Текст книги "Earth Logic"

Автор книги: Marks Laurie

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“Do you wantto make the Sainnites completely desperate?” Garland asked.

“No, no, not at all. I want them reasonable.”

“Without kitchen knives, they’ll have nothing to eat but porridge. That’s going to make them desperate.”

Emil gazed at him thoughtfully, obviously waiting for a suggestion.

“Let’s feed them a decent meal,” Garland said.

Mabin uttered a snort of disbelief. “Five hundred soldiers?”

Emil, leaning on the wall again, crossed one booted foot over the other. “Oh, Garland can do it,” he said.

A tap at the door awoke Clement, and she was surprised to find that the room had grown dark, the fire had burned to coals, and her infant son slept in her arms, in the tangled mess the girl‑nurse had made of the blankets on the bed. The medic had come by to set her broken nose. The pain had been awful, but somehow she had fallen into a doze despite it.

The door opened. “Clem? Can I come in?” It was Gilly.

“Has the garrison fallen apart yet?” Clement asked indifferently. She got up, and helped her old friend to a chair, and put the baby in his arms. The baby squinted at Gilly, yawned, and uttered a mild complaint.

Gilly blinked down at the infant, and smiled reluctantly. “This G’deon exercises a cruel generosity, eh? She gives you your heart’s desire so you can destroy yourself with it. But you’re so glad you don’t even care that you’re dead.”

“She apologized,” Clement said wryly. She lit a lamp, looked around rather hopelessly for something to eat, and was briefly distracted by the sight of her face in the little mirror tacked to the wall.

“You’re even uglier than me at the moment,” Gilly said.

“I see that.”

“I always feared Cadmar would smash your face in someday.”

“It was inevitable, really.”

“Have you heard? The postern gates and the water gate can’t be opened. The weapons can’t be repaired. Not a blade in the garrison will hold an edge. We’ve got nothing to defend ourselves with but our bare hands.”

Clement couldn’t bring herself to be concerned. She sat heavily beside him, her face throbbing. “So what will Cadmar do? Surrender, or let us be massacred?”

“Hell, I don’t know. The man’s been in a temper all afternoon. Maybe he’s trying to shout the G’deon to death. Do you think she’s actually his daughter? She seems too astute, frankly.”

The baby yelped. “Are you hungry again, Gabian?” Clement picked up the bottle that she had left to keep warm on the hearth. Gilly handed her the baby.

“A good name,” he commented. “Your mother’s, I believe.”

Gabian sucked the bottle energetically, gazing into Clement’s face, apparently indifferent to her swollen nose and black eye.

“Has Cadmar had you write my demotion orders yet?” Clement asked.

“Not yet. But you don’t actually care, do you?”

Clement looked at her bent, worried, desperately unhappy friend, and felt a wrenching helplessness. “Gilly, I’ve reached the end.”

Gilly gazed determinedly at his hands, which rested on his sturdy, battered cane. “You’re going to desert. I knew that when I heard you had sent the girl away. You’ve got to get out now, or your son will starve. But where can you hope to find shelter? I know you, Clem: maybe you imagine that cow farmer would be glad to see you again, but you’ll never impose such a risk on her. The local Paladins might find a use for you, but not a use you could accept. The G’deon, though, she’s gone out of her way to put you in this position. What do you think? If she shelters you, will she allow you to advocate for your people without actually betraying them? That’s a very difficult balance to keep–I should know.”

Gilly continued to gaze at his folded hands, as though this simply was not a conversation that could have been conducted eye‑to‑eye. Thinking of Gilly’s uneasy life of betrayal made the choice Clement was contemplating even more discomforting. Every day she would walk into this G’deon’s circle of advisors, negotiate the strange Shaftali customs, and be subjected to their seething hostilities. And she would be friendless for the rest of her life.

“Gilly, I need you to come with me.”

Gilly gave her that familiar sideways glance, and asked dryly, “Are you proposing to sling me over the wall in a basket, like Gabian?”

