“‘Don’t you ever listen?’ he growled. ‘I’m not interested in talking to anyone.’
“I put on the jolly-old-Cranmer face that Gyll seems to consider the real me. ‘Talking can be a catharsis of sorts, you know. You’ll feel better afterward; it’s guaranteed. I always find that . . .’ I went on like that for a time, until through weariness or self-defense, Gyll stepped back to let me in. He’d evidently been cleaning his weapon—the tools were spread out on his bed and the vibrowire was extended. The wort sat quietly in its cage, its head turning to watch us. Gyll sat on the bed, pretending to be absorbed in his task. I took the one floater in the room, asking if he’d heard anything new about the Heritage foul-up.
“Gyll has an interesting face. For all his talk of the code and Hoorka aloofness, anyone that knows his habitual ticks and grimaces can read him. He’s virtually without guile. I love playing cards against him: he can’t bluff. When he’s mad, he looks at you from slightly under his eyebrows, his lower lip sticks out a little, and the mouth turns down. All the wrinkles on his face get a little deeper. All those things happened then. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘Valdisa insisted on going to see d’Embry alone. She should have let me go in her place, Cranmer. I know that cold bitch of a regent, Valdisa doesn’t. She’s likely to get some placating story . . .’ He stopped and began to polish the vibrowire vigorously.
“I grunted and
hmmmed
a few times in sympathy. ‘What interests me is the contract itself,’ I told him. I let him know that I’d checked with the Center files and from what I could glean, de Sezimbra was exactly what the miners thought him to be—a good man, a gadfly (and a needed one) to the Alliance. And Moache Mining’d been involved in questionable practices before. ‘Does it bother you that the Hoorka have killed an honorable man in the service of a dishonorable bastard, a man who has no sense of moral right or wrong, at least in the way Neweden views such things?’
“That brought his head up. He set the vibro aside too gently. The way he looked at me, I could see that the question was one that was already nagging at him. ‘What the Dame wills to happen, happens. And if Hoorka hadn’t killed the man, someone else would have, without giving de Sezimbra his proper chance.’ But he said it without fire, without conviction.
“I replied that no doubt the fact that it was all the Dame’s will was very comforting. ‘And no doubt she meant for the flitter to be ambushed, too.’
“Gyll gave me the aggravated look—the one that comes right before anger. ‘Because something is fated doesn’t mean that it’s also right. You know that. What happened with Renier; that was understandable, even expected in its own way. But what Guillene did to the other two . . . If that man were on Neweden, bloodfeud would be declared without a thought, and it’d be a slow death if I found him.’
“I figured I had one more push before Gyll got angry and I had to shut up for a while. That’s Gyll’s way: you have to dig at the man to get him to talk, and all the prodding makes him irritable. ‘Guillene’s offworld,’ I reminded him. ‘You can’t do a damned thing to him. And in any case, Valdisa’s handling it, not you.’
“He didn’t say anything at all, which was unlike him. He picked up the vibro again, reeled the wire back into the hilt and attached the holding plate. Then he jammed the weapon back into the sheath and stood up. He stared down at me. ‘Cranmer, one day the looseness of your tongue is going to cause it to be cut out,’ he said, and then he walked out of the room.
“The wort whimpered at his retreating back. And I sat there wishing that there was another way to get Gyll to react—jabbing holes in a person’s dreams is depressing.
“And in any case, I
like
my tongue.”
• • •
Thane Valdisa was possessed by rage. It sat, an indigestible and bitter lump in her gut. Frustration gnawed at her stomach; sorrow battered at her, demanding release.
Two Hoorka dead, Renier by a contracted victim, but Sartas slain by a cowardly ambush. And McWilms—she’d just left his rooms in the Center Hospital. The surgeon had said that the boy would recover, but Valdisa had seen the misshapen face under the med-pad and the empty socket of his shoulder where they were preparing the arm bud. He might attend his initiation as full kin, but it would be many months before he could take his place in the rotation. The condition of McWilms, his mute helplessness and pain, made her the most angry. Death,
that
she could understand, could cope with, but the boy’s mutilation . . .
She strode into the brilliant lobby of Diplo Center, the sunstar a mockery at her back, and demanded to see Regent d’Embry. The startled Diplo she accosted mumbled nervously and whispered into her com-unit. The Diplo’s eyes spoke of contempt, but her voice was blandly polite. “The Regent is able to see you now.”
