A smaller grave is harder to find. We cut him open so he wouldnt bloat. If you dont they sometimes bloat so much they come up out of the ground. Or they explode and loose off enough gas so the grave can be found by the smell. Especially by jackals, who dig them up and scatter them all over.

Practical. Logical. Obvious, once he explained it. Id never had occasion to conceal a body before. Id surrounded myself with very practical-and clearly very experienced-murderers.

We have to talk soon, Narayan.

He grinned that grin. Hed tell me some truth when he did.

We slipped back into camp and parted company.

I slept well. There were dreams but they werent filled with gloom and doom. In one a beautiful black woman came and held me and caressed me and called me her daughter and told me Id done well. I wakened feeling refreshed and as vigorous as if Id had a full nights sleep. It was a beautiful morning. The world seemed painted in especially vivid colors.

My exercises with my talent went very well.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

The disappearance, without trace, of the high priest Jahamaraj Jah, so trivial an opponent that I recall him only as a faded caricature of a man, stunned the thousands cluttering the region around the Ghoja ford. A whisper went around saying he had schemed against the Radisha and myself and that had sealed his fate. I wasnt responsible for the rumor. Narayan denied having said anything to anybody. Two days after we buried Jah everybody was convinced Id eliminated him. Nobody knew how.

They were scared.

The possibility had a big impact on Blade. I got the feeling he thought Id gone through some rite of passage and he could now devote himself to my cause. I was pleased but had to wonder about a man so devoutly antagonistic toward priests.

I had Narayan spread word that I still needed recruits, especially skilled horsemen. Another two hundred Shadar enlisted. Likewise nearly five hundred survivors of the Dejagore battle, though many just wanted regular meals or the comfort of a known place in the hierarchy. Taglian caste systems encourage dependence upon hierarchy. The chaos at the ford provided none of the benefits of social rigidity, only the handicaps.

I told Narayan to think about expanding the camp. Soon wed be overcrowded. I told Blade to look for likely leaders. Wed never have enough of those.

The Taglians continued to amaze me. They remained pacifistic in their thinking, yet admired what they thought was the direct and casual way I disposed of enemies. The bigger the violence, the more they would applaud. As long as they were not threatened personally.