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, reminded that they were practically prisoners in their own garrison, and that her nimble‑minded friend was in fact a cripple. “I’ll have to come back for you somehow.”

“I’ll certainly be glad to see you,” said Gilly. But they both knew perfectly well that the risk to Clement would be too great, and that once Clement was gone, Cadmar would make certain Gilly didn’t follow her. “In the meantime,” Gilly said steadily, “you can make it easier on yourself by getting the G’deon to give you some kind of assurance. It wouldn’t hurt to win yourself some of her gratitude. Bring her the storyteller. That’s a woman who can climb a wall, I’d wager.”

Clement had scarcely been thinking, she realized, or she would have thought of this on her own.

“And do it tonight,” Gilly added. “For Cadmar has ordered her executed tomorrow.”

“Bloody hell! Gilly, I can’t get the storyteller out of gaol–the soldiers won’t let me. And if I try I’ll just get myself arrested. And if I even were willing to attack my own people to win her freedom, what would I attack them with?”

Gilly raised a hand to rub his face. His calm was finally shaken. “Oh, Clem, she must not die! Just because Cadmar can’t smash his fist into the one he’s actually angry at, and he’s using the storyteller as some kind of proxy–”

“That stupid man will assuage his injured pride even if it destroys his entire people in the process.”

“Now you’re sounding mutinous,” said Gilly seriously.

She got up abruptly, and handed Gilly the protesting baby. “I’m going to open the window. Keep him out of the draft, will you?”

The window had not been opened since autumn, but with some banging and effort she managed to wrestle up the sash. The ice and snow that coated the shutters cracked loudly as she swung them open. The stars were coming out. The sky, that gorgeous deep blue that she loved, breathed down at her its bitter breath. She said out the window in a low voice, “Is there a raven here? I want to send a message to the G’deon.”

She heard nothing. The garrison itself lay in unearthly stillness. The night bell suddenly began to ring, and she muttered, “Gods, this is a demoralized silence.”

“No knives,” said Gilly sardonically. “Therefore, no supper.”

“Is that it? Hell!” She leaned out the window and twisted her body, so she looked up at the eaves of her own roof. “Raven!” she called, more loudly, feeling foolish, though Gilly maintained a serious silence.

She heard a scrabbling, and then, almost invisible against the sky, a head peered down at her. She heard a voice, like the creaking of old hinges. “Hold out your arm.”

“Gilly, it talked!”

“Of course it talks,” said Gilly. “You’re still capable of surprise?”

She stuck her arm out the window. There was a dry, heavy flapping, and the raven landed–ungainly, claws digging through heavy wool cloth into skin. She brought him in, a heavy, drooping, ice‑decorated bird.

“Put him by the fire,” said Gilly reasonably. “Close the window. Give him something to eat.”

Doing all this took a while. Clement shook the crushed remains of the rolls out of her coat pockets. Standing on the chair near the fire, the raven ate these crumbs, and drank water from her washbowl. All this was not so strange, until the bird said, “Thank you.”

He flapped his wings, spraying Clement with ice water and slush. He fluffed his feathers in the warmth of the fire and looked like he would now go to sleep.

She said, “My message to the G’deon is urgent. Can you carry her a note?”

The raven said, “Emil is addressing you. Please speak your mind.”

Clement looked at Gilly rather desperately. But he seemed to think that holding the baby was participation enough.

“What one raven knows, we all know,” explained the bird. “Emil has a raven beside him, saying your words to him.”

And what else was that raven saying to him, Clement wondered rather wildly? Would it describe her dark, disordered room, her battered face, her hunched companion and the restless, grunting baby that he awkwardly dandled on his knee?

The raven added, unnervingly, “Emil is sitting with Karis while she sleeps. The room is dark, like this one. Karis is asleep on the floor, near the fire. She has hardly slept since Long Night, and he does not wish to wake her up. He asks that you speak with him instead of her. How can he win your confidence?”

