by Mary Gentle
I took both of those thin, six-fingered hands in mine. I felt a very Orthean humour, some emotion between wonder and melancholy; thinking, Yes, that’s Hal, you’d use even your death to find out what you want to know. Isn’t that just like you?
I ached to tell him the truth.
‘Ruric would have approved,’ I said. ‘Of everything. Even the manner of her death, perhaps; it came out of as great a love for the Hundred Thousand as she had. Isn’t it strange where that can lead. She burned Orhlandis telestre, and you …’
His hands tightened on mine, but with so little strength that they seemed boneless. ‘It’s done. I would undo it if I could.’
Droplets of sea mist sparkled on the white stone walls. For all that there was business awaiting the T’An Seamarshal, for all that preparations for Midsummer demanded attention, we sat there in the weak sunlight, in silence, until the harsh clangour of the city bells marked out the hour of noon.
For three of the next six days I was the only offworlder in Tathcaer. Douggie took the shuttle to the Coast to try and talk with Anzhadi-hiyek, but his transmissions reported only failure. Sethri and his raiku were missing. On the fourth day Corazon Mendez and a group of her officers overflew the land round Tathcaer, and caused problems by attempting to land in the city; a rocky islet just beyond the estuary, Kumiel, was eventually set aside by the T’An for this purpose. And that made me realize: Tathcaer is a city again, with inhabitants and proscriptions and takshiriye, it has a Court and will have a Crown, we can no longer treat it as deserted …
And Tathcaer for those six days lay under a sweltering heat. Lapuur expanded their feather-fronds, shadowing the white walls with greenery. Passers-by hugged alley walls, where the shadows were coolest. Ortheans, still coming in from the surrounding countryside, slept outside in sunbaked courtyards; and though it was quiet from noon until second twilight, after that a hubbub of voices arose; Ortheans drinking herb-tea and siir-wine in brick courtyards, and even the smallest ashiren sitting still to listen and ask questions. On the long walk from Westhill-Ahrentine to the Citadel and back I heard two topics of conversation. Overt: who is most suited to be Crown? Covert: are the Wellhouses right when they say what we should do when the invaders come?
I talked with them, and with the T’Ans of Rimon, Ymir, and Roehmonde; with the Andrethe of Peir-Dadeni, the T’An Seamarshal and T’An Melkathi and T’An Kyre.
The last day of Durestha Eighth week: ‘The question is,’ I said, ‘what will the hiyeks do? They must know the Hundred Thousand could be planning to divide them up and then kill them.’
Douggie raised his eyebrows. ‘Take hostages from the telestres? No, that only succeeds if there’s that fear of death.’
Heat reflected back from walls into the courtyard of the companion-house, where we sat under feather-fronded lapuur and the black and scarlet ziku. Spore cases floated down through the humid air. It was a big courtyard, several groups of Ortheans were sitting round tables talking or playing ochmir, and shaggy bronze marhaz were stabled in a pen on the far side. Kekri-flies hovered over heaps of dung. There was a rank smell from the harbour, visible through the archway entrance.
‘My guess is that the Coast Ortheans won’t split up,’ I said. ‘Would you? They’ll take some land, some fertile land, and try to – well, in effect, build a Maherwa or a Reshebet. Not hiyeks taking control of telestres, but a hiyek province in the Hundred Thousand.’
Doug, about to answer, looked past me at the archway. ‘Good grief.’
I looked over my shoulder. A frail, silver-maned male; staff in one hand, the other resting on a younger male’s shoulder – Haltern Beth’ru-elen, and the T’An Melkathi, Nelum Santhil. While I gaped, Hal limped up to us and sank down on a wooden couch-chair.
‘Siir-wine, if you please,’ he said to Santhil, and when the dark male had gone into the companion-house, smiled at us. ‘I feel a little better, I think. Don’t tell Blaize Meduenin. I’m still hoping to make him take the Crown.’ His pale eyes gleamed.
‘Hal,’ I said weakly; then shook my head. ‘I give up.’
‘Very wise, s’aranthi-te.’
A small child, dark-maned and some six seasons old, followed Nelum Santhil out of the companion-house; and coming up to us, said, ‘Will you play ochmir, t’ans?’ and then fell silent, gazing at offworlders. Doug took the board and counters from kir. I saw a glance pass between Hal and Santhil, and the T’An Melkathi went off towards one of the other groups of players.
