He rounded up two little o’Tghalie girls who were pestering their mothers at the paper mill and took them out so that they might show him the source of the mill’s clay. That became a pleasant high day spent molding clay models of the houses around Oelita’s residence from memory and telling tales to his wide-eyed companions.
Oelita’s house, he recalled, was perched on a hill with an easily defended back and no access to the front at all, or so it seemed — except to a man like Joesai, to whom the scaling of sheer stone walls was a minor climbing trick that required only a hammer and iron-reed spikes. He could station two spies with flags on two select rooftops and break in with a very low probability of discovery. Teenae he had already quizzed in detail about the interior. She knew exactly where the crystal was kept. The foray into Sorrow should be a quick in-and-out affair. After his disasters there, he wasn’t really willing to linger.
Simultaneously he planned a cautious reconnaissance up north while his two tiny o’Tghalie counselors climbed his shoulders and pulled at his ears and hair with clay-slick hands.
“I’ll feed you to the Mnankrei,” he said nasally as one of the girls pinched his nose and held on.
“I’ll stew you in ca-ca!” retorted the girl while the other giggled.
Joesai rose to his full height and tucked the girls under his arms. “Off to the sea we go.”
“Why the sea? I’m hungry.”
“The sea is where the cannibal sea priests are! They’re hungry!”
The girls began to squeal and wriggle, but he got them to the rocky ledge where swimmers went, tossed them into the water and gave them a bath so he wouldn’t have to return them to their mothers full of clay. “Let me show you my little sailboat.”
He had acquired a swift three-man vessel for the trip south, and so the larger ship would go north under the command of Raimin. Later they would reunite for a more daring raid against the Mnankrei. Joesai was anxious to bring back to Teenae her pair of boots but was wary of pitting his sailing skills against those of a seasoned Mnankrei priest. He watched the naked girls play in the tiny vessel. He was not yet sure of a strategy. Sinking wheat-laden boats headed south was appealing, but such a tactic was a double-bladed dagger since it meant starvation for those who did not receive the wheat. Judgmental errors of that magnitude tended to annoy Aesoe. How would Aesoe think? He would steal the wheat and reship it. Joesai laughed.
“Come along,” he said to his two clean girls.
“Catch us!”
A sudden storm nearly wrecked his too-small vessel on its way to Sorrow, delaying them a full day and smashing three of Eiemeni’s ribs. A much-sobered Joesai debarked for his brief mission. He wore a faint makeup that emphasized unnatural lines in his facial cicatrice so that recognition would be more difficult, but there was little chance of discovery in their covert route to Oelita’s residence. Strangely they found only one man guarding her place, at the rear. Breaking in via the frontal wall was easier than expected.
A quick search showed that much rearrangement had occurred since Teenae had been here. The crystal was gone. Nor was there time for a destructive search. Joesai had no intention of alerting the outside guard, and so when his flagmen signaled the all clear, he retreated down the wall leaving his iron-reed spikes in place.
The three men regrouped in the street, moving not as fast as they might have because of Eiemeni’s ribs. Stormwinds were still lashing them but they preferred the miserable weather because the clouds and rain and fog shrouded them and gave them an excuse to hide their faces behind wraps. Few villagers were abroad.
“We’ll have to find out where she is.”
“That’ll be days. We aren’t equipped.”
“She’s probably not in town or her place would be better guarded.”
“I’ll find out.” Joesai was thinking of several inns where he might pick up some information but one with a small wheat stalk carved into its door struck him as ideal. He reconnoitered the streets for the best escape paths, and entered, dripping, holding his cloak close about him. He ordered a hot mead and when it came spoke casually to the barkeep. “Any more news of Oelita?”
“She’s still in the tower.” The voice caught. It was upset.
Joesai allowed himself a quick sip of mead while he digested that. The Stgal had picked her up. They would kill her. Incredible. “A rough place to be,” he muttered.
By the time he was out on the street again, he had decided what they would do. He looked at Rae and Eiemeni. “Rae, you’re the strongest. Get back to that God’s bane of a boat of ours and bring the spy’s-eye. Eiemeni, I want you to lay out a path from the Temple tower that just fades into the town. Take your time. Learn every stone. I’ll have to go to the Temple for some information. We’ll meet at Five Cross, or if that gets too prickly, the Eighth Marker at the waterfront. I’ll try to be back by the third highnode of God. If I’m not, wait for highnode of the next Orbit.”
The Temple was lightly attended. Joesai had his choice of courtesans. He picked a small girl he knew was new to town, a pretty Nolar girl, probably a runaway. He asked for a quiet game of kol in one of the more expensive booths. Privacy was important after that silo-bombing fiasco. The girl played a creditable game. She was eager to please and he began a conversation with her, slowly.
Part of him was not comfortable trying to charm information out of such a lovely youth, but another part of him was long used to inducing people to tell him what he wanted to know. The secret was to start them talking about what interested them, then get their speech level up to a chatter and listen.
This girl was fascinated by the Temple. It was the most beautiful place she had ever worked, so he got her to talk about it. It wasn’t long before she touched the topic of the fabulous tower rooms. She knew he wouldn’t be touchy on the subject because she could sense instinctively his kalothi level, and the luxury of working with Ritual Suicides intrigued her.
“There’s going to be some consoling for you to do up there,” he said to keep her on the topic.
“A poor woman is in the north room already. I hear her crying every night. Why are they keeping her so long?”
“Have you served her?”
“Oh no. The north room is not mine. I’m new and that’s the finest room. If I stay here long enough, maybe. I’d like that If I please enough men maybe they’ll let me.” She smiled ravishingly, and he could feel her embarrassment.
He let her please him. She started with a hot bath that did wonders for knotted muscles that had been through a howling night of near death on the sea. It was the best thing he could do before the coming ordeal. He paid his petite courtesan well so that there would be no lingering doubt in her mind about her ability to please.
He knew most of Oelita’s people by rote memory and picked from his mental files the man he wanted, atburly ironsmith who was as gentle as he was big. When Joesai entered his smithy, the man was at work, his forge fire challenging the cracks of its prison walls.
“You!” The man raised a red hot rod but Joesai knew he was harmless.
“I need your help.”
“My help!” the man choked.
Joesai had chosen to reach this man through a judicious mixture of falsehood, truth, and bamboozlement. “Ho! you believe every lie the Stgal tell?” He knew the Stgal were well known for their oily versions of the truth. “Why do you think I would harm the gentle Oelita? Would you? Ho!” he emphasized, moving right to the point, “it is the Stgal who have her in their prison, is that not so?”
“You tried to kill her!”
“Are you sure?” He lied by indirection. “It is the Stgal who wish her dead. Isn’t that self-evident now? And if the Stgal had tried to kill her, wouldn’t it be like them to direct the blame elsewhere? If there is a famine now, cannot they clean their streets of the infestation of heretics? Who knows who caused the silo fire? Who has better access to it than the Stgal?”