“Uh. There were six flashes. And then a pause of about five heartbeats. And then eight flashes. And another pause. And two flashes.”
Vorbis nodded thoughtfully.
“Three-quarters,” he said. “All praise to the Great God. He is my staff and guide through the hard places. And you may go.”
Brutha hadn't expected to be told what the flashes meant, and wasn't going to enquire. The Quisition asked the questions. They were known for it.
Next day the ship rounded a headland and the bay of Ephebe lay before it, with the city a white smudge on the horizon which time and distance turned into a spilling of blindingly white houses, all the way up a rock.
It seemed of considerable interest to Sergeant Simony. Brutha had not exchanged a word with him. Fraternization between clergy and soldiers was not encouraged; there was a certain tendency to unholiness about soldiers . . .
Brutha, left to his own devices again as the crew made ready for port, watched the soldier carefully. Most soldiers were a bit slovenly and generally rude to minor clergy. Simony was different. Apart from anything else, he gleamed. His breastplate hurt the eyes. His skin looked scrubbed.
The sergeant stood at the prow, staring fixedly as the city drew nearer. It was unusual to see him very far away from Vorbis. Wherever Vorbis stood there was the sergeant, hand on sword, eyes scanning the surroundings for . . . what?
And always silent, except when spoken to. Brutha tried to be friends.
“Looks very . . . white, doesn't it?” he said. “The city. Very white. Sergeant Simony?”
The sergeant turned slowly, and stared at Brutha.
Vorbis's gaze was dreadful. Vorbis looked through your head to the sins inside, hardly interested in you except as a vehicle for your sins. But Simony's glance was pure, simple hatred.
Brutha stepped back.
“Oh. I'm sorry,” he muttered. He walked back sombrely to the blunt end, and tried to keep out of the soldier's way.
Anyway, there were more soldiers, soon enough . . .
The Ephebians were expecting them. Soldiers lined the quay, weapons held in a way that stopped just short of being a direct insult. And there were a lot of them.
Brutha trailed along, the voice of the tortoise insinuating itself in his head.
“So the Ephebians want peace, do they?” said Om. “Doesn't look like that. Doesn't look like we're going to lay down the law to a defeated enemy. Looks like we took a pasting and don't want to take any more. Looks like we're suing for peace. That's what it looks like to me.”
“In the Citadel everyone said it was a glorious victory,” said Brutha. He found he could talk now with his lips hardly moving at all; Om seemed able to pick up his words as they reached his vocal chords.
Ahead of him, Simony shadowed the deacon, staring suspiciously at each Ephebian guard.
“That's a funny thing,” said Om. “Winners never talk about glorious victories. That's because they're the ones who see what the battlefield looks like afterward. It's only the losers who have glorious victories.”
Brutha didn't know what to reply. “That doesn't sound like god talk,” he hazarded.
“It's this tortoise brain.”
“What?”
“Don't you know anything? Bodies aren't just handy things for storing your mind in. Your shape affects how you think. It's all this morphology that's all over the place.”
forced out Ur-Gilash. Fair enough. Law of the jungle. But no one was challenging him . . .
Where was Brutha?
“Brutha! ”
Brutha was counting the flashes of light off the desert. “It's a good thing I had a mirror, yes?” said the captain hopefully. “I expect his lordship won't mind about the mirror because it turned out to be useful?”
“I don't think he thinks like that,” said Brutha, still counting.