Diva met Tallen’s gaze. “Ready?”
He looked around and then nodded. “We can transfer to the shuttle.” He sounded stiff and rather formal, and Diva found herself relenting.
“At least you will soon be with the clan.”
His black eyes met hers. “That will not help,” he said, after a long pause.
“No. But they are your people.”
There was another long silence. “Yes. They are my people.” But it was said with an almost bitter tone, as if he would rather not belong to the clan. It was Diva’s turn to stare.
“You worship your clan.”
“I used to.”
She frowned. “What happened?”
He stared at her. “You know what happened.”
“Petra died?”
“No. At least, Petra did die, of course, but that is not the reason I feel differently about the clan.”
“Then?”
He shrugged. “It is hard to feel the same when you have traveled to the centre of the galaxy and seen what can be.”
She was forced to agree with that. Her outlook on life had changed too, she was no longer the Coriolan meritocrat she had been born as, and she knew she could never go back to that sort of a life.
“I know,” she told him. “But you need to spend some time with your clan.”
“So do you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You need to spend time with the Namuri. The sibyla augured it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Diva blinked.
“At Petra’s …” his voice stumbled over her name, before recovering itself, “… at Petra’s funeral. She said you would live amongst the Namuri for a short time, and that the future of the clan would shift into the sunlight because of your stay.”
Diva blinked again. “And the … the sib… sibyla …?” she waited for his nod of confirmation, “… is the ancient old woman who worked the pulley?”
“She is the fount of all wisdom of the clan. The sibylas are the seeresses of our people. They predict the good and the evil that will befall the whole tribe. They are the protectors of the stones.”
“She knew that I would go back?”
“Of course. She asked me to tell you that she is waiting to talk with you, and that you will be very welcome.”
“Well … nothing is sure of course. I may decide not to go, in the end.”
Tallen raised his stubborn chin. “You will go. It is written in the blue stone.”
“The one person who must certainly go is you. You need time to heal.”
He gave a sad smile. “She told me something about that, too.”
“What?”
“She said that I would need many years to heal and that I would see many faraway places before that happened. But she also told me that I would come back to Coriolis and that, one day, I would reunite the clan with its past.”
“Then you will be an important person.”
“What did you think, Meritocrat? That I am only any good as a bodyguard?”
Diva smiled and shook her head. “I changed my opinion about you back on Kintara,” she said.
He looked surprised. “Did you? I never realized.”
“I know. But I did.”
He held up two diffident hands. “Perhaps we have both changed our minds about each other?” he suggested.
She nodded. “Perhaps we have.” She held up her own hands and they gently touched palms and fingers, in the binary system salute.
“Well, Namuri?” she challenged, in a softer voice than usual.
She caught the amused flash of his teeth – the nearest she had seen to a smile since his sister’s death.
“Well, Meritocrat?” he answered.
She felt a sudden slight contraction in her heart. The Namuri boy looked so tough, and so fierce, and yet so lost and unhappy at the same time. She cleared her throat.
“So, are we all ready?”
Bennel inclined his head, and Raven jumped up and down excitedly. ’Iolis, Be’ll ’Iolis!” She still called Bennel Be’ll, unable to get her young tongue round his full name, and ‘Coriolis’ defeated her too, with its four syllables. He grinned down at the squirming bundle in his arms.
“Indeed, Lady Raven, to meet your grandparents.”
Diva frowned in his direction. She had asked him not to address either of them as ‘lady’, but it was ingrained in his training. He made a moue of apology.
“Ganpents,” shouted the little girl. “Ganpents!” She wasn’t sure what grandparents were, but she could tell from Bennel’s tone that he considered them a very good thing. In her child’s mind she foresaw tables laden with sweets and perhaps even chocolate, which was something her mother had spoken of to her but she had never seen. She looked across at her matchless parent, who was staring back at her with dancing laughter in her eyes, and knew how lucky she was to have such a special person as her mother. Raven gave a contented sigh. Good things were about to happen, she felt sure.
INDOMITA AND MAXIMUS were waiting for them in the palace, as usual keeping any feelings they might have had under a veneer of composure. They maintained a dignified silence but began to look Raven over. The little girl stood silently, her shoulders back; she found the inspection distasteful. Moreover, there was a distinct lack of anything edible around them. She narrowed her eyes, looking suddenly very like her mother.
“No food,” she said solidly.
Diva laughed. “No, Raven, not yet. There will be food later. But you will find there is plenty of wine to bathe in. You will like that.”
Raven’s face told them all that she did not regard the pleasures of bathing as on a par with sweetfruits and delicacies. She showed even less desire to be picked up by her grandfather and to have a sash and the emblem of succession placed ceremoniously over her head by the rather stout Maximus, staring at him suspiciously with narrowed eyes, and trying to fall away from him, back to Bennel. It took Tallen’s intervention to prevent an accident. Then several courtiers were asked to witness a long parchment, which Maximus read out aloud in a voice that Raven clearly found extremely distasteful. She put up with it stoically for about ten minutes, then fell back on the time-honoured practice of first trying to pull away from her mother, and, when that didn’t work, of going off into a tantrum. Her grandfather soldiered on through the parchment, clearly unimpressed by his new granddaughter.
