They heard the argument from halfway across the Square.
“Rotten meat!” a man cried. Temoc forced through the crowd, and for once Elayne followed: if the priest gig didn’t pan out some navy could hire the big man for an icebreaker. They approached what she judged, from the smoke and the smell of singed pork, to be a cook tent. The shouting continued: “My daughter and my son are puking up their guts from rotten meat you served!”
“There’s nothing wrong with our food,” a woman answered, firm, angry.
“You’re a fraud, Kemal, you and your husband both, frauds and poisoners.” When they pushed to the front of the crowd Elayne surveyed the tableau: the woman, evidently Ms. Kemal, with cleaver and blood-spattered apron, blocked the cook tent’s entrance. A pale-skinned sous chef stood by her side. The shouting man before them had a voice meant for the stage, and a smolder that would have impressed the hells out of a jury. Classic case of missed calling. Bright eyes bulged from a lean hungry face, and his teeth were yellow. “You take our souls and poison us in return.”
A drum beat in Elayne’s chest, and she looked up: Wardens circled on Couatl-back overhead. A fight would draw them down.
And that fight wasn’t far off. The corners of Kemal’s mouth declined, and her grip tightened on the cleaver. “Shut your face. Bill and I pass the hat, and every godsdamned thaum goes for food and fuel. It’s hard work to feed a camp and you’re wasting our time. Nobody’s taken sick from our food before, and nobody has now.”
“You call me a liar?”
“We cooked yesterday for a thousand people. If our food hurt your kids, why’s no one else sick?”
“I’m going in that tent. I’ll show the world your rotten meat.” Nods from the crowd. Shouts of support. Not many, but enough to cause trouble.
“There’s nothing in that tent but a lot of work for us to do. It’s a kitchen, for the gods’ sake. If your kids really are sick, what they have might be catching. I won’t let you dirty up our space.”
“Dirty?”
Temoc stepped into the clearing and addressed the cooks: “Kapania,” to the woman, and “Bill” to her helper. His voice carried, and people looked to him. “This man’s worried about his children. It’s a reasonable request. What’s your name, sir?”
“Sim.”
“Surely it won’t be trouble to let Sim into the tent.”
“Temoc.” Kemal’s jaw jutted forward, and she bared her lower teeth. “The whole camp eats our food. I can’t trust anyone in here I don’t know. We caught this man trying to sneak in.”
Sim flushed. “Why post guards if you have nothing to hide?”
Grumbles of assent from the crowd. Temoc glanced back, and the grumblers fell silent. “What if I look myself, Sim? I give you my word I will tell you if I see anything unsavory.”
“These are my kids. I trust no eyes but my own.”
Kemal rolled hers. “Waste of time, Temoc. Sim, I’m sorry your kids are sick, but it’s no fault of ours. We have work to do.”
She must have thought the matter settled—she turned her back on Sim and lifted the tent flap.
Sim rushed her. Bill tried to block his path, but he wasn’t a fighter. The angry man threw him to the ground and tried to shove past Kemal. Kemal shoved him back, turned with cleaver raised—not out of anger, Elayne thought, she just happened to have it in her hand, one of those thousand unhappy coincidences of which tragedies are made. Sim seized her wrist, twisted—the cleaver swept down toward their legs—Elayne woke a glyph in her arm, in case—
But suddenly Temoc stood between them.
Sim lay on the ground, staring up wide-eyed. Bill had caught Ms. Kemal before she fell. Temoc held the cleaver.
The crowd pressed close and angry. “Kapania,” Temoc said. “People are upset. Let Sim look.”
“No.”
The new voice clamped like a fist around the murmurs of the crowd, and crushed them to silence. Elayne turned, Chel turned, the whole crowd turned, even Sim lying prone. When he saw the new arrival, he blanched.
A man of steel emerged from the crowd.
Golem, Elayne thought at first, but no, the movements were too fluid, the voice too wet—the figure was human, armored from helmet to boots in scrap metal plate, all sharp lines and jagged edges and dark leather. A lead pipe hung in a sheath by the figure’s side, and a red enamel circle glinted on his left arm.