“Who is Emil?”

The raven said, “Emil was commander of South Hill company for twenty years, and is now a General of Paladins, and a councilor of Shaftal.”

“He was the commander in South Hill?” Clement stared at the raven and demanded, irrationally, “What happened in South Hill?When that woman in our gaol, who used to be a warrior of the Ashawala’i–”

“ Katrim,” corrected the raven.

“Katrim,”she said irritably. “She became a Paladin in South Hill, didn’t she? Under Emil’s command! And something happened there.”

“The storyteller’s name then was Zanja na’Tarwein. She came to South Hill Company wanting to kill Sainnites. But she turned her back on this war, and opened the way for others to follow her– Emil, and Medric, and Karis. Zanja became a hinge of history, an opener of doors.”

“Well, she had better get some more doors opened quickly, for she is going to be executed tomorrow, at dawn.”

The raven said nothing at all.

Clement stumbled on, scarcely able to believe what she was doing, even as she did it. “I’d like to save her, but I can’t. Perhaps there’s something you or the G’deon could do.”

The raven said, “Emil asks for your patience. This is a painful problem.”

Clement had been pacing the cold room, but now she sat down abruptly, in a chair near Gilly. “I make a traitor out of myself to a raven,” she muttered, “And I get only silence in response. Who do I complain to?”

The raven finally spoke. “It is better that the storyteller be killed.”

“What? How could it be better?”

“It is difficult to explain. Zanja na’Tarwein is no longer alive, and the storyteller’s death will be a gift to her.”

“Her separated spirit can be made whole by killing her?” said Gilly.

“Yes.”

“This makes sense to you?” Clement asked.

Gilly shrugged crookedly. “I believe it’s fire logic.”

“It is fire logic,” the raven said.

As the raven fluffed his feathers in the heat, Gabian watched the black bird with fixed fascination. Clement finally said, “I want to come over the wall tonight, and join the G’deon’s service.”

It was impossible to understand nuances in the raven’s inhuman voice. But the promptness of his reply suggested a lack of surprise. “Lieutenant‑General Clement, you will serve Shaftal best by remaining where you are.”

“Now I’m in disgrace, there’s nothing I can do except bring my son to safety before your people attack.”

“There will be no attack. We are here to make peace.”

“But the G’deon said her offer of peace was Cadmar’s only chance.”

“She said she would make peace without him,” the raven said.

Something in the raven’s words gave Clement pause. Gilly said, “That iswhat she said.” He also paused.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Clement breathed. “Gilly, where isCadmar?”

Gilly said sharply, “You’ve got to keep away from the general! If something happens to him, you’ll be blamed! Clem, listen to me!”

“Look after the baby,” she said, and ran out the door.

Chapter Thirty‑Seven

Garland found the kitchen’s oven to be quite cantankerous, but he and his fellow cooks eventually managed to get it to produce a halfway decent tray of meat turnovers. He brought one to the Paladin who sat writing a letter by candlelight as he kept watch outside the parlor door. He took another into the parlor to give Emil. Emil, seated in an upholstered chair, flanked by a flock of extremely weary ravens, made a silencing gesture.

Karis, bolstered by feather pillows and wrapped in blankets, slept on the floor. Before J’han was half finished with her, she had fallen profoundly asleep: oblivious as he stripped her to the skin, unconscious when several people lay hands on her to help turn and arrange her nerveless form. Garland had taken Karis’s clothing into the kitchen, but then lost custody of it to the people who could sew. The worn state of her relatively new clothing offered an appalling measure of how hard Karis had been working.

Garland put the plate at Emil’s elbow, and then quietly added wood to the fire. Karis’s big hand was outspread on the floor, as though even in her sleep she was trying to hold the pieces of a broken thing together.

Emil said in a low voice, “Raven, tell me what is happening now.”

