Shadow Man

They took their time walking back from lunch, savoring the heat and the fitful land breeze. The streets had been dry when they left the bar; by the time they reached the Harbor Market, the last shreds of cloud had vanished inland, and thin white parasols blossomed like flowers in the spaces between the semi-permanent stalls. Warreven paused at the edge of the embankment, leaned on the hot stones of the wall to look along the length of the massive quay that divided the main harbor from the smaller Sail Harbor. This close to Midsummer, all the berths were filled with slab-sided, broad-beamed coasters, and the quay swarmed with dockers and their machines, unloading the first of the summer’s harvest. From the embankment, it was impossible to see even the nearest ship’s cargo, but Warreven could fill in the details from almost thirty summers’ experience: there would be crates of broadleaf kelp, the fronds packed damp, and bales of cut grass gathered from the shallows along the Stiller Peninsula. There would be smaller boxes of wide-web nodes, crumb-coral, and false-kelp fronds and bladders and even, if someone was very lucky, a few of the deep-growing false-kelp’s knotty holdfasts. From the Stanelands to the north, there would be ships loaded down with raw sweetsap and thornberry, branch and fruit alike, and baskets of creeping star. And it was all going to feed the off-world economy. He smiled without humor and shaded his eyes to pick out the off-worlders’ runabouts drawn up in the reserved slots behind the factors’ sheds, company marks bright on doors and engine cowlings. The off-worlders were easy to pick out in the crowd of dockers and sailors, too: pale figures, draped in white or tan against the heat and sun, ghostly against the bright colors around them.

A horn sounded, and the day-ferry appeared beyond the tip of the quay, shouldering its way through the crowd of smaller boats to its anchorage below the Ferryhead. A wedding band was playing on the top deck, the pulse of the drums carrying across the water, and Warreven could just pick out the bride and her attendants, a knot of stark white silk and silver among the holiday colors.

“Anyone we know?” Malemayn asked, and Warreven turned back to face him.

“Not as far as I know.”

Malemayn nodded, shading his eyes to look out over the harbor. “I’d hate to miss an obligation.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Warreven said. “Anyone you owe a present will be sure to let you know.”

Malemayn grinned, acknowledging the truth of the comment. Warreven looked past him, up the hill to the bars of Dock Row and Harborside. Most of the wrangwys houses, the bar and dance houses that catered to trade, off-world players, and Hara’s odd-bodied were closed now; most wouldn’t open until sundown, but a few were already doing business. He picked out the doors, the sun-faded bars of neon light surrounding them, wondering if any of his friends or clients were there already. Shinbone on the Embankment was open, its double doors wide to the afternoon sun, the bouncer Brisban stretching luxuriously in the warmth; a little farther along the street, a couple of off-worlders were standing outside Hogeye’s, nudging each other as they scanned the show-cards and dared each other to go in. Warreven made a face at that and turned away.

“We should be getting back.”

Malemayn looked at him, startled, then looked up the hill toward the bars. “There’s nothing we can do, Raven. Not about them.”

“I know. And we should still get back to work.” Warreven pushed himself away from the Embankment wall, headed down the first set of stairs to cut through the Market, drowning his anger in the familiar noise and smells. The Harbor Market was the largest of Bonemarche’s three market squares—the others were the Glass Market, on the north side of town by the railroad terminus, and the off-worlders’ Souk on the edge of the Startown district—and it was always crowded, even on the edges, the stalls and stone-marked pitches gaudy with goods. Most were local products, foodstuffs, and glass, and silk in skeins and tufts of floss and bolts of dyed and painted cloth; there were a few machine-dealers as well, offering cheap off-world disk-readers and music boxes and card-comps, all at ridiculous prices. The noise of drums cut through the noise of bargaining, and he looked toward the sound to see a woman dancing on the platform where the land-spiders were auctioned at the Quarter-days. It was a good omen, a change of mood, and he started toward it, following the heavy heartbeat of the tonnere-bas and the intricate higher double beat of the counterpoint. He stopped at the edge of the crowd surrounding the platform, looking up at the dancer. Malemayn trailed cheerfully enough in his wake, and said, sounding almost surprised, “She’s good.”

Warreven nodded. The woman—she was definitely a woman—spun and stooped on the raised stage, sunlight flashing from the glass bangles that covered her arms from wrist to elbow. There were glass beads braided into her hair, seemingly thousands of them, in every color; they sparked in the sunlight, and clashed like cymbals as she bent nearly double, hair flying. Her tiered skirts, their hems sewn with still more beads and the occasional bright disk of a metal coin, stood out from her waist as she spun, then collapsed to a twisted cylinder that briefly outlined the long shape of her legs and drew cheers from some of the watching men. The platform at her feet was already littered with flowers and a few coins; the shaal spread out between the two drummers in front of the platform held maybe a fivemeg more in small change. There were a few off-world coins among the scattered seaglass, and more flowers. He cocked his head, seeing the latter, and then the dancer straightened again, and he saw the three parallel lines drawn in white across her cheek. Not just a dancer, then, but a vieuvant, one of the old souls who served God and the spirits, and this was not just a performance, but an offetre, a service to the spirits: she danced for, danced as, the Heart-breaker, the spirit who was spring and lust and all the unruly powers of procreation. The counterpoint drummer wore the same marks on his beardless face.

“She’s very good,” Malemayn said again, and reached into his pocket. He came up with a handful of coins and tossed half dozen onto the shaal with the rest.

“She is,” Warreven agreed, and looked around for a flower seller. He spotted one almost at once—they knew enough to congregate when a vieuvant danced, seemed to come from nowhere—and held up a black quarter-meg. The boy came over eagerly, basket held out in front of him.

