Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction)

by Scott, Melissa

  Malemayn threw up his hands. "Fine."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," Warreven began, then shook his head. "Have a drink, Mal. I think I have an idea."

  Malemayn made a face, but the anger was fading. He reached for the nightwake pitcher, gesturing with his other hand for Reiss to proceed.

  "The Old Dame--Lolya Masani, %e owns the company--doesn't approve," Reiss said. "Partly it's %e doesn't want us getting in bad with either Customs or IDCA--there's some stuff, semi-recreational, that we export that's strictly controlled in the Concord, and Customs could make life very hard for us if they wanted--and partly %e just doesn't like the idea." He grinned suddenly, "%e's got this tape %e gives to every newcomer, where %e lays down the law to them. No new drugs unless %e clears them, and absolutely no trade, %e'll fire anyone who sells a permit or a residency. And %e's done it, too."

  "So Tatian isn't opposed to trade per se," Warreven said slowly. "He just has to make it look good for Masani?"

  "I don't know about that," Reiss said. "I mean, he doesn't approve of the players--I don't think he'd sell permits even if the Old Dame didn't say he couldn't."

  Warreven waved that away. "But a case like this, where the trade was well in the past, and it's just two people who love each other and want to be together--if we offered him some incentive, some reason to change his mind, do you think he would?"

  "He wasn't exactly happy when he told me I had to pull out," Reiss said. "Basically, IDCA made him do it."

  Malemayn said, "We don't have anything to offer."

  "Besides money, of course," Haliday said, "and that would be a little crude, for dealing with an off-worlder."

  Warreven smiled. "But in four days, assuming the elections go the way Temelathe wants them, I'm the Stiller seraaliste. I control the sea-harvest, the land-harvest, and everything that's surplus to the present contracts is mine to sell where I please. Would that be sufficient incentive, do you think?"

  "It's pretty crude," Malemayn said. "You won't be part of the group legally, but still..."

  "I think it's clean enough," Haliday said. "But would this Tatian buy it?"

  "I don't know," Reiss said, sounding dubious. "IDCA won't be pleased."

  "I would imagine it would depend on what you offered him," 'Aukai said. For the first time since they'd come to the dancehouse, she sounded like the woman Warreven remembered, strong, decisive, and just a little contemptuous of the world around her. "Make the price high enough, and any druggist will stand up to the IDCA."

  "We can't do anything until after the elections," Malemayn said thoughtfully, and looked at Warreven. "But that still leaves us time. I think this'll work, Raven. I think it will."

  Warreven grinned, enjoying the praise. If he had to leave the courts, he could at least use his new position to benefit his partners. Temelathe would expect no less--and besides, he admitted silently, it would be a pleasure to annoy the Most Important Man.

  Omni: (Concord) one of the nine sexual preferences generally recognized by Concord culture; denotes a person who prefers to be intimate with persons of all genders. Considered somewhat disreputable, or at best indecisive.

  Warreven

  The room was cold, the cooling unit turned to its highest power, rattling in its corner. Warreven shivered and reached for a corner of the topmost quilt, pulling it half over his naked body. Behind him, Reiss stirred, shifted so that he was free of the quilts. Warreven could feel him sweating still, not just from the exertion of sex, and wondered again if all of the Concord Worlds were cold planets. It had seemed the thing to do, to invite Reiss home with him, when they were both flushed with the power of Warreven's idea, but now, lying in the cold bedroom, the moonlight through the thin fabric of the shutters warring with the fitful light of the luciole in the corner, he wondered if he'd made a mistake after all. It had been months since he'd even seen Reiss, longer since he'd slept with him; the sex had been good--Reiss was always good--but it had somehow reminded him of his days as trade.

  "The light," Reiss said sleepily, and Warreven rolled to look at him.

  "You want it off?"

  "No, I'm going to have to go home in a while," Reiss answered, sounding a little more awake. "I was wondering, is that one of the bug lights?"

  They had been speaking franca, and Warreven blinked at the unfamiliar term. "The luciole?"

