IF WE LIVE

The senate got down to making law. The Rivers brought up a bill to give pensions to war widows and wounded soldiers. Everyone knew that it was bound for unanimous passage. The Lands couldn’t afford to oppose it. But the senators insisted on having their say, debating passionately against a non-existent opposition. They knew that anything they said for the bill would go down well with the voters,

Most of the other River-Sea bills passed without difficulty. But the Lands, intent on representing themselves as the low-tax party, organized a sharp opposition to the new tax bill. The Rivers summoned up a righteous annoyance, reminding everyone that the taxes would pay for the pensions the Lands had fervently supported. The Lands were not dismayed. They lost the tax vote to the River-Sea majority, but they claimed that they were voting with every tax-payer in Valen.

The senators moved swiftly through the rest of the River program. They settled down to spend the last week of their sitting in the important business of trading private bills. An elderly lady’s vegetable garden had been ruined by dust from a public road; her senator proposed to give her compensation. Others had supposedly suffered some sort of inconvenience remotely connected with the public business. Individual pensions were granted to retiring servants of the state. Obscured boundaries were fixed. Bits of road were extended onto private property. The problems of local governments were sorted out.

 Richard signed all the big party bills and worked his way through the strangely assorted mass of private ones. A High Judge had no veto powers, but a bill he refused to sign was effective only during the term of the senate which enacted it.

“You’re really reading all that stuff,” Kel said. “You’d better watch that. We don’t want to make these big changes too fast. And a High Judge that really reads all the stuff he signs would be the strangest thing the country’s ever seen. “

“Well, somebody ought to read them,” Richard said. “Look at this one. What does that mean?”

He gave Kel one of the private bills. Kel studied it. “Well, it means… Mmnh. It says… Unnh. Hell, I don’t know what it means; if it means anything at all. You’ re getting real picky, asking that a law say something you can understand. Send it off to your law writer. He can tell you what it’s for, sign it. If he can’t, don’ t. “

Richard put the bill aside. Kel brought out a long list of names. “Here’s some more people Larens, Dayon, and Haskin want us to hire. Looks like about a million of them. “

Kel and Richard spent the rest of the evening allotting patronage. They found an amazing swarm of Land party appointees buzzing around the government. There were the Writers, the heads of the government departments; there were street sweepers, toll collectors, officers of the Guard, and a great mob of clerks and copyists. Every one had been hired through Land patronage. Kel and Richard had to choose most of their replacements from lists made up by the River and Sea leaders, which involved them in the delicate business of balancing the patronage claims of the two parties. Kel hired as many crippled veterans as he could. He replaced most of the Land scribes and clerks with young women. He claimed that they were all poor widows and orphan girls.

 Kel fired all of the many marshals and vice-marshals that the Lands had imposed upon the army. He made Jan Willot, his cavalry commander, the sole Marshal of Valen.

“Not Rick Kern?” Richard asked.

Kel shook his head. “When we were talking to the Willeners, Rick’d get all stiff when they wanted something we didn’t. Kind’ve a foot soldier thing, I guess. All that close order drill. Jan’d just keep talking, telling them no without saying no.”

“So horse soldiers learn to shovel the horseshit.”

“That’s a good one. And kind of true,” Kel said. “Strange to pick anybody as Marshal of Valen. That was the job I always wanted: Kel Malin, Marshal of Valen. Has a nice sound to it.”

Richard shrugged. “You’re the commander of both the army and the navy now. That’s better than a nice sound.”

“Some navy,” Kel said. “Levis and a fancy title.”

 The naval schemes embroiled them in elaborate complications. They made Levis Sea-Marshal, the chief admiral of the future navy. He and the big-ship sailors he represented had long lusted after a navy of their very own. But Levis’ promotion displeased Judge Haskin: he thought Levis would use it to take over the leadership of the Sea party. To reconcile Haskin, Kel had to give him control of most of Stada’s allotment of patronage jobs.

“I wish we didn’t have a coast,” Kel said. “That there wasn’t any Seas, or any sea either. If I hear one more word about those damn ships, I’m going to throw the one that says it right out the window. ” There were dozens of shipyards on the coast of Stada, and every one was bombarding Kel with plans for building the navy’s ships.

“Send the plans to Plott,” Richard said, “Let him decide which one to build. And maybe you could have a Navy Writer to handle all this stuff. “

 Kel’s eyes narrowed. “Right. That’d give me another job to use. I could trade it to Haskin to get back some of them we gave him in the Levis fuck-up. If his friends get all the jobs in Stada, a couple of those new River senators ain’t going to be able to stay in their seats.”

