Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (4 page)

If One-Eye had not avenged Tom-Tom on the right creature it was far too late for
tears. Shifter was another of the victims of the Battle at Charm.

“I’m thinking about Limper,” I admitted. “I killed him at that inn, One-Eye. I
killed him good. And if he hadn’t turned up again, I’d never have doubted that
he was gone.”

“And no doubts about these?”

“Some.”

“You want to sneak out after dark and dig one of them up?”

“What’s the point? There’ll be somebody in the grave, and no way to prove it
isn’t who it’s supposed to be.”

“They were killed by other Taken and by members of the Circle. That’s a little
different than getting worked on by a no-talent like you.”

He meant no talent for sorcery. “I know. That’s what keeps me from getting
obsessed with the whole mess. Knowing that those who supposedly killed them
really had the power to do them in.”

One-Eye stared at the ground where once a cross stood with the forvalaka nailed
upon it. After a while he shivered and came back to now. “Well, it doesn’t
matter now. It was long ago, if not very far away. And far away is where we’ll
be if we ever get out of here.” He pulled his floppy black hat forward to keep
the sun out of his eyes, looked up at the Tower. We were being watched.

“Why does she want to go with us? That’s the one I keep coming back to. What’s
in this for her?”

One-Eye looked at me with the oddest expression. He pushed his hat back, put his
hands on his hips, cocked his head a moment, then shook it slowly. “Croaker.

Sometimes you’re too much to be believed. Why are you hanging around here
waiting for her instead of heading out, putting miles behind?”

It was a good question and one I shied off anytime I tried to examine it. “Well,

I guess I kind of like her and think she deserves a shot at some kind of regular
life. She’s all right. Really.”

I caught a transient smirk as he turned to the unmarked grave. “Life wouldn’t be
half fun without you in it, Croaker. Watching you bumble through is an education
in itself. How soon can we get moving? I don’t like this place.”

“I don’t know. A few more days. There’re things she has to wrap up first.”

“That’s what you said—”

I am afraid I got snappish. “I’ll let you know when.”

When seemed never to come. Days passed. Lady remained ensnared in the web of the
administrative spider.

Then the messages began pouring in from the provinces, in response to edicts
from the Tower. Each one demanded immediate attention.

We had been closed up in that dread place for two weeks.

“Get us the hell out of here, Croaker,” One-Eye demanded. “My nerves can’t take
this place anymore.”

“Look, there’s stuff she’s got to do.”

“There’s stuff we’ve got to do, according to you. Who says what we got to do has
to wait on what she’s got to do?”

And Goblin jumped on me. With both feet. “We put up with your infatuation for
about twenty years, Croaker,” he exaggerated. “Because it was amusing. Something
to ride you about when times got boring. But it ain’t nothing I mean to get
killed over, I absodamnlutely guarantee. Even if she makes us all field
marshals.”

I warded a flash of anger. It was hard, but Goblin was right. I had no business
hanging around there, keeping everyone at maximum risk. The longer we waited,

the more certain it was that something would go sour. We were having enough
trouble getting along with the Tower Guards, who resented our being so close to
their mistress after haying fought against her for so many years.

“We ride out in the morning,” I said. “My apologies. I was elected to lead the
Company, not just Croaker. Forgive me for losing sight of that.”

Crafty old Croaker. One-Eye and Goblin looked properly abashed. I grinned. “So
go get packed. We’re gone with the morning sun.”

She wakened me in the night. For a moment I thought . . .

I saw her face. She had heard.

She begged me to stay just one more day. Or two, at the most. She did not want
to be here any more than we did, surrounded and taunted by all that she had
lost. She wanted to go away, to go with us, to remain with me, the only friend
she’d ever had—

She broke my heart.

It sounds sappy when you write it down in words, but a man has to do what a man
has to do. In a way I was proud of me. I did not give an inch.

