"So you would rather talk about him," said Zosia, wondering, hoping, praying, and doubting that by clearing the air where that pervert was concerned they could get back to whatever had almost happened. "Sure, we had something once-we were friends. Then he decided he wanted to fuck me more than he cared about most anything else, as far as I could tell. Hells, maybe we were never even really friends."

Zoisa took the flask back and emptied it before continuing. "You know he would never spar with me? Ever. Said he was worried he'd mess up my pretty face. So then I told him I only slept with those who had bested me in combat, and the next fucking day he had the dull irons out, pushing me to duel him. After that I had to fight him not to fight him, if you follow, but he never got lucky enough to beat me, praise the gods of steel. So that's what we had-a very, very sick relationship, contrary to whatever lies he told."

"He never said anything happened," said Purna. She seemed as heartbroken as old Maroto, lying in the dust. Nothing less sexy than sadness. "I just thought he was being discreet. Romantic."

"Oh, girl," said Zosia ruefully. "Maroto's been called a lot of things in his day, by me and others, but I don't think he's ever been accused of either discretion or romance."

"Shit," said Purna, slumping a little. "Shit and damn. I really wanted to... Never mind."

"Really wanted to what, patch things up between us? You can't patch something that doesn't exist to be rent in the first place. And if you thought enticing me into some devil's three-way with you and him was ever going to-"

"Ew, no!" said Purna. "I do not want that!"

"So if we're done talking about him, then..." said Zosia, giving it one last go and sliding her hand back onto Purna's leg. Even a low fire can be banked up after all.

"Shit shit shit," said Purna, scrambling to her feet. Her cheeks were as red as Maroto's had been when she'd rebuked his kiss. "Shit! Don't get me wrong, I'd love to, you're even hotter than I imagined. But... shit!"

"Purna," said Zosia, "take a deep breath, now. This doesn't have anything to do with anything; we're just two women talking in a tent."

"If you and he had... even once, that would be one thing!" said Purna, grabbing her hood from beside Zosia. "But I can't, not now. Of course he can be a creep, and a jerk, and a hundred other things, but he's also my best friend. I can't do this, much as I'd like to. It would kill him. Shit!"

"You don't owe him anything," said Zosia, but she could tell the girl was long gone, even as she stood there kneading her cloak in her hands. "Neither of us do."

"No," said Purna, all her boldness gone. "Please don't tell him we even... Bye!"

And just like that, Zosia was alone in her tent again. This was getting really fucking old-she'd never had so much trouble getting laid in her life. It was coming up on a year... from the first time on, had she ever gone a year? A month? Not a week, if she could help it.

On the bright side, according to Ji-hyeon the Imperial regiment pursuing the Cobalt Company was none other than the Fifteenth out of Azgaroth, led by Colonel Hjortt himself, so as far as the vengeance game went, Zosia couldn't have prayed for a better hand. She was keenly looking forward to seeing the thumbless murderer again, and breaking the shit out of her oath to kill him last-him, and his entire cavalry, and his big war nun bodyguard. It was almost too perfect an offering, a regular Kypck reunion.

Had Indsorith sent her pawns here as a sacrifice to appease Zosia, as though she were some ravenous devil that could be sated? Doubtful. It was far more likely the Fifteenth Regiment was set out as bait to draw her into a trap, but that was just fine with her-the Crimson Queen of Samoth wasn't the only one who could sacrifice an army for the sake of a personal vendetta, and if the Cobalt Company had a rough time of it when the battle raged, that was a small price to pay for vengeance against those who had killed her husband, her people. Then, long after the smoke had cleared and no sign was found of Cold Cobalt, the queen might be alone one night in her throne room, when an unexpected guest joined her...

Choplicker whined, and Zosia reached for Purna's smoldering cigar butt to throw at him when she saw the real cause of his outburst: Hoartrap had appeared in the opposite corner of her tent, smiling like a freshly freed devil.

"Just when you think it can't get any worse," said Zosia. "Don't tell me you've learned how to materialize out of thin air."

"Would that it were so," said Hoartrap, wiping dust off the front of his robes. "I unpin tent posts and squirm under just like everyone else, I'm afraid. The key is doing so when the occupants are too busy to notice."

"There's mercy in hell, then," said Zosia. "I don't suppose you can conjure some booze?"

