On Blue's waters

I have been busy all day, trying to catch up on matters that should have been attended to while I was with our troopers. (What would I not give for Hammerstone now! Olivine, lend us your father, please.) Most important: I have sent Bahar and Namak downriver in a boat, each with his little case of cards. Bahar is to buy rice and beans-whatever is cheap and filling-and he is just the man for it.

Namak will try to hire men who will fight alongside us. They will have to be men who have their own slug guns, since guns are in very short supply. (I wonder how they are coming in New Viron, making their own? Certainly the one that Marrow gave me was serviceable enough.) It is probably for the best-we must have men who can shoot. Hunting can be a cruel amusement and it often is; but it is the best training in the whorl for a trooper.

I hope Bahar sends something back for us soon. Food is very scarce, and of course everything north along the Nadi is gone, all those rich farms.

Hari Mau came from the front to confer. It is an hour’s ride now. He had made sketch maps. Our left flank is quite secure, he says, an impenetrable marshy forest. (What can a man who has not been on Green know about that?) Our right is on the river, and in spite of all that he says I am worried about both.

He was worried about Chota, so much so that I made her go back to the women’s quarters for a while. Nobody trusts her, poor child.

Nobody but me.

Prisoners in despair, he says.

Even war has benefits, even being wounded and more than half expected to die. Maybe nothing real is wholly good or bad. (But real is not the word. Tangible?) I still long for home and Nettle’s pardon, should she be so moved as to give it; but the pain in my side kills the pain of that, and I have been mercifully busy. Which is the god of busyness? Scylla, perhaps, if there is one. Scylla tossing up waves to dance in sunlight and starlight. I have written so much about our life on the sloop, and nothing about that, yet aside from Seawrack of the golden hair it is what I recall the best from all those days-the ceaseless, restless waves gleaming with reflected stars and dyed by Green. What blessings mere busyness brings us!

I have hatched a plan and have been seeing that it is carried out for half the day. We have been driven back again and again. Several of our river workers were injured by flying rock, and one died. Both those are facts. We are trying to combine them.

A note reports that four of our prisoners have killed themselves. This must be stopped. I have ordered the remaining prisoners brought here to me by noon tomorrow. I want another look at them.

Talked to the prisoners with Chota present as before. At first we learned nothing new. I ordered a good hot meal prepared for them and spoke to them again afterward, and was lucky enough to get to the bottom of it.

First, food is scarce on their side. It must be brought from Han on pack animals, horses and mules, because of the Cataracts. They think that we have plenty, and that they have been starved on Hari Mau’s orders.

Second, they think the whole war is a plot to make them lose their land. They are small farmers for the most part, just like our own troopers, and one of them accused Evensong (Chota) to her face, calling her the Man’s woman and making her furiously angry. She tried to get me to have him killed. I told her he is precious to me, and have asked for a truce instead.

Truce agreed to. I sent Rajya Mantri to tell the Hannese we wanted to exchange prisoners, all that we have for all they have. They would not agree, but we got eighteen of ours for eighteen of theirs. The important thing is that those men are back where they can talk to their fellow troopers. The retreat is all arranged, and should be just far enough to get them over the buried kegs.

At every odd moment I find myself thinking about that “impenetrable” forest, and remembering the forest at the mouth of the big river, the jungles on Green, and so forth-the tangled trees on the big sandspit I was writing about before Han invaded us.

When we found the mouth of the river, all three of us thought that the search was almost over. I got out the map Wijzer had drawn for me and showed it to Krait, and he agreed to search for Pajarocu whenever he went hunting. Supposing that we would be there in another week at most, Seawrack and I agreed that she would remain behind to look after the sloop. I explained at some length that a great deal might still go wrong even if the lander flew into the sky without crashing and told her to assume me dead if I had not returned within a month.

It has been nearly two years now, I believe. More, perhaps. How is it that her song reaches me?