Richard nodded. “He hoards patronage like Laury does land. “

 “How d’you mean?” KeI asked. “‘What’s she up to now?”

“She wants to buy a farm,” Richard said. “It’s part of some horse-breeding scheme she’s working on. ” Laury was racing all over the Vale. She was scouting for fine bloodstock and pastures. One afternoon she galloped into Val City, bearing a tolerant Renny in a sling. Richard saw her arrive from his window; he heard her dealing with the people outside his office. “You son of a bitch! Get out of my way. ” Laury’s riding crop snapped against something.

The ancient doorkeeper of the High Judge’s chamber was firmly but unhappily holding his ground. Laury was about to smack him with her crop. Richard pulled her inside, making a gesture of apology to the doorkeeper. He tried to hug her, but she pushed a squirming Renny into his arms. Richard put Renny on a table heaped with letters flattering and importuning the new High Judge. Renny sampled several, but decided that the taste, like the contents, was factitious.

“Why’d you snap your whip at that poor old man? All you had to do was say who you were.”

Laury roamed Richard’s office. She looked at papers, snatched open doors, and peered into cupboards. “I don’t like going ’round saying I’m the High Judgess or whatever the hell you’d call it. You stuck me with it, but I ain’t playing up to it.”

Richard sighed. “All right. But if you’re not the High Judgess you’ve got no business ordering people around. And you could’ve just said you were my wife.”

Laury gave him a bristling look. “Sometimes I don’t like saying that either.”

Renny started to crawl off the table. They both darted for her, bumping their heads together. Richard took Renny and sat down at his desk. Laury perched on a corner. “She’s been driving me wild. You wouldn’t think such a little baby could do much, just crawling around on her belly; but she gets into everything. And tries to eat it. Maybe that’s why I’m so…I didn’t mean that, what I said. It was a lie. But I don’t like it much, this living in Vale City and all.”

Richard played with Renny. “I know. I knew all along that it would be tiresome for you, but I went ahead and did it. Hoping you’d forgive me. “

“You know I will,” Laury said. “Seems like we’re squabbling about something every day. But I can tolerate it, so long as we make up every night. “

“Maybe we shouldn’t wait till night.” Richard caught her hand and pulled her towards him. Renny wriggled between them. “Hmh. She does get into everything.”

Laury laughed. “You don’t know. She’ll get my revenge on you. You’re going to be real sorry we don’t have mama, daddy, and the other people at Hallenwater to help us look after her. “

Richard kissed her over Renny’s head. Renny attempted to consume the buttons on his coat. “About those farms, ” Laury said briskly. Her annoyance was officially ended. “I found me one I want.”

“Well, fine,” Richard said. “But why do you want another farm?”

 “Come out with me,” Laury said. “We’ll look at this place, and I’ll tell you. If you ain’t too busy, Judge.”

Richard wasn’t fool enough to say he was too busy. They stuffed Renny into her sling. Laury took the doorkeeper’s hand and bent over it in formal apology. “Sorry I was a bitch. Wasn’t you I was really mad at. It was him.”

The door keeper suppressed a smile. “Yes, m’am. Next time I’ll know you get to go right in.”

They rode out to the farm. “At Hallenwater we breed draft animals,” Laury said. “That’s where the steady money is. Or where it was. Ema told me about all these things they’re going to build someday, and it seems like there’s going to be less call for heavy horses. Kel was telling me how he was going to change the army, and he said he was going to make the Guards into some kind of riflemen and mount them all on light horse. I figured the Guards’d buy a lot of their new horses from the High Judgess, if I had any light horse to sell. So I thought I’d get me a little farm here to start breeding up some light stock, while mama kept on with the drafts in Hallenwater. Maybe some racehorses too. Plott told me the racehorse’s still going strong where you came from, even with all those machine-things.”

     “Very shrewd,” Richard said. “But you ought to remember that your parents’ shares in the corporation will make you very rich. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” Laury said. “I’m a horse-breeder. It’s what I do.” She poked a restless Renny back into her sack. “One of the things, anyway.”

The farm lay on the banks of the river. It bordered directly on the city, within a short ride of the square. Val was not blessed with suburbs. “There’s others to the south and west,” Laury said. “But this is the one I want.”

Richard nodded. “A beautiful piece of land.”