“I have ruby-drop, mir, and rosas, and dragon-cor, the Lady likes those—”

Warreven nodded, not really listening, and picked up a spray of the horn-shaped ruby-drops. “How much?”

“A quarter-meg, mir, any coin,” the boy answered promptly. “Picked fresh this morning.”

“Fine.” Warreven handed him the stamped glass disk and turned back to the platform. Above him, the vieuvant was spinning down to the end of this part of the dance, her skirts flaring out into a perfect bell of silk. He tossed the flowers onto the shaal—he had been fond of the Heart-breaker as a child—and followed it with a couple of long-bits and quarter-megs. Malemayn smiled.

“You always get cheated, Raven.”

Warreven returned the smile. It was true enough; he was no hand at haggling. “Only in the market, cousin.”

Malemayn shook his head, still smiling. “It’s a good thing we can afford it. And, speaking of affording things, I thought you wanted to get back to work.”

“I did, I do,” Warreven answered. “I’m coming.”

They threaded their way through the crowds to Harborside where it skirted the Market’s edge. Just beyond the Market it narrowed, becoming little more than an access road for the ware-houses that stood along the waterfront. Warreven wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell of split power cells that seeped from the nearest building and turned up the first side street, into the shade of the low houses. They had been built for the construction crews building the railroad terminus and hadn’t been meant to last much beyond its completion; thirty years later, the poured sandstone walls were crumbling, but the neighborhood was more crowded than ever.

It wasn’t a long walk to the base of Blind Point, where the partnership rented space for their mesnie. It wasn’t a real mesnie, of course—there were only three of them, and none of them was married to any of the others, and besides, Haliday, the third partner, lived two buildings away—but it was easier to call it one than to explain it to the traditional indigenes among their clients. Traditional people had enough trouble sometimes understanding the rules of trade; it was easier to explain if the general setting was at least a little familiar. The building was tall for Blind Point, where the original settlers had built close and low, but relatively narrow; its brick frontage was eroding at the corners, and the door was set into the right-hand corner, to make the inside rooms as large as possible. Warreven scuffed his feet on the stone of the sill and kicked his sandals into the mud tray, no longer aware of the narrowness of the hall. Sunlight was streaming in through the one hand-span window at the far end of the building, throwing a wedge of light across the painted plaster wall. The design of twined doutfire and creeping stars had faded there; the colors were still true by the door, where the light never reached. Warreven made another mental note to find a painter, and pushed open the door to the main room.

It was empty, all the lights switched off to save on power fees, and Malemayn said, from behind him, “Where’s Chattan, then?”

“I thought he’d be waiting,” Warreven answered.

“Raven?” Haliday’s voice came from the inner room. “What the hell is going on?”

Warreven frowned, wondering what 3e was talking about this time, and Malemayn chuckled.

“What have you done now?”

“I don’t know,” Warreven said, quite seriously, and went into the offices.

It was bright, all the lamps lit and the heavy curtains drawn tight against the contrast-destroying sun. They had divided the space into three cubicles when they formed the partnership and moved in, but the gray foam-core walls barely reached Malemayn’s shoulders, so that anyone could see in to the clutter and the bulky computers with their illuminated screens. Haliday stood in the center space, hands on hips, glaring down at one of the three screens that was linked to Bonemarche’s narrowcast networks. Ȝe was wearing off-world clothes, as usual, and as always it gave Warreven a small shock to see the anomaly of 3er body revealed so clearly by the close-fitting fabric. But then, Haliday had always been stubborn that way: 3e had insisted from childhood that 3e was herm, not the boy 3e had seemed to be then, and even now, after 3e had lost 3er case, and been declared legally a woman, 3e refused to answer any pronoun but 3er own.

“What’s Raven done this time?” Malemayn asked, and dropped the wallet that held the court disks on the nearest desk.

“Since when did you get into politics?” Haliday demanded, 3er eyes still fixed on Warreven.

“Æ?” Warreven said.

“Politics. You know what that is, though you always say you won’t play—except when Temelathe calls, of course.” Haliday touched the top of the display. “Why’d you wait to put your name on the list, Raven, were you afraid I’d talk you out of it? Or were you afraid I wouldn’t?”

“What are you talking about?” Warreven asked, and came around the cubicle wall to get a look at the screen.

Haliday stepped out of his way, pressing 3er hips against the edge of the desk platform. “I’m talking about the election lists, that’s what.”

Warreven scanned the screen without answering. It was less than a week to the two-day Midsummer holiday, and most mesnies and clans and the five overarching Watches that governed them held their elections then, but what that had to do with him…?

And then, in the center of the screen, he saw his own name, set opposite the post of Stiller seraaliste. He stared at it for a moment, feeling remarkably stupid, and Malemayn said behind him, “I wonder who put your name in.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t,” Haliday said to Warreven, but 3er voice had lost some of its anger.

“Yes,” Warreven said, still staring at the screen. There was only one other candidate, the minimum required by clan law, and the name was all too familiar. Daithef Stiller was a perennial candidate, and more than a little mad; he had never yet been elected to anything. “I mean, yes, I didn’t do it,” he said, and wondered if he sounded as foolish as he felt.

“Who sponsored him?” Malemayn said.

“The nominating officer was Waterson, who’s speaker for the Haefeld mesnie.” Haliday made a face. “That’s over on the sunset coast. Seconding was someone called Tortisen, of Luccem. I don’t know either of them, and I can’t find a directory listing, electronic or paper, for either one.”

“Well, there’s a simple solution,” Warreven said, and reached for the ancient monophone that stood beside the computer. Parts of the system had come to Hara on the settlement ship five hundred years before—and it had been seventy years out of date on the day of landing—but it was still the only system that was certain to reach all the outlying mesnies. Down in the Equatoriale and along the sunset coasts, there were still small mesnies, mostly household size, that had evaded Temelathe’s order to accept a network terminal; a larger number of others had simply refused to assign anyone to answer the system’s mail. He punched code numbers from memory, lifted the headset, and waited until the tinkle of routing codes was finally replaced by a human voice.