“There is no end to it,” I told her. “There’ll always be just one more thing
that has to be done. Khatovar gets no closer while I wait. Death does. I value
you, too. I don’t want to leave . . . Death lurks in every shadow in this place.

It writhes in the heart of every man who resents my influence.” It was that kind
of empire too, and in the past few days a lot of old imperials were given cause
to resent me deeply.

“You promised me dinner at the Gardens in Opal.”

I promised you a lot more than that, my heart said. Aloud, I replied, “So I did.

And the offer still stands. But I have to get my men out of here.”

I turned reflective while she turned uncharacteristically nervous. I saw the
fires of schemes flickering behind her eyes, being rejected. There were ways she
could manipulate me. We both knew that. But she never used the personal to gain
political ends. Not with me, anyway.

I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled
toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a
substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more
important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust,

self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing
we are just plain nice folks. I was her truth object, and she was mine.

There was only one thing we hid from one another, and that was because we were
afraid that if it came into the open it would reshape everything else and maybe
shatter that broader honesty.

Are lovers ever honest?

“I figure it’ll take us three weeks to reach Opal. It’ll take another week to
find a trustworthy shipmaster and to work One-Eye up to crossing the Sea of
Torments. So twenty-five days from today I’ll go to the Gardens. I’ll have the
Camelia Grotto reserved for the evening.” I patted the lump next to my heart.

That lump was a beautifully tooled leather wallet containing papers
commissioning me a general in the imperial armed forces and naming me a
diplomatic legate answerable only to the Lady herself.

Precious, precious. And one good reason some longtime imperials had a big hate
on for me.

I am not sure just how that came about. Some banter during one of those rare
hours when she was not issuing decrees or signing proclamations. Next thing I
knew I had been brought to bay by a pack of tailors. They fitted me out with a
complete imperial wardrobe. Never will I unravel the significance of all the
piping, badges, buttons, medals, doodads, and gewgaws. I felt silly wearing all
that clutter.

I didn’t need much time to see some possibilities, though, in what at first I
interpreted as an elaborate practical joke.

She does have that kind of sense of humor, not always taking this great
dreadfully humorless empire of hers seriously.

I am sure she saw the possibilities long before I did.

Anyway, we were talking the Gardens in Opal, and the Camelia Grotto there, the
acme of that city’s society see-and-be-seen. “I’ll take my evening meal there,”

I told her. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Hints of hidden things tugged at her face. She said, “All right. If I’m in
town.”

It was one of those moments in which I become very uncomfortable. One of those
times when nothing you say can be right, and almost anything you do say is
wrong. I could see no answer but the classic Croaker approach.

I began to back away.

That is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.

I almost made it to the door.

She could move when she wanted. She crossed the gap and put her arms around me,

rested a cheek against my chest.

And that is how they handle me, the sentimental fool. The closet romantic. I
mean, I don’t even have to know them. They can work that one on me. When they
really want to drill me they turn on the water.

I held her till she was ready to be let go. We did not look at one another as I
turned and went away. So. She hadn’t gone for the heavy artillery.

She played fair, mostly. Give her that. Even when she was the Lady. Slick,

tricky, but more or less fair.

The job of legate comes with all sorts of rights to subinfeudation and plunder
of the treasury. I had drafted that pack of tailors and turned them loose on the
men. I handed out commissions. I waved my magic wand and One-Eye and Goblin
became colonels. Hagop and Otto turned into captains. I even cast a glamor on
Murgen, so that he looked like a lieutenant. I drew us all three months’ pay in
advance. It all boggled the others. I think one reason One-Eye was anxious to
get moving was an eagerness to get off somewhere where he could abuse his
newfound privileges. For the time being, though, he mostly bickered with Goblin
about whose commission carried the greater seniority. Those two never once
questioned our shift in fortunes.

The weirdest part was when she called me in to present my commissions, and
insisted on a real name to enter into the record. It took me a while to remember
what my name was.

