by Mary Gentle
‘They won’t risk it, surely?’
This F90 thrummed, flying the decreasing distance back to Kumiel Island to repower. Somewhere in the night outside, Merrum Firstweek Nineday was turning to Merrum Secondweek Firstday: time ticking on. Coded images in the holotank showed the longer scatter of hiyek ships, hugging the shelter of the Rimon coast.
‘All the Inner Sea is dangerous, if not known,’ Ruric added. ‘They’ll have jath shipmasters who know that, even in summer, to stay this long on open sea is to risk storms. Turn it about: the Sisters Islands are some shelter from that.’
My eyes blurred, and I sat back, rubbing at them. Fourteen hours, and this Orthean summer day not yet over; a day spent airborne above jath and jath-rai. Of a possible nine contacts, seven successful. I thought: I can’t judge, any longer, what “success” might be …
Ruric Hexenmeister leaned back from the holotank, one bare black foot coming up to rest on its rim: high-arched and claw-nailed, and worn with much walking. Her single hand went back to scratch among the roots of her mane.
‘I’ve read their heliograph signals,’ she mused. ‘Plain enough. They’re using the canal trade-codes. I read dissension between hiyek and hiyek, dissension between the families and the Harantish Witchbreed. If not,’ she said, with a crooked smile, ‘it isn’t for lack of trying! Whatever else we’re doing, we’re giving them something to talk about.’
I keyed in figures. ‘According to this – and I’m not sure I trust it for calculating sailing-ship navigation – the first jath will reach that turning point early tomorrow morning. If they do go in among the islands –’
‘There is Ahrentine telestre, and Valerah telestre, and the telestre Perniesse.’
The comlink chimed. I ignored it for the moment: it was likely to be Doug or Cory, on their way back to Kumiel now night was falling.
‘We should talk with Nelum Santhil,’ I said. ‘With Hal and Cassirur and Bethan, and the rest of the takshiriye in Tathcaer.’
She raised her head. In that narrow Orhlandis face, her yellow eyes glowed; and membrane slid down to cover them, hide some unreadable emotion. With a clinical rationality that was all Hexenmeister, she said, ‘The Hundred Thousand will not wait long before they send these land-wasters to the Goddess. If the hiyeks attack the islands, the islanders will fight. I think it will not matter to them that the Desert Coast brings with it more than winchbows, more than blades – they’ll fight. And so we may not have to wait until the hiyeks reach Melkathi to see what offworlder weapons your Company gave them.’
‘Ruric –’
She overrode my protest: ‘If it’s shelter the ships need, then we should hold off. Give the hiyek quarrels time to spread. You must tell Nelum Santhil that waiting may do our work for us, and he must tell the island s’ans.’
‘“Our” work?’
She rubbed a hand across her forehead, where the old scar of the exile’s brand still puckered that dark flesh.
‘Christie, it may be well that I can’t be known again in Tathcaer. If I could, I’d be all Orhlandis instead of only a part, all telestre, instead of only a part …’ Her eyes flicked up to meet mine. ‘Tethmet will be there when we land, telling me I should go back to Kasabaarde, stay inside the Tower. I believe I’m more use here. I can talk to the hiyek-families. But, do you know, even if that were not so, I’d find it hard to stay away from the Hundred Thousand now.’
‘Will you come into Tathcaer?’
The pale green illumination of the F90’s cabin gave her flesh a sickly cast. An ageing Orthean woman, in shirt and britches, the slung harur-blades replaced now by a CAS-IV in a belt-holster; still she is more exiled mercenary in her appearance than she is Hexenmeister – even I see that, who share her memories in part. And it is safer, oddly enough, to be recognizably the exiled Ruric Orhlandis than to be recognizably the Hexenmeister of Kasabaarde.
She turned her attention back to the holotank:
‘We have a few hours before we know what they’ll do.
Time to go into Tathcaer, while we’re waiting for the morning.’
Orthe’s summer stars blazed, white and blue and red and gold. That light is brighter than Earth’s moonlight, and it shone now on the windowless towers of the Citadel, and the rock of Citadel crag, and the many-coloured mossgrasses that grow in the Stone Garden. Dew pools glimmered. Ornamental waterfalls flashed in the starlight, and the noise of running water was a constant background to the talk. A white rashaku-bazur clung with all four claws to a rock spire, beating wide pinions and crying harshly. There was the scent of mossgrass, as the sun’s heat faded from the rocks.
