by Doris Egan
I laughed, remembering the last time I'd heard that recited, by Des Helani on a windy plain on the way back from Deathwell. " 'This night of nights,' " I agreed, quoting. It's impossible not to know that soliloquy, every theater troupe on the planet had their version of it, and lines from it seemed to creep in everywhere—the lowest beggar in the market could do fifteen minutes of Petev with his hands tied and standing on one foot.
I turned to Octavia. "We're talking about a scene from a famous play." I explained. "That's the tower where it really happened in history. Not the soliloquy, I mean— that's the tower where Petev really spent the night he decided to kill the Emperor. Two dynasties ago, I think."
Kylla smiled, watching Shez explore the line of blue flowers that ran along the path. "It's one of your favorites, isn't it, Theo? Why don't you do it for us—Octavia probably hasn't heard it, and it's a very dramatic story."
"Huh! You should have heard my friend Des recite. He could do it right."
"Oh, just run through a few lines. The part where he remembers visiting the Palace when he was a child—that's the middle part," she explained to Tavia, "I always get that mixed."
Well, it is arguably the most beautiful poem Ivory has produced (I'm sorry what little I'm giving you here is in translation), so I grinned, stood up straight, and said, "This night, my friends, this night when the lighted boats of Anemee will never reach their slips on the lake of noble souls—"
As I was speaking (I couldn't declaim it the way Des could, but then he'd been half-mocking himself when he did that), I saw Shez leave the blue border of flowers to investigate something new.
Now, the escalators in the Imperial Park cut through the
terraces almost geometrically. Suddenly there's a hole in the ground, and there you are. The mouth of each escalator has hard, transparent paneling around the sides to keep people from falling in, paneling that links with the transparent panels at the outer wall of each terrace. At the opposite corners from the entrance there's a gold railpost on each side, a small space, and then the panes of paneling begin.
Shez began exploring the opening between the railpost and the paneling. But then, it was a very small opening. It had to be: It would be a long drop down to the next terrace.
Kylla, I saw, was still looking across the river.
"The golden mornings of earliest youth, charmed by
artifice And birdsong in the gardens of my sister—"
I broke off. "She can't get through that, can she?"
Kylla turned, spotted Shez, and said, "ACK!" She was off like a missile, robes flying, just as Shez slipped one arm and one foot through the opening.
Kylla hauled her out, grabbed her by the shoulders and said fiercely, "Never, never, never play around stairs! Never!" She pulled her daughter over to us, placed her hand over her own heart and said, "Nothing like getting the adrenaline pumping."
Shez seemed to have already forgotten the incident. She was looking with wide eyes at the children's play set (designed by a series of Imperial architects) that rose like a miniature Paradise farther along the terrace. "Can I go on the tree-slide?"
Kylla looked at me and rolled her eyes. "I'd better go see she's occupied for a while. Anyway, you two should talk."
I supposed we should. My two gaudily-robed friends moved off a short way along the terrace, and I looked at the one remaining, in her powder-blue suit. "Well," I said awkwardly. The atmosphere didn't seem right for continuing the recitation. "Never mind the rest of the poem. It's incredibly beautiful, though, Tavia, you should pick up a copy." I hoped I wasn't chattering. "The very last couplet is the most wonderful thing I've ever heard—'When sand has covered all we have built, still the—' "
"Oh, stop it!"
"What?" I stared at her, taken aback. Her face was red and cross.
"Just stop it! Always showing off, just like the old days! You haven't changed a bit, Theodora."
"What?" I repeated, stupidly.
"So what if you've read a lot of old stories! Who cares? Always bringing them up, always memorizing and showing off!"
I felt myself flush. "But I didn't memorize it, it's a famous po—"
"Trying to make me feel bad because I don't know your 'famous' things! Always grabbing the spotlight!"
I felt as though I'd stepped off not a step, but a cliff, that wasn't there. My head was whirling. Had Tavia completely forgotten our past history? She was the one who was the social success! I'd only tagged along! Reality turned upside-down.
