“We’ll wait a bit longer,” he said. “Perhaps she’ll change her mind.”

“Roland—” Alain began, and his tone was deadly in its gentleness.

Roland raised his hands before Alain could go on. “Doubt me not, Alain—I speak as my father’s son.”

“All right.” Alain reached out and briefly gripped Roland’s shoulder. As for Cuthbert, he reserved judgment. Roland might or might not be acting as his father’s son; Cuthbert guessed that at this point Roland hardly knew his own mind at all.

“Do you remember what Cort used to say was the primary weakness of maggots such as us?” Roland asked with a trace of a smile.

“‘You run without consideration and fall in a hole,’” Alain quoted in a gruff imitation that made Cuthbert laugh aloud.

Roland’s smile broadened a touch. “Aye. They’re words I mean to remember, boys. I’ll not upset this cart in order to see what’s in it... not unless there’s no other choice. Susan may come around yet, given time to think. I believe she would have agreed to meet me already, if not for... other matters between us.”

He paused, and for a little while there was quiet among them.

“I wish our fathers hadn’t sent us,” Alain said at last... although it was Roland’s father who had sent them, and all three knew it. “We’re too young for matters such as these. Too young by years.”

“We did all right that night in the Rest,” Cuthbert said.

“That was training, not guile—and they didn’t take us seriously. That won’t happen again.”

“They wouldn’t have sent us—not my father, not yours—if they’d known what we’d find,” Roland said. “But now we’ve found it, and now we’re for it. Yes?”

Alain and Cuthbert nodded. They were for it, all right—there no longer seemed any doubt of that.

“In any case, it’s too late to worry about it now. We’ll wait and hope for Susan. I’d rather not go near Citgo without someone from Hambry who knows the lay of the place... but if Depape comes back, we’ll have to take our chance. God knows what he may find out, or what stories he may invent to please Jonas, or what Jonas may do after they palaver. There may be shooting.”

“After all this creeping around, I’d almost welcome it,” Cuthbert said.

“Will you send her another note, Will Dearborn?” Alain asked.

Roland thought about it. Cuthbert laid an interior bet with himself on which way Roland would go. And lost.

“No,” he said at last. “We’ll have to give her time, hard as that is. And hope her curiosity will bring her around.”

With that he turned Rusher toward the abandoned bunkhouse which now served them as home. Cuthbert and Alain followed.

6