“She didn’t have a choice.” Valdisa strode away.
D’Embry’s office was awash with lemon sunlight. It glared from the holocube of d’Vellia’s
Gehennah
in the corner, a wedge of light shimmered across the carpet and over her desk, slashing across the Regent’s thin body but leaving the face in shadow. D’Embry herself was a mobile sunbeam, her hands, shoulders, and earlobes dashed with yellow skin tint. Only her much-lined face was at odds with the day. Her mouth was down-turned, the icy-blue eyes serious.
“Come in, Thane Valdisa. I have to admit that I was expecting to see someone from the Hoorka today. I was sorry to hear about the problems with the Heritage contract.”
“Problems? . . .”
Valdisa glared at the woman.
So frigging secure behind that desk. She doesn’t care about Renier, Sartas, or McWilms. If she feels any sorrow, it’s only because of the trouble she’ll have over Heritage.
“You have an interesting way of phrasing things, m’Dame.”
D’Embry toyed with an ippicator bone on her desk. The polished surface caught the light, held it and amplified it, lustrous. Thin fingers, yellow against the bone’s subtle ivory, turned the piece and set it down again. “You think I haven’t any feelings for your kin in your loss. Believe me, Thane Valdisa, I do.” She looked up, and Valdisa was caught in her young-old eyes. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ve had to lose those that were close to you. I
do
understand how you have to feel, the anger. The Alliance will pay the cost of McWilms’s hospitalization. Consider it a gesture of our concern for your feelings—I shouldn’t have let you work that contract. The situation was far too volatile.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Apprentice McWilms? No.”
“I have.” Valdisa tore herself away from d’Embry’s steady regard, going to the window. The lawn of the Center stretched out to the flat expanse of Sterka Port. In sunlight, the head of the large ippicator before the Center stared sightlessly at distant port workers. “They told me that half his face had been torn away, like someone had scrubbed at it with a file,” she said, staring outward. “He was just a mass of bleeding, shredded tissue. The right arm had been crushed, flattened, the bones shattered. He’d nearly bled to death. Both legs broken, severe internal injuries. Maybe here on Neweden he’d’ve died, unconscious. Now he gets to live with the agony—and I’ll have to tell him that it’s the better option. Sartas’s injuries had been worse. I think in some ways he’s luckier.”
She turned back into the room. D’Embry was watching her, silent, hands folded on her desktop. “And
you,
damn you, sit back there and talk about
problems
on Heritage,” Valdisa shouted. “Well, they were people, and my kin, and I feel their hurt.” She paused, breathing heavily once, and when she continued, the voice was more controlled. “My people are going to want to declare bloodfeud. I can’t say that I disagree with that.”
“Bloodfeud’s not possible.”
“Your own report says that Sartas argued with Guillene, went against Guillene’s orders. Guillene threatened Sartas, publicly.”
“There’s no proof that Guillene was responsible for the attack.”
“Who the hell else?” Valdisa laughed in exasperation and disgust.
D’Embry shrugged, but her gaze was sympathetic. “De Sezimbra was popular among the miners—it could have been a group of them, or perhaps even de Sezimbra’s associates. It didn’t have to be Guillene.”
“None of the others have any reason to harm Hoorka. We’re simply the weapon, not the hand that wields it. Would you destroy a vibro and let the man go that used it?”
“I’d be tempted to destroy both.” Then d’Embry sighed, leaning back in her floater. “Heritage isn’t Neweden, Thane. They’ve a different governing structure, a different set of laws. Believe me, I understand your anger and frustration, but there’s very little I can do about it.”
“Because Moache Mining is involved? Is that it? I’ll wager that the word reached you from Niffleheim before the bodies were even loaded on the ship, neh? Leave Heritage alone, ignore the murder of Hoorka.” Valdisa’s fury boiled; she fought to hold it back, knowing it would either make her cry or rage and knowing that d’Embry would just sit there and watch, unmoved. She stood opposite the Regent, leaning down, her hands on the polished surface of the desk.
D’Embry hesitated before answering, and Valdisa wondered what emotion clouded those clear eyes for a breath. “Moache Mining
is
powerful,” d’Embry admitted. “I can’t answer for Diplo Center on Heritage. But
I’ve
had no instruction from Niffleheim or Moache. And even if I had, my actions would be my own.”