Simple grammar deserted me. Tavia took advantage of my involuntary silence to say, "You always thrust yourself forward, you know. I could see you didn't think much of my trying to make new friends, but you might have—"
I found my tongue and burst out, "But I always admired you for the way you met new people! Remember that night in Comiss Major, in the bar, when you told that skier, 'No, I love it when men get drunk and shout stupid things'?" That skier had followed her around all three days we were there. She'd been in rare form that night.
"I didn't say that. I would never say that."
I blinked, unable to think of an answer for this denial. "But, Tavia, we had a lot of fun together—"
"I didn't even want to go to Comiss Major! It was your idea, aiways you wanting me to do the things you wanted to do! Like today, this stupid park! I knew you hadn't changed, I told Hippolitus that! What the hell could Theodora know about Ivory that would be any help to anybody? But he's the damned security staff, and I'm in stupid Produce Control!"
"I don't under—"
"I didn't want to see you, you idiot! Great Unity, the ego of this woman! Why do you think I never answered your letters?"
"I thought—I thought after I moved to Athena, the censors—"
"Blow the censors! I didn't even visit when I got my first assignment, when you were still on Pyrene!"
"You said you were busy—"
"Anyone else would have gotten the message! But not Theodora the wonder child, who reads everything in the antiquities library, and drops her Pyrenese citizenship!"
I became distantly aware that Kylla, hearing voices raised, had returned and was standing there wide-eyed, holding Shez's hand.
"But—" I groped for some common ground. "Remember that night before graduation, when we stuffed wet paper in the teaching machines?"
"Your idea, not mine! I told you the guardians would be upset! And it surely didn't go on your record, did it, not on another damned planet!"
I put my hand to my face, which still seemed to be there, though it was sizzling like a griddlecake. "I thought—you never said—"
"Oh, don't tell me this comes as a surprise—you've been getting little digs in at me all day!"
"I've what?"
"You ordered salad at the restaurant! Don't think I don't know what that means!" And on that indignant note, she turned and flounced off.
I stood there. Kylla came over to me hesitantly. "Theo, sweetheart, are you all right?"
I nodded vaguely.
"I think we'd better get you home," she said briskly.
I followed her out of the park.
Shez was uncharacteristically silent on the ride back. Kylla thumped on the roof of the carriage, stuck her head out, and said, "We're taking the lady Theodora home first, driver. If you haven't been paid in advance, I'll do it when we reach my house."
When we reached mine, Kylla said, "Go inside and pour yourself a good stiff drink, darling. I have to go with Shez, but I'll call later."
I said, "What does it mean when you order salad?"
"Means you're hungry, I think, dear. Now go on in."
So I did, and of course started crying buckets of tears as soon as I got through the entranceway.
Several hours later Ran came in. He kissed my rather puffy face and said, "You ought to answer your Net messages. Kylla called me in Braece and said that you spent the afternoon with a second Clintris na'Fli."
I chuckled, more because it was sweet of him to try than
because I felt like it, and said, "Kylla said nothing of the kind."
"Well, she would have if she knew Clintris. She did say, 'If she weren't a friend of our Theo's, I would have said from the beginning that she was the most ill-bred, ill-mannered specimen I'd ever seen. A regular tymon, Ran— and I don't mean that the way you do when you use it with Theo.' "
Dear Kylla. Ran's voice, of course, was nothing like hers, but his facial expressions were uncannily exact.
An hour of cosseting later, I'd come out of it enough to realize that I'd come out of it eventually. When he saw I'd recovered, Ran said, "Kylla speaks Standard, you know."
"I didn't know, but it doesn't surprise me."
"She recounted a lot of your conversation with this Py-renese woman. The reference to Hippolitus was interesting. Didn't you say that was the name of the man who was running the mining project in the Northwest Sector?"
