“John,” Sam said, “I ought to arrest your assertions for vagrancy. They certainly are without any visible support. But I got to hand it to you. You just dispossessed the devil. You are now the father of lies and grand master, past, present and future, of deceit. If being barefaced is the criterion of the greatest liar, all other liars are whiskered like Santa Claus.”
John’s face turned red. Zaksksromb sneered and lifted his club chest-high. Joe growled.
John blew out a deep breath and said, smiling, “You are upset over a little blood. You will get over it. You cannot disprove anything I have said, isn’t that right? By the way, have you called a meeting of the Council yet? The law of the land requires you to do so, you know.”
The horrible thing was that John would get away with it. Everybody, including his supporters, would know he was lying. But there was nothing to do about it unless they wanted to start a civil war, and that would mean that the wolves—Iyeyasu, Hacking, maybe the supposed neutrals, Publius Crassus, Chernsky, Tai Fung, and the savages across The River—would invade. Sam snorted and walked out. Two hours later, his ex-
ectations were realities. The Councilmen voted an official reprimand against John for his mishandling of the situation and his hastiness. He was directed to confer with his co-Consul in any such future situations.
No doubt John would laugh uproariously when he was told of the decision and he would call for more liquor, tobacco, marihuana and women to celebrate.
However, he did not have a complete victory. Every Parolando knew how Sam Clemens had stood up to John, stormed his palace with only one supporter, released the women and insulted John to his face. John knew that; his triumph was standing on shaky legs.
Sam asked the Council to exile every Second Chancer La Parolando for their own protection. But several Councillors pointed out that this would be illegal. The Carta would have to be changed. Besides, it was unlikely that John would take any more action against them after the warning he had received.
They knew as well as Sam why he was taking advantage of the emotional climate to oust the Second Chancers. But there were some stubborn men on the Council. Perhaps they felt angry because they had not been able to do anything about John, and at least they could make a stand for principle in this case.
Sam would have bet that the survivors of the massacre would want to leave immediately. But they insisted on staying. The slaughter had done nothing except to convince them that Parolando needed them very much. Goring was building several large huts for them. Sam sent word down that this should stop. Parolando was already short of wood. Goring sent word back that he and his male comrades would move out and sleep under the grailstones. Sam swore and blew smoke in the face of the Chancer messenger and said that it was too bad pneumonia did not exist. Afterward, he felt ashamed, but he did not. relent. He wasn’t going to scant his furnaces so that people he did not even want could sleep under a roof.
He felt upset enough, but that evening he got two messages which opened the earth under him. One was that Odysseus had disappeared at night from his boat while on the way back to Parolando. Nobody knew what had happened to him. He was just gone. The second message informed him that William Grevel, the man who’d been spying on John, had been found under a ledge at the base of the mountain, his skull smashed in.
Somehow, John had found him out and executed him. And John would be laughing because Sam could not prove that or, for that matter, even admit that Grevel had been working for him.
Sam called in von Richthofen and de Bergerac and others whom he considered to be his people. It was true that de Bergerac and he were hostile because of Livy, but de Bergerac preferred Clemens to John, with whom he had had some hot words.
“Maybe Odysseus’ disappearance from the boat is only a coincidence,” Sam said. “But that, plus Grevel’s death, makes me wonder if John isn’t striking at me through my friends. He may be planning on cutting you down, one by one, under circumstances where he can’t be accused. He’s crafty. He probably won’t do anything now for some time. But Odysseus was gotten rid of in a place where an investigation will probably reveal nothing. And I can’t accuse John about Grevel without exposing what I’ve been doing. So, watch out for situations where accidents could happen. And be careful when you are alone.”‘