"Continually," said Velesti, staring up at the ceiling with her chin on her fist and drumming her fingers on the table. "Try to have a sensible conversation about spinning back kicks and all I ever got was eyes of violet gemstone, hair like a summer firestorm, and a lot a speculation about whether you would be willing to hold his hand. You are apparently also brave, beautiful, charming, sophisticated, witty. . . . This may take a while. Do you really want me to continue?"
Samondel closed her eyes again. "God give me strength. Why did he say all that to you instead of meV
"I'm not sure. My eyes are sort of bluish gray and my hair is auburn."
"Do not try to cheer me up, Frelle Velesti. Answer my question."
"It is complicated. Martyne would rather have faced enemy bombards than face you and be laughed at, but also—"
"I never laughed at Martyne!" shouted Samondel angrily. "With, yes. At, never! After our last dinner together he walked me back to Villiers College, and I kissed him. I—I really did fall in love with him. I wanted to tell him, but. . . another girl, he had another. Soon after that Serjon arrived. Oh, Martyne ... yet he spied on me, he denounced me."
"Wrong. I spied on you, I arranged for you to be denounced."
Samondel blinked. Velesti nodded. Samondel's already protuberant eyes bulged with rage. She flung the remains of her coffee in Velesti's face, then backhanded her across the cheek, but as she raised her hand to strike her again Velesti offered her a Morelac, handle first.
"Here, this is quicker," said the Librarian.
Samondel clicked a striker back, aimed between Velesti's eyes— then raised the barrel and fired. Her shot obliterated the price beside SOUP OF THE DAY on the chalkboard. The other patrons slowly climbed out from under their tables and returned to their meals, cakes, and coffee. Manuel hurried out with another mug of North-moor coffee for Samondel.
"Here, Frelle Princess, compliments of house—"
"Not princess! Airlord! Sort of queen, mayor, general, overhand, and commander. All in one. Understand?"
"Yes, Frelle."
"Thankings for coffee. Now please, leaving. Alone."
Manuel hurried away. Velesti shifted uncomfortably. Strong men fell over themselves to get out of the way when Velesti walked down the street, thought Samondel, yet here she was, running her finger around the rim of her coffee mug and looking as if she would rather be anywhere else but here. Indrawn breath hissed between her teeth.
"When I heard about Serjon being in Rochester with you, I went to visit Martyne. When he did not answer I broke the lock. He was under his bed. He wanted to be able to say that he did not sleep in his own bed on this night."
"Oh, Martyne!" cried Samondel, letting Velesti's flintlock fall from her fingers to the table.
"I tried to comfort him as best I could, but comforting people is not one of my strengths. Besides, the prospect of having a quiet ale with me was no substitute for the prospect of holding hands with you."
"I was lonely! I was alone in a foreign, alien city and Martyne said he was . . . taken!"
"That was all a mistake too. Lies, misunderstandings: Martyne was free, yours for the taking."
"Martyne was all that made Rochester enchanting. Then Serjon arrived. He found me at the market. Serjon had been my lover before he was married, and suddenly I was alone with him. He desired me, I—I love him, in a way. What was I to do? What would you do, were you me?"
"Were I you? Probably much the same. Were I me? Drag Martyne out from under his bed, empty a jug of water over him, march him down to Marelle's Late Night Tavern, sit him at a table with a drink and have a quiet word to Marelle on the way out. They were once lovers, you know."
"Damn you."
"Sorry."
"But thank you for caring about him."
"Think nothing of it."
Forty-three pairs of eyes followed their every gesture, forty-three pairs of ears listened to every word, although only Samondel and Velesti understood Old Anglian.
"Velesti, why did you denounce Serjon and me?"
"Martyne was supposed to be spying on you, but he was shielding you instead. Serjon was being shadowed by another agent, and when you two joined up—"
"Take that back!"
"Ah, met each other in the market, your own identity became subject to scrutiny. I submitted a report, Martyne was forced to fight you, and I was instructed to arrest you and Serjon at once. You know the rest of the story."