“Black Watch House,” the voice—a man’s—said in franca, and then repeated the words in creole.

“Who’s the Stiller electing officer?” Warreven asked. “There seems to have been an error in the list.”

There was a little silence, and then the voice answered, “That’s Brunwyf, out of the Luccem mesnie—it’s a woman’s post this year. She’s away up north now, though. Can I take a message?”

“Is she on the system?” Warreven asked, without much hope. “Or the phone?”

“I’m sorry, mir. I don’t know if the line’s been patched yet. Can I take a message?”

And if Luccem is as traditional as I remember, Warreven thought, there’s no point in even trying the network. “Yes,” he said aloud. “You can tell her Warreven called, of the Ambreslight mesnie. Someone’s put my name on the list by mistake, and I’m not a candidate.”

“Warreven,” the voice repeated, and there was another little silence. “I’ll give her that message, mir.”

“Thank you,” Warreven said, but the connection was already broken. He set the headset back in its place, an unpleasant suspicion forming. Brunwyf was a nobody, just as Luccem was one of the minor mesnies, but it was matrilineal, and her father and husband were both Maychilders, part of the string of Maychilder marriages that Temelathe had sponsored over the last thirty years. Which meant—or could well mean—that Brunwyf was part of the faction that was aligned with the Most Important Man. “What do you know about Brunwyf, of Luccem?”

Malemayn shook his head. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Isn’t she married to a Maychilder?” Haliday asked. “That’s one of the matrimesnies, anyway, and they’re Traditionalists, that do know.”

“And Traditionalists in Haefeld,” Warreven agreed. “So why in all hells would they nominate me?”

“You’re hardly a Traditional candidate,” Malemayn said, with a grin.

“So they must’ve been doing someone a favor,” Haliday said. “Your would-be father-in-law, Raven?”

Warreven gave 3im a sour look. “It’s possible. In fact, I can’t think of anyone else who’d bother. But I can’t think why.”

“Nor can I,” Haliday said.

“Well, it’s hardly important,” Malemayn said. “They can’t make you run if you don’t want to, Raven—not even Temelathe can manage that without it looking really bad. So as soon as what’s-her-name gets back from Luccem, you can pull your name off the list.”

“Do you really want to bet against Temelathe?” Warreven asked, and Malemayn shook his head.

“Not iron, no. But this would be hard even for him.”

“I can think of three ways he could force it,” Haliday said, 3er voice gone suddenly cold. “But the simplest—well, look who the other candidate is. If Temelathe really wants you to be seraaliste, Raven, all he’d have to do is rule that we can’t add late candidates. He’s head of the Watch Council, he can do it. And then we get Daithef as our seraaliste.” Ȝe smiled, not pleasantly. “I think you’d run, Raven, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to run for anything,” Warreven said.

Malemayn said, “Still, the idea of Daithef as seraaliste is enough to give me chills. I hope they’re still able to nominate someone else.”

“They’d better,” Warreven said. “Besides, why would Temelathe want to see me Stiller’s seraaliste? We’ve been butting heads with the White Stanes since we opened the office. He knows we don’t agree with his policies.”

“You’ve done him favors before,” Haliday said.

“Not like this,” Warreven answered.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Malemayn said.

Warreven shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

The monophone chimed twice, then twice again. Malemayn made a face and reached for it, flipping the switch to accept the connection. “Malemayn Stiller.” His eyebrows rose, and he touched the mute button at the base of the junction box. He held out the handset to Warreven. “It’s for you. The Most Important Man.”

Warreven reached for it automatically, then shook his head. “Patch it to my console, will you? I think I need to sit down for this one.”

Malemayn gave a snort of laughter, and Warreven slipped past him into the cramped cubicle that served him in lieu of a private office. The work surfaces were drifted with papers and the shell-disks that their ancient computers used; more disks had accumulated on top of the main drive box and on the primary display as well. He moved a pile away from the monophone and reached for the handset cautiously, as if it would bite. Malemayn was watching over the low wall, and Warreven nodded.

“Putting you through,” Malemayn said, and the next instant, Warreven heard the faint static of an open line.

“Warreven Stiller.”

“Raven.” There was no mistaking Temelathe’s voice, low and mellow as tempered chocolate. “How are you these days?”

“Well, thank you, mir,” Warreven answered, and added, knowing it would be expected, “I trust you’re the same?”

“Well enough, my son.”

Warreven made a face at the old endearment. It was traditional, meaningless, but it also held echoes of Temelathe’s comment at Aldess’s reinstatement—and was that what he wanted, introducing me to what’s-his-name, Kolbjorn, from Kerendach? Warreven wondered suddenly. And referring to me as his might-have-been daughter-in-law would be just one more way of re-minding me of old obligations. Of course, if it hadn’t been me who would become the wife, I might’ve been tempted, and Temelathe won’t have forgotten that, either. Temelathe never forgot anything, to the smallest detail, and Warreven was uneasily aware of memories, the child, the adolescent he had been, waiting to be invoked.

“But I’ll get to the point,” Temelathe went on, “and I do apologize for the haste of it. I’m told you want to withdraw your name from the election list.”

“I didn’t even know I was on it,” Warreven said, but Temelathe was still speaking, riding over his words.

“I know it’s not strictly speaking my affair, but with Brunwyf away in Luccem for the holiday, I thought I might be able to clear up the problem before it officially became one.”

“That’s kind of you, my father,” Warreven murmured, without the pretense of conviction.