"Yes, the Governor introduced him to the crowd that day in Kynogin—you know, when I brought in the stolen cattle. It's almost certainly the same man. Pyrene is sparing in the assignment of proper names, that's why we have so many different ones."
"If he's really on their security staff, it suggests a lot of things about his presence in the Sector. That mining story was pretty thin, but it served to get people stirred up. And it put pressure on the outlaws, which they were bound to respond to. You'd almost think they were aiming for another Sector rebellion to start."
"Oh, of course, that was clear as soon as she said it." I sniffed, still not entirely free of these stupid weeping jags.
"It was?" Ran sounded startled.
"Yes, and it was probably Pyrenese agents who added those helpful little touches in sabotaging the tah shipments
Stereth couldn't reach. He always struck me as being surprised by some of that news."
"This was clear as soon as your friend spoke? And you haven't said anything to me?"
"Damn it, I was upset!" I sniffed again. Clearly the relative importance of an alien-fomented rebellion versus a rejection by a friend bore different weights in his mind. But then, it hadn't been his friend… or the only friend of his youth.
He sighed. "My very dear wife."
He'd been standing; now he pulled me down onto the divan beside him. "What are we going to do with this information?"
I was remembering the day Tavia had lifted her hands to catch the snow in Comiss Major; had she really resented me even then?
Ran tugged at my robe. "What are we going to do with the information? We certainly don't want to approach anyone in Imperial government with it." Nobody on Ivory deals with the Imperial government if they can help it, and they pave the way with bribes when they must. Nor would any particular official we approached necessarily be interested in these facts—they were a notoriously self-centered bunch.
I said, "I still have my contacts in Athenan Outer Security. If they thought Pyrene was getting too much power here, they might move to stop them… Or they might not. I really have no idea what their aims are. And I don't feel today that I can predict what people will do."
He kissed my forehead. "Don't get paranoid, you're doing pretty well."
"I'm disillusioned with Athenan intelligence anyway. I was thinking about dropping my connection there."
"Umm. It doesn't leave us a lot of alternatives. But I can't say I'm thrilled with the idea of letting a bunch of foreign barbarians try to influence my planet." He paused. "We do know one Imperial minister. We might tell Stereth."
I took my head from his shoulder and looked at him.
He returned the look sheepishly. "Well, you know," he said, "we were in the original band." * * *
"The minister is asleep. You'll have to return in the morning."
We were standing at the steps to Stereth's villa, having been accompanied across his enormous garden by two brawny Imperial gentlemen with pistols. The night was warm for fall, and the air was full of scent.
"Would you please inform the minister that Sokol and Tymon are here?"
The doorkeeper inspected our clothes and jewelry. "… Sokol," he said, as though wondering if it were a practical joke.
"And Tymon," I added.
"On urgent business that may not be delayed." This is the almost ritual line used by important people in the capital to signal to other important people that they really do have to talk.
The doorkeeper bowed; at least we knew the right thing to say. He disappeared.
The two armed guards remained. Ran said to me, "Well, he used to wake us up enough in the old days."
And one hoped he would not be too irritated by it. There was a long tradition on Ivory of newly respectable ministers killing old acquaintances who popped up indiscreetly from their past. But I think we both felt that Stereth was the sort who would listen before doing anything like that. Still, Ran looked thoughtful as we waited.
A good quarter of an hour passed. My mind kept replaying the day's events. I'd never be able to hear Petev's soliloquy with solemn joy again; those shining words were forever gashed and defaced by the memory of this sunlit afternoon by the river. How could I have been so wrong?
"Produce Control," I muttered.
"What?" asked Ran.
"When I ordered salad, maybe she thought I was making fun of her for being transferred to Produce Control."
"Theodora, my very dear, if you could get your mind off the lunatic you met with this afternoon and get it back to the business at hand—"
He was right, and I was probably wrong about the salad reference anyway. The gods knew I was totally off base on everything else I'd thought about Octavia.
The doorkeeper returned. "The minister will see you.
