On the griot days, the days Prince Hill gathered in the house of Abd to learn about the war, Tau unleashed their new weapon against Abdumasi. “Cosgrad Torrinde tells me,” they would say, following one of the griots, explaining why a battle had gone the way it had, “I have learned from Cosgrad to expect this, and that … no, it’s not like that, it’s like this, Cosgrad has told me.”

Soon the griots came to Tau-indi to learn from them.

The epic wanted the names of the enemy, First Fleet, Second Fleet, Third Fleet, frigate and torchship, mainsail and Burn. The comic wanted to mock Cosgrad’s manners. The gossip teased Tau-indi about Cosgrad’s exotic looks, about his strange spare body that he kept taut as bark rope. Is it true, the gossip would ask, that in Falcrest they worship youth, and that all the old are put to death at fifty?

Whenever Abdumasi said something hopeful about the course of the war, Tau was there with dreadful intimations of Falcrest’s secret strength. Whenever Kindalana tried to explain the policies of the Federal Princes, and the intra-Mbo squabbling that made everything about war complicated, Tau was there to explain how Falcrest would exploit these gaps.

Tau-indi reveled in the storm-cloud power they had obtained. They could put themselves at the center of the affair. They could tell everyone that things were even worse than they knew.

They could spoil the mood.

A principle of spite moved them. Bitterness had been visited upon them by Kindalana and Abdumasi, tangled together in secret, and now they would visit bitterness in return.

“Torrinde’s like your pet!” Abdumasi said, completely impressed by Tau-indi’s offhand mastery of Falcresti ranks. “Does he follow you around? Can you get him to come swimming with us? Manata, we should start swimming again, all three of us! Summers used to be so good.”

Kindalana sniffed and lit a joint in the small fire. “Cosgrad swim? Not a chance. I hear he only bathes in private. Tau couldn’t convince him.”

“Oh,” Abdumasi said, disappointed. “What a waste! Have you seen him? He’s like one of those bulls whose muscles are too big for their skin! Tau, do you ever,” and he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial hush, “I know he’s quite a bit older, but do you ever, you know, get to peek?”

Tau caught Kindalana’s artfully disinterested exhalation. She had looked away as if she didn’t care.

Kindalana was jealous! Kindalana didn’t want Abdumasi to see Cosgrad Torrinde, or, perhaps, Kindalana wanted Torrinde all for herself. Wasn’t she Segu, after all, where men had only recently stopped being treated as chattel labor?

“He’s far too old for me,” Tau-indi said, trying to sound as airy as Kindalana looked. “Of course, I thought Mother might be interested in him. But she seems to have her eye on someone else. Don’t you think, Kinda?”