"Ah, now there is a trick within my talents," said Hoartrap, removing a small bottle from the cavernous pockets of his saffron robes. "Care for a puff as well as a tipple?"

"Since it worked out so well the last time, why not?" said Zosia. With a sigh, she looked at Choplicker. "Fine. You're off until he is, but if I catch one word that you've been into any mischief at all-"

But the devil didn't wait to hear the rest of her oath, shooting out of the tent and away from the wizard as fast as his legs could carry him.

"I don't think he missed me," said Hoartrap. "A pity, I've thought of him often since you both disappeared."

"All right, Hoartrap." Zosia hopped up from her cot in a quick, pantherlike motion that she'd be feeling in her hips for hours to come. She strutted toward him with a bravado that felt as patently false as Purna's, hoping it wouldn't come down to her and Hoartrap. Hoping for once Choplicker hadn't strayed far. "I need you to be totally straight with me for the first time in your miserable life. Did you put those Imperials onto me at Kypck, or was it the queen? Lie to me and it'll be a lot worse for you."

"I never even suspected you were alive," said Hoartrap, patting a hand to his breast. "I swear it on all the devils I've eaten. Don't think I didn't check, either! Choplicker kept you well hidden-did you manage to bind him a second time, or did he do that out of love?"

"He tricked me," said Zosia, relieved to feel all the fight slough out of her. "Kept me hidden, all right, just as long as it suited his needs. Wondered why he stuck around for nigh on twenty years after I offered him an out, and now I know-he turned it down. You ever hear of a devil saying no to an easy wish?"

"No," said Hoartrap, scratching at a boil on his bullish neck. "Which makes one wonder if the wording of your wish was such that he honored it without your notice, and is indeed a free devil. There are songs of ancients in Emeritus who befriended devils, rather than binding them."

"If that were true Choplicker could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted," said Zosia. "There's a cheery thought."

In a great swirl of robes, dust, and mighty-thewed legs, Hoartrap sat down on his ass in the middle of the tent. From an inner pocket he removed the pipe Zosia had carved him thirty years past from a black gnarl of nigh-petrified oak he had brought her, claiming to have dredged it from a swamp. It took ages for that oak to dry, and the peaty bouquet of the bog never quite left the wood, but Hoartrap seemed delighted in the result. The downward curve of its yellow horn stem was inlaid with leopard palm where it joined the black oak shank, the wood carrying downward another inch before swooping back up and out into a bowl shaped like a half-bloomed tulip. The rough stratifications of the unique wood made it look less like a pipe and more like a grotesque snail shell or ebon stinkhorn. As he packed the piece from a ratty leather purse, he said, "We have so, so much to discuss, old friend."

"Mmmm," said Zosia, retrieving from the table the bowl she'd packed earlier. She remembered how touched Maroto had been when she'd given it to him at that kaldi house back in Linkensterne, just a year or two before he helped her become Queen of Samoth, Keeper of the Crimson Empire. "Another time, old Touch, I'm about talked out at present. You amenable to a more meditative meeting?"

"Oh sure," said Hoartrap jovially. "You know I love nothing more than sitting and staring silently at you for hours, occasionally murmuring portentously."

"So long as you don't talk," said Zosia, canting her pipe to accept the floating flame Hoartrap offered her. Light. Puff. Tamp. Light. Puff.

That order.

As far as plans went, this one succeeded wildly, and Zosia settled back on her bed with a groan. What a fucking day. The best part was that even after staying up all night with Ji-hyeon planning strategy, even with the better terrain, she was still unconvinced any of their tactics could overcome a much larger force with military experience-the Imperials had the numbers, like they always did, and even with that green kid Colonel Hjortt leading them, the new Cobalts were still in for one tearjerker of a song. She had helped talk Ji-hyeon into throwing down here and now because if the Cobalts carried the day, she could have her vengeance on both the cavalry that had slaughtered Kypck and the colonel she had foolishly let slip through her fingers, but if the Cobalts couldn't pull this off, it might be one of her last days on earth.

And how was she spending it? Sexually frustrated, smoking a pipe that she had thought peerless when she'd carved it but now saw it for the crude work that it was, a pipe that was burning far too hot due to the Oriorentine blend having dried out in her purse. Her only companion was the evilest man she'd ever met, and adding insult to injury, his bottle contained creme de violette and his pipe smelled more flowery still, packed with a mixture of astringent, powerful tambo and some soapy brown flakes that made the whole tent reek like a geriatric's perfumed undergarments. Cold Zosia, former Queen of Samoth, this is what a year of hard work and heartache gets you: exactly what you deserve.

