Soldiers Live

132 Taglios: Wife and Child

Lady was sitting beside Booboo again. Or still. I pulled up a stool opposite her. “Want me to take over for a while? Give you a chance to get out and about and stretch your legs? The Green Dragon Banner Company have a wicked lamb stew going. Don’t ask me where they found sheep in this madhouse.”

She lifted her face. There were tear tracks on her cheeks. “Help me, Croaker. I can’t stop thinking about how much was taken away from me when Narayan Singh stole her. How much that one event changed my life.”

It changed all our lives. It affected everyone in this end of this world and hundreds of thousands in at least two others. But she was completely self-involved right now.

“Get up and get out of here,” I told her. “Go get something to eat. Go flying. It’s a beautiful, cool day. There’re signs that things are going to start greening up soon. Go take it in. I want you to get hold of yourself before I go. I don’t want to leave you here if you don’t think you’re all right.”

“Go? Where are you going?”

“It’s almost time to release the first contingent of the Children of the Dead. Some of us are going to scout the way south and across the plain. And get the guys at the shadowgate busy collecting supplies. Why don’t you come along? It’ll get your mind off things.”

“No. I couldn’t. There isn’t anyone here who can take care of her.”

Damn! Now I saw where she was vulnerable. I saw the door the darkness would use to get in. If it had not done so already.

Clever me, though. I knew how to close that door. Forever. And I had just set myself up to take care of it without interference.

“Go get some stew. Strut around. Make the soldiers hate me for being lucky enough to have you.” There was a time when every man did. When every man responded to Lady the way women did to Aridatha Singh. But those days were gone. And so were all those men but me.

I glanced down at Booboo, then up at the silent white crow standing in the open window. It certainly seemed to run in the blood.

The white crow was around a lot now, but was quiet about it. So far I had not forgotten to look around before I said anything I did not want overheard. I needed to keep my fingers crossed for the future, though.

Lady dithered.

I said, “If you don’t get going I’ll call some guys in here and have them hold you down while I paddle you.”

For a moment the Lady I love peeked out of the dark place. She flashed a smile, said, “Promise? That might be fun.”

Once she left I collected Booboo’s hand and indulged in a little of the same despair. The girl’s fingers were cold as death. But she was breathing.

The white crow found it all amusing. “You’ve become sickeningly domestic, lover.”

I growled something.

“Ah, I know. You were so stubborn when I had you. But it might be fun to see what happened if somebody said you weren’t, after all these years.”

I grumbled.

“Well, maybe not fun for you.” And, after a moment, in a different, sorrowful, almost little girl voice, “It could have been something amazing.”

No doubt. And fatal besides, probably.