Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

“Blood brothers,” Méarana tells her.

“Ah, so. Blood brothers.” She looks to Bridget ban through lowered eyes. “A close relationship, and one he shares of old with others. It makes, I think, you and I blood-sisters-in-law.”

The Red Hound smiles crookedly. “I hae ne’er heard of such a law. Where is Gidula’s citadel?”

“On Terra.”

Méarana stops playing. Bridget ban tosses her head back. “And so he receives the gift he has always wanted. He makes his hajj to Terra, after all! Tell me. Why would he wish to be freed, or if freed ever to leave that place?”

“Ooh, I can think of a reason, maybe even two.”

Bridget ban crosses her arms, flings one leg over the other. “’Tis nae possible. Terra lies in the Triangles, in the heart of the Confederation, no more than a day or two from Dao Chetty, New Vraddy, Old 82 … No, he may as well be held in the Perseus Arm.”

“Mother!”

“Nae, wean. We lost him long ago. If he were anywhere here in the Periphery … If he were even in the Wild, as I was … If he were even in the Confederal borderlands … If I even thought yon Ravn has told us the whole truth … I’d owe him that much to fish him out. But not to the Triangles, darling. Not to the Triangles. Only three Hounds have ever gone there—and but two ever returned, and only one hale.”

“But you should…”

“If he is half the man he once was, he is more likely to come to us than that we should go to him. He has escaped more tight places than most men have e’er squeezed into. Friend Ravn glossed over her escape from a Delpaffoni prison as if it were no great thing; but Delpaff is one of the oldest colony worlds, barely younger than Dao Chetty herself. It was no ramshackle frontier stockade our Ravn claims to have slipped from. And what she could accomplish, Donovan could accomplish nine times over.”

“Do not be soo sure, Hound. Gidula’s citadel staffs three Shadows and over a hundred couriers and magpies.”

Bridget ban cocks her head at her prisoner. “You have a strange way of persuading me to attack it.”

“But Mother…!”

Bridget ban slaps the arm of her chair. “Don’t be such a fool, Méarana! While ye’ve been a-playing that harp, yon Shadow has been playing you. What if the whole purpose of this farrago has been to lure a Hound of the Ardry to stick her haid in the Lion’s Mouth? What chance then that it remain attached to her shoulders?”

Ravn speaks quietly. “I give you my woord.”

“Oh, there’s hard currency for you.”

Olafsdottr sighs and her eyes retreat and look inward. “I have failed, then. Will you at least allow me to leave this place? My honor demands that I make the effort, even if it is doomed.”

“Is blood, then, thicker than oaths?” Bridget ban asks.

“Thick enough. Gidula dissolved my oath to him when he abused kaowèn to punish me. He made a most grievous error.”

Bridget ban nods. “I can see he did.”

“What was the error?” Méarana asks.

Graceful Bintsaif tells her. “Never do your foe a small injury.”

Olafsdottr grins. “That which does not kill me,” she says, “has made a grave tactical error.”

Bridget ban nods as if to herself, then glances at her protégé. “Yes,” she says finally to Olafsdottr. “There are some few points we still need to discuss; but after that … Yes, you may leave with my blessing.”

The Shadow laughs out loud. “Yayss. One more faction added to that stewpot of a Revolution cannot help but advantage the League. Well, it cannot help but advantage the enemies of the Names, wherever they may dwell. But please, Mistress Hound, do not confuse enmity for the Names with a disloyalty to the Confederation.”

“You know which matters want discussion, of course.”

The Shadow flips her hand. “Oh, ‘vestiges,’ one supposes. But I know no more about them than what Domino Tight downloaded to my shenmat.”

“But that is so much more than we have ever heard of them that I cannae but suppose there may be one or two other details that we would find interesting.”

“I will tell you what is mete for you to know. Does the League too practice kaowèn?”

Bridget ban stiffens. “Only in restricted cases; not with the gay abandon of the Confederation.”

“Ooh. You are oonly a wee bit pregnant, then?”

The door opens then to admit Mr. Wladislaw and another man wearing the red-and-yellow livery of Clan Thompson, although in his case the colors are muted to tawny and break his silhouette with camouflage patterns. It is difficult to see him straight. He and Bridget ban lock eyes for a moment and he shakes his head very briefly and waits orders.

The Ravn chuckles. “Is my flier missing? Perhaps I walked.”

“Ignore her jibes, Mr. Tenbottles. She is overimpressed with her own cleverness.”

“Are ye quite sure, Frannie-ban, that she is o’er -impressed?”

“Ne’er ye mind that, Hang. Resume your duties.”

“Before we eat,” suggests Méarana, “can we nae take a rest break?” As they rise, she says to Ravn Olafsdottr, “I have been wanting to ask you about the poetic form you have been using to chant the story. ’Tis very different from what we use in the League. It teeters on the verge of prose but ne’er quite topples in.”

Bridget ban and Graceful Bintsaif follow them to the rest room just outside the sitting room and, the other two women entering engaged deep in discussion of poetic forms, they take stations just outside the door.

“You don’t fear that she will take her hostage, do you?” Graceful Bintsaif asks with a nod at the closed door.

“No, Méarana has more sense than to try that.” Then she laughs at the junior Hound’s look. “To what end would she do so? We’ve promised to release her.”

“Aye, when we’ve wrung her dry. Do you think she trusts that promise?”

“Shadows are not like Hounds. They have a peculiar code of brotherhood, a convoluted notion of honor.”

“Peculiar, I would say! They send them out in pairs, with the second tasked to kill the first should he fail in his assignment. What sort of brotherhood is that?”

“A close one, I would think. Their lives are ever in each other’s hands. And their sense of honor leads them to acts that we would regard as rank foolishness.”

“Such as a single-handed assault on Gidula’s fortress?”

“Very much like that. What are they talking about in there?”

Graceful Bintsaif listens at the door. “The Dark One says that the style is called the Old Northern Saga.”

“Northern? North of what?”

“The Ravn does not know. Oh, now Méarana is singing something. I cannot make it out. Your daughter really has a fine voice. Wait, I recognize it. It is a passage from her Dancer Cycle . ‘The Call to Hounds.’ That was the meeting my old master called on Hot Gates . You came, and Gwillgi, and Grimpen. I was na Fir Li’s second Pup, but he had sent Greystroke off on a mission. Oh, those bass notes capture Grimpen very well.”

“Bass notes…” Bridget ban steps into the hallway and calls, “Mr. Wladislaw, is Méarana’s harp still in the sitting room?”

“No, mum.”

“Please alert Mr. Tenbottles. Graceful Bintsaif, would you open the door, please?”

The junior Hound tries the hoígh plate, but the door does not respond. “It’s locked, Cu.”