“Well, yes. But the good part is that they’ve almost got to sell. Didn’t you see how low down most of the fields is to the river? It’s bound to flood every spring. People must be crazed, putting grain into land like that. But it’d be fine for pasturage.”

“I see,” Richard said. “But remember you’re rich. You don’t have to beat the poor, crazy farmers down to the very least they’ll take.”

Laury was amazed. “But this is business.”

Laury bought the farm on the river. It was too late in the year to do anything but start construction of stables and other horsey buildings. Laury occupied herself by buying a second farm bordering on the first, three market-garden operations southwest of the city, and several properties in town. She hoped that her horse-breeding operation would someday expand onto the second farm, but she bought the other properties as speculations. The Rivers’ abolition of the many sinecures the Lands had created drove many sinecure-holders out of town, opening some choice bargains. Laury was sure the demand for housing and land would pick up again, despite River promises to keep the government payroll low.

 The scale of her operations alarmed Kel. “They’re calling her the woman kepta, Laury Ayvens, and Val’s landlady.”

 Richard nodded. “She’s overdoing it.”

“You think so?” Kel said. “Can’t say I do. I only meant that it looks a little funny. She could get other people to buy up those places for her, so it don’t look like she’s trying to own half the Vale. And she might’ve gotten some for me. After all, if it hadn’t been for me, all those Land bloodsuckers wouldn’t be selling their places for her to buy up. It ain’t fair for her to snap up all the good buys while I’m busy running the state for her. “

 Richard told Laury what Kel had said. She laughed and nodded. Maybe it would be better to use dummies to make her future purchases. “But Kel’ll have to get mama or one of his women to buy, if he really wants some of those places. I ain’t got the time. “

 “So I see,” Richard said. They were eating supper. Laury sat with Renny in her lap and held sheets of parchment close to her myopic eyes. She was reading letters from her friends and business associates. The cook she had hired came in to discuss the organization of the kitchen and household. Carpenters appeared to ask her about some detail of the stables they were building for her. Her rental agent dropped by; she gave him a long list of instructions. She and her stable master talked about the horse-shopping they had done. All the while she was chewing up choice bits of food to put in Renny’s mouth, playing with her, nursing her, and changing her diapers.

 The next day Richard told Kel about Laury’s incessant activity. “She’s a Hallen woman,” Kel said. “That’s just the way they are. I’ve told you about the troubles I used to have with them.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “But I’m not sure we’re talking about the same kind of trouble. You’ve had a lot of women – maybe almost as many as you say – but you haven’t really gone all the way till you get married. “

 Kel studied him. “Well, you don’t look all that happy about having went all the way,  so maybe I’ll just stay a virgin on that part. Which I was planning to do anyway. What’s the matter – ain’t you and Laury getting on?”

Richard shrugged. “I think we’re doing all right. But you know Laury: every damn thing matters; everything’s got to be just so. I’m hoping she’ll settle down when the snow melts. We won’t be so cooped up, and she can spend some of her frantic energy on her horses.”

“Sounds sensible,” Kel said. ” But what would I know, an old marriage-virgin like me? All those women I’ve had don’t mean a thing compared to the strange stuff you’re supposed to know because you’re married,”

“All right, Kel,” Richard said. “Just forget I said that. I’d rather not have it brought up in every other sentence. What’s next?”

 “Some more of this foreign stuff,” Kel said, “I’d rather talk about women myself. Or even about getting married. “

Foreign ambassadors and representatives were hurrying to Valen. The little countries of the southern continent had noticed the outcome of the war. Their ambassadors asked Kel and Richard to aid this country against that aggressive neighbor, or to help this rightful ruler against that foul usurper. Most were unable to offer Valen any sort of return, so they tried to bribe Kel and Richard with promises of money or women. Both Kel and Richard were indifferent to money; Richard ignored the other offers. Kel enjoyed them.

“Somebody throws a woman at me, I’m going to catch her. And if she asks for a little something, I’m always glad to give her some of what I’ve got; in one way or another. But I’m damned if I see why they think just getting laid’s going to make me do what they want me to.”

One of the ambassadors approached Laury. He heard of her avaricious acquisitions of land and concluded that she was bribable. Laury rode him down with a horse she was exercising. Richard met the battered, mud-coated ambassador on the road and said a puzzled hello. The ambassador eyed Richard’s horse with glassy nervousness and hurried away. When he got home, Laury told Richard what had happened. Richard thought it was funny, but Laury wasn’t amused. “Keep those people away from me. They’re like slimy, crawly things.”

