“To hell with what you believe! It’s late and I want to go to bed. The folk in New Canaan and Gilead haven’t the foggiest idea of what does or doesn’t go on out here on the Crescent; there aren’t many of em who’ve ever been here, I’d wager. Them are too busy trying to keep everything from falling down around their ears to do much travelling these days. No, what they know is all from the picturebooks they was read out of when they ’us babbies themselves: happy cowboys galloping after stock, happy fishermen pulling whoppers into their boats, folks clogging at barn-raisings and drinking big pots o’ graf in Green Heart pavillion. For the sake of the Man Jesus, Rimer, don’t go dense on me—I deal with that day in and day out.”

“They see Mejis as a place of quiet and safety.”

“Aye, bucolic splendor, just so, no doubt about it. They know that their whole way o’ life—all that nobility and chivalry and ancestor-worship—is on fire. The final battle may take place as much as two hundred wheels northwest of their borders, but when Farson uses his fire-carriages and robots to wipe out their army, trouble will come south fast. There are those from the Inner Baronies who’ve smelled this coming for twenty years or more. They didn’t send these brats here to discover your secrets, Rimer; folks such as these don’t send their babbies into danger on purpose. They sent em here to get em out of the way, that’s all. That doesn’t make em blind or stupid, but for the sake of the gods, let’s be sane. They’re kiddies.”

“What else might you find, should you go out there?”

“Some way of sending messages, mayhap. A heliograph’s the most likely. And out beyond Eyebolt, a shepherd or maybe a freeholder susceptible to a bribe—someone they’ve trained to catch the message and either flash it on or carry it afoot. But before long it’ll be too late for messages to do any good, won’t it?”

“Perhaps, but it’s not too late yet. And you’re right. Kiddies or not, they worry me.”

“You’ve no cause, I tell you. Soon enough, I’ll be wealthy and you’ll be downright rich. Mayor yourself, if you want. Who’d stand to stop you? Thorin? He’s a joke. Coral? She’d help you string him up, I wot. Or perhaps you’d like to be a Baron, if such offices be revived?” He saw a momentary gleam in Rimer’s eyes and laughed. Matthew came out of the deck, and Jonas put him up with the other Chancellors. “Yar, I see that’s what you’ve got your heart set on. Gems is nice, and for gold that goes twice, but there’s nothing like having folk bow and scrape before ye, is there?”

Rimer said, “They should have been on the cowboy side by now.”

Jonas’s hands stopped above the layout of cards. It was a thought that had crossed his own mind more than once, especially over the last two weeks or so.