Aufors said, “You want this . . . Bessany taken where Genevieve is.”
“How perceptive! Yes, I want Bessany and her baby taken whereImogene is.”
“And you don’t want to do it yourself?”
“I am too much observed. As you are, but you are better equipped to elude the ones following you, Colonel. There are at least three of them. Meantime, I have no objections to my pursuers following me to County Ruckward. They will find nothing of interest there.”
Aufors nodded. “Well then, how do we do this thing?”
“You do it,” she whispered, leaning toward him, and pushing a tightly folded little paper into his hand. “And do not cavil at the hoops you must leap through, Aufors. They are there for Genevieve’s protection. And my own. And yours.”
“But Alicia, why did . . .”
“Hush! Ask me no whys. It is better if you remain ignorant of whys. Just go, and do not let this note fall into anyone else’s possession.”
He read the paper when he returned to his own room. It did not tell him where Genevieve was. It did tell him where Bessany Blodden and her baby were. Also, it gave him the name of an inn along the Potcherwater that he and Bessany should visit, along with the name of the cook at that inn. Presumably, the cook knew something that would assist them.
Gravely, Aufors memorized what was on the paper before he burned it.
16: Absences of Women
Shortly after Aufors’s departure, a royal messenger called upon the Marshal. The man bore a large red envelope heavy with seals and a dangling superfluity of gold ribbons. It contained the notice of a ministerial meeting, the agenda of that meeting, and background information on the issues. Two important matters were to be considered: Firstly, the need to increase P’naki imports from Mahahm, secondly, the question of changing the age at which noble young women would be expected to marry.
Also included in the packet was a letter from the Lord Paramount telling the Marshal what position he was expected to support. The Lord Paramount approved the lowering of the official marriage age for young women, inasmuch as the actual marriage age was much closer to twenty-two than thirty. His Majesty also approved of the attempt to increase the supply of P’naki.
The Marshal read through the material he had been given and found it lacking in basic data. He went to the archives and dug out many facts which supported the Lord Paramount’s position, which made the Marshal feel both proud and useful. He readied himself for the meeting with considerable care, as he might have done for a strategy session with his officers in time of battle, though his naive belief that this preparation was warranted was supported only by his total ignorance concerning the Council of Ministers.
The actual event enlightened him. The brief agenda was barely mentioned before the ministers were off in full cry over something else entirely. Women were disappearing from rural areas of Dania, daughters, some of them, but also a few youngish wives, mostly commoner women, but a few noble women as well. Tranquish, Duke of Dania, charged his colleagues in Merdune and Barfezi with harboring abductors in their respective provinces. Neither Lome Vestik-Vanserdel, Duke of Barfezi, nor Gardagger Bellser-Bar, Duke of Merdune, were present, but their spokesmen were, along with allies and interested persons, and when the council of ministers adjourned for lunch some hours later, neither the question of P’naki nor the matter of marriage age had even been mentioned. Though the Marshal kept a wary eye on Efiscapel Gormus, said Gormus said nothing at all but yawn and scratch himself at intervals.
“What is all this?” growled the Marshal to Prince Thumsort, who served as minister for his own home county of Tansay.
“Tranquish thinks it’s either Merdune or Barfezi taking his women. Merdune and Barfezi think it’s Tranquish himself. I think the women probably ran off on their own. Women are like sheep, one jumps a fence, all the rest must jump it too.”
Though this remark cut very close to the bone, the Marshal chose to ignore it. “Why would anyone want Danian girls?” he asked. “As I recall, the mountain nobility tend to loud voices, hefty bodies, and chapped faces.”