‘Give you greeting, t’an.’ A male Orthean in Ymirian dress stood as I came down the carved steps beside the waterfall. ‘What news? Have you used s’aranthi weapons?’
At that moment I saw the T’An Suthai-Telestre, and so muttered something conciliatory and uninformative, and walked across the garden to Nelum Santhil’s table. Here there was a crowd, mostly s’ans telestre. Small children scuttled underfoot, and the older ashiren brought herb-tea and kiez-fruit. When I glanced round to say something to Ruric, I found that she and Tethmet Fenborn had lost themselves in the press of bodies.
‘Give you greeting, t’an Christie. What news?’
Before I could answer Nelum Santhil, Cassirur looked up from where she sat beside him and said: ‘The Wellhouse rashaku bring word, that the hiyek ships lie some forty seri west of Perniesse.’
Beside the scarlet-maned female sat a hunched male, and he blinked bird-bright eyes and said, ‘My people tell me they have s’aranthi weapons aboard those ships, and that you have felt the use of them.’
I took the seat beside Haltern. ‘Why ask me what news? You know as much as I do!’
The remaining person at this table, the stocky female Bethan T’An Kyre, grinned broadly at me. ‘We are not fools, s’aranthi.’
An ashiren put down a bowl of herb-tea on the table before me. These tables are carved from granite slabs. All the Stone Garden is dotted with them, set into hollows, or on slopes, or – as this one – tucked into an alcove under an arch. And all the granite is coated with a thin film of soil, in which grows blue and scarlet and yellow and viridian mossgrass; and which now was hardly visible at all, for the number of Orthean males and females crowded into this small area. Across dark-maned heads, I glimpsed a black coverall: saw it to be Jamison, and guessed, Cory isn’t far away. Then I saw her, sitting with Doug Clifford at another table, surrounded by s’ans who wore Rimon dress.
Nelum Santhil linked six-fingered hands, leaning back from the table. His dark mane was slicked down and his eyes showed a thin rim of white around the black iris: signs of exhaustion. Still, he wore the T’An Suthai-Telestre’s authority easier now.
‘Have you nothing to add to that, t’an Christie?’
‘Only questions, T’An Santhil. In a few hours the hiyek ships will be in the Sisters Islands – or else they’ll turn aside, and in a few more hours be within sight of the Melkathi coast. What are you going to do when that happens?’
His dark head turned towards the Ortheans, gathered in voluble groups in that garden.
‘You know the Hundred Thousand, t’an Christie. It isn’t wholly for me, or my takshiriye, to say.’
Cassirur put down her bowl of herb-tea. ‘Fight, or wait to kill secretly, what’s what I’d say; if not for – no, t’an Haltern, I will speak – if not for rumours that go about the city, saying that it is Witchbreed weapons that come with the fleet.’
‘That may be true, or it may not.’
‘I’ve questioned the t’an Pathrey Shanataru,’ Haltern said. His voice was level; it was none the less chilling.
‘You haven’t –’
‘Shanataru is in the Wellhouse,’ the Earthspeaker Cassirur said, moving that scarlet-maned head briefly to indicate the city below the crag.
Nelum Santhil said, ‘The truth of it is that we have no one mind among us, to be agreed on what we’ll do. Christie, that�
��s been our strength, that if any attack us they face not one enemy but one hundred thousand. Now the s’ans and the takshiriye quarrel, every telestre quarrels with its s’an; Morvren Freeport is becoming deserted under attack, but the Melkathi coast has riders travelling towards Rimnith and Keverilde from all over the Hundred Thousand.’
I tasted the sour herb-tea. A cool wind began to blow, bringing the sound of the Oranon River, a hundred or so feet below at the foot of Citadel crag. A priest-robed male came to speak with Cassirur, and she got up from the table and moved aside.
I said, ‘I may have to withdraw Company forces from this area entirely. It’s possible the fleet would attack Kumiel Island –’
Nelum Santhil raised a brow. ‘Even with s’aranthi weapons in their hands, t’an Christie, I think you overestimate the danger to yourselves.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Santhil.’ Haltern straightened, glaring at the T’An Suthai-Telestre as if he were the same Portmaster of Ales-Kadareth still, caught out in intrigue and stupidity; and I saw amusement on Nelum Santhil’s face.
‘Foolish, am I?’
