The express resumed progress at five and there were no more interruptions. We thundered out of the night and into a more temperate dawn where the land was thick with snow but the ice storms had abated.
Suko raced the locomotive right up to the safety margins to make up time. The express cut down through the southern extremities of the Ate-nate Range, descending through hill country and rocky glacial plains. If I'd been awake, I would have seen hard pasture and scree slowly blooming into forest and deciduous woodland, and then the first little hamlets of the vast Southern Plateau, sunlit in the morning air.
But I was deep asleep, my wounds dressed, Barbarisater slumbering fitfully at my side and Crezia watching over me.
I woke after five, with the express still making excellent time. We were due in at New Gevae at midnight. I'd given Suko strict instructions to send no word ahead of our plight.
It was likely that Pontius would try again at New Gevae. I studied the route map and thought about getting Suko to make an unscheduled stop at one of the satellite stations in the towns north of New Gevae. We could disembark and hire air transport, and the train could run on to the city.
I thought my implacable and attentive enemy might anticipate this move. And I also considered that arriving in plain view at a major city terminal might be the safer plan.
I lay on my cabin's cot, meditating as the lowland scenery of the plateau zipped by outside. Medea was up and around by then, hobbling painfully and using, of all things, my runestaff as a crutch. Only she would have the wit to dare such disrespect.
She limped into my cabin and flopped down on the edge of my cot, nursing her sore back. Crezia was asleep in the opposite berth.
'Never a dull moment, eh?' said Medea.
'Never/
She nodded over at Crezia. 'She didn't leave your side, Gregor. All day/
'I know/
'She's more than just an old friend, isn't she?'
Yes, Medea/
'You and your secrets/
'I know/
You never told me/
'I never told anyone. Crezia Berschilde deserved the privacy/
She glanced at me. 'Gregor Eisenhorn deserved the privacy too, don't you think? You may be a great and terrible inquisitor and everything, but you're a human being too. You have a life outside this awful work/
I thought about that. Sadly, I didn't agree.
'But you're together again, then. You and the good doctor/
'I have renewed a friendship I should never have allowed to lapse/
"Yeah, right. Renewed/ She made a surprisingly coarse and graphic gesture.
I couldn't help but smile. 'Was there something else, or did you just come in to demonstrate the vulgar extremes of your miming ability?'