“At least she is well-proportioned, daughter,” said Indomita, in a relieved voice, once the rite of passage had drawn to a close and Raven had been teased into a better mood, and silence, by Bennel.
Diva bristled. “What do you mean by that? Of course she is well-proportioned. She is my daughter, isn’t she?”
“Indeed. She is not, however, solely your daughter.”
“Ah. You thought her Kwaidian no-name genes might have made her some sort of a freak?”
“Not at all. You are misinterpreting my words. I was merely congratulating you on having produced a most satisfactory candidate to succeed to the meritocracy of Coriolis.”
“If there is still one left to succeed to …”
It was Indomita’s turn to stretch her long neck upwards in a haughty query. “You are implying that my …” she looked sideways for a second at her portly husband, “… that is, that our management of the planet is not satisfactory?”
“I am implying that you have done nothing to solve all the inequalities in this world.”
Her father’s face flushed an even deeper red than usual. “It has been decided that changes of a major nature in the law would be precipitate. There is no conclusive evidence of any injustice in our system. Everybody is given an equal chance.”
“Decided by whom?” Diva was seething. She put her hands on her hips. “By Tartalus?”
“You know, Daughter, you can say what you like about Tartalus, but nobody can deny how much he cares about the meritocracy.” Maximus patted his not inconsiderable girth with some satisfaction. He appeared to find an expression of his own worth in its ample curve.
Diva looked swiftly in her mother’s direction, frowning. Surely her mother had not allowed Tartalus to gain even more popularity?
Indomita could hardly miss the implied reproach. She answered the unspoken question. “Your cousin has taken to offering large banquets, just for the male members of the meritocracy. I have been unable to attend with your father.” She paused for a full five seconds, her face a study. “They are very … entertaining, I believe.”
Diva frowned. “Why does he not include the female meritocrats?”
Indomita pressed her lips together. “He appears to feel that the women would rather be left to their wine baths. And I gather that the … err … pastimes at these banquets are exclusively male.”
Diva turned to her father. “Surely you should insist on taking Mother to these meetings? She is a plenipotentiary of Mesteta.”
Her father avoided her eyes. “Well, you know, these things sometimes go on until very late … I don’t think your mother would really feel … It isn’t really appropriate …” Even he seemed to realize how unconvincing these arguments were, for he reddened and looked at the floor. “You know, some of the younger bloods get rather drunk … I wouldn’t want your mother to be submitted to any indignities …”
“Tartalus is trying to undermine Mother’s influence.”
“Now how could he do that?” asked Maximus, mildly. “Everyone knows that your mother has been running Coriolis for the last few years. He has never challenged that.”
But that, Diva could see, was exactly the plan. Tartalus was excluding the women deliberately. He knew, like she did, that her father was malleable and could be controlled by his addiction to his little excesses. Her cousin had clearly made up his mind to pamper to Maximus’s every little whim. Sooner or later he would make his move to take the control away from Indomita and place it solidly back in Maximus’s hands. Once that had happened, Tartalus could manipulate Maximus and, through him, control the whole planet.
This was not good news. Diva could see that her mother was worried. There were faint lines etched into her forehead, and she looked like someone who knew that the ground she was standing on was unsafe.
Maximus patted his stomach again. “No need for you ladies to worry,” he said cheerfully. “Nothing to worry about at all. Everybody on Coriolis is given an equal chance.”
Indomita sighed. Her eyes met those of her daughter, and she gave a slight shrug.
Diva began to irradiate a sort of pent-up anger which, although not visible, transmitted itself instantly to all those present. Bennel looked at Tallen and nodded. They both took a precautionary step back, and their hands went to the weapons at their sides. Raven began to glare ominously, infected by the outrage she could sense in her mother. The little girl opened her mouth to cry, but Tallen caught her eye and gave her such a peremptory look that she stopped short, her mouth still half open. He gave a sharp beckon with one finger, and she stepped obediently back to his side, looking up at him in some awe. The Namuri bent his head slightly towards the little girl and smiled his approval. Her tense and mutinous expression relaxed.
Diva glared at her father. “Equal chance?” she echoed. “Equal chance? Only a meritocrat could say that!” Then she found herself looking around, to meet Tallen’s impassive gaze. She nearly giggled. She had not thought to hear herself arguing the Namuri viewpoint. Tallen was holding himself with rigid self-control, but she could tell from the scathing light in his eyes that he was finding it a hard thing to do. She turned back to her parents.
