Frial bit back an angry comment. Anyone would think bugs were the problem.
“Long way,” Gaib muttered. Under his blank exterior, he was more angry than she could ever remember Feeling him. She hoped he wouldn’t hurt the boy, who’d done nothing worse than fall in love, which was his duty.
“Yes, it’s a long way, Goodman,” she snapped. “What difference does that make?”
“Might never find them,” he said quietly.
Outbursts of Feelings all around made her wince—hope and fear and astonishment. The astonishment was her own, she realized. And some of the fear.
“The recorders will find them!” Recorders came around every year or two, asking about new Places and who lived in them.
“Ah, there’s that,” Gaib agreed.
“I never heard of recorders!” Leeb said suddenly. “Well, I’d heard of them, but they never came near the Leet Place. Never that I heard of. Seems it’s only where there’s these Gifted families around that they bother much.” His excitement began to boil up like milk.
Frial felt a deep surge of satisfaction from her goodman. “There, then,” Gaib said. “Maybe they won’t find you at all. Any rate, you’ve got half a year, lass. Ain’t breaking the law until then. Half a year in a good Place with a good man would be worth taking, I’d think. Gods give some folks a lot less.” Frial was stunned. She had forgotten he could be like this. She had forgotten that there had been a spark there once. Jain of the College had wakened something in old Gaib.
“What about us, when they ask us?” she demanded, suddenly fearful.
Gaib turned and leered at her with what teeth he had left. “You know where this Place of theirs is?”
“Not exactly.”
“Me, neither.”
“Oh, Goodman!” she said. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
Thaile and Ledb were staring at each other. “Oh, would you?” Leeb said. “Would you?”
Thaile didn’t say a word. She just laid a hand on his knee and the two of them seemed to fall together at the same moment, into a tight embrace. Then they toppled backward in a flurry of straightening legs, locked in each other’s arms.
Frial felt dazzled by the waves of joy.
“Here, now!” Gaib barked. “Remember your manners! Time enough for that tomorrow, when you get there. Or whenever you get there . . .”
The lovers broke apart reluctantly, flushed and starry-eyed. “Now, Goodwife,” he said. “What can we give them to get them started? I’ve got a spare spade and a mallet and I think Phoan’s got an ax he’d trade for a brace of piglets . . .” Thane scrambled to her feet and ran to hug her father. Leeb rose more circumspectly and came to Frial, hesitant . . . wondering if she approved. His eyes were pure gold.
May the Gods be with us!
She spread her arms to hug him also and let her tears flow.
6
A legion had its own standard. So did every one of its ten cohorts and every one of its thirty maniples. Add in the cavalry and the specialty troops and the total came to well over fifty standards, each one sacred, each borne by its own signifer.
When Shandie’s four legions were routed by dragons on Nefer Moor, the imperor’s official report to the Senate described the incident as a rapid withdrawal, necessitated by forest fires. Militarily the results were not too serious. A lot of equipment had been abandoned, of course, but the loss of life was surprisingly low. Nor had there been any loss of territory—”The integrity of the Impire’s borders had not been jeopardized,” as the communique put it, carefully not mentioning that the legions had been trespassing in IIrane at the time.
Forest fires in the middle of the rainy season?
The army itself knew better and word spread through the legions like an epidemic, from Julgistro to Zark and from Pithmot to Guwush, seeming to travel instantaneously, as only bad news could. Dragons were mentioned, but dragons were almost too fearful to discuss, unthinkable. What really caught the army’s attention was the rumor that almost two hundred standards had been lost. Many other battles had cost more lives or lost much ground, but for sheer humiliation Nefer Moor had not been equaled in centuries. The army could guess what sort of rapid withdrawal had led to the loss of two hundred standards.
Of the four legionary standards themselves, only two were among the saved. The XXVth’s had been rescued from a flooding river by a young legionary named Ishilo, who had thereby become something of a hero. Its signifer was later apprehended and put to death with traditional cruelty. The other legionary signifers were condemned in absentia to suffer the same fate, and many lesser signifers did.
Only the XIIth’s had returned to Qoble in the hands of its own signifer, as it should. Ylo had not planned any heroics. He knew that he was never motivated by heroism. He had mostly been staying close to Shandie, in the belief that close-to-Shandie was the safest place to be. Staying close to Shandie, he had never had an option about lugging the fuddling standard along, because if he’d thrown it away, Shandie would just have made him pick it up again. So he’d still been holding the blank-blankety thing when they staggered out of the forest. Besides, he’d twisted his ankle early in the flight and the pole had been useful as a staff.
He was given no chance to explain that and was too smart to try. Shandie was in eclipse, having been routed on his first independent command, but the army desperately needed a hero. Shandie’s signifer was available.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Shandie warned him, but Ylo could not see why not. It wouldn’t last long, so why not enjoy it?
The surviving troops of the XIIth voted him one day’s pay apiece for saving them from disgrace.
From ancient Marshal Ithy in Hub came a signifer’s cape of pure white wolfskin, an honor not granted since the previous dynasty.
Patriotic citizens sent him purses of gold, and the councillors of Gaaze presented him with an illuminated scroll.
By day troops cheered him whenever they got the chance. By night he found himself fighting off girls—not all of them, of course, just the plainer ones.
He let it go to his head. He let it go wherever it wanted.
Which was all very fine, Ylo reflected sleepily, but it wouldn’t save him from the imperor himself.
The old man had probably never realized that his grandson’s signifer was an Yllipo, the last surviving member of an attaindered clan. Shandie had not told him. Ylo had handled the reports on Karthin and Bone Pass and he knew what had been said—Prince Ralpnie had died in action and his replacement was a legionary named Ylo. That was all.
But now that Ylo was a one-day wonder, the old tyrant would certainly find out. There would be plenty of sly lips in Hub willing to shout the truth in the deaf imperial ear.
And Shandie was on the brink of rebellion. He might not lose his own head, but he was very likely to lose Ylo’s.
There it was in his own handwriting on Ylo’s desk:
My dearest and most revered Grandfather,
Much as it grieves me to address you in these blunt terms, I find myself driven to drastic measures. I have beseeched you for many months now to grant leave for my dear wife to join me here in Gaaze so that I may no longer be deprived of her love and comfort . . .
If Eshiala was not allowed to come at once, Shandie wrote, then he would resign his commission forthwith and deliver that resignation personally, in Hub.
Defiance! Treason! The blood-soaked old despot would have a homicidal fit. No one had sassed him like that in fifty years. Shandie’s trouble, Ylo decided with a yawn, was monogamy. Gods! The man could have all the women he could handle if he chose to, right here in Gaaze. Principle could be carried too far. Much too far. What could possibly be so wonderful about one particular woman?
Heirs were a consideration, of course, and an important one to a future imperor, but Shandie already had a daughter. Another child could wait, surely?
Home life might possibly have some appeal—Ylo had never tried it and had no wish to do so at the moment.
And as for recreation, variety was a large part of it. Why sing the same song every night when there were so many beautiful melodies around to try?
Of course Shandie had political reasons for wanting to be back in the capital. The old man was showing increasing signs of irrationality, and he certainly could not last much longer. But return to Hub was not what the prince was demanding.