A raven spoke. “The Lucky Man has placed the baby in the basket. Now he speaks: ‘I see you are a subtle people.’ His tone is ironic.”

The fire, rising in the fireplace, crackled softly.

“Tell the Lucky Man he can remind Clement that reluctance to take power is a virtue here. Is he following her to see what’s become of the general?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him it’s not contagious.”

The raven said, “He seems nonplused. He has left the room now.”

“You birds have an astonishing vocabulary,” Emil muttered. He stood up stiffly. “Garland, the storyteller is to die at dawn. How can they kill her with all their weapons broken?”

Garland felt a twist of sickness. “A heavy ax on the back of the neck.”

Emil flinched. Then he took a breath and said in an even voice, “Without a sharp edge, the executioner’s going to need a good aim.”

“They don’t miss,” Garland said. “It’s a point of pride. But that won’t make you feel any better.”

“Nothing will. Not only did I have to kill her, but I have to keep killing her. My ethical training has rarely seemed so inadequate. All I can do is endure, but to endure such an awful thing seems impossible.”

Emil looked at Karis then, with a wrenching interlarding of compassion and pride. “MustI awaken her?”

“Don’t you dare!”

“She has to be told.”

“You keep away from her! Sit down and eat your supper! Leave that poor woman alone!” If Garland’s rolling pin had not been in the kitchen, he would have made himself ridiculous by brandishing it.

Emil sat down and picked up the plate from the table. He took a bite of the turnover, and shook his head in amazement. “I don’t know how you do it.” Then he looked up, and smiled faintly at Garland’s face, which must have had a strange expression. “No, I don’t know how I do it either,” he said. “Are you going to be up all night?”

“Yes, Emil. I expect we all will. People are out there sewing Karis a new undershirt, knitting new gloves, mending her boots, stitching up her popped seams, and patching the holes in her breeches. Other people keep dropping by to discuss recipes and where to locate ingredients. And we’re cooking, of course.”

“Of course. Do they mind taking orders from a Sainnite?”

“No more than you do, apparently.”

Emil’s grin had only the slightest twist of sorrow. “It’s not obedience,” he said. “It’s self‑interest. Do you think I could have another one of these ?”

Clement pounded pell‑mell down the stairs. A couple of soldiers who kept an anxious watch inside the front door leapt up, startled, from a distracted game of cards. With the pain in her face jolted back into agony, Clement had to reach for a door post for support. “Is the general in his quarters?”

“Yes, Lieutenant‑General. Commander Ellid was with him for a while, and then we brought him some porridge.”

“You better sit down,” said the other, and guided her to his chair. She sat blinking at him, puzzled, trying to think of how or when the soldiers of Watfield had started being so thoughtful and proprietary.

“It’s broken, eh?” said the soldier, gesturing at her face.

“I sure do wish I had ducked.”

The soldiers grinned. And then, as the grins faded, the anxiety settled back into their faces. The entire garrison was waiting helplessly for the ax to fall; Clement doubted anyone would get much sleep tonight.

She said, “I have to talk to the general. But I don’t dare go near him if he hasn’t cooled off. Would one of you go ask him if he’ll see me?”

The kind soldier went off down the hall, and the other one collected the cards and started shuffling them. “How are people doing?” she asked him.

“Well, I’d feel better if I had a decent blade.”

Down the hall, the kind soldier uttered a sharp shout.

Clement had choreographed her share of battles, then stood back and watched them unfold with the same sense of unreality. The soldier dropped the cards. They ran to Cadmar’s room. They found him sprawled upon the floor, with his face in a pool of thick, bloody vomit.

The kind soldier grabbed Clement by the arm. “It might be the plague. Don’t go in there!”

She let him pull her back from the doorway. Her panic wasn’t feigned as she turned to him and cried, “Go get the medics!”

“I will, Lieutenant‑General. But please, don’t go in there!” He spoke wildly, and his fearful eyes said her own terrified thought: Don’t leave me with no one to stand behind!

