"Aye, Eldred. To the end." Jonas had praised him for the work he had done in Ritzy, and Depape had rolled in it the way a male dog rolls in the scent of a bitch.
"Then go on up, the both of you, and let me palaver with the boss and be done with it. I'm too old for these late nights."
When they were gone, Jonas dealt out a fresh line of cards, then looked around the room. There were perhaps a dozen folks, including Sheb the piano-player and Barkie the bouncer, sleeping it off. No one was close enough to listen to the low-voiced conversation of the two men by the door, even if one of the snoring drunkards was for some reason only shamming sleep. Jonas put a red queen on a black knight, then looked up at Rimer. "Say your say."
"Those two said it for me, actually. Sai Depape will never be embarrassed by a surplus of brains, but Reynolds is fairly smart for a gunny, isn't he?"
"Clay's trig when the moon's right and he's had a shave," Jonas agreed. "Are you saying you came all the way from Seafront to tell me those three babbies need a closer looking at?"
Rimer shrugged.
"Perhaps they do, and I'm the man to do it, if so - right enough. But what's there to find?"
"That's to be seen," Rimer said, and tapped one of Jonas's cards. "There's a Chancellor."
"Aye. Near as ugly as the one I'm sitting with." Jonas put the Chancellor - it was Paul - above his run of cards. The next draw uncovered Luke, whom he put next to Paul. That left Peter and Matthew still lurking in the bush. Jonas looked at Rimer shrewdly. "You hide it better than my pals, but you're as nervous as they are, underneath. You want to know what's out at that bunkhouse? I'll tell you: extra boots, pictures of their mommies, socks that stink to high heaven, stiff sheets from boys who've been taught it's low-class to chase after the sheep . . . and guns hidden somewhere. Under the floorboards, like enough."
"You really think they have guns?"
"Aye, Roy got the straight of that, all right. They're from Gilead, they're likely from the line of Eld or from folk who like to think they're from it, and they're likely 'prentices to the trade who've been sent on with guns they haven't earned yet. I wonder a bit about the tall one with the I-don't-give-a-shit look in his eyes - he might already be a gunslinger, I suppose - but is it likely? I don't think so. Even if he is, I could take him in a fair go. I know it, and he does, too."
"Then why have they been sent here?"
"Not because those from the Inner Baronies suspect your treason, sai Rimer - be easy on that score."
Rimer's head poked out of his serape as he sat up straight, and his face stiffened. "How dare you call me a traitor? How dare you?"
Eldred Jonas favored Hambry's Minister of Inventory with an unpleasant smile. It made the white-haired man look like a wolverine. "I've called things by their right names my whole life, and I won't stop now. All that needs matter to you is that I've never double-crossed an employer."
"If I didn't believe in the cause of - "
"To hell with what you believe! It's late and I want to go to bed. The folk in New Canaan and Gilead haven't the foggiest idea of what does or doesn't go on out here on the Crescent; there aren't many of em who've ever been here, I'd wager. Them are too busy trying to keep everything from falling down around their ears to do much travelling these days. No, what they know is all from the picturebooks they was read out of when they 'us babbies themselves: happy cowboys galloping after stock, happy fishermen pulling whoppers into their boats, folks clogging at bam-raisings and drinking big pots o' graf in Green Heart pavilion. For the sake of the Man Jesus, Rimer, don't go dense on me - I deal with that day in and day out."
"They see Mejis as a place of quiet and safety."
"Aye, bucolic splendor, just so, no doubt about it. They know that their whole way o' life - all that nobility and chivalry and ancestor-worship - is on fire. The final battle may take place as much as two hundred wheels northwest of their borders, but when Farson uses his fire-carriages and robots to wipe out their army, trouble will come south fast. There are those from the Inner Baronies who've smelled this coming for twenty years or more. They didn't send these brats here to discover your secrets, Rimer; folks such as these don't send their babbies into danger on purpose. They sent em here to get em out of the way, that's all. That doesn't make em blind or stupid, but for the sake of the gods, let's be sane. They're kiddies;'
"What else might you find, should you go out there?"
"Some way of sending messages, mayhap. A heliograph's the most likely. And out beyond Eyebolt, a shepherd or maybe a freeholder susceptible to a bribe - someone they've trained to catch the message and either flash it on or carry it afoot. But before long it'll be too late for messages to do any good, won't it?"