‘She means to withdraw before provocation can occur. Am I right, S’aranth?’
‘It would avoid the danger of retaliation, yes.’
‘And leaves us harur-blades to stand against your technology,’ Bethan remarked sourly.
‘Will you fight?’
Direct questions are not much admired in takshiriye. All I got in answer was Nelum Santhil’s casual wave at the assembled s’ans, and his comment: ‘Some may fight. Some may not. You must ask them. Ask each s’an of the telestres nearest the fleet, and each man and woman of those telestres, and then you might know. If they know.’
A female wearing the gold circlet of a s’an dropped into Cassirur’s vacant seat, six or eight other Rimon-dressed Ortheans with her. She began to harangue Nelum Santhil in thickly-accented Ymirian. Bethan T’An Kyre leaned across to join in the argument.
‘Walk with me,’ Haltern Beth’ru-elen invited.
I hesitated. A glance showed me Douggie had been abandoned by the group of Ortheans at his table. He was speaking in a low tone to Corazon Mendez, who frowned. I thought: We’ve got no real part in these talks now, these are for the Hundred Thousand … And I stood, and took Hal’s arm, and followed his lead across a tiny stone bridge, and up mossgrass-covered steps, until we had come almost within the shadow of the Citadel itself.
Small oil lanterns were strung on wires, illuminating what the starlight left shadowed. A tall, thin figure stood up from the nearest table: I recognized the brown robe and sleek black shaven mane of Tethmet Fenborn.
‘Where is she?’ Hal demanded. I frowned, then realized there was only one she he could mean.
The thin Orthean male shrugged. ‘She could not wait, shan’tai. One of the brown-robes here told her that the Empress’s Voice is held prisoner in the Wellhouse, and she went to speak with him if she could. She told me to wait, and tell you this.’
The old male leaned more heavily on my arm. He nodded, smiling ruefully; and when he did, the old sly Haltern Beth’ru-elen was plain on his face. ‘S’aranth, I had thought you should speak with Pathrey Shanataru again, it seems I am anticipated. Go down. My l’ri-an will take you. I’d go myself, but I weary easily.’
‘Is there any use in my talking to him, Hal?’
‘Who knows?’ Hal said. ‘It’s this, S’aranth, if it’s nothing else – it’s a way to pass the hours until the hiyek ships reach Perniesse. Go now, S’aranth-te.’
He signalled, and a young fair-maned ashiren in Peir-Dadeni robes ran up the steps to us. The child had plump features, and something of the Beth’ru-elen face. I followed it, Tethmet Fenborn walked beside me; and I looked back once to see Hal on that lamp-lit terrace. The elderly male was looking down on the tables in the Stone Garden. I remember thinking, eight years ago, that a night spent studying the configurations of talk among the takshiriye on such occasions could teach a lifetime of telestre politics. Can it tell him what will happen tomorrow?
The low-roofed chambers of the Citadel were as crowded as the Stone Garden, and Hal’s ashiren led us through a press of bodies. Warren-like, the Citadel, and all its rooms and galleries were full of s’ans, and of males and females from the city, and from the country Wellhouses, and from the ships that had come into Tathcaer harbour from everywhere in the Hundred Thousand. Ortheans in Roehmonder furs jostled me, and stared with fear at Tethmet – they have reason to fear the aboriginals of the Great Fens. I blinked in the oil-lamp light that was reflected back from crystal beads braided down spines, and from jewelled harur-blades. Dadeni marhaz-riders, shipmasters from Ales-Kadareth, farmers from Rimon and upriver Ymir … The jostling was rough, and deliberate, and I ignored it. No s’aranthi will be popular now.
At last we came out into the grounds again, passing lapuur with their fronds curled tight against the night air; walking down the zigzag Crown Steps to the Square below. All the city below was invisible, but for a sprinkling of lights – companion-houses, I thought – and ghost-grey images visible in starlight. Voices came distantly on the wind. The midnight bell had long since sounded, but there was still a smell of cooking-fires: Tathcaer more crowded than at Midsummer, even, and sleepless …
‘Wait.’
I stood still, at the foot of Crown Steps, and checked my wristlink. The holo-image showed easily-read symbols that were heat-sensor readings. Difficult, standing there on cold flagstones, in the heart of the city, to translate those symbols into jath and jath-rai on the open sea.
‘Any change?’
‘Negative, Representative. ETA still 09.00 local time.’
