Cotillion's response was cool and dry. “You've always underestimated the Empress. Hence our present circumstances: No.” He gestured at the fishergirl. “We'll need this one. Laseen's raised the ire of Moon's Spawn, and that's a hornet's nest if ever there was one. The timing is perfect.”
Faintly, above the screaming horses, came the shrieks of men and women, a sound that pierced the girl's heart. Her eyes darted to Rigga's motionless form on the roadside, then back to Ammanas, who now approached her. She thought to run but her legs had weakened to a helpless trembling. He came close and seemed to study her, even though the shadows within his hood remained impenetrable.
“A fishergirl?” he asked, in a kindly tone.
She nodded.
“Have you a name?” “Enough!” Cotillion growled. “She's not some mouse under your paw, Ammanas. Besides, I've chosen her and I will choose her name as well.”
Ammanas stepped back. “Pity,” he said again.
The girl raised imploring hands. “Please,” she begged Cotillion, “I've done nothing! My father's a poor man, but he'll pay you all he can. He needs me, and the twine-he's waiting right now!” She felt herself go wet between her legs and quickly sat down on the ground. “I've done nothing!” Shame rose through her and she put her hands in her lap.
“Please.”
“I've no choice any more, child,” Cotillion said. “After all, you know our names.”
“I've never heard them before!” the girl cried.
The man sighed. "With what's happening up the road right now, well, you'd be questioned. Unpleasantly. There are those who know our names.”
“You see, lass,” Ammanas added, suppressing a giggle, “we're not supposed to be here. There are names, and then there are names.” He swung to Cotillion and said, in a chilling voice, “Her father must be dealt with. My Hounds?”
“No,” Cotillion said. “He lives.”
“Then how?”
“I suspect,” Cotillion said, “greed will suffice, once the slate is wiped clean.” Sarcasm filled his next words. “I'm sure you can manage the sorcery in that, can't you?”
Ammanas giggled. “Beware of shadows bearing gifts.”
Cotillion faced the girl again. He lifted his arms out to the sides. The shadows that held his features in darkness now flowed out around his body.
Ammanas spoke, and to the girl his words seemed to come from a great distance. “She's ideal. The Empress could never track her down, could never even so much as guess.” He raised his voice. “It's not so bad a thing, lass, to be the pawn of a god.”
“Prod and pull,” the fishergirl said quickly.
Cotillion hesitated at her strange comment, then he shrugged. The shadows whirled out to engulf the girl. With their cold touch her mind fell away, down into darkness. Her last fleeting sensation was of the soft wax of the candle in her right hand, and how it seemed to well up between the fingers of her clenched fist.
The captain shifted in his saddle and glanced at the woman riding beside him. “We've closed the road on both sides, Adjunct. Moved the local traffic inland. So far, no word's leaked.” He wiped sweat from his brow and winced. The hot woollen cap beneath his helm had rubbed his forehead raw.
“Something wrong, Captain?”
He shook his head, squinting up the road. “Helmet's loose. Had more hair the last time I wore it.”
The Adjunct to the Empress did not reply.
The mid-morning sun made the road's white, dusty surface almost blinding. The captain felt sweat running down his body, and the mail of his helm's lobster tail kept nipping the hairs on his neck. Already his lower back ached. It had been years since he'd last ridden a horse, and the roll was slow in coming. With every saddle-bounce he felt vertebrae crunch.
It had been a long time since somebody's title had been enough to straighten him up. But this was the Adjunct to the Empress, Laseen's personal servant, an extension of her Imperial will. The last thing the captain wanted was to show his misery to this young, dangerous woman.
Up ahead the road began its long, winding ascent. A salty wind blew from their left, whistling through the newly budding trees lining that side of the road. By mid-afternoon, that wind would breathe hot as a baker's oven, carrying with it the stench of the mudflats. And the sun's heat would bring something else as well. The captain hoped to be back in Kan by then.
He tried not to think about the place they rode towards. Leave that to the Adjunct. In his years of service to the Empire, he'd seen enough to know when to shut everything down inside his skull. This was one of those times.