All intrigue under the surface, I thought, who knows what’s happening? The takshiriye hear word from all the Hundred Thousand telestres, and not all those words are for others’ ears …
‘– a hiyek province in the Hundred Thousand,’ Doug Clifford finished repeating our discussion as he set up a three-handed game of ochmir. Those small bright eyes flicked up to surprise whatever unguarded expression Haltern might have. He hadn’t.
‘A Witchbreed province,’ Hal corrected. ‘Listen to what’s said here. The Coast hiyeks have the canals, that’s Witchbreed science, and the telestre people won’t see it as a “province” but as a seed of a future Empire.’
‘Call it a colony,’ I said. ‘Call it what you like, I can see it being attacked. If not with harur-blades, then with something to starve them out of the land. Hal, could your people be brought to fire the land? Become land-destroyers, as once in Melkathi –’
‘No!’ His denial was too emphatic.
We played in silence for a time, making those alliances that occur in ochmir with three players: Hal and I, Hal and Doug, Doug, and I. A shadow fell across the table. When I looked up, it was to see the clear eyes and scarlet mane of Cassirur Almadhera.
She grinned at Haltern, ‘Down at the harbour, listening to travellers’ gossip? And you so sick you couldn’t leave the Citadel! Or so the Meduenin told me …’
‘You’ve no business to follow a sick old man.’ Haltern, ruffled, hitched his chirith-goyen robe round his thin shoulders; more piqued than anything else. ‘It seems She spares me for a little time yet – but not for my ease. How did you find me?’
Cassirur Almadhera indicated some ashiren who were sweeping the courtyard free of ziku spore cases. Two of the children grinned, and I recognized them as hers. Haltern snorted. The light of Carrick’s Star shone a pale gold here, slanting down through the feathery lapuur, gilding his pale mane; dazzling on Cassirur. It shone warm on the dusty flagstones, and, past the shadow of the arched entrance, on the masts of jath-ships moored at that dock. Not far from this companion-house at the foot of Crown Way, I had first disembarked, entering the Hundred Thousand.
‘Come up to the Citadel,’ Cassirur said. ‘It’s time for the T’Ans of the provinces to lay down their authority. Tomorrow there will be named a T’An Suthai-Telestre. Tonight the city is under the authority of the Wellhouses.’
Haltern stood, beckoning Nelum Santhil over from one of the other tables.
‘We’ll come,’ I said. ‘Doug, we should speak with the T’Ans again before the transfer of authority happens.’
Skurrai-jasin stood outside the entrance of the companion-house. The stocky, reptilian beasts nibbled at kazsis-vine with their pointed upper lips while they waited; and the sun shone gold on the fine-fibred shaggy pelts. A cool breeze blew off the harbour. Masts creaked. I gazed along the line of ships – fewer now than when the city was the port for all outlanders entering the Hundred Thousand – and at the cloth awnings of food-sellers’ booths on the quay, and at the crowds. Haltern beckoned me to his carriage, leaving Cassirur to follow in the next with Doug and Nelum Santhil. I sat down in the jasin’s padded wooden seat. The flagstones jolted us. The driver leaned forward to shout at bright-robed Ortheans to move out of the way. Sun and humid heat blurred their voices, blurred the gleam of gems and harur-blades. When I glanced back I saw Nelum Santhil had left his skurrai-jasin and was walking across the quay to a Melkathi ship.
‘Do you trust him?’ I said.
Haltern Beth’ru-ele
n smiled. ‘No. I’ve known too many T’Ans to do that.’
‘Hal, you’re T’An Seamarshal!’
‘That must prove them untrustworthy … S’aranth, he’s afraid. We all are. There are rumours that the Coast Ortheans have Witchbreed weapons newly remade.’ Here he shrugged, and reached into the sleeves of his white robe for ataile leaves; and said indistinctly as he chewed them, ‘My takshiriye Messengers report that to be false, and I think it so. What may be true is that Earth technology and Earth weaponry is finding its way to the hiyeks.’
The skurrai carriage wheeled as the driver shouted curses, avoiding a cart piled high with shelled edible hura. Then we swung away from the docks, entering the city.
I said, ‘Have you thought? If I were Sethri Anzhadi, I know what part of this land I’d try to take and hold … Tathcaer. Take this city, and the nearest farming telestres in Ymir and Rimon.’
‘It makes no difference,’ Haltern said. ‘If there’s such a cancer in the Hundred Thousand we can’t leave it, we must cut it away or kill it, even if it is the white city. You asked me, could we become land-destroyers … I fear for Tathcaer.’
