Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [127]
Liss grinned. “I no doubt sounded a madwoman when I first rode in shrieking. Thanks be for my chancellery tabard. I’m glad they listened. I didn’t wait to see.”
“So we learned. The divine was done in by then—”
“You weren’t much better,” muttered dy Cabon.
“—so we took their charity for the night. Never ceases to amaze me, when people with so little share their bit with strangers. Five gods rain blessings upon ‘em, for they’d just had their allotment of bad luck for a year at least.
“I talked them into loaning a mule to the divine, though they sent a boy along to be sure it got back again, and we started for Maradi in the morning, following Liss. I’d have preferred to chase you, Royina, but not unequipped as we were. I wanted an army. The goddess must have heard me, for we found one a few hours later, coming up the road. The provincar of Tolnoxo loaned us mounts, and you can believe I jumped to join his troop. Would have saved steps to let them come to us back at the village, for we passed through there again in the afternoon—returned their mule, at least, which made its owner happy.” He glanced at dy Cabon. “I probably should have sent dy Cabon on to the temple at Maradi—he might have caught up with Liss—but he refused to be parted from me.”
Dy Cabon growled reluctant agreement under his breath. “I wasted two miserable days in dy Tolnoxo’s baggage train. The parts of me that meet a saddle were pounded to bruises by then, but even I could see we were following too slowly.”
“Yes, despite all my howling.” Foix grimaced. “The Tolnoxans gave up at the border, claiming the Jokonan column would break up into a dozen parts and scatter, and that only the men of Caribastos, who knew their own country, had a chance of netting them. I said we only needed to follow one part. Dy Tolnoxo gave me leave to take my horse and try it, and I almost did just to defy him. Should have; I might have caught up in time for Lord Arhys’s welcoming fête. But the divine was mad to get me back to Maradi, for all the good that proved to be in the end, and I was worried about Liss, so I let myself be persuaded.”
“Not mad,” dy Cabon denied. “Justly worried. I saw those flies.”
Foix huffed in exasperation. “Will you leave off about those accursed flies! They were no one’s beloved pets. There were a million more in the manure pile they came from. There is no shortage of flies in Tolnoxo. No need to ration ‘em!”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.”
“Flies . . . ?” said Liss, bewildered.
Dy Cabon turned to her in eager, and irate, explication. “It was after we left dy Tolnoxo’s troop and came at last to the temple house in Maradi. The next morning. I came into Foix’s chamber and found him drilling a dozen flies.”
Liss’s nose wrinkled. “Ick. Wouldn’t they squash?”
“No—not—they were marching around. In a parade array, back and forth across the tabletop, in little ranks.”
“File flies,” murmured Foix, irrepressibly.
“He was experimenting with his demon, that’s what,” said dy Cabon. “After I told him to leave the thing strictly alone!”
“They were only flies.” Foix’s embarrassed grin twisted. “Granted, they did better than some recruits I’ve tried to train.”
“You were starting to dabble in sorcery.” The divine scowled. “And you haven’t stopped. What did you do to make that Jokonan’s horse stumble?”
“Nothing counter to nature. I understood your lecture perfectly well—your god knows you’ve repeated it often enough! You can’t claim that turmoil and disorder didn’t freely flow from the demon—what a splendid pileup! No, nor that it didn’t result in good! If your order’s sorcerers can do it, why can’t I?”
“They are properly supervised and instructed!”
“Five gods know, you are certainly supervising and instructing me. Or at least, spying and badgering. Comes to much the same thing, I suspect.” Foix hunched. “Anyway,” he returned to his narrative, “they told us in Maradi that Liss had ridden to