Bannerless (The Bannerless Saga 1)

He made a grunt of agreement. It was them against everyone else, like usual.

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Enid finally got her shower late that night. The water drained from a solar-heated cistern on the roof, and while it wasn’t hot, its lingering warmth still cut through the day’s sweat and stress. Five minutes of scrubbing with a washcloth and she felt almost new. She might even sleep, if she could keep from turning over the images of Sero’s body and that smear of blood on the outside wall.

The way station, just a room behind the committee house, was made up of the washroom and four cots. She and Tomas settled into sleep. Dak still played outside, the music sounding vague and distant through the wall. Enid tried to ignore it.

The next morning during a breakfast of bread and tea in the meeting room, she and Tomas were going over their notes again when Philos, wearing his gray committee sash, arrived and stormed into the room to lean on the table where they sat. Enid still had a mouth full of biscuit.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Well what?” Enid asked, swallowing quickly, leaving an annoying lump in her throat.

Tomas leaned back in his chair, thumbs hitched on his belt, looking all casual like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. The stance usually made people nervous—his hand was next to his pouch of tranquilizers now. Sure enough Philos kept glancing over at him.

“Finished yet?”

“No,” she said. “We’ll let you know when we’re finished.” She leafed through pages of her notebook, resting on the table in front of her—this was mostly for show. “We need to talk to Kirk, of the Bounty household. Can you tell me where I might find him?”

Philos looked sharply at her. “Why do you want to talk to him?”

“Same reason I want to talk to everyone. His name’s come up a couple of times. Is there a problem?”

“He’s my son. Bounty is my household.”

“Not sure that necessarily follows,” she said, amused. That was an interesting bit of information, but not necessarily relevant. “I don’t think you should worry so much, sir.”

The old man seemed to be gnawing at his own cheeks. Maybe he just had a nervous disposition. “I keep telling you you’re going through a lot of trouble for nothing.”

“That’s for us to decide, I think. So. Since Kirk’s your son, can you tell me where I might find him?”

She let him spend another moment trying to figure out how to get his son away from her attention. Finally, he gave up. “I’ll go get him. I’ll send him over here in the next hour—”

“How about I go with you, save the trouble? He won’t have to leave whatever he’s doing; I’ll just talk to him right now.” And Philos wouldn’t have a chance to coach him.

He glared. She was getting used to that expression. Philos marched out the door and headed in the direction of the town center. She quickly stood, brushing off crumbs and washing down a last gulp of tea.

Tomas said, “You go on. I’ll check with the households Sero had been doing work for.”

“Right.”

Packing her notebook, she followed after the committeeman. He was rushing, moving at a fast shuffling walk that made his tunic flap at his sides. He seemed to want to get far enough ahead to be able to warn Kirk. As much as she might like to keep that from happening, she wasn’t willing to race after him. Better to maintain some semblance of dignity.

Enid wasn’t at all surprised to find that Philos’s household was organized, attractive, comfortable—a place anyone would be happy to live in, and she imagined he was very proud of it. Philos seemed to pay attention to appearances. Several whitewashed cottages, roofed with shakes and solar collectors, sat around a courtyard that marked where the blocks and streets from before the Fall must have been—the center block was left open and held a couple of fruit trees, a kitchen garden, and the ubiquitous chicken coop. Hens scratched in the dirt path surrounding the yard. A windmill and cistern were tucked back behind one of the cottages. A painted sign stood at the entrance; BOUNTY, it read, and was decorated with the same flowers and loops of ivy as the sign into Pasadan, likely made by the same person. Nice touch.

An open-air shed housed a forge, cold and quiet for now. The rhythmic clap-and-beat of a loom sounded from another cottage. Bounty farmed grain for trade but produced their own staples of cloth and metal. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out at her.

“What’s Kirk do?” Enid asked. Philos continued a hard-and-fast pace to the larger cottage at the back of the household, probably the kitchen and sleeping quarters.

“Manages the household,” he stated over his shoulder. “Building upkeep, taking care of water and heat. He also does our trading. He travels.”

Philos let her into the cottage’s common room. “Wait here,” he ordered, then disappeared out the back. Gamely, she did so, hands clasped behind her, studying the wild roses in the vase on the table, the couple of banners hanging on the wall.

It wasn’t long before two men came storming back through the back door as if in response to a terrified scream. But no, it was just her, gazing back calmly and with interest.

Kirk saw her, glared. “What do you want?”

He could be more polite, Enid thought.