Richard made an effort to lighten it. “I know. And that man was a fool; but remember, he was being a slimy, crawly thing for his country.”

Laury gave him a look of ferocious distaste. Her pale eyes seemed to flash.

“What’s really going on?” Richard said. “Why are you so mad at me?”

“You been fucking Ema?”

“What the hell? I haven’t even seen her since… the night Kel got elected leader.”

“I dreamed you were fucking her. It was so real it hurt.”

“You dreamed it. But – but I didn’t.”

“Tell me you don’t love her.”

Richard shook his head. “I don’t. Not like I love you. I liked her. She’s sweet.”

             “So I’m not sweet?” Laury said.

            “Ema’s like a cup of milk,” Richard said. “You’re like a shot of whiskey.”

             “Hmpf.” Laury tried, and failed, to find something wrong with the comparison. “Well, you’re like a cup of cold water. You just make sure only I get a drink.”

            The next morning, she got a letter from Ema. “She’s carrying! I knew she was going to have a baby. There must’ve been some sign when they were in town. That’s what the dream was about!”

            “So… Not about me at all,” Richard said.

            Laury ignored this detail. “Sweet life! Her handwriting is the worst I’ve ever seen. Between it and my terrible eyes, I can hardly read it.”

            They heard Renny cry. “Go judge stuff,” she said. “Mama’s coming to see the wonder baby today. So be home on time.”

            Richard went to court. Jerzy Smit, the law writer, brought in an opinion he had finished. It was an intricate property dispute involving tangled inheritances and obscured boundaries: the usual stuff of Valener law. Richard carefully read the opinion; Smit explained the precedents he had invoked. At first he had been annoyed by Richard’s diligence: he took it as a reflection on his competence. But the questions Richard asked flattered his expertise. His explanations became tutorials on the law of Valen, with amusing digressions on the legal blunders and human follies exposed in the case at issue. The law, Smit said, was a compressed account of the passions and errors of men and women.

            They heard gunshots. “What the hell?” Richard said. “Are the Guardsmen playing with their new rifles?”

            Smit looked out a window. “Sounded like it came from the square.”

            One of the young copyists burst in. “Judge! It’s the Leader – somebody’s shot him. They’ve killed him.”

            Richard and Smit stared at her. She started crying. Richard got up and went down through the solemn, seldom used courtroom. He stepped out on the courthouse’s high pediment and looked down into the square. A large number of people crowded the steps of the Senate. Richard heard women weeping and children asking frightened questions.

 A small group of Guardsmen stood around the door to the court. They gripped their new carbines and scanned the upper stories of the buildings around the square. One of them came forward. “Judge. Maybe you’d better take cover.”

Richard shook his head. “Where’s Kel? The leader.” The soldier pointed to the crowd at the Senate stairs. “Form your men around me,” Richard said. He sent one of the men to bring more soldiers. He took the others into the crowd.

 Kel lay on the broad top step of the Senate stairs. Blood pooled all around him. A distracted Guardsman was trying to apply a tourniquet above a wound on Kel’s arm. But most of the blood was flowing from his chest and stomach.

 Richard lifted Kel’s head. “Kel…”

 Kel opened his eyes. He saw Richard and tried to smile. He looked up to the sky and died.

Richard stared at him. He felt for a heartbeat and lifted Kel’s shoulders, holding them against his chest. Kel’s head hung over his arm. Richard set Kel’s body down. He turned his head to a natural angle. “Take him inside. Somebody take him inside.”

 The Guardsmen took down one of the Senate’s tall doors and used it as a stretcher. They carried Kel’s body into the Senate and put it on the counter’s table. Somebody took the big flag hanging behind the table and put it over the body.

 Richard sat in one of the senators’ chairs and stared blankly at the flag-draped body. The people came into the senate chamber and milled aimlessly around. Some of them pressed around the table, reaching out to touch Kel’s body. The Guardsmen formed a ring around the table and shoved the civilians away.

Kern appeared from somewhere. Kel had made him a vice-marshal in the reformed Guard, but he was as confused as the people in the crowd. “My God, Judge, they killed him. Who did it? What’s happening?”

Richard shook his head. “Are the Guardsmen out?”

Kern nodded.

 “Get them to surround the square. Don’t let anybody out until they give their names and addresses. Make sure nobody is carrying concealed firearms. Ask everybody if they saw anything.”

