“Surely the common man wouldn’t want that!”
“What common men want most is beer and sex, without disturbances.”
“So if it were necessary for you, yourself, to leave Kamir in order to save the people from disturbance … ”
“It is unlikely that the counselors would fight to keep me here. When all Kamir is threatened with despair, a king may make a kingly sacrifice!”
“One hopes such sacrifice may be relatively painless,” murmured Big Mama.
“Even pain,” said the king, with no intention of being prophetic, “even pain is preferable to dying of unrelieved ennui.”
“She has who?” the Procurator asked Poracious Luv’s messenger, believing he had misunderstood her.
“Jiacare Lostre, the king himself,” the messenger replied. “He and Poracious went before his ministers and told them Kamir was in danger. The council pooh-poohed the idea. The king told them that in that case they wouldn’t mind if he told the people of Kamir all about the Ularians being just next door in Hermes Sector. Poracious said the Alliance would help him publicize the matter.”
“Somewhat exceeding her authority,” murmured the Procurator.
The messenger muffled an undiplomatic snort. “As Madam herself said, it got the job done. The ministers knew there’d be widespread panic, possibly insurrection. They’ve let the king go. He and Madam were to have left for Dinadh the day after I left for Alliance Central.”
“Amazing.”
“Actually, the council of ministers didn’t fight as hard as Madam Luv thought they might. She felt they’d really wanted an excuse to get rid of Jiacare. He has a younger brother, Fenubel, who’s much easier to get along with. They’ve already installed him as regent.”
“Interesting,” the Procurator murmured. “You’re rejoining Madam Luv?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Talk to my adjutant outside. Make whatever arrangements are necessary. Things are getting complicated. I think I’d better go with you.”
In the hostel above Cochim-Mahn, Chahdzi woke Trompe very early, before it was quite light.
“It is not good to move before the daysong has been sung,” he told the Fastigat soberly, emphasizing his words with peckish nods, like an anxious hen. “Still, we must go all in one day, and we must leave now to accomplish that.”
Trompe got Lutha and Leely up, and they made a hurried meal before taking up their packs and moving toward the canyon trail, arriving there just as the sun peeked over the farther canyon wall. They heard the dawnsong as they had heard it before during their journey, a rising smoke of melody, wavering, expanding, until all the world could hear it.
The narrow trail led them on a winding way downward among forest trees, coming out of the trees again and again to make hundred-eighty-degree turns and move into the trees again. At the beginning of the journey, on the outer edge of one curve, they saw far off across the canyon a strange house rising above the rim, barely distinguishable from the natural rock around it. The house was laid with dry stone, without mortar, and had a pitched roof with openings beneath the eaves. It resembled several other such structures Lutha had noted on their way toward Cochim-Mahn. She put glasses to her eyes and watched an elderly woman approaching the building, head down.
“What do you call that building?” Lutha asked, pointing it out.
“A House Without a Name,” said Chahdzi, his tone forbidding further questions.
Lutha, who was looking back at the elderly woman, merely grunted. The woman moved in an unusual way. As though apprehensive. As though fearful. Fearful of what? What was inside?
Trompe, picking up on her perception, followed her gaze back along the road, too late. They had come around a curve and could see the place no longer.
Chahdzi spoke as though continuing some former conversation. “You see how this trail winds back and forth, into this side canyon and out again, each time a little farther down the great canyon but requiring much time in the walking. If we could go across, it would take only a little time, but there is no way to go across safely.”
Lutha fumed silently. If the Dinadhi were sensible and efficient, they could go across, but the Dinadhi weren’t sensible or efficient, so everything was done the long way, the slow way, the laborious way.