  "Yeah. It doesn't still have the bugs in it, does it?"

  Warreven grinned. "Not in the city, it doesn't. It was my grandfather's, my mother had it fitted for grid power a few years before she died." He looked at the softly flickering lamp, a ceramic sphere shaped like a knot of arbre vines, standing in a base like a shallow bowl. None of the holes was bigger than his thumb: the light had originally been the home of a colony of luci, the luminescent sea-flies of the peninsular coast. In the old days, before Rediscovery, you made a lamp like that by digging up a colony of luci. The queens would be confined to the center of the sphere, while the drones roamed freely, feeding them; each new generation added new light. "I've never seen a real luciole myself, not one that wasn't converted. One of my great-aunts said they were noisy, always buzzing, the drones all over the place, and the shelf would get all sticky from the sugar water they used to feed them."

  "Sounds disgusting," Reiss said, and ran a hand along Warreven's side. His hand slipped further, cupped Warreven's breast, and Warreven turned away, shrugging his shoulder to dislodge him. There was an instant of tension, a stillness between them like a silence, and then Reiss stroked the other's back instead, running his fingers along Warreven's spine in mute apology. Warreven relaxed into that touch and, after a moment, pulled his hair forward over his shoulder, out of the way.

  "I should go," Reiss said, but made no move.

  "Suit yourself," Warreven answered. "You're welcome to stay." The neighbors would talk, of course--they always did; he sometimes wondered what they had gossiped about before the advocacy group had bought the building--but then, they would talk anyway, once he brought the quilts to the laundress.

  "Thanks," Reiss said, and sighed, rolling onto his back. "No, I have to be in early tomorrow--I'm driving Tatian to Lissom to look at a possible surplus contract--and I don't really want to show up in the same clothes I wore yesterday."

  He kicked himself free of the last top quilt and sat up, the sweat still a faint sheen on his back. Warreven rolled over to watch him dress, drawing the quilt up over his shoulders, glad of its warmth. Reiss was surprisingly fair where his clothes protected him from the sun; the hair of his chest and groin was unexpectedly dark against that pallor. Tatian was even paler skinned, and golden-haired, Warreven thought, like a spirit in a babee-story, and he wondered suddenly if that meant Tatian would be blond all over. It was an arresting thought; he caught himself smiling and shook the image away. It was a mistake to let himself think of the off-worlder in those terms, no matter how handsome he was, or how good his body had felt in that momentary contact. Tatian was just the man he had to bargain with for Reiss's statement, and Destany's freedom--nothing more, not even an object of fantasy, not if he, Warreven, wanted to win.

  Rana, ranas, also rana band, rana dancers: (Hara) a group of men and women who use traditional drum-dances to express a political opinion; rana performances are traditionally protected by the Trickster, and by custom cannot be stopped unless the ranas make an explicit request for their audience to take political action. Ranas traditionally wear multicolored ribbons, a mark of the Trickster, as a sign of their special status.

  6

  Warreven

  Warreven had been drinking since the polls opened at noon--sweetrum and water, cut one-and-two so that he could barely taste the alcohol--but even so, he'd nearly finished the bottle. He glanced again at the media screen, lit but with sound muted, and turned away as soon as the count for seraaliste crawled along the bottom of the display. He was still winning--had already won, if he was honest with himself, and that meant that the clan's profits were his responsibility for th
e next year, until Midsummer came round again. One local year, twelve kilohours by the off-worlders' reckoning--twelve thousand and ninety-seven hours, to be precise--before he would be free again. But the harvest surplus was squarely in his hands, to sell where he pleased. Daithef wouldn't approve of that, anymore than he'd approved of Warreven's candidacy, and had spent the last few days of the campaign telling anyone who would listen that it would be a full year before Stiller's profits would be safe again.

  Warreven made a face--he wasn't that incompetent, and in any case a barrel-back clam would do a better job than Daithef--but admitted that any deal with NAPD would have to be handled cautiously. The price would have to be to NAPD's advantage if there was any hope of using the sale to force Tatian to allow Reiss to bear witness, but it couldn't be too good, or he himself would lose credibility with the Stiller mesnies. His plan was beginning to seem more complicated than he'd anticipated; he grimaced again, putting the worry aside, and poured the last of the sweetrum into his cup. There wasn't much left, and he added water to bring the mixed liquid almost to the rim of the cup.

