Earthborn Page 0,38

Motiak sent so few men to find us because any larger group would surely have been caught and destroyed by the Elemaki," said Khideo.

Of course Khideo would remind everyone of how few men Monush had brought with him. But Monush took no offense. Instead, he raised his hand from his lap and Khideo nodded, giving him the privilege of speech. "As it was, if the enemy had not been made stupid by the power of the Keeper, we would have been caught." Even as he said the formulaic words, he wondered if perhaps they might not be true, at least in this case. Why hadn't any of the Elemaki looked up at one of the many times when Monush's men would have been visible moving across the face of the mountains?

"Now we propose to win the freedom of our whole people," said Khideo. "You know at this table that I do not shrink from battle. You know that I don't think even assassination is beneath my honor."

The others nodded gravely, and now Monush began to suppose that he knew why Khideo had no honorific. It could not have been Ilihiak that he once tried to assassinate-but Nuab must have had some enemies when he was still alive as a truly terrible king. Ilihiak could accept Khideo's counsel and even let him lead his armies, but he could never give an honorific to a man who tried to kill a king- especially his father, as unworthy as the old king might have been.

"Our only hope is to flee from this place," said Khideo. "But to do it, we have to take at least enough of our herds with us to feed us on our journey. Has anyone ever tried to keep turkeys quiet? Will our pigs move as swiftly as a fleeing army needs to move? Not to mention our women and children-the nursing babies, the toddlers-will we take them along the faces of cliffs? March them for half a day or more at top speed?"

"At least the Elemaki know how impossible it is for you to escape as a people," said Monush. "Therefore they post only a few guards here."

"Exactly," said Khideo.

"So we kill them and go!" cried one of the other men.

Khideo did not answer, but waited instead for Ilihiak to gently chide the man and return the voice to Khideo.

"I read again in the record we keep of the history of the Nafari," said Khideo. "When Nafai led his people away from the traitorous lying murderer Elemak and the foul diggers who served him, he had the help of the Keeper of Earth, who made all the Elemaki sleep so soundly that they didn't wake up."

"Nafai was a hero," said an old man. "The Keeper says nothing to us."

"The Keeper spoke to Binaro," said Ilihiak mildly.

"Binadi," muttered another man.

Khideo shook his head. "The Keeper also sent the dream that brought Monush to us. We will trust that after we have done all we can do, the Keeper must do the rest to keep us safe. But my plan does not require us to pray to the Keeper and then hope our prayer is granted. You all know that we are forbidden to ferment any of our barley, even though it makes the water safer from disease. Why is that?"

"Because the beer makes the diggers crazy," said an old man.

"It makes them stupid," said Khideo. "It makes them drunk. Rowdy, noisy, happy, stupid-and then they pass out. This is why we're forbidden to make it-because the dirt-eaters don't have any self-control."

"If we offer them beer," said Ilihiak, "even presuming we can find any-"

Several of the men laughed. Apparently clandestine brewing was not unheard of.

"-what's to stop them from arresting and imprisoning whoever offers it to them?"

Khideo only nodded at the king.

No, not at the king at all. At the king's wife, Wissedwa. She turned her face away, so she didn't look directly at any of the men, but she spoke boldly so all could hear her. "We know that to the diggers all women are sacred. Even if they refuse the beer they will not lay hands on us. So we will offer it to them as the last share of the harvest. They'll know they can't legally turn it in to their superiors without also turning in the criminals who gave it to them; they'll have no choice but to drink it."

"The queen speaks my plan from her own lips," said Khideo.

Monush thought that Khideo bore the shame