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From that airship, he reflected, it should be simple to gauge the advance of Siyuf’s troops. Given just one more day, he might have arranged for signals: a flag hung out from the foremost gondola when her advance guard entered the city, or a smoke-pot lit for an unanticipated delay. To his own surprise, he found that he had lost none of his eagerness to board that airship, in spite of multiplying duties and the winter wind. Like Horn (just the person to find chairs, or boxes at least) he longed to fly as the Fliers did.
There were a lot of them today. More, he decided, than he had ever seen before. An entire flock, like a flight of storks, was just now appearing from behind the airship. What city sent them to patrol the sun, and what good could such patrols do?
A fresh gust roared along the Alameda, shaking its raddled poplars. To his right Saba stiffened, while he himself shivered shamelessly. The Cloak of Lawful Governance tossed like Lake Limna about his shins, and would have streamed behind him like a ba
The old broad-brimmed straw hat he had worn while repairing the roof was gone — lost at Blood’s, like Maytera Mint. The new broad-brimmed straw he had bought at the lake was gone too, left in the room from which the talus had snatched him. Patera Pike’s cap, the black calotte that Patera had worn in winter, was back at the manse — he had scarcely dared to touch it after Patera’s ghost had dropped it on the landing.
All were dead now, Pike, Blood, and the talus. The second and third by his own hand.
Would this Siyuf and her troopers never come? He searched the clouds beyond the airship for a glimpse of the sun. The dying Flier had said they were losing control. With what chains did one control the sun? With what tiller was it steered?
But no doubt the sun was merely masked by the threatening clouds; it would be childish to complain because winter had come at last when the calendar declared it half over.
Spring soon, unless this winter proved to be as protracted as the summer that had preceded it. If the rains failed then, so would he; if the new corn sprouted and died, Viron’s new god-appointed calde would surely die with it. He pictured himself and Hyacinth fleeing the city on fast horses, but Hyacinth was as lost as Maytera Mint, and he knew nothing about horses save that they might be offered to Pas without impropriety. This though Pas was dead.
Was Hyacinth dead as well? Silk shivered again.
A band struck up in the distance, and ever so faintly his ears caught the clear, brave voices of trumpets and the clatter of cavalry.
Someone, it might have been Oosik, said “Ah!” Silk felt himself smile, happy in the knowledge that he had not been alone in his misery and impatience. On his right Saba murmured, “I can identify the units as they approach, if you want, and tell you a little about their history.”
He nodded. “Please do, General. I’d appreciate it very much.” He was tempted to ask her about the Fliers, as commander of the airship, she might know something of interest — possibly even of value. But it would be the height of bad ma
A young woman’s dark face (after a brief uncertainty he recognized Horn’s sweetheart Nettle) appeared at the left side of the platform. Loudly enough for him to overhear, she asked, “Wouldn’t you like to sit down, Your Cognizance? There’s a man renting folding stools.”
Quetzal beamed. “How kind you are, my daughter! No, I’ve got my baculus, so I’m better off than the others.” (It was not entirely true; Oosik had his heavy sword in front of him and was leaning upon it as if it were a walking stick.) “Patera Calde isn’t as lucky,” Quetzal continued. “Would you like this kind girl to rent you a stool, Patera Calde?”
It would be unthinkable, of course, for him to sit while the Prolocutor stood. Silk said, “Thank you very much,. Nettle. But no. It’s not necessary.”
“I’ve just decided,” Quetzal told Nettle, “that though I wouldn’t like one stool, I’d like two. One for me and one for Patera Calde. Have you enough money for two?”
Nettle assured him she had, and disappeared in the crowd.
On Silk’s right Saba muttered, “You men lack the stamina of women. It’s biology and nothing to be ashamed of, but it shows why we make the best troopers.” His cheeks burned; a subtle alteration in Quetzal’s posture hinted that he too had heard, and was awaiting Silk’s reply.
What would Quetzal himself have replied? Saba’s remark bordered on inexcusable arrogance, surely, and such arrogance was punished by the just gods — or so he had been taught in the schola. Reflecting, he decided it was one of the few things he had been taught that seemed undeniably true.
He smiled. “You’re entirely correct, General, as always. No observer can help noticing that women endure far more than men, and with greater fortitude.”
On Saba’s right, Oosik muttered, “Our calde has a broken ankle. Haven’t you seen how he limps?”
“It had slipped my mind, Calde.” Saba sounded honestly contrite. “Please accept my apologies.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, General. You stated an inarguable fact. Sphigx and Scylla might apologize for facts, I suppose — but a mortal?”
“Just the same, I — here they come.”
The first riders, tall women on spirited horses, could be seen through the arch. Each bore a slender lance, and a yellow pe
“I know nothing about these matters,” Silk leaned toward her, “but wouldn’t slug guns be more effective than lances?”
“You’ll be able to see them better in a moment. They have slug guns in scabbards, left of their saddles. Their lances are used in a charge. You can’t fire a slug gun with its muzzle at the horse’s ears without panicking the horse.”
Silk nodded, but could not help thinking that from the accounts he had been given, Maytera Mint and her volunteers had fired needlers when they charged the floaters in Cage Street. Presumably, the moderate crack of a needler did not disturb a horse like the boom of a slug gun. To him at least, it seemed that even a small needler like Hyacinth’s, with a capacity of fifty or a hundred needles, would be a superior weapon.
Nettle reappeared, holding up folding stools with canvas seats. Quetzal accepted one, and Nettle went to the front of the platform to pass the other to Silk.
He took it and exhibited it to Saba. “Wouldn’t you like this, General? You’re welcome to it.”
“Absolutely not!”
“We could sit alternately, if you like,” Silk persevered. “You could rest a while, then return it to me.”
She shook her head, her lips tight; and Silk put down the stool, empty, between them.
The Companions had ridden in threes and had appeared to be sca