‘Keep me informed.’ I keyed out. Tethmet’s face was expressionless, but the young l’ri-an looked up with something that might have been concern or disgust. Ke turned, and led us across the Square to the gate of the Wellhouse’s courtyard. Those great ziku-wood gates were shut.
A hundred and fifty miles to the east, there are Desert Coast Ortheans. On Rimnith and Keverilde. And there are Harantish Witchbreed, and their ‘Empress’ … Is Calil there?
When the view-slot in the great gates opened, I said, ‘Tell your Earthspeaker I want to interview the shan’tai Pathrey Shanataru. He may have information about the murder of the Representative Molly Rachel.’
The slot shut again. I had time to feel the cold – Tathcaer’s rivers mean the city has that night chill – and to squint up at the massy stars, and to yawn; and then the great gates soundlessly opened, and Cassirur Almadhera appeared.
‘Give you greeting, t’an. You keep odd company.’
I glanced over my shoulder at Tethmet, but he didn’t speak. ‘You could say, it keeps me.’
‘Well, we have another of the Tower’s friends with the shan’tai Pathrey,’ the Earthspeaker said. A voice called inside the courtyard, and she glanced back to make a reply, and then said, ‘I must attend to the rashaku messages. The other telestres of the Hundred Thousand wish to know what happens here. Come in if you must, S’aranth, but don’t hinder us.’
Once in the courtyard, the great dome of the Wellhouse and the lesser outbuildings blotted out starlight. Tethmet walked without stumbling, but I don’t have his night vision: it was some minutes before I recognized the small domed building that Hal’s ashiren led us to. And are you a prisoner, Pathrey? I was a prisoner here myself, Blaize and Rodion and I; and that other one of our party, the woman Havoth-jair …
‘I know the way,’ I said, entering.
The main, locked room is small. Lamplight now illuminated the dome of brown brick, and the low tables and benches; and shone too on the shabby, plump figure of Pathrey seated at one of the tables, and on the cloaked woman who leaned up against the wall, speaking to him. She glanced up as we were let in, and her mouth below her mask smiled.
‘Give you joy of him. S’aranth, I can get nothing useful at all.’ Ruric nodded a greeting to Tethmet.
Rooms without doors. That is what I first thought, in Kel Harant
ish; and now there is this room, with one arched doorway, and no windows at all … I pulled a bench across and sat down by Pathrey.
‘I want to know how Molly Rachel came to be murdered,’ I said. ‘Shan’tai Pathrey, you were the Empress’s Voice; if you didn’t actually see it happen, I’m damn sure you know how and why it did. I want to know.’
I was conscious that Tethmet had moved aside to speak to the Hexenmeister. The yellow light was oily on the Harantish male’s dark skin. He wound his fingers together nervously, and under the sleeve of his robe I saw the edge of a cloth dressing. Hal’s people would have questioned him more brutally than I wanted to think about.
‘I don’t … there was no …’ His head came up. The brown eyes were bright, and it startled me to realize that was anger. ‘What must I do to convince you of good faith? I rescued your s’aranthi envoy Clifford, I told you all I know of K’Ai Calil’s plans. I expected to be a prisoner, for a time, but the questions never end! First them, and now you.’
‘Shan’tai Pathrey –’
His hand slammed flat on the table. ‘All I want is to rest!’
I studied him, thinking, How good a liar are you? This small, dark male, still in dirty Harantish robes that had gemmed embroidery visible under the mud; sitting now with his head bowed, lank mane falling about his face.
‘You brought us into Kel Harantish,’ I said. ‘Molly and I; that first day we came to you. Now she’s dead and I want to know how it happened. I have to make a report, but that doesn’t matter. I want to know.’
Without looking up, he muttered, ‘Ask K’Ai Calil.’
‘If I could, I would. Believe me.’
At that, he raised his head. There was nothing sleek or mannered about his expression.
‘Yes, I’ll tell you. Shan’tai, I will. She and your other s’aranthi were in the city when the Emperor Dannor bel-Kurick was overthrown, and I put them where it seemed best to me, that is, safe out of the fighting. And then, when Dannor had been butchered, and his head hacked off and made the first of many at the foot of the Phoenix throne – then K’Ai Calil went to speak with your shan’tai Akida and your shan’tai Osaka in their captivity, where I had them safe. And then she went on ninth level, where I had put shan’tai Rachel, and she spoke with shan’tai Rachel.’