Just like old times, sure enough.

After a substantial interval of pungent contemplation, Hoartrap broke his promised silence. "Want to go to a party later?"

CHAPTER.

15.

There had been times when Domingo hated his son. Not the sort of thing any father cares to admit, but there it was. No matter which way you sliced it, when you got to the bone of the boy you found marrow of the purest yellow. Efrain Hjortt wasn't just a coward, either, he was also a weakling. And a sniveler. Hard as Domingo had tried to help the lad become worthy of his mother's house, firm as the Azgarothian Academy had been with the boy, nothing seemed to help-he had the spine of a jellied eel, and the vicious selfishness of a living member of that species. Away on campaign for months at a stretch, if not longer, Domingo saw the boy grow in great bounds, but never to discernible benefit. Each time he returned and saw Efrain the boy's sneering smile was broader, as was his belly, but while he eventually became somewhat adequate with a sword, there was no doubt this indolent teenager would never be fit for commanding anything more important than a dinner party. He wanted to blame his sister-in-law Lupitera for retarding Efrain's maturity, he wanted to blame Concilia for casting off her family and moving to Trve, but at his heart Domingo knew that his son's weakness stemmed from neither the influence of his aunt nor the absence of his mother.

Yet still he had told himself his son would come into his own, that all he needed was that push into the saddle. And Domingo Hjortt, decorated Colonel of the Crimson Empire, Baron of Cockspar, a shrewd ruler in peace and war alike, was totally, utterly wrong. For most of the boy's life, Domingo had vacillated between lying to himself about Efrain's quality and despising the child for possessing none. What a waste.

Now, as Domingo lay broken and battered in the back of a wagon, bouncing down a seemingly eternal mountain road, he was done with delusions about Efrain, and all that remained was hatred. Efrain was the reason he was here, and thus Efrain was the reason his left hip had shattered under a horned wolf's headbutt. Efrain was the reason he'd lost all feeling in his right arm. Efrain was the reason half his head was so swollen from slamming face-first into the ground that he still couldn't see out of one eye, a full week after the attack. Efrain was a chump who never should have been in charge of a modest kitchen, let alone a regiment, but that was no excuse for getting himself wrapped up in ridiculous plots and then murdered for his trouble.

Really, how did any ranking officer get himself killed, in this day and age? Once again Efrain had scraped new lows, bringing his aged father down with him, and the only way for Domingo to restore his honor was to avenge his son. He was as bound by familial duty to catch Efrain's killer as Efrain had been to lead the Fifteenth, come to think it, both men destroying themselves in the name of the other, and there was another nasty bump in the road to aid him in shedding a few tears over the tragedy of it all. If only Lupitera had been here to witness it all, she'd have given him a standing ovation-the shows down at the Iglesia Mendoza didn't have a red herring on the drama of the Hjortts.

Unlike most of those tragedies, this bit of overwrought theater would have a happy ending: drenched in blood, the old hero unmasks his enemies, and executes most of the cast. His maneuver with the Immaculate prince turned out to be unneeded, but then a little comedy to break things up always made the serious bits hit harder. To think he had actually been worried that the pope was wrong, that all the rumors were false and Zosia was as dead as she deserved to be. That this new Cobalt Company was just a band of phonies, led by the runaway Immaculate girl that Prince Byeong-gu had been chasing. Funnier still, even in his current condition Domingo was relieved to know that the Stricken Queen had indeed cheated death, that she was the one who had murdered his son, that she was the one who had ordered the horned wolf attack on his camp. Even without catching her old Villain Maroto sneaking past his tent, Domingo would have recognized that insane tactic as bearing the stamp of Zosia-no one else in all the songs of today, tomorrow, or yesterday would have dared such a deranged, suicidal maneuver.