You'll have to wait his pleasure in the visitor's room. You did wake him up, you know."
The visitor's room was a large sitting room with silk cushions and many old, enormous oil paintings that showed politically correct scenes from Ivoran history. Candleholders punctuated the pictures and carved wood and stone of the walls; nevertheless, a chandelier that clearly operated off imported Athenan power packs dominated the ceiling. A square gold table was in one side of the room, surrounded by pillows, with a holder for a tah pot in the center. We were directed to the table by the doorkeeper, who then left to return to his duties.
A moment later Stereth walked in. He wore blue and red silk robes, the outer borders embroidered with gold stitchery, and red plush slippers. Nor was that the only thing that made him look odd to me; his hair was cut neatly—well, his hair was always neat, he was fastidious about his appearance—but it was cut in the fashion of the capital. Before he reached us he slipped a pair of plain spectacles from the chest pocket of his outer robe and hooked them over each ear in the old familiar gesture. I smiled.
"Tymon!" He'd caught my eye first. "And Sokol. It's good to see you safe and sound. I've ordered tah and wine, they'll be here shortly. Please, sit down."
We sat, and he went on. "You'll have to forgive Cantry, she was too sleepy to get up. She sends her regards." I'd wondered if he kept Cantry with him, and here was the answer. Although, in a moment of paranoia, I did note that we hadn't actually seen Cantry. He went on, "And you two? May I presume to offer congratulations… ?"
He phrased it in the discreet way one asks that particular question.
"Yes," said Ran, who was used to saying it by now. "We've passed four-quarter night."
"Excellent! You know, I always believed that you both made a good pair, particularly after Tymon here made such a godawful pest of herself over your incarceration."
I smiled austerely.
He went on, "Not a classic pairing, of course. Not the obvious kind of thing that a family would arrange—"
You don't know Ran's family, I thought.
"—but having seen you both operate, I must admit it works."
Even as an old married couple, we seemed to come in by the two-bit door.
Ran said, "It's courteous of you to see us."
"Well, I knew it must be im
portant for you to make a special visit. After all, traditionally, newly bought-off outlaws tend to kill the associates who knew them when." He smiled, and I knew he was stringing us along. I relaxed.
"You're not making any great effort to distance yourself from the past," pointed out Ran. " 'Minister Tar'krim'? You're the first I've heard of to keep his road-name."
An old man with a sleepy look about him shuffled in with the tray; Stereth took it easily from him and poured us all cups of tah. Of course, technically there was no reason he couldn't poison us, but it would be impolite to refuse. Stereth said, "Yes, it seemed the best course. Those in the Imperial Government who come from the Six Families will always see me as an outlaw; but by not taking a new name, I don't come across as a social climber as well. I'd prefer not to be seen as another parvenu begging for acceptance."
"You could have taken back your old name," said Ran.
"No, I couldn't," he said shortly, and that was the end of that.
I put in, "Besides, if your name is a legend, why change it?"
He smiled again. "It does give me a certain cachet with some of the people I deal with. And the others it keeps on their toes."
We talked of the paintings on the wall for a few minutes, till we'd all finished our tah; then Stereth poured wine for us and asked, "Is there anything I can help you with?"
Ran said, "Tymon can tell it best."
So I told him what I'd heard, and hinted at what I surmised. He listened. When I was through he said, "What makes you think I would take an interest in some scheme of Pyrene's and a few bought officials?"
Ran said, "First of all, I don't believe that the new Minister for Provincial Affairs would let anything happen to the provinces until he's had a chance to rob them himself."
Stereth burst out laughing. It was a joyful laugh, not like
anything I'd ever heard from him in the Sector. "I'm sorry Cantry stayed in bed. All right, friends, no need to go further; I'll look into the matter. Good enough?"
Ran nodded. With the immediate business cleared I put down my winebowl and said, "I've been trying to find out what happened to some of the band. Do you have any idea?"
