“If he detects us,” he said. “He could report our existence, our approximate location.”
“Do you think he will land?” I asked.
“I do not think so,” he said. “Stragglers, deserters, fugitives would be dangerous men.”
“He may land,” I said.
“It would be for the best if he does not,” he said.
“You would kill him?” I said.
“Or he us,” he said.
“I am afraid,” I said.
“Let him be afraid,” he said.
“Where is he?” I asked, again.
“I do not know,” he said.
Four Ehn or so passed.
I looked up, frightened.
“Do not move!” he said.
There was a blast of wind which shook the brush about us. The great bird had descended, not yards from us, on the beach.
I had never been this close to a tarn before, not even on the training field east of Tarncamp, en route to Shipcamp. How small the man appeared next to this terrible, winged monster, its broad wings restless, its head, with its fearful beak, high above the beach, moving alertly about, the large, wicked, round, shining, black eyes.
The rider descended the mounting ladder, and looked about himself, warily.
I saw my master half rise, and his hand drawn back, the knife held lightly by its tip. The usual cast with such a knife is overhand, with a powerful snap of the wrist. But the distance, I feared, was much too far for either accuracy or a suitable penetration. The men near the dock, who played the knife game, sometimes gambling on its outcome, threw not even half the distance.
“He does not wear the gray of the Pani’s cavalry,” I said.
“He would be of the cavalry, but not on the cavalry’s business,” said my master.
“On whose business then?” I asked.
“On that of the Shipcamp conspirators,” said my master. “Better then that the uniform not be worn.”
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“I fear,” said my master, “searching for me. It is I who carry the live ost in my hand.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
The tarnsman made his way to the two small boats tied up on the beach. He examined them, but, one supposes, found them of little interest, two boats left there, apparently abandoned on the beach. He did lift and cast aside the tarpaulin which had been in the boat brought by Axel, which had covered the unconscious form of Asperiche. He then threw three oars out into the river, and, with the remaining oar, punched an opening in the bottom of each boat, following which he thrust them out into the current, and then hurled the last oar after them. He then turned about, and, again, regarded the beach, east and west, and then, again, he looked out, into the brush, to the south.
I muchly feared he would see us.
“We should have freed the boats,” said my master.
“They would seem abandoned,” I said. “They lack goods, and supplies; they give no indication of preparation for flight.”
“Let us hope he judges the matter so,” he said.
“Do you recognize him?” I asked.
“No,” said my master, “but I fear it is a man of Tyrtaios.”
I shuddered. “I have heard him spoken of,” I said. Men usually spoke of him in whispers.
“My absence on the great ship may have been noted,” he said.
“Surely not so soon,” I said.
The tarnsman then climbed the mounting ladder, and drew it up, fastening it in its place.
He gave one last, long, sweeping glance about him.
“What a fool I am,” whispered my master.
“My master is no fool,” I said. I had long sensed he was a man not only of formidable size and strength, and virility, and desire, but of formidable intellect, as well. I would have been frightened to lie to him, not simply because I was a slave but because I had the sense I would be helplessly transparent to him, that he could simply look through me and immediately discern in me the least particle of deceit or dissimulation. Also, he might, without a second thought, put the liar’s brand in my thigh, marking me as a mendacious kajira.
The tarnsman drew on one of the straps, threaded through its ring, and the huge bird screamed, and smote the air with those great wings, scattering sand and pebbles about, and was into the air, low, several feet over the river.
“No,” said my master, “a fool! Did you not see he carried, slung at the saddle, a crossbow, and quarrels?”
“I did not notice,” I said.
“If our tarnsmen had been about,” he said, “that fellow could not have come within fifty pasangs of Shipcamp. He would