There was a fierce pride on the Regent’s face.
Valdisa glanced at the ippicator bone on the desk, with an inward prayer to She of the Five. “But you still won’t let Hoorka act as we wish.”
“Only because I don’t want Hoorka getting involved in something too big for them. I’ll do everything I can. It’s an offworld matter, Thane.” Reaching out, d’Embry touched Valdisa’s callused hand with her softer, vein-webbed one, yellow against tanned flesh. Valdisa began to pull away from the contact, but d’Embry held her with gentle pressure. “No matter what you want done,” the Regent continued, “it’ll have to be handled through Diplo channels and in accordance with Heritage’s own laws, which are the laws of the Alliance. We’ll try to find the people responsible, I promise you that. I’ll push them if I have to, and I’m a very good, experienced pusher. It was just this kind of situation that worried me when I allowed the Hoorka to work offworld, Thane. Don’t make my fears become reality, or I’ll have little choice.” A quick squeeze of fingers, and a surprising warmth in d’Embry’s eyes: Valdisa found herself listening, the anger momentarily background.
The Regent moved her hand back. Valdisa pulled herself erect. “I understand you, Regent. I do. But you’d better get results and a punishment that’s satisfactory to Hoorka. I’ve only so much power to sway my kin, and they’re enraged and bitter.”
“You’re the Thane. They
have
to understand, or at least obey.”
Valdisa smiled, lopsided. “I’m Thane, yah. But obedience is another matter, sometimes . . . Ulthane Gyll could do it, but Ulthane Gyll also doesn’t
take
orders well, nor do some of the others.” She glanced away, slowly looking about the uncluttered room. When she looked back, she had again become the arrogant Hoorka-thane.
“You’d better see that something is done quickly, m’Dame,” Valdisa said. “You might find that it benefits both you and Neweden.”
• • •
The Li-Gallant Vingi found his new Domoraj to be rather less intelligent and less given to moody introspection than the former holder of that tide. The combination was more to his liking.
The Domoraj faced Vingi from the corner of his room, which held the rods of the Battier Radiance. Vingi was naked in the glare of the Battier, rolls of fat girdling his body. Seeing the Domoraj enter the room, he reached out and turned off the device, putting on a worn blue robe that hung from one of the posts. This Domoraj is a buffoon, he decided as the light began to fade. He’d keep him for a while, but already the thought of a successor concerned him. Someone younger, more pliable to Vingi’s whims. The Li-Gallant moved to his desk, folding thick hands over the scattered flimsies there, his rings flicking particolored light about the room.
“You may sit, Domoraj.” Vingi watched the man. The new leader of his guard force was older, paunchier, and Vingi found that the man’s smile seemed cruelly superficial—it touched only his mouth. The eyes sat too close to the prominent nose; the uniform he wore was too tight, meant for a younger version of the man. “I hope my lack of proper attire didn’t upset you too much.”
“Not at all, Li-Gallant.”
Vingi had seen the Domoraj’s face when he entered the office. “You don’t lie well, Domoraj.”
The man’s smile wavered, like a flame guttering in wind. “Li-Gallant . . .”
“It’s not that awful, man, but you should learn to be more careful. I don’t like pretension with my staff, Domoraj. You needn’t feel threatened.” Vingi waited, but the Domoraj said nothing more. He patted his ample stomach. “I’ve had a most interesting communication from Sirrah Potok,” Vingi continued. “It seems that he was most perturbed by the slowness of your security forces during the lassari attack on Gunnar’s bier.”
A slow nod. “Li-Gallant, the attack was so sudden, so unexpected, and with the discomfort of the rain—”
Vingi halted the litany of excuses with an abrupt hand movement. He’d discovered enough—the Domoraj had fear of him. “I can understand your problems, Domoraj. Your much-lamented predecessor could have done no better.”
The Domoraj relaxed perceptibly. He tugged at his uniform, settling it more comfortably around his shoulders. “I’m impressed by your assessment of the situation, Li-Gallant.” He smiled.
“I’m sure you are.” Vingi returned the smile. “However, I think you misunderstand me. I see your difficulties, yah, but I do
not
excuse you for them. That was a very sloppy example of your ability to control my forces, a ground for severe reprimand if not an outright dismissal. Do you understand me now, Domoraj?”