Slats was checking the village’s warehouses, great thatch-roofed rounds of basketry. Brush filled the space between the double walls, so air could circulate among the vegetables on shelves inside but rain couldn’t get in even when the wind was driving it.
Froggie knew Slats was in the warehouse because a squad of troopers waited at the doorway, taking it easy. There wasn’t room within for both of the squads Slats insisted on having around him at all times. He was a nervous little bug, he was; not that he didn’t have reason to be.
The troopers started to rise when they saw their centurion. Froggie waved them back. They’d been putting in long hours, and there’d be more work for them tonight. It wasn’t safe to keep on with the real job during daylight; there were too many barbs up and moving around the streets near the temple.
Laena came out of the fort scratching himself. He’d probably been sleeping, which was fine under the circumstances; the men had orders just not to lay about where the barbs could see them, since somebody might wonder what they were doing at night to be so tired.
Laena saw Froggie and came trotting over. He leaned his face close to the centurion’s ear and said, “Hey, Top? You know my girl Glycera?”
“I believe I’ve seen her,” Froggie said carefully. Every place that relative anatomy permitted it, Laena paired off with a local girl and called her Glycera. For most of his existence, Laena seemed to have no desire except to argue about orders. You didn’t want to touch—or even look hard at—any of his current Glyceras, though.
“Our girls talk with the ones from the town while they’re all down at the creek doing wash, you know?” Laena said. “You know them guards the chief’s got around him? They’re not from here!”
“Right,” said Froggie mildly. He’d have thought Laena was smart enough that he wouldn’t have to be told that the axemen weren’t local.
Laena looked miffed at the centurion’s lack of surprise. He was one of the real linguists of the legion: give Laena three days anydamnplace and he’d be chattering to “Glycera” like they’d grown up in the same hamlet. Like a lot of other specialists, though, he tended to think that his way of learning things was the only one there was. Froggie never got beyond basic pidgin, but he knew how to keep his eyes open.
“Well, it’s more’n that,” Laena said. “The local girls say that under those kilts they wear, them guys are more different from the barbs here than we are. What do you think of that?”
Froggie mulled the question. Queenie was coming toward him, her neck ruff in an angry flare.
“I’ll tell you the truth, Laena,” he said. “I don’t know what I think. Did the girls say anything about a metal ship landing like, you know, when we came?”
“Nope,” said Laena. “They just come out of the hills. The Commander’s pet barb Three-Spire come along with them and told the elders the new guys were in charge now. They looked tough enough that the local guys didn’t argue matters. The warriors left here were the ones who’d run fast enough when they met us, after all.”
“Boss-man!” Queenie said. She didn’t even bother to look at Laena. Froggie was boss-man and she was the leader of Froggie’s women, so nothing a mere trooper had to say was important when she needed to talk. “Fucking barb warriors here—they mean bastards! You chop them quick-quick, yes?”
Queenie’s notion of how to solve a problem usually involved somebody getting chopped. That was probably why she got along so well with troopers.
And if the bodyguards had been bothering the girls . . . Froggie’s hand touched the ivory hilt of his sword, smoother than silk by now from all the use it’d gotten. He’d warned them, hadn’t he?
“What’s the problem, Queenie?” he asked, his tone quiet but a little thicker than usual.
“Them take girls from village,” Queenie said. “They no feed meat, boss-man!”
Froggie frowned at Laena. An argument about how much some other soldier paid his whore didn’t strike either of them as a killing business.