“I’m not in fact clear what the problem is.” Temelathe’s tone sharpened suddenly, and Warreven imagined the full force of his glare directed at the monophone. “Your clan has seen fit to nominate you; it’s your obligation to serve.”

“I’m not qualified to be the seraaliste,” Warreven said, with perfect truth. The clan seraaliste handled the sale of all harvested and gathered crops to the off-world brokers, and a man who notoriously couldn’t bargain in the markets was hardly an ideal candidate for the job. “Besides, there’s another nominee.”

“Æ, Raven, Daithef hardly counts as a candidate. Though I admit he’d suit me better than you in some ways.”

That was true enough: Daithef could be relied on to make a bad bargain, if only out of spite. “So why, my father, are you trying to talk me into running?”

There was a chuckle at the other end of the line. “Because what’s good for Stane isn’t necessarily good for Hara. And there’s money enough in the off-worlders that we can all share the profits.”

“True,” Warreven said dubiously; this was not the usual White Stane attitude. “But I’m still not qualified to be the seraaliste.”

“I think you’re underestimating your talents,” Temelathe said. “Ah, Raven, this is no way to talk, not through some machine. Come to the house tonight—we’re having a small dinner, nothing fancy. We can talk there.”

It was not really a request, and they both knew it. Warreven sighed—there had never been an easy way to refuse Temelathe Stane; once was more than most men managed—and said, “I’m honored, my father.” His tone was flat, contradicting the conventional words, and Temelathe chuckled again.

“It will be worth your while, Raven, I promise you.”

“But will it be worth yours, my father?” Warreven asked. “As you said, I’m not your ideal candidate.”

“Nor is Daithef,” Temelathe answered, voice suddenly sharpening. And then the anger was gone, smothered, and Temelathe was himself again. “I’ll expect you at seven—no, six-thirty. That will give us time to talk a little.”

“I’ll be there, my father,” Warreven said, and broke the connection. He looked up to see the others watching him over the wall of the cubicle and spread his hands in answer.

“You’re going to dinner,” Malemayn said.

“Of course.” Warreven looked at Haliday. “I didn’t want or plan this. You do believe me, Hal?”

There was a little pause, Haliday’s fierce green eyes fixed on him, and then, slowly, 3e nodded. “Even for you, Raven, this would be—baroque.”

Warreven smiled, reassured, and reached across to light his workstation. “Is there anything that absolutely has to be done by tomorrow?”

“Only the usual,” Haliday answered, and turned back to 3er own cubicle. “I’ll flip it to you. What happened with Chattan’s case?”

Malemayn stretched, the metal bracelets clattering down his arms. “Flip me copies, too, will you, Hal? We got Chattan his fees back, but the lead-judge continued the case. Wakelevedy said he’d send the voucher first thing in the morning.”

“And the minute Chattan gets the money, 3e’ll be off home,” Haliday said, bitterly. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we could hold onto the money until the next hearing.”

“No,” Warreven said, and sighed as a list of files filled his screen.

“This isn’t the case, Hal,” Malemayn said, not ungently.

“This is a case we could’ve won.” Haliday glared at the screen. “Who was the lead-judge? Archer Stane?”

Malemayn nodded.

“Damn the Stanes, singly and collectively, to all seven hells in succession,” Haliday said. Ȝe ran a hand through 3er short hair. “Even Archer would’ve had to give us this one. It was perfect, damn it, poor hard-working, modest-living halving from the Equatoriale gets tricked into whoring in Bonemarche, and by a reputable brokerage, no less—we couldn’t lose. And it would have called the whole structure of the trade into question, let everybody know that the White Stanes are backing it. So of course Archer continued it.”

“We won’t win this kind of case until we get somebody from Bonemarche to complain,” Malemayn said.

“And we won’t win this kind of case if it’s a Bonemarche whore complaining,” Haliday retorted.

It was an old argument, and Warreven looked back to his screen, jabbed halfheartedly at the list of files to open one at random. Over the last two calendar-years, the partnership seemed to have been spending more and more of its time dealing with the fallout of the off-world sex trade, with the full-time prostitutes and the part-time marijaks and marianjs who worked the harborside, and with the off-worlders and wry-abed indigenes who patronized them. Temelathe preferred to turn a blind eye to the business—as long as he got his discreet share of the bar and dance-house profits, he didn’t care who went there, or for what—but at the same time he had to stay on good terms with the Colonial Committee and the Interstellar Disease Control Agency, who existed to regulate trade. At the same time, most of the pharmaceutical companies, from the Big Six down to the smallest pony-shows, turned a blind eye to their employees’ thriving sideline in the residence and travel permits that were the other side of trade. And Hara was dependent on the pharmaceuticals for all of its hard-cash income. It was not, Warreven admitted silently, an easy situation for Temelathe, but it was a lot harder on the wry-abed.

Malemayn and Haliday were still arguing, voices low enough to ignore, and Warreven fixed his attention on the open file on the screen in front of him. It was an application-to-emigrate for someone named Destany Casnot, herm passing for male—a Black Casnot rather than a Blue, which made him distant kin; Casnot, like most of the large clans, was split between two Watches—and he paged quickly through the file, looking for the inevitable problems. The partnership didn’t get the easy cases; if this had been a straightforward emigration case, it would have gone to ColCom without the need for legal backing. Sure enough, the person sponsoring the application was listed as Sera Timban ’Aukai, who called herself Destany’s common-law wife. He knew ’Aukai, all right: all of the wry-abed did. She had for years managed an import service just off the Soushill Road, where indigenes looking for trade could sell or pawn traditional goods and find safe introductions. And now she was ready to leave Hara and wanted to take a current lover with her.

“Who took this emigration case?” he said, cutting through the others’ continuing argument.

“Æ?” That was Malemayn.

