As Crow finished speaking, a woman holding a roughly made broom walked toward them, unflinching of the animals as they twitched at her approach.
“Good day to you,” she said in a monotone. “There is no need,” she added as she noticed hands ready to unholster blasters. “I have no quarrel with you. I merely wish to ask a question.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Crow said in an even and friendly tone. “Ask your question, my friend.”
“I know of you,” she said, looking directly at Crow. “You are from the Baron Silas. I would be thinking that these are outsider mercies brought in to stop the sabotage.”
When Crow answered her with a nod, she continued, now addressing the companions. “Do you be thinking that you can stop an entire army? For that is what this camp be. I have no love for any others, and they not for me. But if they wish to cause war, then are you enough?”
“I don’t know,” Ryan said simply. “It depends on who is causing the trouble.”
“Are you so naive that you do not realize that all cause trouble for all? We fight each other, because it is not right for us all to be so close.”
“But mebbe the sabotage isn’t from you all,” Ryan said. “Mebbe your fights only give cover to those who want to stop the well.”
The woman said nothing, but assessed the one-eyed man shrewdly before finally saying, “I think you may be capable.” With which she turned and returned to her hut, sweeping as though they were no longer there.
The patrol moved on, and when they had reached the obvious demarcation point between one ville and another, Dean whispered, “Are they all that weird?”
Crow allowed himself a wry grin. “Start with the strangest and everything else is easy to take in,” he answered cryptically. “You’ll see, son, you’ll see.”
The lines marking the boundaries between the different groups within the camp were clear. Within a few yards of the spot where they had stopped to speak with the woman, they turned a corner and entered somewhere that seemed entirely different.
The huts, shacks and tents were constructed in a different matter, seeming to veer over and be ready to collapse. It was obvious that little effort had gone into their construction, although they were garishly decorated in paints and dyed fabrics in a collision of orange, white and green. The women talked, the area was dirty and the children ran riot. There had been some indication of this in the distant noise as they had rode through the quiet of the Haigh sector, but nothing could have prepared them for the sudden contrast.
The children whirled in and out of the horses’ hooves, disturbing the animals and causing all the companions to tighten their grips on the manes. The women ignored their children and carried on conversing in loud voices, not caring what was occurring and seeming not to notice the riders among them.
“Bedlam,” Doc whispered.
This part of the camp smelled strongly of distilled spirit, and there were signs of smoke from some of the huts that suggested the inhabitants were either brewing spirit or else had forgotten to extinguish fires and were about to lose their homes. Not that it seemed that they cared.
“So who are these?” Ryan asked, trying to keep his voice level.
“This, my friend, is the Mandrake sector. Putting these people next to those from Haigh wasn’t the best piece of foresight anyone ever had,” Crow remarked sardonically. “To say they loathe each other would be an understatement.”
“So this is a source of trouble?”
Crow shook his head. “Baron Silveen is a rich man, and he wants to be richer. He’s sunk a lot of jack into this, and he won’t be too keen on it going west because of some squabbling. These are fierce, short-tempered people, but they fear their baron more than anyone else.”
“Enough to stick to his word when they’re this far away?” Ryan queried, looking at the groups of women who were eying them suspiciously, the children who were throwing stones at one another—and at the horses’ forelocks when they thought no one was looking—and at the few older men who lurked in the doorways of the huts, eying the patrol suspiciously.