Much as it hurt to admit it, he could learn a trick or two from his blue-haired archenemy-her gambit had paid off. Even if she had sacrificed a few soldiers in the course of luring the monsters down from the mountain, the Fifteenth had lost over a hundred foot soldiers, fifty-some archers and gunners, and their two best witchborn guards... and that wasn't even getting into the Ninth's losses, or the horses the retreating wolves had carried off when their blood thirst was sated, or the panic that the attack had caused. Another fifty soldiers had deserted that very night, and running them down and hanging them had wasted a full day they should have been on the march. How do you wage war against such madness? Countering with some deranged, devilish maneuvers of his own was just the thing to bring Zosia down for good, and make it take this time... Not like he had much to lose, unable to ride a horse of his own and needing an anathema to help him so much as take a piss. As the Burnished Chain became increasingly popular in the Azgarothian court as it did everywhere else, Domingo's insistent hewing to the godless ways of his ancestors was viewed as increasingly eccentric, so it would probably come as quite the relief to everyone back home when they heard he had destroyed the Cobalt Company with the help of the church.

"Sir?" Splayed in his deep nest of padding and pillow in the wagon bed and unable to move his neck without extreme distress, Domingo kept his gaze on the crimson twilight leaching into the high peak looming over them but knew who had ridden up beside him without needing to see her.

"What is it, Shea? I'm a very busy man."

"The witchborn scouts? They've returned with news."

Domingo closed his eye, speaking with more patience than he thought he possessed. "And what is the news, Shea?"

"The Cobalt Company, sir? We've found them. They appear to be fortifying a camp?"

"Where?" Domingo's heart soared into the darkening sky; he had anticipated another agonizing pursuit all over the Star, but maybe twenty-odd years on, Zosia was as tired of running as he was of chasing her.

"Where the road comes down into the plains? They cut north as soon as the ground evened out enough for their wagons. Their camp is where the foothills back into some famous mountain... It's called the Lark's Tongue?"

"I've ridden past it," said Domingo, remembering, remembering... "Good position. Not great, but good. Steep ridges come out on either side of where they'll camp at the base, so we won't be able to flank them, but that also means they'll have nowhere to run-the mountain's too sheer to safely climb away." Thinking, thinking... "Smarter than I thought. The Cobalt Company's burning their boats so the volunteers can't flee if the battle takes a turn. She's transforming her little blue mice into cornered rats. Just when I think I've got you figured out..."

"Sir?"

"Just pondering, Shea. A colonel mustn't be afraid of a good ponder from time to time." It wasn't right, her digging in for a last stand already. Zosia was changing up on him, so he would have to do the same to stay ahead. "How far are we from their camp? At earliest?"

"If we go the usual extra hour tonight? We're overlooking the plains now, so we should be down by late afternoon tomorrow, and from the foothills another solid day will take us within engaging distance. But we're still waiting on the all clear from Diadem, and the last owlbat we received from Colonel Waits said that the Third are still most of a week out from-"

"If I wanted to know where the Thaoan regiment was I'd have asked, Captain, and as far as the queen's written permission to engage the enemy goes, I daresay it's a bit late to get hung up on every formality," said Domingo, his mind swooping through the haze of time and memory and toward the silhouette of the Lark's Tongue overlooking the Witchfinder Plains. Cold Zosia wasn't the only one who could pull a trick to surprise the devils, and while he certainly hoped the Black Pope's weapon proved as devastating as advertised, a little insurance never hurt. "Inform the men we'll be stopping in half an hour for dinner."

"Very good, sir, an early night will still put us-"

"Three hours' rest, cold rations, and then we're marching through the night-just like the old days," said Domingo, wishing he could crane his neck to catch Shea's frown but wanting to save his strength for rarer game. "We won't catch the Cobalt Company with snoring troopers, Captain. Now find Colonel Wheatley and have him join me on the command wagon. There's a certain suicidally risky tactic I need to consult with him about."

"Sir?"

"Slip of the Lark's Tongue, Captain," said Domingo, groaning as the wagon bounced and his entire body warred to see which bit could cause him the most discomfort. "Be a good officer and keep it to yourself, lest I find myself in need of volunteers. By the time Waits limps in from Thao we're going to have every Cobalt head on a pike, save Zosia's-that one's going back to Azgaroth in a box. I'm going to mount it over my son's tomb."

"Zosia, sir?" Shea sounded as incredulous as she always did when he mentioned the Stricken Queen, like her old colonel was going soft in the helm. "You don't think the rumors-"

"You don't think at all, if you know what's good for you," said Domingo. "You're a soldier, damn it, not a bloody philosopher. Now fetch Wheatley, and bring along Wan, too-when you're bringing hell down on a pack of sinners, you can't have too many devils to help deliver the goods."

