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The male Grogs behind Bee fell to their knees and covered their heads with their hands as men hurdled them. Bee dragged herself up to Valentine and sniffed his hand.
* * * *
Valentine took Bee, the other two, and a plate of cupcakes over to the workshop tent. As he issued cupcakes-most Grogs had a sweet tooth- he employed his rough-and-ready Grog but her dialect made it slow going. The other two Grogs understood him well enough, after a period of suspiciousness broken by Bee's emphatic thumping of Valentine's chest, a Grog version of saying "He's a stand-up guy," evidently.
Hoffman Price, the bounty hunter Bee traveled with, was dead, evidently of some illness.
He'd made it into free territory and turned Bee over to an old friend before dying during a surgery Bee didn't begin to understand. The old friend, whom Bee called White Hair, promptly dropped dead a short time after Price. White Hair's family either gave or sold Bee to a circus.
That's where she met the other two Grogs, Ford and Chevy. They'd been warriors from a tribe in Mississippi who crossed the river in some incursion and were left behind, wounded.
They were captured, defanged (they pointed to the big gaps in their teeth), and bought by the D.C. Marvels Circus.
They didn't know the name of the circus-Valentine had guessed it. He'd seen posters put up around the hospital giving the dates for the circus performances at the Jonesboro fairgrounds.
According to the men, it was mostly a set of rigged carnival games and bad ginger ales sold for three bucks a bottle. A beer that was all head cost six.
In the circus Bee performed what Valentine guessed to be a comic ballet in her tutu-all Valentine got from her was "make dance, make fall, make roll." The other two took turns standing in an empty kiddie pool while spectators threw rotten onions and tomatoes at them.
He ordered a couple buckets of warm soapy water, a sponge, and towels. First thing to do was get them cleaned up. And Bee out of that ridiculous tutu.
"You want finished circus?" he asked the three.
"Yes, yes," Ford and Chevy chorused. Bee used another word of her limited English vocabulary: "Pleease."
"Like join thinskins warrior tribe?"
Bee said her version of please again; Ford and Chevy pointed to the gaps in their dental work. "Not warriors. Us finished warriors."
"Not matter with thinskins," Valentine said.
They thumped Valentine's chest. This time Valentine relaxed into it, though he couldn't help taking a tender, experimental breath afterward to see if any ribs were broken.
* * * *
The men didn't much care for having Grogs among them. The former Quislings considered the troops who fought using Grogs the lowest of the low, hardly human themselves. Discontent filtered up through the sergeants and to Patel.
"Yes," Valentine told Patel, who seemed a little discomfited himself. "The Kurian Zone despises them. Southern Command hates them. But a uniformed Grog can cross a bridge or stand at a crossroads without anyone looking at him twice in the Kurian Zone. I'm sure you can see the use of that."
"Yes, sir."
"We're going to have to put them under someone. Any ideas?"
"Why don't we just call them the major's bodyguard?"
"That's a bit Lawrence of Arabia for me. Anyone who wants to do it gets to be a corporal, quick promotion-that is how they entice people to do it in the KZ. I'll teach whoever volunteers the language."
Glass, their heavy weapons expert, took the job. "Not so much that he likes Grogs; I just think he hates people more," Patel said. They talked over how they'd juggle the platoons once again.
A messenger interrupted them. "You won't believe what's outside, Major. It's quite a show."
Valentine peeked out one of the many cracks in the shack, and believed it. A pair of civilians stood at the gate, a rather dazzling bronzed man in a purple tailcoat and oversized yellow bow tie and a black mountain of muscle in overalls.
He'd been half expecting this. He went to the corner of the shack and took a tin plate off a bucket he'd been saving for just such an occasion. He filled his pockets.
Valentine closed the top button on his old militia tunic-he wanted the men to have their uniforms finished before they made his-and stepped out to the top step of the command shack.
"Is that him?" the man in the purple asked.
