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“He never believed in it.”
Maytera Mint said, “Then I should weep for him. A short life and a violent death in this wretched place. You can write on his stone, here lies one who sought no succor from the gods, and hence received none.”
The man with the slug gun chuckled. “Maybe you can. How about it, Spider?”
“Sure, why not? She can do it while we’re waiting.”
Remora ventured, “May we be seated? My legs, er, flaccid.”
“Go ahead. They’ll be along in a minute.”
“If you mean Bison’s scouts, I feel certain you’re right,” Maytera Mint told him.
He took off his cap and ran a dirty comb through greasy, graying hair. “You figure Bison’s boys chilled him? You’re abram.”
“I doubt that you even know who Bison is.”
“The shag I don’t. I got people all through your knot. You think I don’t?”
“Thank you very much.” She wiped away the last tears with her sleeve. “We appreciate all who come to us.”
He laughed. “You appreciate them? They’re tellin’ us what you do, every move you make.”
“Meanwhile they must work and fight for us, if they’re not to be detected.” She sat down next to Remora. “They would like to rise in our councils, I suppose. To do it, they’ll have to work and fight well.”
“S’pose all you want to,” Spider grunted.
“You are, um, confident it was not one of Colonel Bison’s men — er — persons. Troopers. Who shot this, um?”
“Sure. Sib, how come my culls don’t faze you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because we’re hiding nothing. You want to learn our secrets, but they’re only virtue and prudence. His Eminence and I had hoped to arrange a peace in which your spies and you might live. Now there will be none. We—”
“All right! Muzzle it!”
“Will root you out. We’ll go down into this wretched hole and fight, find the underwater boat on which—”
He kicked her.
“You held the calde—”
He kicked her again, and she screamed.
Remora lurched to his feet. “Really, I ca
“And drop stones on it from the surface or catch it in a net,” Maytera Mint finished. “If you want our plans, there you have them. Your spies can tell you nothing more.”
“You’re one tough little girl.”
“I’m a gross coward,” she told him. “I realized it about an hour after Echidna declared me her sword. We were storming the Alambrera. It might be more accurate to say we were trying to. I — shall I tell you?”
Spider put away his comb. “I’ll break you.”
“You have already. I screamed, didn’t I? What more do you need to complete your triumph? My death?” She threw her arms wide. “Shoot!”
“Another time, maybe.” Spider turned his attention to Remora, who was sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. “You, Patera. Your Eminence. Is that what they call you?”
“You may call me either. Or neither, eh? I should, um, opt for neither, given the choice. I — ah — covet no honors from you.”
“You can die, too, Patera.”
“I, um, well aware. Thinking, hey? Thinking while I, um, bore the general. Not valiant, eh? Not like, er, she.”
“Your Eminence, I am not brave!”
“You are, Maytera — ah — General. Yes, you are. Not, um, sensible of it, conceivably. I — ah — am not. Was a, um, prisoner of Erne’s. I told you, eh?”
“You told me you’d conferred with him, not that you were his prisoner.”
Remora looked toward Spider, seeking his permission; Spider said, “Sure, I’d say we got time.”
“In the, um, Palace, eh? Eating di
Remora paused to swallow. “Frightened, General. Badly frightened. Horribly, er, affrighted. Coward. Questions, eh? Questions, questions. Read, um, statements I never made, eh? Spoke in my own defense. Struck. Said I’d lied. Struck, eh? On and — ah — more of the, er, like treatment.”
Maytera Mint nodded. Her right cheek was begi
“Said they’d kill me, eh? Needler at my head. All that. Coward, lost control. Bowels, er, voided. Soiled my clothes. Had to speak to the Brigadier. Said that over and over. I — ah — know him. Knew him, eh? In better days. Yes, in better days. Saw him at last. Truce, eh? Truce, cease-fire. I can, er, bring one about, hey? Calde’s an augur. Let me go. Spoke through glass to — ah — Councillor. Loris. Councillor Loris. He said — urn — let him go. And they — ah — did. Brigadier Erne did. Fellow I’d — ah — chatted with, hey? Ten, twenty, er, occasions. Parties, di
Spider laughed.
“Back to the Palace, hey? Frightened — ah — terrified. Shooting augurs, eh? Sibyls, too. I, um, didn’t see it. For that thank — ah — Tartaros. Thanked Tenebrous Tartaros for it, for, er, shielding my eyes. But I knew, eh? They told me. Felt the — ah — slug. Needle strike my back a score of times in — er — three streets. Roughly, eh? Roughly three. Dead twenty times. Back to the Palace, washed. Listening all the while. Listening for them. Why, eh? Why listen?” Remora’s bony fingers laced and loosed, knotting and writhing free to form new knots.
“My — ah — rise. Page as a lad. Schola. Augur. My mother, eh? Be Prolocutor someday, eh? Mother, couple aunts. Father, too, hum? Acolyte, desk in the Palace, higher every year or so, hey? Father died. Careful, hey? Careful, worked hard, hey? Always careful, no enemies, hey? Long hours. Aunt died. Work and wait, eh? Coadjutor died. Younger than old Quetzal, hey? Dead at his table, eh? Lying on his — um — documents. Coadjutor, Mother. Old then, eh? Very. But her eyes shone, Maytera. Er, General. Her eyes shone.” Remora’s own were full of tears.
“There is no need for you to torment yourself like this, Your Eminence.”
Spider told the man with the slug gun, “See what’s keepin’ them.” He rose, nodded to Maytera Mint, and walked away, down the tu
“Mother…” Remora coughed, a racking cough deep in his chest. “Sorry. My, um, couldn’t prevent it. Mother dead, hey? Mother dead, General. All dead, then. Mother, father, both, er, sisters. Not Mother’s — ah — her vision. Vision for me. Prolocutor. Why afraid? Beatings. Blows, eh? ’Fraid of them, too. Most of all — ah — her vision.” He fell silent.
Wanting desperately to change the subject, Maytera Mint asked Spider, “Where is that man going? What are we waiting here for?”
“A stretcher.” Spider shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “For him.” He gestured toward the corpse.
“You’re going to carry it away for burial?”
“Cleaned up, hey?” Remora had not been listening. “Lay clothes. Left the Palace. Soon as I could. Went to Ermine’s. Calde might come. I knew. I knew. In the, um, his letter.”
Maytera Mint nodded, supposing that the letter had been addressed to Remora.
“Went to Ermine’s. Drinking den there. Lay clothing so they wouldn’t — ah — shoot. Waited. Porter dropped something in the street. Up like a rabbit. Die, never Prolocutor. Her spirit, eh? Her ghost. Her vision for me.”
“It never occurred to me that you were waiting for a means to carry the body,” Maytera Mint told Spider. “It should have, but I’ve seen so many left lying where they fell.”
He cleared his throat. “We got a place. You’ll see it.”
“Down here?”
“Yeah. Eight, ten chains from here.”
Maytera Mint indicated the corpse. “Did you like him, Spider? You must have.”