We rode out as threatened. Only we did not do it as the ragged band that rode
in.

I travelled in a black iron coach drawn by six raging black stallions, with
Murgen driving and Otto and Hagop riding as guards. With a string of saddle
horses trailing behind. One-Eye and Goblin, disdaining the coach, rode before
and behind upon mounts as fey and magnificent as the beasts which pulled the
coach. With twenty-six Horse Guards as escort.

The horses she gave us were of a wild and wonderful breed, hitherto given only
to the greatest champions of her empire. I had ridden one once, long ago, during
the Battle at Charm, when she and I had chased down Soulcatcher. They could run
forever without tiring. They were magical beasts. They constituted a gift
precious beyond belief.

How do these weird things happen to me?

A year earlier I was living in a hole in the ground, under that boil on the butt
of the world, the Plain of Fear, with fifty other men, constantly afraid we
would be discovered by the empire. I had not had new or clean clothing in a
decade, and baths and shaves were as rare and dear as diamonds.

Lying opposite me in that coach was a black bow, the first gift she ever gave
me, so many years ago, before the Company deserted her. It was precious in its
own right.

How the wheel turns.

Hagop stared as I finished primping. “Gods. You really look the part, Croaker.”

Otto said, “Amazing what a bath and a shave will do. I believe the word is
‘distinguished.’ ”

“Looks like a supernatural miracle to me, Ott.”

“Be sarcastic, you guys.”

“I mean it,” Otto said. “You do look good. If you had a little rug to cover
where your hairline is running back toward your butt . . . ”

He did mean it. “Well, then,” I mumbled, uncomfortable. I changed the subject.

“I meant what I said. Keep those two in line.” In town only four days and
already I’d bailed Goblin and One-Eye out of trouble twice. There was a limit to
what even a legate could cover, hush, and smooth over.

“There’s only three of us, Croaker,” Hagop protested. “What do you want? They
don’t want to be kept in line.”

“I know you guys. You’ll think of something. While you’re at it, get this junk
packed up. It has to go down to the ship.”

“Yes sir, your grand legateship, sir.”

I was about to deliver one of my fiery, witty, withering rejoinders when Murgen
stuck his head into the room and said, “The coach is ready, Croaker.”

And Hagop wondered aloud, “How do we keep them in line when we don’t even know
where they are? Nobody’s seen them since lunchtime.”

I went out to the coach hoping I would not get an ulcer before I got out of the
empire.

We roared through Opal’s streets, my escort of Horse Guards, my black stallions,

my ringing black iron coach, and I. Sparks flew around the horses’ hooves and
the coach’s steel wheels. Dramatic, but riding in that metal monster was like
being locked inside a steel box that was being enthusiastically pounded by
vandalistic giants.

We swept up to the Gardens’ understated gate, scattering gawkers. I stepped
down, stood more stiffly erect than was my wont, made an effete gesture of
dismissal copied from some prince seen somewhere along life’s twisted way. I
strode through the gate, thrown open in haste.

I marched back to the Camelia Grotto, hoping ancient memory would not betray me.

Gardens employees yapped at my heels. I ignored them.

My way took me past a pond so smooth and silvery its surface formed a mirror. I
halted, mouth dropping open.

I did, indeed, cut an imposing figure, cleaned up and dressed up. But were my
eyes two eggs of fire, and my open mouth a glowing furnace? “I’ll strangle those
two in their sleep,” I murmured.

Worse than the fire, I had a shadow, a barely perceptible specter, behind me. It
hinted that the legate was but an illusion cast by something darker.

Damn those two and their practical jokes.

When I resumed moving I noted that the Gardens were packed but silent. The
guests all watched me.

I had heard that the Gardens were not as popular as once they had been.

They were there to see me. Of course. The new general. The unknown legate out of
the dark tower. The wolves wanted a look at the tiger.

I should have expected it. The escort. They had had four days to tell tales
around town.