Haliday leaned over the cubicle wall. “It’s not what you think, Raven.”

“Oh?”

“I know you never liked ’Aukai, but she’s all right. Destany hasn’t done trade for ages, they’ve been living together for the last seven calendar-years. ColCom’s kicking her out—they caught heron a technicality, selling foodstuffs, for which she isn’t licensed. She’s appealing that, too, but she and Destany want to stay together.”

Warreven sighed, some of the irritation fading. ’Aukai had told him, years ago, when he’d first come to Bonemarche, that he wasn’t suited for trade—which had turned out to be true, but it hadn’t been much help at the time. Trade was the quickest way for the odd-bodied to earn a decent living in Bonemarche; the wrangwys bars and dance houses where trade was played were also the places where the wry-abed found each other. He had lived on the fringes of that world, a marijak and occasional marianj rather than a proper whore, for almost two years before he’d agreed to become a clan advocate. And it still pained him to admit that ’Aukai had been right. “Do we have any other support?”

“Mostly Destany’s kin,” Haliday answered. “But your friend Shan Reiss has offered us an affirmation. He says he’ll swear Destany and ’Aukai have been monogamous for the last five years at least.”

“That’s something,” Warreven said, and Malemayn’s voice rose from the depths of his cubicle. “Isn’t Reiss some sort of Casnot himself?”

“He’s still an off-worlders,” Haliday said. Ȝe looked at Warreven. “I wanted to ask you to pull the precedents.”

Warreven sighed again, and nodded. He looked down the list of files and saw another familiar name. “All right. But I want Ironroad then.”

“It’s all yours,” Haliday answered. “If I have to see Astrede’s smug face again, I’ll rearrange it for him.”

Ȝe turned away, and Warreven looked back at his screen, mousing quickly through the linked files. Stiller had built the iron road, the railroad that ran from just south of Luccem town down to Bonemarche, and then from Ostferry to Irenfot and on up the coast to Gedesrede, and despite the impossible cost—a price Stiller was still paying—Harans of every clan remembered it with respect. The Ironroad Brokerage was a Stiller company, and was evoking a Stiller triumph, which made this a matter of pride as well as law, if the complaint was true. And it probably was: Astrede Stiller held the Red and Green Watch Traditionalists who applied to the brokerage in genial contempt and tolerated no deviations from his decisions. If he said they were to go to the plants that processed the harvest for the off-world pharmaceuticals, to the processing plants they went, regardless of personal preference or any objections they might raise. The ones who didn’t cooperate found themselves locked out of any job Astrede controlled. Warreven scowled at the letters on the screen, caught in a mesh of symbols, and flicked the on-screen toggle to clear the overlay. Cooperate was hardly the word he would have chosen; obey seemed closer to the truth. He flipped back to the previous file, noting the complainants’ names: Farenbarne Trencevent and Catness Ferane, both of the Red Watch, both giving their occupation as diver. Chauntclere might know the Ferane, he thought. In any case, it was as good an excuse as any to see him.

He reached for the monophone again, touched the keys to call the dockyards where Chauntclere kept a mailbox when he was ashore. As he’d expected, there was no human response, only the familiar too-sweet mechanical voice announcing the box number and the box-holder’s name, and then silence for the message.

“Clere, it’s Raven,” he said, into the recorder’s faint hiss. “I need to talk to you informally about a case we’ve got going. Can you give me some time when you’re back?” There was no need to leave codes: Chauntclere, of all people, knew where to find him. He touched the break key and heard someone pass the cubicle’s doorway. He turned to see Haliday looking at him again over the wall.

“It’s gone five,” 3e said. “I thought you might like to know.”

“Thanks.” Warreven glanced back at the screen, touching keys to begin the shut-down. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. Malemayn’s gone.”

“Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll go with you.”

“Lost your keys again?”

“No, I just—” He broke off to touch a final set of codes, and the screen went blank. “They’re in my carryall somewhere, and I don’t feel like digging.”

Haliday grinned, but mercifully didn’t pursue the matter. “Your dinner’s at, what, seven?”

Warreven reached under the shelf desk for his bag and straightened up carefully, reaching across to sweep an untidy handful of disks and papers into the carryall’s main compartment. “Six-thirty. At least, I’m supposed to be there at six-thirty. Whether I get dinner depends, I expect, on whether or not I agree to run.”

“I wish to hell I knew what he was up to.” Haliday shook 3er head. “There’s no reason in this world for him to make you seraaliste—”

“Unless he’s counting on my apparently legendary inability to bargain,” Warreven said, a little too sharply. He stood up, slinging the still-open carryall over his shoulder. “I don’t know what he wants, Hal.”

“Sorry.” Haliday stood aside to let him out into the entrance-way, and followed him out through the reception room into the painted hall. The sun was low on the eastern horizon, the band of light stretching now almost to the door, falling heavily on the sandals stacked haphazardly in the mud tray. Warreven shoved his feet into the nearest pair, the leather warm under his toes.

Behind him, Haliday turned the heavy key, then laid 3er hand flat on the sensor plate to set the security system. “How does Ironroad look? Any chance of a settlement?”

“Hard to tell,” Warreven answered. “I’ll know better once I’ve had a chance to talk to the complainants—what’s-it and Farenbarne.”

“Catness. He’s the Ferane.”

Warreven pushed open the main door and held it for 3er."Chauntclere may know him.”

Haliday grinned, but said only, “He might, at that. See you in the morning, Raven.”