"You must think of me as a filthy little whore."
"Why so? Why should you and Serjon be different from Martyne and Marelle?"
Samondel was, for some odd reason, very pleased that Velesti had a good opinion of her.
"Sometimes, just sometimes, Velesti, you show that you have the heart of a saint."
"Which I keep in a jar of expensive whiskey on my bookshelf."
Samondel laughed.
"It is pleasant with Serjon. I know him well, there was no tension. I know what he needs, desires, gives, and means. The Barto-lican expression is 'we laugh well together.' Do you understand?"
"The Australican term is 'mates.' How do you feel about aviads?"
"There are good aviads and bad aviads. Serjon's feelings are a different matter. At the start of the Great War—"
"I know that story."
"You do?"
"His mother and sisters were raped and murdered when Barto-lican carbineers led by an aviad captured the Jannian estate. Several hundred Bartolican honkey-boy carbineers took the estate with scarcely a shot fired, raped the women, then killed everyone except the guildmasters—who they abducted."
"How could you know that?"
"I am a Dragon Librarian. Librarians know everything. I know what Serjon saw, I know . . . more than he has admitted to you."
"You are more frightening as a librarian than a warrior, Velesti. Can you read minds too?"
"You are thinking, 'Wherever you are, Martyne, I love you.' "
Samondel gave a sniffle. "Close. I was thinking, Yonlitor elme stelderen, Es cor valoricel. 'Glory of the starlit sky, my heart is your warrior.' "
"Ah yes, classical Bartolican for T love you.' '
&UILE OF LIBRARIANS
Rochester, the Rochestrian Commonwealth
IVIarelle shouldered the student medician aside and burst into the dissection room where the dean was operating on Martyne on a cadaver table. Half a dozen students were holding the patient down.
"Martyne! They told me—" she began.
"Fykart sadist!" cried Martyne, ignoring her. "Dammit, hurry up!"
"Number forty-seven, only two more stiches," said the dean.
With her fist jammed into her mouth Marelle stared down at the man who had been lying in her arms only two months earlier. There was a great deal of blood on the cloth beneath him, and the medician was in the last stages of closing a gash at least ten inches long that ran across his chest, just below his pectoral muscles. The wounds where Samondel's bullet had entered and exited his arm had already been neatly stitched closed.
"Will—will he live?" asked Marelle.
"Unless he gets shot again, yes. Starting stitch number forty-eight."
"Enough, damn you!" cried Martyne, his voice ragged.
"This is professional pride, Fras Camderine."
"Stop it! I'd rather have the scar."
"You enter a duel, you accept repairs."
"Ow!"
"Will someone tell me what happened?" demanded Marelle.
"This young hero presented his left side to his opponent in a duel over some point of honor that ostensibly involved treason, espionage, and politics, but which I suspect also involved a woman, another man, and . . ." He stared at Marelle over the tops of his spectacles, "possibly yet another woman. She shot—"
"She?"
"I'm sorry, Fras Martyne, should this lady know about—"
"Finish that last stitch and leave me alone!"
"Frelle Samondel's bullet passed through his left bicep, hit his torso
, broke a rib, tore a very dramatic furrow across his chest, and clipped the top of his right bicep before flying on to lodge in the buffers. It was also coated with a particularly nasty substance known as razor dust, which stings like a thousand wasps. The pain from these impressive but unthreatening wounds made him think he was dying, and certainly made him pass out from shock."
Marelle leaned against the edge of the bench, her head spinning.
"Martyne, you were so, so lucky," she said.
"More than lucky," said the dean. "The bullet was deflected, it must have been badly charged. The shot should have passed through his heart, as straight as a musket barrel."
"And Frelle Samondel? Was she harmed?"
"He chose not to shoot at her, and in a most dramatic fashion."
He held up the neck of the shattered whiskey jar.
"So he will definitely live?" asked Marelle.
"Yes," replied the dean as he and the student medicians began to bandage Martyne's chest.
"When I heard he had been taken to the dissection chambers I thought the worst."
