Free The Grey Pilgrim by J.M. Hayes Page B

her. On the trail here, the party that escorts her can cache everything she brings. That should render her harmless. They can even supply her with clothing and leave her own behind. Let her come to us with nothing from the outside. We can watch the cache and see if her people come to it. If they do not, we can assume she is not a spy, and we can gain much wealth at some later time, when we have learned what we need from her and sent her back to her people.”
    The men sat, nodding, talking among themselves. They were reassured. From out of the darkness on the slope below the cave they heard the voice of Cornsilk, Rat Skin’s senior wife.
    “I cannot imagine being afraid of any single woman, no matter what color her skin, can you my sisters? And I have never seen a White Woman. It would please me to discover in what ways we are different and in what ways the same.” It was a casual comment, gossip among women who sat watching the stars, but spoken in a voice that clearly carried into the council cave and cast aspersions on her husband’s bravery.
    Rat Skin chewed his nearly toothless gums in suppressed fury, but he knew when to give in. “I fear there is great danger here,” he said, in a voice as thin as his shanks, “but Jujul is right when he says we must learn about our enemies. I do not like it, but I also say, let her come.”
    The two who had followed his lead continued to do so.
    “Yes,” one said.
    “Let it be so,” agreed the other.
    Jujul had won. They would invite this strange White Woman. With luck, she would come.
    As the men began to rise and depart from the council he pulled out the bent and frayed paper the stranger named Fitzpatrick had left. There was so much to learn. What message, if any, had been sent him? And, if it was important, why entrust it to so fragile a material? What manner of man was this Fitzpatrick? Could he be reasoned with, or might Jujul have to kill him? So much to learn, so very much. At least now there would be a chance to learn it.

An Immortality Few Earn
    Kempeitai Headquarters in Tokyo occupied a modern building of insipid European design only a few blocks from the American Embassy. The army staff car delivered Sasaki there after only one minor accident. The bicyclist they struck wasn’t seriously injured, if the tenor of his curses was an indication, but the chauffeur and his escorts didn’t stop to find out.
    An unusual snow had recently fallen democratically upon the roofs of rich and poor alike, thatching them with the same thin blanket of sooted white. The snow had been shoveled from the streets and lay in melting piles along the sidewalks, dikes to hold back the traffic from the shops and homes behind—a congested flood that moved with the sluggish uncertainty of a serpent caught by an early cold snap.
    The car pulled up at the main entrance and Sasaki and his heavily armed attendants spilled into the smoke-tinged air. Sasaki automatically scanned his environment, weighing threats and evaluating opportunities. As usual, these men who had surrounded him from the moment he returned to his headquarters in the ribbon seller’s city stationed themselves in a professional manner. He was contained or he was dead. There might come a time to choose the latter option, but not yet.
    Guards at the entrance came stiffly to attention in recognition of his rank, or the authority of his companions. Inside, it was warm from the steam heat and concentrated tension of those crowding the building’s foyer. Not many people awaited appointments with the military police without trepidation. There would have been nearly as much sweat here had there been no heat.
    They took him to a reception desk where a small clerk with thick spectacles shuffled one pile of paper into three, then recombined them into a new order. Sasaki had the feeling he could make the job last a week.
    “Captain Kozo Sasaki to see Mr. Renya Kira,” the commander of his guards said. Sasaki’s name didn’t impress