Kern was relieved to have something to do, “Yessir, Judge. I’ll get to it. ” He hesitated. “One thing… With the leader dead we’re not supposed to… I mean, if we have to take people or something – can we do that without a leader?”

 “I don’t know,” Richard said. “Get Smit: the law writer. He’s around somewhere.”

Smit was standing among the crowd in the chamber. “You can’t give the Guard orders,” he said. “Not without a leader. That would mean the counter, as he serves in the leader’s place when… When there’s no leader. Kern could put the soldiers out and ask people questions, but he can’t take anybody till the counter says it’s all right.”

“Go on and surround the square,” Richard said. “If you come across anyone suspicious, hold them on the spot until you get word that the counter’s given his authority. And send Marshal Willot to me.”

Kern went out to organize the Guardsmen. Smit coughed. “Uh, Judge; you’re not supposed to be in here – down in the Senate itself, I mean.”

Richard looked at Kel’s body. “I don’t want to be here. Let’s go find the counter.”

 The counter lived in an apartment attached to the Senate house. Servants roused the old man from his bed. He was confused, but he signed a document prepared by Smit. It renewed the police powers of the Guardsmen, which had lapsed at the moment of Kel’s death.

“Searches,” Richard said. “I want the Guardsmen to search all the buildings around the square. “

Smit nodded. “You can order that yourself, as High Judge. All we got to do is write up the orders.”

They hurried back to the court. “The counter doesn’t seem up to this. Is there a way for me to take over the leader’s powers?”

“There is,” Smit said. “You and the leader have to sign a paper together, saying you combine all your powers in one or the other of you. With the counter only being acting leader – I don’t know. I guess it’d be all right.”

“Write up the search orders,” Richard said. “And make a draft of the agreement to combine powers.”

Willot came in. “Sweet life, I can’t believe this. Kel… He was the greatest man I’ve ever known. Who’d want to do such a thing?”    

 “I don’t know,” Richard said. “Have you heard anything about trouble in other parts of the country?”

Willot shook his head. “Nothing”

 Smit brought in the search warrants. Richard signed them. “I want you to search every building around the square, Willot. If you find rifles or other weapons, don’t touch anything. Put a guard on the place. Get Kern to send people who think they saw something here to the court. Don’t allow the witnesses to talk to one another and get confused about what they saw. “

Willot nodded. “I get you. How about sending messengers? Seems like to me the other judges’d better be told.”

“Yes,” Richard said. “And another thing — Kel’s sister is somewhere on the way to my wife’s farm. You’d better find her and take her back to the farm. Send some Guardsmen to stay there.”

Willot took the warrants and went out.

Smit gave Richard a sheet of parchment. “This is the combined powers agreement.”

Richard read it. “Explain the law.”

“It’s just what it says it is,” Smit said. “The leader gives you all his powers. Or it can go the other way, with you giving your powers to the leader. It lasts till the senate sits, when you’ve got to put up a new leader.”

“Good,” Richard said. “Do you think the counter will sign it?”

 “I expect so,” Smit said. “But it’d be best if one of the senators asked him about it.”

Richard nodded. “Send one of your clerks to find Dayon. And get someone to see if Laif Mawvee’s in town. Then start bringing in the witnesses. Let them wait down in the courtroom and bring them up here one by one.”

The first witnesses had been standing near Kel. By custom, petitioners waited on the Senate stairs every morning. The shrewd politician went to hear their grievances. Kel had been accepting petitions, shaking hands, and making jokes in his usual style. “I saw him crossing the square, ” a middle-aged woman said. “So I went over to shake his hand for getting money for my boy that was hurt in the war. I wasn’t going to ask for nothing.”

 Richard nodded. “What happened next?” The woman wiped her eyes. “Well, I was just about to touch his hand. And all of a sudden — he was lying on the ground. I guess I must’ve heard the guns and seen him fall, but it seems like I don’t remember. He was just lying there. I couldn’t hardly understand what was happening. He said, ‘Son of a bitch. Sweet life. Not now.’ And then he closed his eyes. I thought he was dead, but I saw him look at you when you lifted his head, Judge.”

 Some of the other witnesses thought the shots had come from the crowd. They had seen people running away. But most of the soldiers standing guard duty at the doors of government buildings said the shots had come from upper stories around the square; mostly from the market, they thought. A veteran of the battle of Stada was sure the shots had come from longhammer rifles.

Richard ordered the searchers to concentrate on the market. A Guards officer soon came to report. The searchers had found two rifles on the upper floor of the market.