"There is no hospital on university grounds, so the dissection rooms are used for emergencies. I thought everyone knew that."
"Everyone except me, apparently. When can he leave?"
"You can take him tonight."
"When can I slap his face?"
"Five days, perhaps a week."
"I thought I was staying here," croaked Martyne.
"You shut up!" snapped Marelle.
"Let us not be too flippant about this young man," said the dean. "In the cloisters of honor he did pass out with pain, shock, and blood loss."
"Martyne, you are going to be nursed by my hands."
"Be careful of his stiches," said the dean as he tied the last bandage. "I take it she was the underlying cause of the duel, Fras Camderine?"
Marelle raised her hand, but with considerable effort refrained from slapping the dean's face. Martyne remained discreetly silent.
"Ah, I apologize for that rather tasteless pun, Frelle," said the dean as he backed away.
Me has vanished," said Marelle as she and Velesti sat together in a crowded tavern at the serving bench some days later.
"Just as I expected," said Velesti. "He cannot have been seriously hurt."
"His wounds were painful, but not serious. You should know, you put the razor dust on Samondel's lead shot."
"I have a strong sense of theater."
"Especially theater of the absurd."
"Did you roll him again?"
"Velesti, do you know why I could never be his beloved?"
"Early morning Baleshanto training?"
"He reminds me too much of my father."
"Believe me, beautiful and understanding Frelle, he is nothing at all like your father."
"Believe me, baleful and disturbing Frelle, you are even more like my father. Is Samondel well? Martyne was worried about her, and so am I."
"She will live. I took her to a quiet country place for the dozen days."
"Yet you are back in Rochester."
"There are things to do, things to discuss. Like where Martyne has gone."
"You know?"
"Passage was booked to a lonely, isolated railside about a day by wind train east of Kalgoorlie. The name in the register was a false one, but it was the first time in the clerk's forty years of service that anyone had booked a one-way passage there. A few days' walk to the north is Balesha."
"So, we have driven him back."
"His experiences with women have hardly been encouraging."
Marelle sighed and shook her head. "How do we women manage to do such things to the nicest of men, and why do the real bastards have success with us so easily?"
"I don't know."
"Serjon presents well. He risked everything for Samondel, he braved great danger and traveled right to the heart of an enemy empire to rescue her."
"Perhaps she's gunpowder to lie with?" suggested Velesti.
Presently they returned to Marelle's tavern, and went to the main taproom hall. It was late afternoon, but already people were there, drinking, talking, and striving to be noticed.
"What other things do you have to arrange?" Marelle asked.
"Samondel now loves Martyne, but thinks Martyne is dead. Mar-tyne wants it to stay that way. Serjon is here in Rochester, waiting for Samondel to return. I think Samondel will return to Serjon, and take up with him where I interrupted. But... I know a little bird who saw Serjon at the Traralgon Castellany. Would you like to know what else my little bird saw?"
"I am tired of riddles, Velesti. Why not speak plainly?"
"Because, Marelle, I have only riddles," replied Velesti, spreading her arms wide. "Other people have answers, but no riddles. You are one of them."
"Ask for an answer, I shall provide it," replied Marelle.
"What is Serjon doing in Rochester?"
"Have you no eyes, Frelle Velesti?" Marelle sighed, exasperated. "He was bedding Samondel! I know a few little birds as well, Velesti.
One of mine said that Samondel was on the bed and on her back, and Serjon so completely inserted that his toes were barely visible."
"Well ... it was obvious that they were somewhat more to each other than just good friends, but that is not the point. Fact: Serjon's people must have a secret wingfield somewhere in Traralgon. Fact: the Castellian of Traralgon breeds cavalry horses. Fact: the American flyers are in search of horses. Fact: Avianese intelligence has been very active in the Southeast lately. Fact: Serjon hates aviads. Fact: aviad children are being moved to the Southeast, even though there are supposedly no aviad wingfields there. What do all these facts tell us?"
"That Serjon must have learned to accept and work with aviads."