“In the morning,” Warreven echoed, and turned down the narrow alley that ran between their building and the silk-spinny next door. The sun was blinding at this time of day, the lower limb of the disk almost touching the horizon; he shaded his eyes and picked his way down the dry side, wrinkling his nose at the familiar pungent smell of the land-spiders’ pellets and the soft continual purring from their pens. The spinny door banged as he reached the end of the alley, and the purring suddenly doubled in volume, nearly drowning out the voice of the child who came to feed them. Warreven went on up the outside stairs, kicked off his shoes again on the second-floor porch. The house stood at the highest part of Blind Point; only the lighthouse stood higher, marking the entrance to the Sail Harbor. The porch faced just north of west, looking out over the open water of Lethem’s Bay, and he paused for a moment to scan the harbor, the vivid sails dotting the metal-bright water. The afternoon’s storm was long gone, not even a shred of cloud to screen the setting sun, and he looked away again, blinking hard to clear the green streaks from his vision. If he was made seraaliste, most of those ships, and the dozens of motor barges and lighters and round-bottomed coasters that ran between Bonemarche and the Stiller mesnies along the sunset coast, would be his business, the sale of their cargoes his responsibility. And Temelathe Stane was a hard man to refuse.

He reached into the bottom of the carryall, scrabbling through the disks and folders until he found the box of keys. He pulled it out, thumb already on the selector button, and set it against the plate. The door clicked twice and sagged open, and Warreven went on into the warm dark. He had left the house system shut down to avoid having to reset everything if there was another power surge, and he didn’t bother to flick on the lights until he reached the bedroom. He still had to bathe and change—Temelathe would be satisfied with nothing less than proper dress, and besides, he himself needed the reassurance of wealth and status—and then arrange for a car to get him across town to Ferryhead where the Most Important Man kept house. The last was something he should have done before he left the office. He sighed, and went back out into the main room, shedding clothes as he went, stopping only to turn both bath taps full on. The hire office was at least used to him, and Stiller had a standing contract for the Important Men and Women; he was able to order the car and driver for the full night, with only a nominal surcharge for the late notice. If everything went really well, he thought, stripping off the last of his clothes as he headed for the bath, he could maybe get together with Chauntclere, or Shan Reiss if Clere wasn’t ashore, and tour the harborside clubs with him. It had been a while since he’d been out.

He stepped into the tepid water, sliding down until the ripples touched his chin. He had shaved two days ago, wouldn’t need to do it again for another few days, but his hair was a mess, matted and sweaty. He ducked his head under the nearer tap, then shutoff both before he overfilled the generous tub. Soap stood in a jar beside the bath, and he reached for it, freed the stopper, and dug his fingers into the soft cream. Its heavy scent filled the air—sweetmusk mingling with the sharper note of the witch’s-broom—and he was tempted for an instant to rub it between his legs, over cock and balls and into his cunt, and ride the drug’s bright euphoria into the next morning. But it was easy enough to lose an encounter with Temelathe, even without the broom’s overconfidence, and he rubbed it into his hair instead, working the soap into a heady lather. Even so, when he reluctantly hauled himself out of the now-cold water, he could feel the broom singing in his blood.

As he worked a comb through his tangled hair, he caught a glimpse of himself in the larger mirror, and stopped for a moment to stare, thinking of ’Aukai. He was still slim, was if anything going stringy, the old curves resolving into wiry muscle, breasts too small to sag, but a little incongruous above the bony rib cage. The boyish penis was just as incongruous, and he looked back at the smaller mirror, concentrating on his hair. Whatever ’Aukai had thought, he was certainly too old now to play trade—though it had never been his looks that worried her—but not, he thought, too old to run the harborside clubs.

He went back into the bedroom and began to pull clothes out of the chest, tossing the discards onto the piled quilts that made up the bed. He settled at least for an ivory tunic-and-trousers suit, the slubbed silk cool against his skin, and rummaged through the smaller box until he found the vest he wanted. Folhare had made it for him, from the scraps left over from making the topmost bed quilt: she had liked the colors against his skin, and said she knew she wouldn’t get the chance to see him displayed against the quilt itself. The closely stitched fabric glowed like sunset in the narrow room, and he wondered if Folhare would be at this party. She was a Stane, but of the Black Watch; this was probably just a White Stane event, he decided, and emptied his jewel box onto the bed. He sorted through the heap of bracelets and earrings and chains, metal, glass, and carved wood, pulling out the pieces that had been forged from the wreck of the colony ship that had brought his ancestors to Hara. He slid the bracelets onto his wrists, circles of twisted iron that still carried the marks of the hammer and the off-world shipbuilder’s tools, fastened his collar with a square of plastic from the engine room. There was only one earring left—the other sliver of gold-washed circuit board had descended in a different branch of the mesnie—and he paired it with a plain, heavy gold hoop. This was a night for status. He smiled at his reflection, the angular, broad-boned face not yet too worn by the sun, eyes blacker than ever from the broom, and was pleased with the result.

The coupelet was waiting by the time he’d finished dressing, the driver leaning on the steering bar with an expression of infinite patience on his sun-wrinkled face. The destination was already set; as soon as Warreven closed the door behind him, the driver eased the heavy vehicle into motion. They turned south, onto the harbor road, sounding the coupelet’s whistle almost constantly as he worked his way into the slow-moving stream of traffic. This was a bad time to try to get through the harbor district—the market there was still open, the day-boats would just be docking, and the shopkeepers and brokers and the occasional pharmaceutical’s factor would be crowding the quay to inspect the day’s take—and Warreven leaned forward to flip the intercom switch.

“Why aren’t we taking Stanehope Street?”

The driver looked up, fixing the younger man’s face in his mirror. “Sorry, mir, but there’s been some trouble at the Souk, rana dancers. The baas told me to come this way.”