We jolted through the narrow alleys up to the Citadel Square. The skurrai-jasin often stopped, hailed by Ortheans who wanted to question the T’An Seamarshal. Peir-Dadeni riders with manes pulled up in plumes on the crowns of their heads, and braided intricately down their spines, leaned six-fingered hands on the sides of the carriage or gestured extravagantly. Plainly-dressed Ymirians put stolid questions, their eyes veiled against the summer sun. They walked barefoot in dusty alleys black with shadow; and in the narrow gap of sky between buildings daystars shone like a scatter of salt.
Must war come here? I thought. War with weapons that Sethri Anzhadi will call “Witchbreed”, that will be blackmarket Earth weapons, and really where’s the difference between them? How can Tathcaer be defended against that?
The Square was crowded. Ortheans called comments to the T’Ans who passed, going up the cliff-walk to the Citadel. I gave Haltern my arm and we made slow progress up the zigzag walk.
‘We shall see,’ he said, pausing, ‘if tomorrow in the Square the s’ans name us T’An again … And then to see who will be T’An Suthai-Telestre …’
I let him get his breath. The city sweltered below: square, Wellhouse, and all. Up on the crag I saw no Crown Guard, but the brown robes of Earthspeakers and Wellkeepers were everywhere. They directed us, with Doug and Cassirur (and where, I thought, is Nelum Santhil?) to a low-roofed hall that was lit only by windows facing into an inner courtyard.
As Cassirur went to speak with an elderly Wellkeeper, Doug Clifford moved up beside me.
‘Dalzielle Kerys-Andrethe held audiences here before she died, the last time I was in Tathcaer.’ He kept his voice low, not to be overheard in that crowded place. ‘It wasn’t often that she allowed offworlders to be present.’
Ribbon-banners hung from the walls, muted by the crepuscular light. Both the great hearths were bare. Two or three dozen telestre-Ortheans clustered together in the middle of the hall, their robes and gems rich; and I saw how one fair-maned male wearing the silver circlet of a T’An had gold studs set between the fingers of his delicate hands – and is that Khassiye? I thought. A thin, proud face: Cethelen Khassiye Reihalyn, minister to the then Andrethe when I knew him. When he refused me entrance to the city Shiriya-Shenin, after I came down, a footsore refugee, from the mountains called the Wall of the World …
‘T’An Khassiye,’ I said, greeting him; and Haltern, leaning heavily on my arm, said, ‘T’An Khassiye is Andrethe of Peir-Dadeni now.’
Khassiye smiled, his thin face looking little older. ‘T’An Christie. T’An Seamarshal. You’ve come to lay down that authority? It’s a heavy burden for a man not well.’
‘Yours is the heavier,’ Haltern said, ‘since being adopted n’ri n’suth into the Andrethe telestre, I think. Reihalyn was a low-river telestre, wasn’t it, T’An?’
Khassiye flushed. Debate from other groups overtook us. That needling rivalry between the T’Ans amused me; I didn’t need to follow all its finer detail. As I stood and looked at the people gathered in the hall, I recognized many faces, pointing out to Doug those that he might not recognize:
‘T’An Howice of Roehmonde …’ A plump male, swathed in zilmei pelts and sweating because of it: when I was in the northern province of Roehmonde, it was he who imprisoned me for a Wellhouse trial. ‘T’An Bethan; I never knew The Kyre province well, she’s a stranger; that’s T’An Geren Hanathra –’
Douggie peered at the large, fair-maned male. ‘Wasn’t he a shipmaster? And mixed up with the Orhlandis woman?’
‘He was Ruric’s arykei. It was his ship that brought me from the Eastern Isles to Tathcaer, the first time I came to the Hundred Thousand.’
That progress brought me to a position from where I could see the far end of the long, low hall. A marble block was set up there. Massive, almost translucent in the shadowy light … Two of those young Ortheans who act as I’ri-an stood by it, with a male in Earthspeaker’s robes. The stone was carved in relief with marhaz, zilmei, trailing kazsis-vines, hanelys-flower. On its flat top surface were cut seven circles, Well symbols, that might hold the silver circlet of a T’An and were empty now; and an eighth circle cut deep into the stone, that held the plain gold circlet worn by the T’An Suthai-Telestre.
‘The ceremony’s timed for noon,’ a voice said behind me. I turned. It was Blaize Meduenin. The light half hid his face, but gleamed on that silver streak in the mane. He still wore plain mercenary’s gear.