"Correct, but what I want to know is who Serjon is working againstT
"The Reformed Gentheists, people who shoot at people using fueled engines. Is it not obvious?"
"To a live person, yes."
"My mother told me never to play with dead people."
"Dead people can be fun to be with," retorted Velesti. "Take me, for example."
"No, thank you, you are not my type."
"I am dead, Martyne is dead, but is Serjon dead?"
"You, Frelle Cadaver, are talking nonsense, and have lost me. Totally. What are your plans?"
"I should like to vanish."
"Just vanish?"
"Vanish to walk in darkness and danger, in the service of truth, justice, and large angelic choirs singing in sixteen-part harmony."
Marelle put her arms around Velesti and hugged her with real affection.
"Be feared and respected in the dark and deadly places, Frelle Strange One."
Velesti whispered something in Marelle's ear.
"Yes, I can arrange that," said Marelle, who nevertheless looked puzzled. "But I doubt that it will work."
They stood apart, bowed, then Velesti walked away across the
tavern hall and through the door to the stairs. When she was gone one of the jarmaids came out into the hall with a polishing cloth.
"That's the Dragonliber, the lady spy," said Nereli wistfully as she began to wipe a tabletop near Marelle.
"I have heard rumors to that effect," replied Marelle, "but then there are such rumors about me as well."
"How exciting, how romantic. Having affairs with rich, handsome, and powerful men, living like a noble, and among the nobility."
"The reality is not nearly the same," replied Marelle.
"That's all right for you to say. I'm just a jarmaid, you had first right of refusal when Martyne Camderine was here—and you didn't refuse."
"Sometimes jarmaids make better spies than moderately prosperous tavern mistresses like me."
"I see no recruiting tables at the market."
"Frelle Nereli, if you wish to be part of a covert venture, I can arrange it."
"Me? What can a jarmaid like me do?"
"Take off your clothes for a start. If you imp
ress the enemies with your body yet they have less-than-impressive bodies to impress you, what do you think they will do?"
"Spend money to impress me?"
"More than that. They will try to impress you with their secrets, to show how important they are."
"Ah."
"Would you like a simple assignment?"
Seymour, the Rochestrian Commonwealth
Dhadowmouse walked straight from the Seymour paraline terminus to the nearest stables and bought a horse and saddle. At the stables he also asked about caravans, and he was told that one was due to leave later that day. He spoke with the caravan master, and had him-
self signed up as an outrider guard. For this he would be granted a land plot at the center of their planned town. Outrider guards were, however, the very last word in vulnerability. The shot that would kill Shadowmouse would be the shot that alerted the caravan to a freebooter attack.
Because land was available in what used to be the Calldeath lands, people with drive but limited prospects in mainstream society were flocking there in spite of the dangerous warlords, outlaws, freebooters, aviads, and wildlife. They traveled by horse, dray cart, two-wheeled gig, and even by foot. The better caravans traveled fifty miles per day. The group that Shadowmouse had joined was too big to be vulnerable to most groups outside Rochestrian law and justice, however, and the warlords were not interested in wasting warriors against people who were only passing through. Thus the journey was relatively free of incident for the first few days.
On the fourth day Shadowmouse rode away into the woods. Once out of sight he took a reaction pistol from his robes, checked its action, settings, and ammunition clip, then concealed it again.
Traralgon Castellany, Southeastern Australica
Iraralgon Castle was a long, low rambling wall enclosing the store halls, stables, and armory of Galdane's cavalry. The village supplied blacksmiths, leatherworkers, carpenters, and farm laborers, and the entire complex was extremely well patrolled.
Shadowmouse rode along the single path to the village, which was merely a pair of ruts for the supply carts. Galdane's lancers traveled the open country, holding roads in contempt. The warriors felt that only slaves and peasants used roads, and to be seen on one was an admission of just that status.
Three lancers burst out of the woods in the distance, galloping across the field of long grass. Their first shot struck Shadowmouse's gelding, but he rolled as he was pitched to the ground. The warriors
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