"I am, in fact, a moderately important part of the command structure of theLiving, Aaron. Mostly because I was a commander of a thousand at Dak-es- Souetta. Yesterday one of the men who fought for me there came to me for someadvice. He doesn't know I'm with the Living and he wouldn't name names, butwhat he did say gave me enough to reason out the rest for myself."
Aaron stopped. He looked at his neighbor blankly. Inside he was in a complete state of confusion, panic fighting with wonder fighting with relief. He didnot know what to say or what to do. He could not think. Aram!
"What I want from you, Aaron, is for you to forget all about this. All aboutwhat happened at the Seven Towers. It's been taken care of."
"Hell, man, he had a wife and kid." No way to stop it once it stuck its headout of his mouth. His tongue was a treacherous serpent. "You have to thinkbefore you go cutting throats. They didn't have anybody else in the world.
What the hell are they going to do now? Your kind never think about that when..."
People were pausing to look at him before they hurried away. Bel-Sidek lookedlike he was in shock. But recovering. "Be quiet, Aaron! What's the matter withyou?"
Aaron did manage to lower his voice. He let it all spill out.
Bel-Sidek interrupted. "I see I'm going to have to tell you more than Iwanted. But trust you some, trust you all the way. Naszif isn't dead. Wedidn't kill him. Come. Walk. We're drawing too much attention."
And, Aaron noticed, Dartars were pouring into Char Street from the acropolis.
He walked.
Bel-Sidek said, "You were right about Naszif. He betrayed your tower out inthe hills. And he was still an agent of the Herodians. In fact, they hadadopted him into their society and he had become a vice-colonel in theirarmy."
"Naszif?"
"Yes. But now he's our man again. We've reclaimed him. He'll be working forQushmarrah. His wife and son have lost nothing. And only you, outside themovement, know about this.
I want you to forget. Everything. Tell no one anything and go on living yourlife. Can you do that, Aaron?"
"I can. But you probably won't let me."
"What?"
Amazed at himself. Talking back to an officer. Serpent tongue letting angersix years old spew out. "It's people like you that can't leave anything alone.
You can't as long as there are people like me whose lives you can spend." Astrange, almost drugged feeling, like he was outside watching somebody elsespeak the unspeakable. "You go play your games with Fa'tad and General Cado.
Just leave me and my family out of it. Leave us alone."
Bel-Sidek gulped air as he searched for something to say. "It's your struggle, too, Aaron."
Aaron spat into the dust. Then he laughed hoarsely. "Your ass. My struggle?
The only people who aren't better off since the conquest are your class. Andthe monster who lived in the citadel. If I had any real sense I'd turn you into the Herodians. But I'm an old dog and you people trained me too well when I was a pup. I can't turn on you now. Go away. Leave me the hell alone."
Aaron lengthened his stride. Bel-Sidek could not keep up.
As the anger evaporated, Aaron began to be afraid. Stupid. Stupid to let yourmouth run away like that. Those were dangerous men. Crazy dangerous.
Bel-Sidek stopped. He could not keep up. He fought down the anger that nippedat him like a fire trying to get started. He had faced these blowups before.
He did not like them. In part that was because he could not quite grasp thefrustration that fueled them, in part because he heard enough truth in them tohave his conscience wakened. He did not want to feel guilty about being trueto his beliefs.
It would not be a good day. Like it or not he was going to spend itreexamining everything that he was, agonizing over his own goals and those ofthe movement.
When you looked at the situation the way an Aaron did there was no mystery whythe movement had trouble attracting recruits. There went a man who had lost asmuch as any in the war, and he put at least as much of the blame for that onhis own overlords as he did on the Herodians.
That kind of thinking-with its damnable core of truth-was an enemy moredangerous than all the spies Cado might have on his payroll. That kind ofthinking might lead men to denounce the movement simply because they preferredHerodian order to the chance of a chaos that might interfere with commerce.
Bel-Sidek limped toward the waterfront, trying to shut out the pain in his legand in his heart. Each hundred steps he glanced back to see how much theDartars had gained upon him.
The Dartar column entering the Gate of Autumn seemed endless. The civiliansawaiting their turn to get into Qushmarrah were sullen and growing more so.
Even to Yoseh it seemed that Fa'tad was sending in every man he had. And thatjust did not make any sense. What was so damned important about that Shu maze?
"Nothing, I'll bet," Nogah said. "Just Fa'tad tying to get Cado to think hethinks it's critical. Maybe so Cado will take it away and make a fool ofhimself looking for something that isn't there."
"What difference does it make?" Medjhah asked. "We get paid the same whetherwe dig around or we don't. Why worry about it?"
Somebody else said, "Yeah, kid. What you getting fussed for?"
Nogah: "He hopes we're on the job a month. You didn't see that veydeen slip hewas making sheep's eyes at yesterday."
Medjhah: "Oh, she was tender, my brothers! Young and sweet. Her eyes were likealmonds toasted and glazed with honey. Her lips were a bed of rose petals."
Yoseh snapped, "Knock it off, you guys."
Medjhah: "Best of all, she wasn't very bright. She was making calf eyes rightback at him."
Nogah: "Sounds too good to be true. If she can cook I'm going to take her awayfrom him."
Yoseh's protests only made the ribbing worse.
Veydeen in the streets paused to stare, startled by Dartar laughter. Yosehsaid, "You're ruining our image."
He became tense as they passed through the acropolis, in the shadow of theCitadel. In an operation this size, how much chance Nogah's troop would end upwhere they had been posted yesterday?
Nogah must have arranged something. He broke off the column at the same alley.
As Yoseh helped unload he kept glancing at that doorway down the street. Everyglance provoked a wisecrack.
The house was closed up this morning. The crone was not in her usual place onthe street. Had his daring yesterday raised her bile? Had she sealed up thefortress till the siege of the maze was over?
Nogah flailed his injured arm to work out some of the stiffness. Already someof his cousins were pushing into the alleyway. Another six men, assigned byJoab, arrived and dismounted, turned their animals over to Yoseh. Yoseh asked,
"You're not going in there today, are you, Nogah?"
"Of course."