“Excuse the lateness of the hour, my lord,” he said. “But I thought we should talk. About tomorrow.”
The sword clattered out of Fri'it's hand.
Vorbis leaned forward.
“Is there something wrong, brother?” he said.
He smiled, and stepped into the room. Two hooded inquisitors slipped in behind him.
“Brother,” Vorbis said again. And shut the door.
“How is it in there?” said Brutha.
“I'm going to rattle around like a pea in a pot,” grumbled the tortoise.
“I could put some more straw in. And, look, I've got these.”
A pile of greenstuff dropped on Om's head.
“From the kitchen,” said Brutha. “Peelings and cabbage. I stole them,” he added, “but then I thought it can't be stealing if I'm doing it for you.”
The fetid smell of the half-rotten leaves suggested strongly that Brutha had committed his crime when the greens were halfway to the midden, but Om didn't say so. Not now.
“Right,” he mumbled.
There must be others, he told himself. Sure. Out in the country. This place is too sophisticated. But . . . there had been all those pilgrims in front of the Temple. They weren't just country people, they were the devoutest ones. Whole villages clubbed together to send one person carrying the petitions of many. But there hadn't been the flame. There had been fear, and dread, and yearning, and hope. All those emotions had their flavor. But there hadn't been the flame.
The eagle had dropped him near Brutha. He'd . . . woken up. He could dimly remember all that time as a tortoise. And now he remembered being a god. How far away from Brutha would he still remember? A mile? Ten miles? How would it be . . . feeling the knowledge drain away, dwindling back to nothing but a lowly reptile? Maybe there would be a part of him that would always remember, helplessly . . .
He shuddered.
Currently Om was in a wickerwork box slung from Brutha's shoulder. It wouldn't have been comfortable at the best of times, but now it shook occasionally as Brutha stamped his feet in the pre-dawn chill.
After a while some of the Citadel grooms arrived, with horses. Brutha was the subject of a few odd looks. He smiled at everyone. It seemed the best way.
He began to feel hungry, but didn't dare leave his post. He'd been told to be here. But after a while sounds from around the corner made him sidle a few yards to see what was going on.
The courtyard here was U-shaped, around a wing of the Citadel buildings, and around the corner it looked as though another party was preparing to set out.
Brutha knew about camels. There had been a couple in his grandmother's village. There seemed to be hundreds of them here, though, complaining like badly oiled pumps and smelling like a thousand damp carpets. Men in djeliba moved among them and occasionally hit them with sticks, which is the approved method of dealing with camels.
Brutha wandered over to the nearest creature. A man was strapping water-bottles round its hump.
“Good morning, brother,” said Brutha.
“Bugger off,” said the man without looking round.
“The Prophet Abbys tells us (chap. XXV, verse 6): `Woe unto he who defiles his mouth with curses for his words will be as dust,' ” said Brutha.
“Does he? Well, he can bugger off too,” said the man, conversationally.
Brutha hesitated. Technically, of course, the man had bought himself vacant possession of a thousand hells and a month or two of the attentions of the Quisition, but now Brutha could see that he was a member of the Divine Legion; a sword was halfhidden under the desert robes.
And you had to make special allowances for Legionaries, just as you did for inquisitors. Their often intimate contact with the ungodly affected their minds and put their souls in mortal peril. He decided to be magnanimous.
“And where are you going to with all these camels on this fine morning, brother?”
The soldier tightened a strap.