Michael Flynn - Up Jim River

“He wasn’t happy with me,” the Hound concludes with a reedy chuckle. “His martyrdom was to signal the Insurrection. He’d been looking forward to it. But his fanatics were no better than the PeopHope thugs, and I saw no reason to bring the one down so the other could rise up.”

The host of the restaurant comes to their table and whispers in the harper’s ear .

“Of course, I will,” Méarana answers and reaches for her harp case. She follows the man to a stage area, which is hastily prepared for her .

Donovan had seen Zorba signal to the host, so he knows that Méarana has been removed from their table by design. He waits to hear the nature of that design. In the performance space, the harper begins a plaintive love song — a cliché, but suitable for this comfortable and satisfied audience .

“Lucia D. Thompson,” says the Hound .

The scarred man waits for elaboration on this point. But when none is forthcoming, he says, “An odd name; but her mother is of Die Bold and they name folk strangely there.”

“The Pashlik of Redoubt.” The Hound adds precision to the birthplace of Bridget ban. “But she had sought political asylum in the Kingdom before I met her. I trained her, you know. Bridget ban.”

The scarred man nods. He had known .

“She was my prize. My dearest one. A daughter to me.” A tear escapes his ancient eye and trembles on the edge of his withered cheek. “And I much fear she is dead now.”

The Fudir knows a sharp pain in his chest. “It is likely so.”

In the performance space, the harper has shifted to a more lively tune, and the Fudir recognizes it with a start. It is the theme she had developed on Jehovah. The Rescue in Amir Naith’s Gulli. The very tale the scarred man had spun during dinner. It conjures again for him the stinking radhi piles, the fetid pools of waste water, the assassin, the death of Sweeney the Red, Little Hugh desperately trying to pry loose the grating barring his escape. And he, the Fudir, climbing down from the rooftops to confront the assassin .

“I would rather she…” He would rather what? He does not dare explore that; not yet, not now. “But I fear you’re right.”

Zorba’s breath leaves him like a deflating bagpipe. “Bridget ban… Her base name was —”

“Francine Thompson. Yes, I know. It’s their custom to pass the mother’s name to the daughter, and the father’s to the son.”

“Ah, Frannie. Frannie. It wasn’t easy for her. When she defected in the Kingdom, she was cut off from her… No, not her family. The Pashlik thought families reactionary. But from her dormitory. From her age-mates. And Lucia… I was at her name-day ceremony. In the Kingdom, they had the custom of naming a child by pouring water on its head. I stood by her for that, what they call a goodfellow.’ I held her while they poured the water.”

The scarred man holds his breath .

“And Lucia’s mother was away a lot. Frannie was. A Hound expects that. A Hound’s daughter, maybe, does not. What do disasters and negotiations and assassinations and rescues mean to a child? She was raised by Drake and Mari Tenbottles, the ranch foreman and his wife. And now and then her mother would come home with wonderful presents and still more wonderful stories.”

“Cu,” says the scarred man with sudden fear. The harper is playing out the masquerade in the hills by the Dalhousie estate, when he and Bridget ban had fooled Lady Cargo’s security staff. She maintains a tremolo while the deceit lies in doubt and breaks into a jaunty geantraí at the end. “Cu,” he says again, “why are you telling me this?” That the Old Hound has a reason for his rambling he takes as granted .

The head turns and the eyes catch him, and they are the same iron-hard eyes as before. There is something yet inside that aging body. “I’ve lost my Frannie, I’ll not lose my Lucy. I held her while they poured water on her; I’ll not hold her while they pour dirt. I think I see where this may go, and that is into dangerous territory.”

“Tell her not to go.”

“‘Tell the wind to cease/Tell the tide to ease,’” he sings. “But don’t tell Lucia D. Thompson not to seek her mother. She’s been doing that her whole life and old habits are hard to break. I would not look kindly on the man who lost me my Lucy.”

“Cu, I—”

“I would go with her myself, but my legs will not take me there. You saw them. But you…”

“I’m returning to Jehovah.”

The Hound’s face turns entirely toward him then, and there is something of Gwillgi’s deadliness in his mild-eyed, basset-hound glance. “Well, no,” he says, “you’re not.”

A part of the scarred man thinks , Arrogant bastard! And Inner Child whimpers. The Brute says , He’s old. We could take him down. He’s tall, but they only fall farther. The scarred man grabs his skull with both hands to silence the cacophony .

“No,” he says. “You can’t ask me that. Send someone else. Send Greystroke. Or Grimpen. Or… It’s been years since I…”

But the Hound shakes his head. “Nineteen metric years. I can count. I’ve enough fingers and toes for that. Which means this is something you must do. How much more abandonment do you think she can take? You’re a Confederate. You know the Weapon of the Long Knife. Do you think only Those know how to wield it? ‘It’s a big Spiral Arm,’ they say. But if you fail in this, it is not big enough to hide you. Do we understand each other?”

The scarred man knows misery. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I think I do.”

“No. The Names… My mind…”

The Hound’s head dips, rises again. “I saw the neuroscanner results, the emorái. That will make your task more… challenging.”

“If you employ a defective tool and it fails — ”

“Then I discard the tool. But it is better that you fail than that another succeed.”

In the performance space, the harper is playing Bridget ban’s Theme and the scarred man curses her under his breath, for she, too, is forcing him into this role. Pushed by Zorba’s threats, pulled by Méarana’s music, what other possible course is left him?

“We’ll both die,” he groans .

“That would be better for you,” says Zorba de la Susa, “than if only she does.”

Curling Dawn was not a Hadley liner, but she was going in the right direction, and so the harper and the scarred man bought passage on her as far as Harpaloon. It gave Donovan sullen pleasure to use the chit that the Kennel had given him. If he was to be forced to tramp the Periphery, he may as well do so at Kennel expense.

The Grand Star ship was a throughliner, a flyer-by. She came out the Silk Road from Jehovah at just under Newton’s-c and crossed the coopers of High Tara toward the Rimward Extension on a two-day transit. She would not stop or descend to the capital. Rather, the bumboat Cormac Dhu had been boosted up the crawl to match trajectories with her as she passed through. A high-v match in the coopers was never entirely routine, and the scarred man, still nettled at Zorba’s threats, took some pleasure in describing to the more nervous passengers with whom he shared the bumboat all those things that could go wrong.

“If the rendevoo manoover is soo dangeroos,” a scowling businessman from Alabaster said, “why doo soo many use it?” Like most people from his region, he heightened his back and central vowels, a favorite trope for comics on a score of other worlds.