“The clans are as Coriolan as we are, yet they have no rights. They cannot have money, or jobs, or a position in this meritocratic society. That is unjust; it must be changed.”
“Impossible. There is a growing opinion that the clans should be banned from this planet.”
Diva could feel Tallen smoulder behind her, and held up a hand to quell any movement. “I detect the fine hand of my second cousin here,” she said in a milder tone.
Her father nodded. “Tartalus is becoming popular amongst the younger meritocrats,” he agreed. “But you were the one who started all this discontent. You were the one who decided we should change a system which has been working perfectly well for millennia!”
“For whom?”
“I’m sorry?” Maximus stared at his daughter.
She drew herself up to her full height. “For whom has it been working? Certainly not for the people who were sealed into rexelene blocks alive, and then exposed to the ridicule of the populace in museums, their last struggling attempts to save themselves preserved in the blocks forever!”
Her father waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, them!” He clearly thought the fate of the clans of no import whatsoever.
Diva held up her hand again because she could feel Tallen’s burning emotion right the way down her spine. “There should be equality,” she said firmly.
Indomita smiled, a cool smile which was designed to remove any hostility in the air. “Of course there should be equality; no-one is denying that.” She fixed her husband with a warning look, and he subsided, the words he had been about to utter evaporating obediently. She went on, “But are they ready for it? These people have not our advantages, Daughter. They are no more capable of taking rational decisions than Tattula cats! We really need to educate them first. I do think that some sort of a long-term educational program for the next couple of hundred years would be a much kinder way to provide aid and a future for them.”
Raven, whose grubby hand had snaked up into one of Tallen’s for comfort, gave a sharp cry. He had squeezed her so hard that all her bones hurt. She gave a wail, and Diva turned around instantly. She took in the situation with a glance, and then made a sign to Bennel, who obediently swept Raven up into his ample arms, and joggled her to calm the sudden worry. Diva turned back to her parents.
“You are both making a huge mistake. It is time to change things, and there is no moral justification for holding on to the old ways. You have become complacent in your palace. You don’t see the future; you don’t even see the present. I thought you had agreed to pass the new laws?” Her questioning gaze pierced her mother’s impassiveness.
“You are partly to blame. You know that Tartalus has been making trouble, ever since your … your consort broke his nose!”
“That wasn’t his fault! Tartalus very nearly killed Six!”
Maximus shifted and seemed to mutter something under his breath. All of them stared in his direction, and he fell silent, peeved.
Indomita spoke again. “That is as may be. Tartalus has become extremely involved in helping young meritocrats. He is a patron of the arts and encourages combat training. He has himself offered several not inconsiderable prizes. He has gathered many young Coriolans around him, whereas you seem only to have Kwaidian interests at heart.”
“That is ridiculous!”
Indomita broke in, her voice deceptively calm. “Nevertheless, it has now become impossible to pass the new laws. If we do, then Raven here will have no world to inherit.”
Raven stared at the two people in front of her. Her grandparents. They were old, and cold, and she didn’t like them. They emanated a different way of thinking which she could almost smell, and she wished that her mother would take her away from them. She gave Bennel a scowl. He had suggested that she would have fun here in Mesteta, and had clearly lied. She gave him an imperious kick with one small foot, which caused him to wince and look down at his burden with surprise. Tallen, standing next to both of them, grinned to himself. He knew exactly what the young girl was thinking.
Diva bowed low to
her mother and father. “As you decree, so it shall be,” she chanted obediently. Then she stepped back. “I shall retire to my chambers now.”
“You had better watch that tame Namuri you have with you. He won’t last long here if Tartalus gets word of his presence inside the palace.”
Diva bowed again. “We shall be leaving almost immediately.” She signed for Bennel to put Raven on the magmite floor again and signaled to her daughter to come up to her side. “Come, Raven, curtsey to your grandparents, as I taught you.”
The little girl made a very creditable curtsey, but omitted the smile her mother had explained would be expected. None of the three people she loved here was smiling, and the atmosphere was one of great tension. She stared unwaveringly at her grandparents, and Diva met her mother’s eyes coolly.
“You have met your granddaughter,” she said. “Remember her well. Since you say there is danger here to those of whom Tartalus does not approve, then it will probably be better if we don’t return until Raven is at least 14, which is when she will be allowed to live away from Xiantha.”
Her mother licked her lips. “That would be more advisable, certainly. 16 might be better. That is the age when she will inherit the right to rule.” But she looked almost bereft, and Raven saw that the older woman’s eyes traveled to one of the guards, who gave her an understanding nod.
Maximus was smiling now, unable to hide his relief at her decision. “It is not that we don’t want her to be here, you understand,” he said. “But in this political climate …”
Diva’s eyes hardened. “We will bring Raven back when she reaches her 16th birthday.” Then she gave both her parents a curtsey, so low that it was clearly sarcastic, and then swept out of the chamber, and out of their lives.
The Namura Stone Page 4