Though the empire retained a surface appearance of cohesion, a failure of the old discipline snaked through the deeps beneath. When you wandered the streets of Opal you sensed the laxness. There was flip talk about the new crop of overlords. One-Eye spoke of an increase in black marketeering, a subject on which he had been expert for a century. I overheard talk of crimes committed that were not officially sanctioned.
Lady seemed unconcerned. “The empire is seeking normalcy. The wars are over. There’s no need for the strictures of the past.”
“You saying it’s time to relax?”
“Why not? You’d be the first to scream about what a price we paid for peace.”
“Yeah. But the comparative order, the enforcement of public safety laws . . . I admired that part.”
“You sweetheart, Croaker. You’re saying we weren’t all bad.”
She knew damned well I’d claimed that all along. “You know I don’t believe there’s any such thing as pure evil.”
“Yes there is. It’s festering up north in a silver spike your friends drove into the trunk of a sapling that’s the son of a god.”
“Even the Dominator may have had some redeeming quality sometime. Maybe he was good to his mother.”
“He probably ripped her heart out and ate it. Raw.”
I wanted to say something like, you married him, but did not need to give her further excuses to change her mind. She was pressed enough.
But I digress. I was remarking on the changes in the Lady’s world. What brought the whole thing home was having a dozen men drop in and ask if they could sign on with the Black Company. They were all veterans. Which meant there were men of military age at loose ends these days. During the war years there had been no extra bodies anywhere. If they were not with the grey boys or that lot they were with the White Rose.
I rejected six guys right away and accepted one, a man with his front teeth done up in gold inlays. Goblin and One-Eye, self-appointed name givers, dubbed him Sparkle.
Of the other five there were three I liked and two I did not and could find no sound reasons for going either way with any of them. I lied and told them they were all in and should report aboard The Dark Wings in time for our departure. Then I conferred with Goblin. He said he would make sure that the two I did not like would miss our departure.
I first noticed the crows then, consciously. I attached no special significance, just wondered why everywhere we went there seemed to be crows.
One-Eye wanted a private chat. “You nosed around that place where your girlfriend is staying?”
“Not to speak of.” I had given up arguing about whether or not Lady was my girlfriend.
“You ought to.”
“It’s a little late. I take it you have. What’s your beef?”
“It isn’t something you can pin down like sticking a nail through a frog, Croaker. Kind of hard to get a good look around there, anyway, what with she brought a whole damned army along. An army that I think she figures on dragging along wherever we go.”
“She won’t. Maybe she rules this end of the world, but she don’t run the Black Company. Nobody runs with this outfit who don’t answer to me and only to me.”
One-Eye clapped. “That was good, Croaker. I could almost hear the Captain talking. You even got to standing the way he did, like a big old bear about to jump on something.”
I was not original, but I didn’t think I was that transparent a borrower, either. “So what’s your point, One-Eye? Why has she got you spooked?”
“Not spooked, Croaker. Just feeling cautious. It’s her baggage. She’s dragging along enough stuff to fill a wagon.”
“Women get that way.”
“Ain’t women’s stuff. Not unless she wears magical lacies. You’d know that better than me.”
“Magical?”
“Whatever that stuff is, it’s got a charge on it. A pretty hefty one.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought you ought to know.”
“If it’s magical it’s your department. Keep an eye out”—I snickered—“and let me know if you find anything useful.”
“Your sense of humor has gone to hell, Croaker.”
“I know. Must be the company I keep. My mother warned me about guys like you. Scat. Go help Goblin give those two guys the runs, or something. And stay out of trouble. Or I’ll take you across the water in a nice bouncy rowboat we’ll pull along behind the ship.”
It takes some doing for a black man to get green around the gills. One-Eye managed it.
The threat worked. He even kept Goblin from getting into mischief.
Though not in keeping with the time sequence, I hereby make notation of four new members of the Company. They are: Sparkle, Big Bucket (I don’t know why; he came with the name), Red Rudy, and Candles. Candles came with his name, too. There is a long story to tell how he got it. It does not make sense and is not especially interesting. Being the new guys they mostly stayed quiet, stayed out of the way, did the scut work, and worked on learning what we were all about. Lieutenant Murgen was happy to have somebody around he outranked.