what is that wretched noise inside the canyon, by the way? It frightens the horses.”
“A thinny,” Jonas said.
“It scares the men, too, if they get too close,” Reynolds said. “Best to stay away, cap’n.”
“How many are you?” Jonas asked.
“A hundred. And well armed.”
“So, it’s said, were Lord Perth’s men.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Have they seen any fighting?”
“Enough to know what it is,” Latigo said, and Jonas knew he was lying. Farson had kept his veterans in their mountain boltholes. Here was a little expeditionary force where no doubt only the sergeants were able to do more with their cocks than run water through them.
“There are a dozen at Hanging Rock, guarding the tankers your men have brought so far,” Latigo said.
“More than needed, likely.”
“I didn’t risk coming into this godforsaken shitsplat of a town in order to discuss my arrangements with you, Jonas.”
“Cry your pardon, sai,” Jonas replied, but perfunctorily. He sat on the floor next to Coral’s rocker and began to roll a smoke of his own. She put her knitting aside and began to stroke his hair. Depape didn’t know what there was about her that Eldred found so fascinating—when he himself looked he saw only an ugly bitch with a big nose and mosquito-bump tittles.
“As to the three young men,” Latigo said with the air of a fellow going directly to the heart of the matter. “The Good Man was extremely disturbed to learn there were visitors from In-World in Mejis. And now you tell me they aren’t what they claim to be. So, just what are they?”
Jonas brushed Coral’s hand away from his hair as though it were ii troublesome insect. Undisturbed, she returned to her knitting. “They’re not young men but mere boys, and if their coming here is ka— about which I know Farson concerns himself deeply—then it may be our ka rather than the Affiliation’s.”
“Unfortunately, we’ll have to forgo enlightening the Good Man with your theological conclusions,” Latigo said. “We’ve brought radios, but they’re either broken or can’t work at this distance. No one knows which. I hate all such toys, anyway. The gods laugh at them. We’re on our own, my friend. For good or ill.”
“No need for Farson to worry unnecessarily,” Jonas said. “The Good Man wants these lads treated as a threat to his plans. I expect Walter told you the same thing.”
“Aye. And I haven’t forgotten a word. Sai Walter is an unforgettable sort of man.”
“Yes,” Latigo agreed. “He’s the Good Man’s underliner. The chief reason he came to you was to underline these boys.”
“And so he did. Roy, tell sai Latigo about your visit to the Sheriff day before yesterday.”
Depape cleared his throat nervously. “The sheriff . . . Avery—”
“I know him, fat as a pig in Full Earth, he is,” Latigo said. “Go on.” “One of Avery’s deputies carried a message to the three boys as they counted horse on the Drop.” “What message?”
“Stay out of town on Reaping Day; stay off the Drop on Reaping Day; best to stay close to your quarters on Reaping Day, as Barony folk don’t enjoy seeing outlanders, even those they like, when they keep their festivals.”
“And how did they take it?”
“They agreed straight away to keep to themselves on Reaping,” Depape said.
“That’s been their habit all along, to be just as agreeable as pie when something’s asked of em. They know better, course they do—there’s no more a custom here against outlanders on Reaping than there is anyplace else. In fact, it’s quite usual to make strangers a part of the merrymaking, as I’m sure the boys know. The idea—”
“—is to make them believe we plan to move on Fair-Day itself, yes, yes,” Latigo finished impatiently. “What I want to know is are they convinced? Can you take them on the day before Reaping, as you’ve promised, or will they be waiting?”
Depape and Reynolds looked at Jonas. Jonas reached behind him and put his hand on Coral’s narrow but not uninteresting thigh. Here it was, he thought. He would be held to what he said next, and without grace. If he was right, the Big Coffin Hunters would be thanked and paid … perhaps bonused, as well. If he was wrong, they would likely be hung so high and hard that their heads would pop off when they hit the end of the rope.
“We’ll take them easy as birds on the ground,” Jonas said. “Treason the charge.
Three young men, all high-bom, in the pay of John Parson. Shocking stuff. What could be more indicative of the evil days we live in?”
