The Two of Swords: Part 6 Read Online Free PDF Page A

having a row. Hence my previous statement, it’ll check out.”
    “And the other business?”
    “Ah.” Senza stood up and walked a step or two. “Now there’s a thing. Practically the last words my brother said to me were, he knew where she was. Want me to tell you, he said, and I know how his mind works; he wouldn’t have said that if he hadn’t known. So, if Forza knew—”
    Avelro reached across and moved one counter to his side of the table. “If Oida knows,” he said, “who told him?”
    “Very good,” Senza said, “you got there in the end. Who the bloody hell told him? That’s the bit of broken pot that won’t fit. Forza? His good friend Forza? I can’t see that somehow.”
    “Other way round, maybe. Who told Forza?”
    Senza nodded. “Quite,” he said. “His very good friend Oida, or so we’re expected to assume. Dear God, this sort of thing makes my head hurt. Because if that’s the case, and Oida was extending the sticky paw of friendship, what reason would he have had to believe that Forza was going to be the winning side, and therefore worth cuddling up to? Doesn’t bloody
fit
, does it?” He slid the counters into his hand and dropped them back in the box. “All right, here we go again. Forza tells Oida, so that Oida can tell me, so that I can go to this Araf place and get killed. A bit crude, but Forza knows I’m not entirely rational where a certain person is concerned. If she’s really there, he reckons, I’ll go, and screw the risk. Now
that
fits.”
    “But not if Forza’s dead,” Avelro said.
    “No, and that’s the buggery of it. Unless Oida wants us
both
out of the way.” He stopped dead, and his eyes were wide open. “Now there’s a thought,” he said.
    Avelro shook his head. “And then the war just goes on and on for ever,” he said. “Nobody wins, and nobody is Oida’s very good friend. No, there’s nothing in that for anybody, except the crows.”
    Senza frowned, then shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “It all depends on who Oida’s very best friend is, and that we don’t know.” He paused. “Do we?”
    “Don’t ask me, I’m just a cavalryman.”
    Senza sighed and sat down again. “At times like this I wish I drank,” he said. “I’d love to pour myself a big stiff drink and go and hide in it until everything had gone away. That’s what my father used to do. Not a good idea, but I can see why he did it. And he was only marginally less stupid when he was sober, so why not?”
    Avelro grinned. “You, on the other hand—”
    “Quite. Being stupid’s a luxury I can’t afford. Look, what
are
we going to do?”
    “What we always do,” Avelro said. “Send cavalry.”
    “Attack their army and find out if it’s Forza leading it?”
    “Absolutely. Even if we get a bloody nose, who gives a damn? We’ll find out if Forza’s alive and still in business. What could be more important than that?”
    Senza nodded firmly. “Yes,” he said, “let’s do that. Have a safe trip, and I’ll see you when you get back.”
    One of the disadvantages of being a general is that you almost never get to see the look on your enemy’s face at the exact moment when he realises he’s been comprehensively outflanked. “Me,” Avelro said, but by then it was far too late.
    “Of course,” Senza said. “There’s nobody I trust more to do a good job. Your speciality, I think, long-range cavalry raiding. Cast your mind back.”
    Twelve years earlier, when Avelro had been a captain and Senza his lieutenant, Avelro had made his name with a particularly daring surgical strike deep into enemy territory.
Never again
, he’d confided, just before he walked up to General Moisa to collect his medal.
No more heroics for me, Senza my boy. You only get so much luck this side of the Very Bad Place.
But he was a first-rate cavalry commander.
    He was also a realist. “Fine,” he said, and Senza couldn’t help admire the grace with which he accepted defeat, though in his view