“Long time, Sim.”
There was no trace of Craftwork about the armored man, but the crowd hushed all the same.
Save for Chel, who whispered to Elayne: “The Major.”
As if Chel’s voice broke some binding spell, Sim spasmed to his feet, shocked upright by terror. He hadn’t quite gained his balance before he tried to run.
The Major’s hand flicked out, and Sim crumpled. Craftwork, Elayne thought before she saw the blood on Sim’s temple, and the small iron sphere that rolled from the man’s fallen body. A good throw, that was all.
Sim tried to stand, but before he could the Major reached him, lifted him, struck him across the face with a mailed fist. Sim spun, gained balance, tried to tackle the Major—but that junk-metal armor didn’t seem to slow the man. Sim slipped on the iron ball and fell face-first. The Major pressed his knee between Sim’s shoulder blades and twisted the man’s left arm up behind him. Armored fingers probed Sim’s sleeve.
Temoc advanced. “What are you doing?”
“Temoc.” Again the dark, heavy voice. “I’m saving you trouble.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bring me meat,” the Major told Kapania Kemal.
“Excuse me?”
“Meat!”
And she moved.
“Sim and I,” the Major said, “have a history, don’t we, Sim? If that’s your name.” Sim cursed, then screamed when the Major jerked his arm. The Major found what he sought in the sleeve: a small phial that shimmered before Elayne’s closed eyes. “Dockworker’s strike last year, at the solstice, when the bosses were about to cave, this man visited our food tent. Half the camp took sick two days after. We turned on each other, and the Wardens came. Hard to put a protest back together after that, isn’t it, Sim?” The fallen man groaned. “Didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to try the same trick twice. Where’s that meat?”
Bill brought it from the tent: a handful of raw ground beef. The Major uncorked the phial and poured its shimmering contents onto the meat. Elayne watched the transformation with clinical interest: the accelerated putrescence, the maggots that took writhing shape within the flesh. Basic decay agent—not over-the-shelf, but hardly traceable. Some in the audience retched. Chel staggered, and Elayne steadied her.
“That,” the Major said, “is what happens when I pour so much onto so little. Spread through an entire stew this would sour the taste slowly—and tonight there’d be sickness all through camp. Just like last time.” The Major drew his weighted pipe from its makeshift scabbard. Sim whimpered. “Not again.” The Major raised the pipe.
“Stop,” Temoc said.
The Major did. “Why?”
Temoc pointed up. The dark eyes behind the mask glittered as they peered into the blue, where Wardens circled.
“If sneaks try to break us, shouldn’t we break them back?”
“We can’t beat Wardens in a fight,” Temoc said. “We are strong in peace.”
“I’ve seen the strength of peace fail.”
“If you want to give them an excuse to come for us,” Temoc said, “you’re no better than the man beneath you. And I will stop you.”
The moment wobbled like a spinning top, and Elayne could not tell which way it would fall.
The Major let Sim go, and stood. Sim gasped and flopped on the stone like a landed fish. He rose slowly onto his hands and knees. Temoc and the Major stared at one another.
“Go,” the Major said. “Before I change my mind.”
Sim ran. The crowd parted for him, and followed him with their eyes as he hobbled to the edge of the Square. Elayne ignored Sim; she and Temoc watched the Major retreat toward the fountain.
Temoc almost followed, but walked away instead.
“Not a rival,” Elayne said when she caught up. “I see.”
“What do you want from me, Elayne?”
“The same thing you want. Peace. These people need someone to bring them to the table.”
“Come home with me,” he said.
She looked at him with mild disbelief: they were not what they once were, but time had refined them both. Still, there were some lines one did not cross.
“Temoc,” she replied, and pondered her next words.
He almost succeeded at covering his laugh. “Not what I meant. We need to talk in private. Besides.” And then something she had not expected to see: the rock face broke, and he smiled almost like a normal person would. “I want you to meet my family.”