  In the screen, the image shifted, showing the Glassmarket cleared for the first night of the Stiller baanket. The major celebrations would take place tomorrow and the next day, over the two days of the Midsummer holiday, but tonight Stiller would welcome the clan and introduce the new officers to their people. He would have to attend, of course, but not for the full night. Once he had shown himself on the platform, along with the other officials, he would be free to do as he pleased, to celebrate like another Stiller. And what I please... not Reiss's company, this time, but someone like me, another indigene. He reached for the monophone and punched in the codes before he could change his mind.

  The routing codes jingled past, and then there was dead air while the last tone pulsed steadily. Warreven waited, counting, and was about to break the connection when a voice answered.

  "Æ?"

  The secondary screen lit, tardy, the image streaked with static. Warreven stared at it, at the visual pickup behind it, and said, "Hello, Chauntclere."

  "Raven." Neither the tone nor the expression were welcoming. "I suppose I should congratulate you."

  "If you must," Warreven answered. Chauntclere Ferane stared back at him from the viewscreen, patently skeptical. His hair and short beard were streaked with salt stains, patches of odd, paler color, rust and amber and straw-gold, from a season spent aboard his tender. His crew, and the divers in particular, would be piebald from the mix of coral salts, wind, and the kelps they harvested. "It wasn't my idea, Clere."

  "I believe you."

  "God and the spirits!" Warreven glared at the screen, and after a moment, Chauntclere looked away.

  "Anyway, congratulations. It says a lot for Stiller that they elected a Modernist."

  It was a peace offering of sorts, though not strictly true--Warreven was more of a moderate, if not by Ferane then by Stiller standards--and Warreven nodded, accepting it as meant. "Thanks. And, speaking of celebrations, how would you like to go to the first-night's baanket with me? We wouldn't have to stay long, and I thought we could hit some of the harbor bars, maybe a dance house or something, afterward."

  There was a little silence, and then Chauntclere shook his head, mouth twisting in a grimace that was intended to be a smile. "I don't think that's a good idea."

  "It doesn't mean anything, I just wanted company."

  "And to hit the bars, and screw around afterward," Chauntclere said. He shook his head again. "I don't think so."

  Don't flatter yourself, Warreven thought, but knew better than to say it. It would take months to talk Chauntclere out of his anger--and besides, that was exactly what I meant. I can't slap at him for getting it right and saying no. He said, "Clere--"

  "Some other time," Chauntclere said. "You know that, you know I want to see you. Just--not tonight, not at the baanket. It wouldn't look right, not for you, not for me."

  "Would you meet me after?"

  "I--don't know," Chauntclere said. "Where are you going?"

  "The Embankment, probably, probably to Shinbone," Warreven answered.

  Chauntclere made a face and looked away. "If I'm there, I'm there, but don't expect me. I've got the boat to think about."

  Warreven sighed, acknowledging a half truth: sailors did care not what their captains did, but that certain proprieties were observed. And two of the most important rules were no trade, and sleep wry-abed in foreign ports, not at home. "All right. Did you hear anything about Catness? That was the other reason I called."

  Chauntclere answered the lie with a quick grin, but said only "I told you, I don't know him. And I haven't run into anyone else who does--I doubt he's a diver, no matter what he says, or not a very good one. I'll let you know, though, if I hear anything."

  "Tell Malemayn," Warreven said. "I'm not handling the case anymore."

  "All right."

  "Thanks," Warreven said, and broke the connection.