 “Just the rifles? No sign of the people who used them?”

“No, sir. The one’s in a little closet sort of place, and the other in a room nobody’s renting just now. Both places’ve got windows you can see the Senate House from.”

Richard nodded. “Anyone see men leaving those rooms?”

“Nobody we talked to yet. But an awful lot of people come and go ’round the market.”

 “Keep hunting,” Richard said. “Have you found Kel’s sister?”

 “Yessir. We took her to your wife’s place like you said.”

 Richard dismissed the Guardsman and called Smit. “I’m going out to talk to Kel’s sister. When I get back I want to see Dayon, the counter , and Marshal Willot. “

“Right, Judge,” Smit said. “And if you don’t mind my saying — you should see Marshal Byla. The city’s his territory.”

“I had forgotten that,” Richard said. “Tell him I apologize for taking over. I’ll let him handle the rest.”

 Richard rode to the farm. Laury and Sissy had done their crying. Laury was restlessly angry. Sissy was grim. “I came to ask about Kel’s body,” Richard said. “Where do you want him buried?”

Sissy grimaced. “I hadn’t thought about that. On our farm, I guess. In Avenshan.”

“You find them,” Laury shouted. “You better get them that did it.”

Sissy grabbed her arm. “You be quiet. This ain’t the time for one of your fusses” She looked at Richard. “Just the same, you find them.”

“I will,” Richard said. “I promise you I will.”

Richard went back to the court. Smit had rounded up Dayon, the counter, Willot, and Marshal Byla, the Vale’s police commissioner and chief prosecutor. Dayon had persuaded the counter to surrender the leader’s powers. Richard and the old man signed the instrument which combined powers, “This’ll be just until the Senate sits,” Richard said.

“Well, I hope you’ll call the senators soon,” the counter said. “I guess I’m not up to playing leader at a time like this, but I don’t care for this combination thing. It ain’t the way things’re supposed to work.”

 “I ‘m going to call them as soon as I can,” Richard said. “This is just to allow us to carry out the investigation. Let’s get the marshals in here and find out what they’ve done.”

Marshal Byla gave the report. “We found two other rifles. They were in corner rooms of houses just along the street from the square. Both places were rented by women – maybe the same woman, from the sound of it. The landlords and the other folks we’ve talked to don’t remember that anybody ever came to live in the rooms, so it’s most likely that they were rented for just this one thing.”

 Richard nodded. “Did you leave the rifles alone?”

“Yessir, Judge,” Byla said. “Like you ordered. Or like I hear you ordered Marshal Willot. “

“I’m sorry,” Richard said. “I wasn’t thinking of such things. He was my friend.”

Byla was mollified. “Well, I guess nobody would’ve. Anyway, Marshal Willot’s boys did a pretty good job of the searching.”

“Your men will do the rest,” Richard said. “Using as many of Marshal Willot’s soldiers as you need. But first: Smit, didn’t I see some sketches one of those women in the office had done?”

Smit nodded. “Yessir, Judge. It’s one of those copy girls. I forget her name, but she did some real clever drawings of people.”

 “Find her,” Richard said. “Then send her to draw detailed sketches of the rooms the rifles were found in. When she’s done, take the rifles and anything else that looks important. Then search those rooms. Tear them apart, “

“It’ll be done,” Byla said, “What about the rifles? What do you want us to do with them?”

“I want them locked up and guarded,” Richard said. “Plott may be able to trace them — so we can find the killers through the guns. When you move them, I want you to make personally sure that your men carry them only by the tips of the barrels. I don’t want them to touch any other part. You get me?”

“Well, I guess so,” Byla said. “About the way you want them to be carried. But why?”

 “Fingerprints,” Richard said. “The barrels and stocks of those rifles are always pretty oily.”

 Smit, Byla and the others nodded. They understood fingerprints. The Valens used them on deeds and other documents.

Richard told Byla, Willot, and Smit to conduct the investigation as a board, with Byla as chairman. He ordered Dayon and the counter to summon Laif Mawvee and form a second board to attend to the day-to-day business of the leader.

The meeting broke up. Dayon waited till the others had gone. “‘Why’d you put Laif on this leader board? We don’t need a Land for anything. The people that killed Kel was most likely Lands of some sort.”

“Maybe,” Richard said. “But I want to separate Mawvee from Lands of that sort. He’s the only one who could cause us any real trouble.”

