeed. I saw a farmer who had the handsomest chest I have ever done seen, I will admit to you.'
'You're drunk.'
'He rejected me! I need more wine to drown my sorrow. Whoop! Look there!'
A trio of young men with the brawny shoulders and flat caps of the firefighting brigade pushed into the room.
'Can't you ever stop?' Joss asked.
The serving lass brought a pitcher, and poured a new round for the two reeves.
'You're new here,' said Joss with a smile, admiring her fresh youth, her lithe body, her light bearing and pretty eyes.
'So I am, Uncle,' she said, shifting herself just out of range of his hands, not that he was moving a finger.
Peddo snickered, miming an elderly man leaning on a cane.
'Where's Mada?' Joss asked the girl, feeling stung.
She settled the pitcher on her hip, took a good, long look at the young firefighters, then returned her attention politely to Joss. Exactly the way a well-brought-up girl would tactfully oblige a garrulous but boring old uncle.
'You didn't hear? Her parents made a good bargain. She's getting a legal contract, marriage to a lad out of Wolf Quarter, although they won't be living there naturally. His aunts and uncle are in the building trade, roofers. She'll join the business. It's a good bargain for her. If you know her, you might have seen him around. Nothing splendid to look at, I'll grant you, but decent enough, and a good business to work in. That's worth a lot more than looks.'
She went on awhile in this vein while Peddo ogled the firefighters, and Joss sipped at his drink. In honor of the young year, the cordial had been flavored with the dried and crumbled petals of baby's-delight, which made it ever sweeter. Too sweet, really. In the last few days, since he'd crawled through the ruins of River's Bend, he'd lost his craving. The smell of stew bubbling wafted in from the inner court, melding with the eye-watering smoke of pipes, and he blinked back a tear. After a while, the young men called to her, and she sashayed over, a little too obviously, swinging those hips as though to smash errant chairs out of her path. Whew.
'There was one thing, though,' said Peddo, staring with sudden interest into his empty cup. 'I spotted areas that were trampled, as though a company had camped there. But cursed if I ever saw any such groups roaming. Jabi would see things off in the distance, beyond my sight, but by the time we got there-and he's fast, you know how fast he is-there'd be nothing to see. But cover to be had, if you take my meaning. Once I surprised four lads, who were hiding from me in the scrub. Jabi flushed them out, could see them moving, and they got nervous and tried to bolt. But they were only laborers, out looking for work. It puzzled me. I felt there was always something going on just out of my range of vision.'
'Me, too. I felt the same thing. So did Scar. He was restless, stooping as at prey and then giving up on it. I go over and over those days in my mind. I just sense I overlooked something, that I missed the sign spread in my path, but I don't know what it is.' He'd been missing too much. The commander was right: He'd been drowning himself in cordial, rather than doing his duty. He'd lost his edge. He wasn't keen set. But he couldn't say that out loud.
'You know what the tale says,' added Peddo.' 'Forest and cavern and mountain and lake and ravine and every village, too, all these hide crime from the reeve.' Nothing to be done about it. We find what we can. We do what we can.'
'That's not good enough. The Guardians are dead. We're the guardians now. Who else is there?'
Peddo scratched his head. 'Well. Any person who seeks to do what is right. Neh?'
Joss watched the lass flirting with the firefighters, who were boisterous, vibrant, and so very young, full of wholesome energy, the gift of the gods. They walked about their patrol every day, and when they saw smoke or flames, they ran to meet their trouble. 'I met a southern merchant. You didn't run across him, did you? He called himself Feden.' Wetting a finger, he drew the man's clan mark onto the table-top.
Peddo burped, considered, shook his head. 'No.'
The heat from the candle dried up the mark. Outside, it began to rain.
'He was from Olossi. He said he sent his factors, and later a slave factor, down into the empire to trade. It just got me thinking. There must be women in the south, just like there's women in the Hundred.'
'Did it hurt that much when the lass called you 'Uncle'? That you think you have to go looking for women outside the Hundred? Don't mind her, Joss. She's not that much of an armful. Shame about the other lass, though. She did like you.'
Joss shrugged. 'It's not the worst day of my life. I'll miss Mada, though I'm happy for her good fortune. No, it's just, after a while, you do wonder, don't you?'
Peddo was eyeing one of the firefighters, the one who seemed just ever so slightly to be eyeing Peddo back. 'I always do wonder, but I rarely find out.'
'That's not what I meant! I wonder… what it's like. I wish I could go south.'
'South? To Olossi? Why can't you? I mean, with the Commander's permission, of course. You'd have to have some patrol in mind, some mission. A message to carry to Argent Hall or-'
'No. I mean south, over the Kandaran Pass or across the Turian Sea.'
'Out of the Hundred? You're crazy, my friend. You can't leave the Hundred. No reeve can. Break those boundaries, and you will be dead.'
'I'm half dead anyway.'
'Aui! Stop being maudlin. What do you know about the south anyway?'
'Nothing more than what the merchants tell me, and they're all liars.'
'So they are.'
'The fields are always green, the fruit is always ripe, the lands are always at peace, and the women are the most beautiful in all creation.'
'You have had too much to drink,' said Peddo. He emptied Joss's half-full cup into his own empty one.
'You've downed twice as much as I have. Anyway, I'm sure of it.' Abruptly, taken aback by how badly he