Warreven nodded, and leaned back in his seat, resigning himself to a long, slow ride. The rana groups were always active around the Midsummer holiday, their riot presaging the overthrow of the year; lately, the radical political groups, Modernists like himself and the fringe groups even further to the left, had taken over the ranas’ tactics, and staged their own protests with dance and drumming. Not that the ranas had ever really been apolitical, of course, but the Modernists had honed and focused the protests, trying to say new things in an old voice. The Centennial Meeting would begin at Midwinter, and the Modernists had already announced that they wanted to put the question of Hara’s joining the Concord to an open vote. That meant bringing a lot of other issues into the Meeting—the question of the pharmaceutical contracts, of Temelathe’s control of the government, and the existence of trade and the whole question of gender law—and Tendlathe and the Traditionalists vehemently opposed the idea. A number of the old-style ranas supported their position, and there had already been fights between the two groups.

Traffic slowed around them, and the couplelet’s engine moaned as the driver geared down yet again. Warreven leaned sideways, trying to see around the driver’s head and the shays and runabouts that hemmed them in. Ahead, Consign Wharf jutted into the main harbor, and there was a crowd gathered at its foot, spilling out into the roadway, completely blocking one of the four lanes.

“Someone’s made a good haul,” he said, but even before he heard the driver’s noncommittal grunt, he realized that he was wrong: There were too many runabouts in the knotted traffic, not enough shays and three-ups—too many people altogether, he thought, to be a buying crowd. The coupelet lurched forward, gained another fifty meters before it ground to a halt, and he could hear the noise of drums and the shrill note of a dancer’s whistle even through the coupelet’s heavy shell. Three people—ordinary people, sailors and dockworkers by their clothes, without the usual tattered ribbons that marked a rana group—were standing on a platform balanced precariously on a cluster of fuel drums, arms around one another’s shoulders, chanting and swaying to the drums. He couldn’t hear the words yet, or much more than the dull rhythm, but he could see the defiance in their faces, and the tension in the movements of the listening crowd. The driver reached across his pod to flip a security switch, locking the coupelet’s doors.

They inched forward, into the fringes of the crowd, and Warreven leaned back in the seat, making himself as unobtrusive as possible. Most of the attention was directed toward the people—two women and a man—on the platform, but there was no point in attracting trouble. And trouble was already present: to the left of the car, on the edge of the concrete mole that marked the end of the buyers’ lot, a man in a traditional vest and docker’s trousers banged an ironwood wrench against a wooden pot. His hand rose and fell in an insistent counter beat, but any sound was drowned in the noise from the platform. He knew it as well as anyone, turned his fierce scowl on the people around him, exhorting them to join in disrupting the singers’ chant. He had painted red-and-white flames, the mark of the Captain, the spirit that Tendlathe was trying to make the Traditionalists’ patron, across each cheek. Most of them ignored him, or stood open-mouthed and undecided, looking at him and then back to the singers. Then at last a stocky man jumped up on the wall beside him, clapping his hands and calling to the others. The coupelet slid past before Warreven could see what happened.

They were almost abreast the platform now, and a woman’s clear voice—the voice of a sea chanter, someone trained to make herself heard over a full gale and the chaos of a sinking ship—soared over the insistent drums.

“Shineo was the Captain’s daughter,” she began, and most of the people answered automatically, conditioned by years of sailing.

“Way-hey, Shineo.”

“I love her a little bit more than I oughter,” the chanter sang, and the response faltered, some voices dropping out, others coming in full and triumphant.

“Way-hey, Shineo!”

“Oh, Captain, Captain, I love your daughter.” The chanter’s voice was full of mocking challenge, not just of the Traditionalist with his painted face, but of everything he and the Captain stood for. The same note was in the crowd’s answer—as if, Warreven thought, they were all twelve again, and just learning there were real words, strong words, names for all the things they weren’t supposed to do, or be.

“I’ll carry her across the deep blue water—”

The driver gunned the engine, and the coupelet lurched for-ward into a gap in the traffic, but the sudden rumble couldn’t drown either the crowd’s gleeful response or the driver’s curse.

“Garce bitch.”

Warreven lifted his head, and the driver met his eyes in the mirror, the half of his expression that Warreven could see caught between embarrassment and mulish conviction. Everyone knew Warreven was a halving, wry-abed, and a Modernist to boot, but this, the face seemed to say, was too much. Warreven lifted an eyebrow, and the driver’s stare faltered.

“Sorry, mir,” he muttered.

Warreven nodded, and looked away. A couple of Temelathe’s militia—the mosstaas, mustaches, technically members of the city patrol association, were standing on the edge of the crowd, heads turned toward the chanter. One rested his hand on his ironwood truncheon, but they stood otherwise passive, without noticeable expression, watching the crowd and the singer. There would be trouble later, Warreven thought, and wondered if Chauntclere was safe at sea.

Traffic eased as they swung away from the harbor, moving into one of the new mixed-use districts, where old warehouses and crumbling factories had been reclaimed for the workers in the newer plants south of the Goods Yard. Few people were visible in the streets, but here and there the wide doors were open to the evening, and Warreven caught a quick glimpse of a group of women, traditionally skirted, breasts pushed up and out by the tight traditional bodices, gathered around an open stove. A few children, most in ragged hand-me-downs, played on the cracked paving, under what had been a loading dock. They stopped their game to stare at the coupelet, and as it passed, the tallest threw a stone. It fell short, but Warreven saw the driver’s eyes in the mirror, watching them, and heard him mutter something indecent under his breath before he looked away.

The sun was well down by the time the coupelet drew up in front of the compound that surrounded Temelathe’s house, the cool twilight thickening toward dark. Lamps were lit on either side of the gate, and the taller of the mosstaas on duty there waved them through without hesitation. The driver maneuvered the coupelet between the pillars and slid it neatly to a stop outside the main entrance. The house itself was bigger than the clan house over by the Terminus, was easily as large as the White Watch House, and was rumored to have cost several years’ of Template’s disposable income. Even if that weren’t true, Warreven thought—and knowing Temelathe, he doubted it—it was still an impressive sight, a mute statement of all the ways that Stane out-stripped its neighbors. Lights blazed through the open doors and windows, and a woman in full traditional regalia, tiered and beaded skirts and tight bodice, crown of shells and flowers on her braided hair, came hurrying to open the door.