 “You thinking we can get him to come over? I don’t see that there’s much chance of that. Laif’ll vote against his people, if he thinks they’re wrong, but he was more or less born a Land.”

 “I don’t expect him to leave his party,” Richard said. “If we can get him to lean our way I’ll be satisfied. We may have to do some hard things before this is over, and I don’t want him against us. Anyway, I can over-rule anything he and the counter do that you don’t like.”

“Well, maybe , ” Dayon said. “What hard things’ve you got in mind to do?”

“I haven’t got anything in mind,” Richard said. “I’m just saying that we may need all the support we can get, with Kel gone.”

Richard, Laury, and Sissy set out for Avenshan with Kel’s body. The road climbed ahead of them. Most of Valen had a fairly temperate climate, but Avenshan was a harsh, subarctic country. Clouds were banked over their heads, held against the Hightops by winds from the northern and eastern seas, Dirty, melting snow was hummocked in the deeply shaded valleys

“I remember how Kel used to talk,” Sissy said. “He’d say Avenshan was mostly up and down, and where it wasn’t it was hardly more than a coat of dust on solid rock. When our mama was trying to get him to be a farmer, he’d say that’d be easier to grow stuff on a brick than in Avenshan.”

 They got to the Malinhelve, the ancestral lands of the Malins. Kel’s brothers were waiting around a grave they had chopped into the half-frozen earth. They slid a plank under the shrouded body and carried it to the grave. Richard, Larens, and Kel’s brothers looped ropes under the plank and carefully lowered the body into the ground. They stared down into the open grave.

One of Kel’s brothers pushed a few clods of wet, dark earth down on the white shroud. Richard covered his eyes with one hand. Laury gripped his arm. The brothers gingerly covered the body with light spadesful of earth. They quickly filled the grave and patted a mound into shape.

Alvan, the eldest brother, leaned on his spade. “He was the most troublesome fellow I ever knew in my life.”

Ekun, the second brother, nodded. “Who’d ever’ve thought he’d be great.”

“Well, he did,” Sissy said.

“True words,” Alvan said. “Guess you got to believe it, to be it.”

 “Let’s go in, ” Sissy said. “There’s no use standing out here in the dirt to talk about him.”

They went into the farmhouse. A large crowd of onlookers edged forward behind them. The people filed past the grave. Richard saw some of then taking little bits of earth from the mound. He heard the strange, murmurous sound of thousands of people weeping and talking in soft, troubled whispers.

Inside the house Richard and the others sat at a long table. They picked at an enormous quantity of food in an uncomfortable silence. The house was crowded with the Malins and their many friends and relatives.

 One of the men brought out a keg of whiskey and passed glasses. The liquor provided an excuse for relaxing. They started remembering when Kel had done this or that. Most of the stories recalled Kel’s involvement in some kind of deviltry. Alvan said it seemed like Kel had saved his good deeds for other countries.

 “What about that time he killed the bull?” Laury asked. “Did he really do that?”

“Well, he said he did,” Alvan said. “And there sure was a dead bull at the end of it. I don’t know what really happened. I guess only Kel and the girl knew – for there was a woman in it, like there just about always was with Kel. I don’t remember her name. She died later; I think in childbirth. Anyway, there ain’t nobody alive that saw it.”

“I saw it.”

They all turned. An old woman stood outside the open window. She and the others in the crowd had been discreetly listening to the family members’ stories.

Alvan was surprised. “Maggy Hallorn. You saw it? Why didn’t you ever say?”

Maggy was embarrassed. “Because – well, because I wasn’t doing like I should when I saw it. I guess it don’t matter now, as my husband’s been dead all this time, and the fellow I was with too.”

“Well, go on and tell it,” Alvan said. “Here – take a glass to wet your throat.” He passed her a sizable tumbler of whiskey.

“Just a taste,” Maggy said demurely. She promptly knocked back the whole glass. “Well, it must be a good thirty years – or maybe five-six more – and me and my fellow was in this shepherd’s hut up above where it happened. Guess I don’t have to tell what we was doing there: it’s all the same story, that part of it, though I never tired of that tale. I used to…well, anyways, we saw this girl coming up to the field below us. She was… Well, I don’t remember what her name was. But she was a lively, pretty thing about sixteen.”

A woman spoke from the crowd. “Ella Karnilla. That was her name.”

“Who’s that?” Maggie said. “How d’you know what her name was? “

 “Because I’m her daughter.” The crowd parted, revealing a noticeably pregnant woman. She looked as if she were Laury’s sister.