She took a breath. “I’ll wait here until you come back. I won’t go any closer to him.”

Gilly arrived before the medics did, carrying Gabian in the basket, with the bottle of milk and other necessaries tucked around the baby. By then, Clement’s heart had stopped its pounding, and she said to Gilly very calmly, “Get my son out of here.”

They were alone in the hallway. The soldier had gone into Cadmar’s room, muttering fatalistically, “First in, first dead.” The door was closed now.

“Emil says it’s not contagious,” Gilly said.

Clement had to remember who Emil was. She cried, “And you believe him? He promised no attack! Now we’re isolated from the city, with our gates and walls preventing us from infecting Shaftal, and we could all simply die in here.”

“You called the G’deon a generous woman not long ago. You said she was of a woman of her word. And her words were very specific. Clem–”

“I don’t want–”

“But think of what it means!”

They glared at each other by the dim light of a distant lamp. Then, in a fierce whisper, Gilly said, “Clem! Think what you can do for your people!”

He had put the baby’s basket on the floor. Now, he picked it up. “I’ll keep the baby in my room. Send a soldier to help me, will you?”

She nodded stiffly. Gilly’s words lay in her mind like an unopened package. He walked awkwardly away, leaning on his cane, hauling the baby. A few minutes later, the medics arrived–three of them– and a half dozen soldiers.

Their faces told her they’d rather risk contact with the sick man than be in her position. She whole‑heartedly agreed with them.

Clement sat at her work table with her hands cupped very cautiously over her face. She had moved the raven to a chair in a shadowed corner, because this was sure to be the kind of night that people would come barging in unannounced. What lay upon her now was the weight of silence. Clement assumed that extra watches had been placed on the wall, but there were no alarms. Gilly had sent a message assuring her that Gabian seemed quite well. Her son’s absence left her room echoing with emptiness. All across the garrison, frightened captains were feigning unconcern as the terrified soldiers under their command bolstered their courage with boasting or distracted themselves with card games. Ellid would have been out making her rounds, reassuring people somehow, but the soldier bearing the devastating news of Cadmar’s illness would have found her by now.

There would be no attack tonight. To defeat five hundred soldiers, even disarmed ones, would take some effort. The local Paladin company could not muster more than seventy experienced fighters, and even that would take a few days at this time of year. Of course, there was nothing to stop the Watfielders from simply rising up and throwing themselves on the Sainnites in a grand fistfight–nothing but the wall, and a gate that would not open. But, more likely they would just watch and wait while Cadmar’s illness spread through the garrison, and the few soldiers who didn’t die of illness died of starvation. It would be over long before spring, with not a blow struck.

Clement heard a footstep outside the door. “Come in,” she said, and a soldier stepped in–an old man with a left hand so badly smashed in an old battle or accident that his fingers were now frozen in a useless claw. Clement remembered the soldier’s name, and asked him in to warm up by the fire. The man handed her a note from the medics, put a log on the fire, and warmed his hands by the flames.

The note was scrawled on a torn piece of paper: “Fever, delirium, lumps in groin, one dead flea. Too early to judge outcome.”

But a woman who can dole out life can dole out death just as easily. Clement dropped the note onto the coals and watched it shrivel, puff into flames, and become ashes. The soldier said, “It’s bad, eh?”

“The general’s certainly picked a bad time to get sick,” said Clement. “Why do I remember you? Did you know my mother?”

“I knew her pretty well. We all were on the same boat, you know. You were just a little bit of a thing. Dreadfully seasick. But tough. We all told Gabian you were going to be an officer. I guess she’d be pretty proud of you right now, Lieutenant‑General.”

Proud of what?Clement wanted to ask. My lousy luck!But this was no time to be imposing her low spirits on anyone else. She said, “Thanks–I’ll try to keep that in mind. How are people doing, do you think? This news about the general is going to be hard to take, I’m afraid.”