‘Is that the way for a T’An Rimon to dress?’ I teased.
‘We need more than pretty finery now. Christie, if they name me T’An Rimon tomorrow, I’ll raise up companies of fighters from the Rimon telestres. We need a T’An Commander of the telestre forces, now; the new Crown should appoint one.’ His hands fell automatically to the hilts of harur-nilgiri, harur-nazari.
Does that means you’d sooner be T’An Commander? I wondered. Or does it sound like a T’An Suthai-Telestre deciding policy? Out of all these here, you’re the only one that really knows the hiyeks and Earth. Other than Haltern; but Hal …
‘Where’s the T’An Melkathi?’ Blaize asked, running his gaze over the group present. ‘If Nelum Santhil’s going to be here by noon, he’s leaving it late.’
Now there’s a man I wouldn’t be sorry to see not named as T’An Melkathi tomorrow, I thought. Nelum Santhil Rimnith, who once took bribes from Kel Harantish – what would Ruric think if she knew? And she does know, I imagine; there isn’t much the Hexenmeister doesn’t hear.
And I wish she could be here now.
I looked round at the company, the T’Ans of the provinces, those who accompanied them; the shaven manes of Wellkeepers and Earthspeakers, and the lively young faces of the l’ri-an. All those alien faces. Wide, whiteless eyes; narrow chins. And the thin bodies in scarlet, blue and amber-coloured robes; the delicate high-arched feet and strong six-fingered hands … and their voices, a babel of the languages of the seven provinces. Harur-blades clashed gently as they moved.
None of them are Suthafiori, none of them are T’An Commander Ruric; but still, it’s the same land, I thought. Though I saw Cassirur Almadhera talking with Doug, it didn’t stop a surge of hope. There’s a way through this, if we can find it. Haltern, Blaize; even Khassiye and Santhil and Howice; they’re more practised at keeping the telestres whole than we can ever imagine, practised over long years and long lives …
Because I was watching Cassirur with Doug, I saw the elder of her black-maned children enter the hall and approach her. She bent her head to listen to the ashiren, and her face changed. There was a commotion at the door, and then two more people entered. One offworlder – what the hell is Cory Mendez doing here now? And the other, half-crippled with the haste in which he’d arrived, was the dark-maned Nelum Santhil. The talking in the hall stopped. Outside, noon bells began to ring. They went unnoticed, except that Nelum
Santhil raised his voice to be heard over them: ‘There’s no time for ceremonies,’ he said. ‘Tell the s’ans in the city. If we’re to have a Crown, we must have one now. There’s no more time.’
He reached out and gripped the arm nearest him, which was Cassirur’s, and leaned on that while he struggled for breath. We stood frozen in that twilight hall, waiting. The clamour of the noon bells ceased.
Into that silence he said, ‘Warships from the Coast landed at Rynnal and Vincor and Rimnith this morning. They’re burning the telestres. They’re burning Melkathi.’
22
First Strike
‘Why the fuck weren’t we warned?’ I demanded.
Cory’s sharp face was livid with anger. ‘Surveillance showed nothing. Those vessels must have slipped out of the Coast ports under cover of hurricane conditions – damn Rachel! She should have told me primitive craft could survive that.’
‘Where are they now?’
The hum of voices in half a dozen languages almost drowned her out, but I heard her say: ‘– heat-sensors can’t tell one native craft from another. I’m going to overfly the area. It’s the only way. Jamison; Ottoway! Move!’
Two of her young officers fell in beside her as she pushed through the crowded entrance and out of the hall, head high, that sleek white hair a blazon. I forced my way through the press of bodies to Doug Clifford’s side.
‘The Peace Force was going to Melkathi.’
‘So am I,’ he said grimly. ‘This will have to be reported. I’ll take the government shuttle. I’ll send out tapes to every WEB of the Heart Worlds, let them see what the Company’s doing here.’
‘You’ll need a pilot, then – I’ll come.’
He nodded. The low entrance of the hall was jammed with bodies, and I shoved between Khassiye and Howice T’An Roehmonde, aware that Doug followed; ignored a question from Cassirur on the way out, and at last came half-walking and half-running out into the sunlight at the top of the cliff-walk. The light of Carrick’s Star was momentarily blinding. I stopped. Doug pointed, and I saw far away pinpricks of light on the Ymirian hills – heliographed warnings.