CHAPTER.

16.

The villagers Heretic impressed from the nearest hamlet brought a wagon with them. Portoles and the corpses of the other clerics all went into the bed, and then they were brought back downstream and taken over a rattley bridge. They passed through the hovels clustered on the riverside and then left the road, bouncing over a marshy field until they reached a great heap of wood the local children had gathered. The corpses went onto the pyre, and then oil went onto the corpes, and then the morning sky was obscured behind a wall of black smoke. Half-conscious in the back of the wagon, Portoles imagined she could see the Sunken Kingdom rising out of the mists of the Haunted Sea, but when a gust parted the smoke she saw it was just the thatched roof of a nearby hut on the far side of the pyre.

As her brethren burned, Heretic led the villagers in a bizarre dance around the blaze, the billowy cassock hanging off his lanky body making him resemble a living scarecrow. Portoles assumed it must be some pagan rite, but found out later that Heretic had successfully passed himself off as a brother of the Burnished Chain and told the ignorant villagers they were helping him in a funerary ritual for fallen clerics. He thought this a lot more amusing than she did. He explained all this in a hut set back on the willowed banks of the Heartvein, after the local mudhusband had tended to Portoles with a liberal mix of medicine, miracles, and mummery.

Heretic kept up his deception for the length of Portoles's recovery, and lest she give the game away, he only removed her gag at mealtimes. He told the mudhusband she was the ringleader of a renegade band of heretics, and must be healed in order to stand trial in Diadem. Portoles's former prisoner had quite the time of it, dining and gossiping with their elderly host and the man's daughter, dozing his days away by the river with a bottle of their best plum brandy, explaining that he couldn't offer any prayer services in the village as he was a war monk, better suited to acts of worship unfit for a friendly town. Portoles lay locked in the root cellar, alone with her prayers.

"Don't think they believed me, mind," said Heretic as they walked their horses around a frozen bog on the misty morning when they finally left. "Sure they saw right through me, but were happy enough to help the revolution, so long as they could honestly deny it after the fact."

Even without the gag Portoles wouldn't have spoken. Partly to deny Heretic the satisfaction, since he seemed of a mood to keep her as oblivious to his intentions as she had kept him to hers. Partly because riding a horse was agony, a perpetual stitch in her side and a tender throbbing in her guts and mangled hand. The stab wounds to her chest hurt like the worst kind of penance but had failed to puncture a lung, praise the Fallen Mother, and cinched as it was against a wooden brace, her broken arm only hurt when she moved. All told, she felt worse now than she had lying on the twilight butte, unsure if Heretic planned on returning.

"You know what he said, old Dafhaven back there? He said you were lucky he was also an animal mender, or he wouldn't have known what to do with you. Said under the skin you were more beast than woman, and that's what saved you-said a real person got worked over the way you did, their vitals would be too bad off to tend. Praise the Black Pope you were born a monster, yeah?"

The gag was so tight it hurt to smile, the straps cutting into the corners of Portoles's lips. For a time the only sound was of hooves cracking through hoarfrost and ice-capped puddles, frozen reeds snapping off against their flanks. On the far side of the fen they rejoined the road, but only long enough to cross it before plunging back into the cold, damp woodland on the far side. Heretic knew enough to keep them off the highways, after what had happened on the butte, and lest they encounter more agents of the Chain, he had them both change out of their robes and into plain linen and wool garments. Portoles had never felt so naked and vulnerable as she did in the heavy peasant's frock Heretic gave her, but it also brought the familiar tickle of the profane to her breast. She had no idea what gear remained on the pack mule, if her writs were safe, but she noticed he had salvaged her maul. A fine omen of his intent, that. Maybe.

"You know, when we first set out I wondered if you were one of us," he said when they'd made camp for the night on a soggy knoll jutting up from another expanse of miserable marshland. "There's a bigger concentration of support in the Dens than anywhere else in Diadem, you know that? Might seem odd to a pious maid like yourself, but a lot of your kind aren't happy with being called anathemas, treated worse than devils, by the same church that expects them to die in the name of the Savior. To sacrifice your whole life, serving an institution built to oppress you... Hey, are you asleep?"