The old man looked at her. “Do you think so, Lieutenant‑General?” His words were neutral, but his tone had a sharpness to it. “I guess I’d better get back. Thanks for the warm‑up.”

Clement was left alone to think about Cadmar: a courageous, handsome, powerful man with the luck of the gods, who made a reputation for himself by barging into impossible situations and then fighting his way out unscathed. Clement had adored him once, had even indulged in fantasies of a covert love affair. That was before Gilly, before Clement watched Cadmar’s casual abuse of a helpless boy, and his stupid disregard for Gilly’s vivid intelligence. After Gilly had given Clement a point of comparison, she had loved Cadmar no more. In fact, she had become determined to make herself what Cadmar was not, and she had been young enough still that reshaping herself had at least seemed possible.

Yet Cadmar was a man to stand behind. An overshadowing obstacle, he was also a substantial shield and a convenient excuse. Clement had railed against him, suffered under him, detested herself for the tricks she employed to get around him. Yet, despite the long years of repugnance, now that it seemed likely that Cadmar soon would be gone, what Clement felt was simple terror. She would be unshielded. She would be the one in front, and the lives of six thousand soldiers would entirely depend on her. If she failed, she would not have anyone else to blame.

She wanted the bloody idiot back.

She heard voices in the hallway, and lifted her head from the table. She felt empty, dazed, and then, as she stood up, dizzy.

Commander Ellid came in without bothering to knock. A soldier was standing in the hallway, with a lantern at her feet. Ellid surveyed the room, glanced at Clement, then said to the soldier, “Bring the lieutenant‑general a load of wood, and find her something to eat. Kick a cook out of bed if you have to.” She shut the door behind herself and added, “Well, Lieutenant‑General, don’t you look like hell.”

“I’ll take your word for it. What do you think, Ellid, is this worse than the night they burned down the garrison?”

“Much worse. There’s nothing to do. Nobody to kill, no fires to fight. Sit down, will you?”

It did seem like a good suggestion. Clement sat and pushed out the other chair with her foot. Ellid sat next to her and said, “This morning, I thought I was about to initiate your demotion. And then I was thinking you were a bloody genius. By afternoon I was thinking you had gotten yourself beaten to death. And now you’re about to become general. My day’s been pretty lousy, but it must look good to you.”

“I wouldn’t want to be you either right now,” Clement said truthfully. “Are the medics certain now that Cadmar’s dying?”

“He’s only got a few more hours, they say. They never heard of an illness moving so fast. They put themselves in quarantine, and they’re desperately hoping it’s the kind of illness that doesn’t spread.”

During Clement’s solitary wait, her apprehensiveness seemed to have consumed itself. She said, “No one else will get sick. I know it for a fact. And I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be what anyone expects.”

Ellid looked blank. “Begging your pardon, Lieutenant‑General…”

“Oh, for gods’ sake, Ellid, we’re alone in the room.”

“Clement,” Ellid corrected herself. And then she seemed to think for a while. “You know some things that I don’t know. No, never mind–I doubt we’ve got time for you to explain. Tell me what you need from me.”

“Whatever I do, it won’t be what anyone expects, either. I need the whole garrison behind me, though: absolute obedience, no hesitation. Every last bloody soldier.”

“All right,” Ellid said absently, as though she were waiting for Clement to ask for something difficult.

“That’s it. You better get busy.”

“You got it already.”

“Ellid, I commanded a garrison for five years myself. I know for a fact I haven’t got it already.”

“I guess you don’t know everything. There was some fifty soldiers watching this afternoon when Cadmar smashed your face after you saved his worthless life. And every last one of them wanted to beat the hell out of him. And there’s another fifty soldiers that just came back from a tough campaign with you, and all they’ve been talking about is how hard you worked to make sure they got through it without even a touch of frostbite. And there’s not a soldier in the garrison who doesn’t remember that you’re the one who kept us all from burning to ashes this summer. You’ve got their loyalty, Clement. Because you earned it. Tell them what to do, and they’ll do it.”