“Makado will show you where to put the car,” the woman said, to the driver. She had the high, breathless voice of the old-fashioned high-housekeepers, but only off-worlders failed to recognize its authority within its own sphere. A dark man in off-world clothes loomed silently out of the shadows, beckoning, and Warreven let the coupelet’s door fall shut behind him. The heavy vehicle slid away toward the sheds at the far side of the compound.

“Mir Stane is waiting,” the housekeeper said.

And standing on his dignity, too, Warreven thought. Or maybe it was just her habit to refer to Temelathe by the most exalted form of his name. He nodded, and gestured for her to precede him into the house.

The party hadn’t started yet, but a few of the guests were already present, gathered in one of the anterooms outside the main hall. The housekeeper swept him quickly past the doorway, but Warreven saw Aldess Donavie standing in the center of a circle of admirers. She saw him, too, and smiled graciously, showing perfect teeth, but did not beckon him in. There was no sign of Tendlathe—which was probably just as well, Warreven admitted. After their last argument, he’d rather keep out of Tendlathe’s way for a while.

The housekeeper stopped outside a familiar door and tapped lightly on the frame. “Enter,” a voice said, only slightly deadened by the dense wood, and the housekeeper pushed open the door.

“Mir Warreven, Mir Stane.”

Temelathe was sitting in his favorite chair, beside the massive cast-ceramic stove. It was unlit, of course, wouldn’t be lit until the coldest nights of the winter, but it was more expensive evidence of the clan’s power. “I’m so glad you could come,” he said, and Warreven heard the housekeeper shut the door behind him. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Liquertie?”

Warreven glanced at the tray that rested on the cold stovetop. The flask was filled with indigo liquid, and a dark, twisted shape floated in its depths: not just ordinary liquertie, then, but black nectar, liquertie infused with the root pod from a vinegar tree. “Thank you. May I pour you a glass, my father?”

Temelathe nodded, a slight, slightly indulgent smile on his weathered face. He had never been handsome, had broadened with age until he looked like one of the aged wood carvings of the Captain. He cultivated that resemblance, of course, but it was still compelling, the fierce brown eyes enmeshed in the web of fine lines that covered his face. Warreven filled the delicate glasses with liquor that flowed like thick ink and handed one across with a slight, polite bow, falling into a familiar role. The dutiful son was useful, and generally safe: it gave no opportunity for criticism and rarely required one to commit oneself to anything.

“Sit,” Temelathe said again impatiently, and Warreven lowered himself into the second chair.

“Now, what’s all this about not wanting to be seraaliste? Strictly speaking, it’s not an honor you can refuse.”

Warreven sipped the nectar, enjoying the thick, cinnamon-lemon taste. “I didn’t ask to be on the list. I didn’t even know my name was on it until today—and that, my father, is hardly appropriate procedure.”

“You couldn’t have been nominated without some sort of permission, at least by proxy,” Temelathe said.

“Nevertheless—”

“A recording error,” Temelathe said, and waved the idea away with his free hand. “Something didn’t reach you—the mails can be unreliable, especially this new net you like so well. That’s why I wanted to keep the old systems in place.”

“It’s a good reason to question my candidacy,” Warreven answered. “That sort of—error—could be held to contaminate the whole slate.”

Temelathe frowned. “The Modernists would love to hear you say that.”

“Yes. And I agree with their positions.” Warreven took another sip of the nectar, and a fragment of root-pod landed, bitter and stinging, on his tongue. “Which is why, my father, I don’t understand your attitude. Let’s be frank, I won’t do you any good as seraaliste.”

Temelathe regarded him over the rim of the liquertie glass. “Let’s be frank, then, my son. You don’t do me any good as an advocate, but not opposing your name for seraaliste does me good with your less-radical kin. So, my son, I want you to run. I don’t really care whether or not you’re elected—though I think you’ll care, given your opponent—but I will not have you challenge the slate.” He paused, and continued with a smile, “I’m sure you’ll find, if you check your records, that you received word that your name would be put in nomination months ago.”

Warreven allowed himself a rather bitter smile in answer. “I’m sure.” And someone will find himself a little richer at the network offices, too, for adding a backdated note to my file. “I won’t campaign,” he said, and knew he sounded merely petulant.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Temelathe said.

Warreven sighed, admitting his defeat. He wouldn’t need to campaign, not if Temelathe was backing him, and the threat of challenging the slate was just that, an empty threat. The Stillers would never agree to that if he invoked Modernist politics—the Modernists were too radical even for a clan known to be progressive—and without the backing of the full clan, he could never hope to overthrow the candidacy. “I hope you don’t regret this, my father,” he said, and Temelathe’s smile widened.

“I doubt I will.” He paused. “I’d like to see you and Tendlathe friends again.”

Several answers rose to Warreven’s lips, but he controlled himself. He said, “First, that’s his problem more than mine. Second, you don’t help things by reminding him of a marriage neither one of us really wanted.”

“You’d’ve been a better wife than Aldess.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Warreven stood. “Good night, my father.”

Temelathe shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Raven. Tendlathe’s the person you need on your side. But, good night, if you want it that way.”

“I do,” Warreven said, and wondered, too late, if Temelathe might not be right after all.

~

Marianj: (Hara) part-time or semi-professional prostitute who plays a passive or woman’s part.

Marijak: (Hara) part-time or semi-professional prostitute who plays an active or man’s part.