Sitting with her back against the stump he'd chained her to, Portoles opened her eyes and gestured at the gag with her manacled hands. When he frowned across the small fire but did not rise to remove it she closed her eyes again. He could talk, but he couldn't make her listen-something he'd taught her, early in their acquaintance. Then she heard him squelching toward her, and held in a word of thanks as his grimy fingers pried the gag out of her mouth.

"I'm right curious, as you said back on the hill," said Heretic, holding a waterskin to her lips. She took it, and didn't spit it out when she tasted the sweet and flat barleywine of the Heartvein provinces. No sin there, so long as she didn't ask for it. "Denied it at first, so's not to give you the satisfaction. Wasn't planning on coming back for you, neither, not at first, but when I hit that river town a couple leagues out I couldn't help myself. Wasn't just that you saved me from the Office of Answers, or just that you'd fight your own kind without so much as squeezing out a fart by way of parley... But both together, well, that'd raise the interest of anyone. I can't read the hightalk on those documents you flash around whenever someone gives you lip, but I recognize the Royal Crimson Seal from the warrants they waved when they arrested me. So what is it you're after, Sister Portoles? What's your mission, up in the Isles, and now taking us all over the Empire? Why'd you bust me out, and keep me with you this whole time, instead of bringing along Imperial loyals, or Chain folk? You really one of us?"

"Cut this gag off for good and I'll tell you," said Portoles. Heretic considered this, then shrugged and sawed it off with the same knife that had punctured Portoles's bosom. He tossed the hated thing on the fire, her saliva popping and hissing as the gag twisted in the flames like a serpent. "All right, Heretic. You have many questions, but I'll do my best to answer some of them."

"My name's Boris, damn your tongue," said Heretic. "Boris. After all we've been through you could do me that courtesy, calling me by the name my mother gave me."

"I took you with me because the Fallen Mother put you in my path," said Portoles. "I fought my brethren alongside you because the Deceiver turned them against me. What I am after, my mission, as you say, is to do the will of the Savior, be it in the Isles, the Empire, or in hell itself. And as for whether I am, as you say, one of you, well, only the Fallen Mother or the Deceiver can say for sure-we are all mortal wretches born to die, Heretic, so in that respect, yes: I am one of you."

Heretic shook his head, frustrated as she'd yet seen him. "You... you've either got a better sense of humor than I expected, or you're even crazier than the rest of your kind."

"My kind meaning anathemas? I told you, Heretic, I am one of you."

"Your kind meaning Chainite crazies. It'll go better for you if you're up-front with me, Portoles, here and now, before anyone else gets involved."

"That sounds awfully familiar," said Portoles, enjoying herself for the first time since the Battle of the Butte. For all his high and mighty posturing, as soon as he had the chance he'd treated her even worse than she'd treated him. "I wonder where I've heard that sort of talk before. Oh yes, it was in the Office of Answers-the Askers said something similar to your friends. How many of them confessed, I wonder. And how much of a difference do you think it made in the end?"

"Try to be nice..." Heretic shook his head. "Just to show you I'm not the same as Imperials, or war nuns, for that matter, I'll keep my word where the gag's concerned. But when I turn you over you'll wish you'd leveled with me."

"I don't doubt you, Asker Boris," said Portoles, denying him the satisfaction of her asking whom he intended to turn her over to, and in the process giving herself a faint and fleeting thrill. "And I thank you for your mercy. Now, shall I take first watch, or did you have more questions for the accused?"

Heretic didn't have much else to say, either that night or the ones that followed, and as they broke away from the river and moved west Portoles contemplated the best way to escape. Outside the city of Black Moth she almost managed it, when he left her chained around the trunk of a cypress in the surrounding woodland before riding into town. By the time he got back, laden with supplies, she had sawn partway through the tree with her chain, her wrist dripping black in the light of his lantern. He sighed theatrically and moved her to a bigger tree before settling in for the night. She'd assumed he'd be meeting with other traitors, tracking down underworld sorts who would have a standing bounty on Imperial or Chain officers, but he'd come back far too quick... meaning he'd just been restocking on food and beer, as he'd said.

"You're a naughty nun, no mistake," said Heretic. "You know they call this place the Haunted Forest? I hurried back on account I was worried for your safety, leaving you tied up in such a place."

"My savior," said Portoles.