Clement simply could not think of a reply. The expression on her face–what remained of her face–must have been completely blank.

Ellid got to her feet. “I’m going to assign a signal‑man to you, and I’ll make sure every captain in the garrison knows that when the bugle blows, that’s your voice giving the orders.” She paused. “A favor, Clement. A little thing.”

“What?” Clement said doubtfully. It was difficult to believe any favor could be small at the moment.

“Don’t put your life at risk, eh? The last thing I want is to inherit this bloody mess from you.”

Clement said, “That’s exactly what I told Cadmar the last time he promoted me. And now look at what’s happened.”

The kitchen had gradually emptied out, and Garland, too tired to go through the trouble of finding a bed, dozed on the hearth. Down the hall, he heard the Paladin’s voice, and then he heard Medric saying urgently, “Etnil! Wake her up! Now!”

Garland grabbed Karis’s mended, cleaned, ironed, and neatly folded clothing, and ran to the parlor. Medric, standing in the doorway with a blanket trailing from his shoulders, said vigorously into the parlor, “Not only is it a mistake to try to protect her, but it’s generally a good idea to keep out of her way, under all circumstances. Yes, that’s a useful principle.” His spectacles, reflecting fire, made his eyes into a circle of light.

Emil said, “Oh, I was just waiting for you to wake up and tell me what to do. Come in, will you? Or at least allow Garland to pass. Is there a Paladin out there?”

“Yes, Emil,” said the Paladin.

“You might as well start waking up the house.”

Garland went in, to find Emil kneeling near Karis, holding his watch up to the firelight. “What time is dawn in the garrison, Garland?”

“When the bell rings. Sainnites ignore Shaftali time. But we can’t hear the garrison bells here; I think we’re too far away.”

Emil turned to the dark flock of birds. “Ravens, what time is it in the garrison?”

“An hour to dawn,” a raven replied.

“What is happening there?”

“Clement is eating.”

“Have the raven ask to be let out the window. I hope he’s recovered enough to fly.”

They waited. The raven said, “It has been done. The raven can fly.”

“The raven is to fly to the gaol and watch over the storyteller.” Emil sighed. “At least Karis will be able to answer her own questions.” He leaned over her curled, limp form. “Karis, I’m sorry, you must wake.”

This gentle approach had no apparent effect. Emil resorted to vigorously shaking her. Eventually, Karis sat up and gazed dazedly at Medric, who crouched at her feet now, talking rapidly though not very coherently. She put her arms through the new linen undershirt that Garland offered and tugged it over her head. She said, “Garland, do you know what happened to my boots?”

“A cobbler’s been working on them. They’re out in the kitchen.”

“Can you find my coat, too? And my toolbox?”

Emil said worriedly, “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

She lifted her big hands, and examined them, minutely, with a certain puzzlement. “I’m going to get a tool. And I’m going to do something with it.”

Medric uttered a grunt of laughter. He said to Emil, “I’m going to go put some clothes on.”

“But what…?”

Medric looked blurrily but intently at Emil over the top of his lenses. “Oh, Emil, this is the easy part. Don’t try to understand. Just follow her.”

The hall outside Cadmar’s room was crowded with people, none of whom had any business there. At Clement’s approach, a babble of voices rose up. “Lieutenant General, we can’t put an edge on the weapons.” “We can’t repair the guns.” “The gate won’t…” “General Cadmar…?”

“I’ve had a full report from Commander Ellid,” she said. “I am entirely aware of our situation.”

Someone insisted, panicky and desperate, “But they’ll attack us at first light!”

“There’s not going to be an attack.”

“Then why are we waking up the day watch already, an hour before dawn?”

“You mean people were actually able to sleep?” She looked at them, eyebrows raised, until a few of them, at least, managed crooked smiles. “Now what are all of you doing here? You think you’re the only ones who are worried? And that if you could just talk to someone in charge, something would be done about it?”