It was nice to renew my acquaintance with the Misasip after so many years. This far north it wasn't as big, and the water was clearer, but it was the Misasip. Riding north to Sota, we crossed it three times on ferries. Fedor had sent a brother along to guide us, and there were stretches where travel was better on the west side while others were better on the east.
We were a goodly company—four masters, seven brothers including Kabibi, and three teamsters driving freight wagons with things for the new brother house. All of us were carrying sabers and bows; highwaymen weren't likely to bother us. According to Brother Sandip, highwaymen weren't often reported in the region anyway, and I could see why. Several times along the way we met highway patrols: six men, or eight, with sabers, bows, helmets—and hauberks, which had to be sweaty on late spring days.
Mostly the road was bordered by forest. On river terraces, forest was almost invariable, often with big old silver maples, and ancient sycamores three men together couldn't reach around. Must have been there since Armageddon. On the uplands, besides woods, there were fields, farmsteads, and patches of meadow or prairie, rich in flowers where they weren't grazed. The upland woods were mostly oaks, but often with shagbark, walnut, pignut and what have you. All in all it made for pleasant traveling.
It was three hundred miles from Moleen to Hasty, and we took eleven days to cover it. With the freight wagons, we never once broke into a trot. We spent the nights at rectories and inns, sleeping beneath the sky only once. All in all it was like a pleasure trip—except that each evening we four masters would get together away from the others, each of us with his radio to his ear, and check with Fedor in Moleen, for any news he might have for us. We didn't call Tahmm. He'd told me before we left the Academy, and repeated before we left Moleen, that I was chief of mission. Its management was my responsibility. If I wanted help, I could ask for it, and he might or might not provide it, but he wouldn't be advising or bypassing me. All he wanted was reports on what was happening, and a successful conclusion.
Which was how I wanted it, too.
We four masters knew one another well. We'd lived together and been classmates for more than five years. But the brothers were new to us, excepting Paddy, who Lemmi and I had known really well during the so-called Lizard War. By the time it was over, he was functioning more or less as a brother, without a day of training, learning on the job in the wildest operation the Order had ever taken on.
He'd grown a lot—not so much physically as mentally—in the five years since Lemmi and I had said goodbye to him in the Peoples Democratic Republic. He'd done a novitiate at Aarschot, graduated as an actual brother and been transferred to Moleen, where he'd come off a mission only days before we got there.
We got to know Kabibi pretty well, too. Jamila's baby sister! They were a lot different, partly because Kabibi was younger and less experienced than Jamila had been. But her basic personality was different, too. Though Kabibi was decisive, she didn't have Jamila's charisma. (Who did?) This wasn't her first mission, either; that one had been in Shy Free-Town, over east on the Sea of Mishgun. The first evening out we tested her saber drill. She was good, very very good, but not overwhelming like Jamila had been. Her aura showed her warrior essence tinged with scholar, like mine, though probably with a different focus.
At the inns and rectories where we stayed, we struck up conversations with innkeepers, travelers, and clergy, asking questions, getting a sense of the region and its people. There's usually a lot of conversation in inns, but rectories usually had a better ratio of fact to rumor. Of course, rumor is useful too; it gives a sense of people, attitudes, and situations.
The only rectory where we weren't well received was Carlian. The Carlian Order disapproves of Higuchians. The pastor there didn't even meet with us. His majordomo put us up in the stable, in the hayloft, saying their guest rooms were full. We saw no sign of other guests or their horses, but I thanked the man.
After all, he had confirmed, indirectly, what we'd been told about the Archbishop of Sota.
We deliberately bypassed Hasty, Sota's capital. Passed it on the other side of the Misasip, riding some three miles beyond Hasty Crossing to West Crossing, where tradition said Hasty had been before Armageddon. From West Crossing we rode a ferry to North Landing, four miles upriver of the capital, near the farm the Order had bought. When we got off the ferry, the clock on my belt com read 1820. We went straight to the farm, where the newly built brother house stood. Milo Bambino, the middle-aged caretaker, had already milked his cow. He helped us move our things in while his wife prepared a simple supper—bean soup with spicy sausage, rye bread, butter—and buttered sassafras tea. Delicious! At 2130 we bathed in the wash house, using buckets, at 2200 held a brief prayer service in the tiny chapel, and at 2215 went to the zendo for meditation. Ordinarily masters meditate in their cells at night, but to Carlos and Peng, this night was special. It was their first night as masters of their own Brother House.
By midnight, the last of us was in bed.