  In the main screen, a team of faitous were stacking the last cord of wood into the main balefire; a second group, supervised by a vieuvant in black and someone in traditional dress who had to be part of the outgoing clan administration, were draping the smaller fires with braids of feelgood as thick as a man's arm. Behind them, women in traditional dress were loading clay kettles with mealie-fruit and gollies the size of a man's fist, while other women, more practically dressed, fed the cooking fires and the stone grills set up behind the serving table. Warreven wondered what the fatuous commentators were saying, how they were explaining the quaint indigenous customs for the off-world audiences, but didn't bother to turn up the sound. Instead, he touched keys again, typing in another mail code, and waited while the system routed his call. The holding tone sounded twice, and then the secondary screen lit again.

  "Yes?" Folhare's face in the screen was dark, hawk-nosed, strong in its cold beauty.

  "Hello, Folhare," Warreven said, and felt the old familiar fondness steal over him. If she had been a man, or he a woman--and as always put aside the knowledge that the latter, at least, was a kind of possibility, that his calculations were based on unreal gender--he, at least, would have pursued. "How'd you like to come to tonight's baanket with me?"

  Folhare blinked once, still smiling, and cocked her head to one side. "This is sudden, coy, what's brought this on?"

  "I don't want to go by myself," Warreven answered.

  "So who turned you down?" Folhare's smile turned wry.

  "Is that fair?" Warreven demanded, and made himself sound more indignant because it was true.

  "I suppose not. Are you--I can't imagine this would be entirely smart, Raven."

  "I wish everyone would stop minding my business," Warreven said.

  "So someone did turn you down," Folhare said, with mild satisfaction. "Clere?"

  "Does it really matter?" Warreven forced a smile. She was right, of course: bringing her as his guest would be deliberate provocation, but in his present mood, it seemed the thing to do. "I would like your company, Folhare."

  There was a little silence, Folhare still with her head tilted to one side in question, and then she sighed, straightening. "I shouldn't tell you this, but you might want to know there's going to be a presance at the baanket."

  "Ah." Presance was a new word, a Modernist word; it meant the sort of performances the ranas had always given, drums and dancers and singing, but the songs of a presance generally had a more focused sting in their lyrics. "How--?" Warreven began, and then shook his head. "You made the dance-cloth."

  "I painted the banner, actually."

  "Well, then." Warreven spread his hands, nearly knocking over the now-empty cup. "Don't you want to see what happens?"

  Folhare grinned. "I do, but I don't want to cause you trouble. Or me, for that matter."

  "It's over for both of us," Warreven said. "No one would expect any of the makers to show up--except the dancers, that is--and I could use female company."

  "As if I count.
"

  "The law says," Warreven began, and Folhare made a sound of contempt, as though she would have spat.

  "The law, as you've quoted me more than once, is an ass. Oh, hells, yes, I'll come. When do you want me?"

  "We hired a coupelet to take us to the market," Warreven said. "Malemayn, Haliday, and anybody they invite, and me. I'll pick you up at eighteen-thirty, if that's all right. We should miss the worst of the crowds."

  "And still get the best of the baanket," Folhare said. "I'll be ready."

  "Thanks, Folhare," Warreven said. "I'll be glad of your company."

  "Say that again when this is over," Folhare said, and broke the connection.

  Warreven replaced the monophone's handset, wondering if he was making a mistake. The other Important Men and Women of Stiller would be there, and he would be compared to them, not just by the Stillers in Bonemarche, but by the rest of the clan in the mesnies north of the city. But then, they would probably be delighted to see him with any woman, even one as unlikely as Folhare Stane, he told himself, and went into the bedroom to change for the baanket.

  He shared the coupelet with Haliday, Malemayn, and a dark, lively woman who was introduced as Lyliwane. She was well named: even with her hair piled into festival braids, she was still a hand's width shorter than Malemayn's shoulder. Warreven, who was no better than average height, felt suddenly tall and gangling next to her. Both she and Malemayn were elegant in holiday finery; Haliday wore off-world clothes as usual, 3er only concession to the occasion a bright embroidered sbaal wrapped man-style around 3er hair. The driver took them wide around the Harbor Market, and swung down the main street of Startown--uncrowded, for once; most of the off-worlders were either home, or already at the Glassmarket--heading for the row of former warehouses that had been converted to housing along the southern edge of the district.