Ammonite

Danner was angry, but saw no point in protesting Day’s statement. “Perhaps. But what I was about to say was that I would help you in any way I could. We have metal you could use for trade goods, or we could pass information on weather systems along to you at critical times. During the herd’s birthing season, for example.”

They were silent. The air system hummed. “I need some sunshine,” Day said abruptly. “I don’t know how you stand it in this box without windows.” She stood up, then startled Danner by smiling—a brief, wry smile. “I know what’s wrong with me. It’s the coffee. I need to go for a walk. I’ll come back in an hour or two.” She paused. “You know, Danner, we might be able to work something out, but whatever we decide, you really should talk to T’orre Na first.”

“I will, thank you. I’ll detail an officer to find her, but if you see her first, please ask her to come and find me as soon as she can.”

Day looked thoughtful. “Communications not reliable, Commander?”

“A question of security.”

Day looked around. “Letitia told me some of it. Company has big ears. This room?”

“As secure as we can make it.”

“I gather ‘we’ includes Letitia and Lu Wai. They mentioned a Sergeant Kahn. Twissel?”

“No.”

“You might like to consider her. She knows I’m here now, and that something’s happening. She’s bright, should have made captain a long time ago, and she’ll put two and two together. Better to have her on your side than against you.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. And, Day, when you’ve finished your walk, I’d like you to come back and sit in on my talk with the journeywoman. I’d like your input. Sometimes T’orre Na can be a bit, well, a bit alien.”

“I imagine she feels the same way about you.”

T’orre Na sat cross-legged on the bed, just as she had all those years ago when she had come to Port Central with Jink and Oriyest to demand that Company make recompense for the burn they had started, the burn that had destroyed Jink and Oriyest’s grazing grounds. Danner had been a lieutenant then. It seemed longer, much longer than five years ago, but some things never changed: Danner had been as off balance then as she was now.

“Cassil wants what?”

“Your help. The tribes are raiding everything north of Singing Pastures. It’s only a matter of time before they spread south.”

“What does she think I can do from down here? And why should I?”

“Cassil demands a return on trata. She helped you, your family, through Marghe. Now she wants you to help her.”

“You know that we’re not a family, no matter what Cassil thinks.”

“The trata was made in good faith. I was there. So was one of your Mirrors, Lu Wai. She is under your direct command, which makes you responsible.”

Danner chose to ignore that for a moment. “It sounds like a territorial squabble. Surely Cassil and the others can sort that out themselves.”

“If they could deal with it, they would. That’s the way of trata, to always keep the advantage. They lose it by asking your help.”

Danner set aside trata and its promise of Byzantine complexities and concentrated instead on what she could understand. “These tribes…”

“The Echraidhe and Briogannon.”

“Echraidhe and Briogannon. Yes. Is this something they do a lot? Attack people? Tell me about them.”

“This has never happened before. It’s new. Something’s changed, but I don’t know what, or why. No one does. It seems that the Echraidhe have some sort of new leader who has bypassed the authority of the Levarch. Her name is Uaithne, but she’s calling herself the Death Spirit, riding at the front of her tribe, and killing, killing, killing. She killed half the Briogannon first, to make them join her, and now she slaughters the flocks and herds of Singing Pastures. The pasture women have fled to Holme Valley, but without the herds the people will die. If Uaithne does not kill them first herself.”

“Just killing? That’s senseless.”

“Not to them. It’s one of their legends, that the Death Spirit will come and destroy the people. Uaithne has proclaimed herself that spirit.”

Danner had been caught in one religious war, on her second tour of duty as a cadet, patrolling Company’s interests in Aotearoa in the Tasman sea. Vicious, bloody, incomprehensible. Not about territory or livelihood, but about ideas she could not begin to grasp. “Dirty business, religion. But you said only the herds of Singing Pastures have been affected. Why does Cassil come to me?”

“Singing Pastures has trata with Holme Valley.”

“And Cassil has trata with me.” Damn Marghe. “Let me think. How about this: I’ll be happy to advise the women of Singing Pastures and Holme Valley on how to organize a militia, but I’m not prepared to make the journey myself, or send any personnel.”

“You must.”

“I can’t, T’orre Na. You’ve no idea of my situation here.”

“I think I do. Bluntly, you’re on your own.”

“Well, that’s not quite how I’d—”