“One cry of treason and the mob appears?”
Jonas favored Latigo with a wintry smile. “As a concept, treason might be a bit of a reach for the common folk, even when the mob’s drunk and the core’s been bought and paid for by the Horsemen’s Association. Murder, though .. . especially that of a much loved Mayor—”
Depape’s startled eyes flew to the Mayor’s sister.
“What a pity it will be,” that lady said, and sighed. “I may be moved to lead the rabble myself.”
Depape thought he finally understood Eldred’s attraction: here was a woman every bit as cold-blooded as Jonas himself.
“One other matter,” Latigo said. “A piece of the Good Man’s property was sent with you for safekeeping. A certain glass ball?”
Jonas nodded. “Yes, indeed. A pretty trifle.”
“I understand you left it with the local bruja.”
“Yes.”
“You should take it back. Soon.”
“Don’t teach your grandpa to suck eggs,” Jonas said, a bit testily. “I’m waiting until the brats are jugged.”
Reynolds murmured curiously, “Have you seen it yourself, sai Latigo?”
“Not close up, but I’ve seen men who have.” Latigo paused. “One such ran mad and had to be shot. The only other time I saw anyone in such condition was thirty years ago, on the edge of the big desert. ‘Twas a hut-dweller who’d been bitten by
a rabid coyote.”
“Bless the Turtle,” Reynolds muttered, and tapped his throat three times. He was terrified of rabies.
“You won’t bless anything if the Wizard’s Rainbow gets hold of you,” Latigo said grimly, and swung his attention back to Jonas. “You’ll want to be even more careful taking it back than you were in giving it over. The old witch-woman’s likely under its glam by now.”
“I intend to send Rimer and Avery. Avery ain’t much of a shake, but Rimer’s a trig boy.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” Latigo said.
“Won’t it?” Jonas said. His hand tightened on Coral’s leg and he smiled unpleasantly at Latigo. “Perhaps you could tell your ‘umble servant why it won’t do?”
It was Coral who answered. “Because,” said she, “when the piece of the Wizard’s Rainbow Rhea holds is taken back into custody, the Chancellor will be busy accompanying my brother to his final resting place.”
“What’s she talking about, Eldred?” Depape asked.
“That Rimer dies, too,” Jonas said. He began to grin. “Another foul crime to lay at the feet of John Farson’s filthy spyboys.”
Coral smiled in sweet agreement, put her hands over Jonas’s, moved it higher on her thigh, and then picked up her knitting again.
2
The girl, although young, was married.
The boy, although fair, was unstable.
She met him one night in a remote place to tell him their affair, sweet as it had been, must end. He replied that it would never end, it was written in the stars. She told him that might be, but at some point the constellations had changed. Perhaps he began to weep. Perhaps she laughed—out of nervousness, very likely.
Whatever the cause, such laughter was disastrously timed. He picked up a stone and dashed out her brains with it. Then, coming to his senses and realizing what he had done, he sat down with his back against a granite slab, drew her poor battered head into his lap, and cut his own throat as an owl looked on from a nearby tree.
He died covering her face with kisses, and when they were found, their lips were sealed together with his life’s blood and with hers.
An old story. Every town has its version. The site is usually the local lovers’ lane, or a secluded stretch of riverbank, or the town graveyard. Once the details of what actually happened have been distorted enough to please the morbidly romantic, songs are made. These are usually sung by yearning virgins who play guitar or mando badly and cannot quite stay on key. Choruses tend to include such lachrymose refrains as My-di-I-de-I-de-o, There they died together-o.
The Hambry version of this quaint tale featured lovers named Robert and Francesca, and had happened in the old days, before the world had moved on. The site of the supposed murder-suicide was the Hambry cemetery, the stone with which Francesca’s brains had been dashed out was a slate marker, and the granite wall against which Robert had been leaning when he clipped his blowpipe had been the Thorin mausoleum. (It was doubtful there had been any Thorins in Hambry or Mejis five generations back, but folk-tales are, at best, generally no more than lies set in rhyme.)