Bannerless (The Bannerless Saga 1)

“Now that Sero is gone, at least,” she said.

“We have room here,” he continued, undaunted. “If you ever get tired of your work. If you ever feel that you need a quieter life.” He looked her up and down appraisingly. “How old are you? Thirty?”

Wryly she said, “A bit younger. I’ve had some hard miles.”

He smiled politely. “I really don’t know anything about you. What you’re like when you’re not doing this. What you want. But I suppose . . . if you wanted a banner, you’d need to think about it soon, yes?”

Philos didn’t need to know about Serenity’s banner hanging on the wall back home. The one that didn’t have a name on it yet. Even if she hadn’t had that banner, she would have thought this was appallingly brash. She was almost impressed with him.

If she really wanted to have a baby herself, Olive would give her that chance. But Olive wanted to be the one to carry the child, to give birth. She was the one who yearned for it. Enid . . . she suspected she’d wanted the banner for the accomplishment of earning a banner and not for the baby. For the status. And that didn’t feel quite right.

Philos didn’t need to know any of that. Let him make his assumptions.

“I guess I would,” she said, conversationally. “I’ve been a bit too busy to think of it. Pasadan gets all the banners it wants, I suppose?” She hadn’t seen any pregnant women in town. That didn’t mean anything, of course, and she thought of Olive again. She wanted to go home.

“We do all right. We hope to keep it that way. I’ll do what I can to keep it that way. But right now, that outcome is up to you, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.” They’d arrived back at the committee house. “Well. I’ll be thinking a little more clearly after I’ve had something to eat, I’m sure.”

“Thank you for your time, Investigator.” He actually bowed himself away, and she wanted to kick his ass as he turned.

She waited until he was gone before entering the front room and setting the basket on the table. Teeth bared she said, “Philos just tried to bribe me. Let the whole thing go, and he’ll get me a banner.”

“Really?” Tomas said, with the hint of a chuckle. Like his prey had just landed in a trap. “That’s a hell of a bribe.”

“Tomorrow, I want to look at Bounty again. See what they’ve got tucked away in hiding.”

CHAPTER TEN • THE RUINS

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Hunter-Gatherers

They bypassed Fintown and whatever trouble had settled there with the arrival of the investigators. Enid would have to remember to ask Tomas what had happened. Investigators all talked to one another; he would know. For now, they kept moving.

It rained. Off and on for the next two weeks, rain fell. Not a lot, but the misting, annoying drizzle still managed to turn the world wet and muggy. They traveled, until the landscape became green and forested.

Against Dak’s usual habits this time of year, they took side roads, exploring several byways off the main route, discovering households that made their way off the main part of the Coast Road. They became enamored of their roles as messengers, exotic travelers bearing news from the wider world.

Travelers weren’t taken for granted on the fringes.

Households on the frontiers made small livings with farming, foraging, and scavenging. A woman at one household made medicines, heady-smelling ointments and tinctures to soothe aching joints and sore throats. Her workroom smelled marvelous, as if every possible smell came together—sweet and bitter, musky and spicy—into a cohesive whole that made Enid feel pleasantly lightheaded after just a couple of breaths. Her name was Dream, and she said most of the ingredients grew wild. Her mother taught her to gather and prepare them. Her household had been doing it since the Fall, and they traded for cloth and tools with nearby households and travelers.

She offered Dak a wound salve to try for a bruise he’d acquired, stumbling over fallen branches. Dak smelled it. “I know this—I’ve seen this before! Or something like it. You think your goods might get traded farther out on the Coast Road?”

She shrugged. “I’ve got one lady takes almost all I make. Trades it to a market out east. Brings me back empty jars and things. She trades on the whole Coast Road, so yeah.”

Dak grinned at this, and Enid marveled that even if this woman and her household had lived in this spot for decades, what she made had traveled all over the world. All over their world, at least.

Dream’s household had banners, a half dozen hanging from string at the front door. The oldest, sun-faded and dusty, must have been decades old. One of the first, from when the system started. The newest was still bright. Enid had seen a teenage boy chopping wood out in a gully on their way in; it must have been his.

Enid and Dak passed through these small places, brought what news they could, trading stories and small chores for food and a roof, for messages carried. Enid collected a batch of folded letters and dropped them off at a way station at the next crossroads.

Then, the households ran out. All the settlements ran out. All that was left was shrouded, muggy wilderness—and then the ruins came into view. The bones of the old city, a concrete scar slowly melting, turning overgrown, becoming something else.

As they had when walking south, they stopped and looked. As if the place were a magnet with some kind of physical pull. They couldn’t not stop. The sight was eerie. A ghost, but one they could watch physically fade, getting weaker.

“You want to get a closer look?” Enid asked.