Maggie saw the resemblance, “It’s plain who your daddy was, honey. You can tell that baby you’re carrying what a man his granddaddy was and how you got made from what he did to save your mama’s life. I remember now — it was young Ella for sure. It was her people’s field me and my fellow was in – that was why we noticed her. We saw that she was coming up to look after her mama’s sheep, that was just above us on the mountain, and we was hurrying to get out of there, so she wouldn’t see us. She cut across the fenced field just below us, coming along to where we was. I believe she saw the bull just at the same time I did.”

“I don’t know what he was doing there, and I know for sure he wasn’t supposed to be in that field, because I’d cut across it the same way Ella did, when I was going to see my fellow. I believe it came out later that a fence’d fallen down to let him in. Anyways, Ella saw the bull and he saw her at just about the same time. She slowed a bit and then walked as fast as she could go, but didn’t run, so as not to tease him up, as it’ll do if you run around in front of a bull.”

“Only it didn’t do her no good not to run. Even before that bull was known to be one of the meanest animals around, though good at stud. He was all black, and his horns was both long and wide, which my daddy used to say was always a sign of meanness in cattle. Just as soon as he saw Ella he started to paw on the ground, and he set off after her real quick.”

“When she saw him come Ella ran as fast as she could go, and it looked like she’d make the fence easy; but she set her foot on a stone or a piece of earth that turned under it, and she fell hard. She got right up, but she fell again. It was plain she’d broken or twisted her ankle. Me and my fellow jumped up and ran down the hill towards her, but it looked like we wasn’t going to be able to do nothing but carry poor Ella’s body away. She kept getting up and falling down again, sort of jumping and crawling along to do her damndest to get out of there, but you could see she wasn’t going to make it.”

 “All the while Kel had been riding down the road that ran along side of the field. I hadn’t been looking at him, from having my eyes on Ella and the bull, but it seems like I remember what he looked like better than anything about it. He was wearing one of those wide-brimmed lowland hats, a strange, foreign-looking thing, and riding a big, slick horse. And seeming mighty happy with himself, which is what he always was like. “

“He saw what was happening and set his horse up to the fence like he was thinking to jump it and just ride down and scoop Ella up. But he’s too close to the fence, it’s too high, and he don’t have time to come round and get his speed up. So he made the horse crash right into the fence, jumped down onto the field, hit running, and kept going just as fast as he could go. But it didn’t take nearly as much time for it to happen as it does for me to tell it. He just saw how it was, and the very next thing he was down on the field, all so quick my eye could hardly follow what was going on. “

“Kel ran towards the bull like cattycornered to the way it was going, and he was waving his arms and yelling all the while, trying to turn that bull away from going after Ella. Which you could do with most, but not that bull. He had his head down and was set on goring poor Ella. So Kel just ran right up to him, maybe not knowing what else the hell he could do. And he put out one hand and grabbed at the bull’s horn.”

“What happened next was the damndest thing I ever saw, and I’ve lived long enough to see plenty. It looked like Kel’d jerked that bull’s head right around. But maybe the bull’d finally decided to turn and gore Kel. You could say that the bull put one horn down to hook at Kel, and Kel just sort of helped it along, pushing that horn so it caught in the ground, and the bull broke its own neck, from being running along so fast and all of a sudden getting its horn caught and twisting its neck with all that weight behind it.

“Well, the bull kicked and twitched for a while, but his head was turned halfway around on its neck. It was dead all right. Kel held onto the horns for a while, maybe holding himself up. For when he did let go, he sort of swayed and almost fell. Then he went over to where Ella was lying, just looking up at him. He tottered a little, and when he got to Ella he fell to his knees. He sort of made out like he did it to help Ella up, only I guess he was pretty shaky.

 “Well, my fellow slunk off when he saw it was going to be all right, and I guess I should’ve too. As I had no business but one being there, and my man was always a jealous sort.  I just stood there looking at Kel. He was the biggest, strongest man I ever saw in my life, and even when he come up here about the voting I thought he was still about the best-looking; and in those days, when he was just twenty. . . ” Maggy waved her glass at Kel’s daughter. “Well, it ain’t no surprise you got made, darlin’. A fellow that says hello saving your life by killing a bull with his bare hands ain’t easy to say no to; and when he looks like young Kel did, you’d be a fool to want to. Guess you’d’ve had another half-brother or half-sister from myself, if I’d ever had the time or the chance.”