by Doris Egan
The Atvalids were clearly in disgrace. I never saw them after that, but I heard that father, son, and grandfather were all asked to return their Blue Hats to the Emperor. No ceremony for that, they tell me; it's not like some ancient religious excommunication. A messenger in Imperial livery shows up at your door one day and asks ever so courteously for the hat, which he waits for in your anteroom like a mail carrier waiting for a reply to some engraved party invitations; then he bows when he gets it, and stuffs it into a bag and returns to court. A short little dance, but the Atvalids would probably never recover from it.
I was sorry about that in a way, but then they were alive, and most of my friends were alive, and from a barbarian point of view the outcome was perhaps the best we could have expected.
As for Stereth's crew, we all spent a long two weeks in Shaskala, readjusting to the heat of late summer off the Plateau, waiting to be processed. The temperature here was pretty much what I could expect back in the capital, Shaskala's height above sea level making up for its more northern location, and I borrowed a straw fan from one of the bailiffs in the Justice House.
Ran was quartered in a different place, but we met most days in the long room the officials of the Justice House used to process us all. Stereth wasn't there, but much of the band was. They sat, or slept, on the long wooden benches, and played endless hands of Thistle and Sleeping Dog—Des and Grateth and Lex and Juvindeth; most of the
original band was there. Not all of them had been at the fort that night, some were still out with the mixed bands Stereth had created, and didn't know yet about the pardon; but it was just a matter of time. We understood that Stereth was negotiating the details with Imperial officials, and left him to do it, although Lex was heard to say more than once that it was probably all a trick and our bandit chieftain's body was most likely rotting in this damned heat already.
So much for Lex. The processing involved a lot of individual questioning, so that the officials could create new identities for us. It would be pointless, after all, to release a lot of criminals with nothing to do but return to their thievery. This was a problem for Ran and me—we didn't want new identities, we wanted our old identities, but we didn't want to tell anyone what they were.
I avoided any specific documentation as to my past, and assumed Ran was doing the same. The band always addressed us by our road-names, fortunately. I was lying back on a bench by the wall one day, my feet up on the bench in front of me, wondering if there were any possible way I could get a book out of this for the Athenan University Press (which will tell you I was already drifting back into my past life), when Des came over and sat beside me.
"You've been quiet lately, Tymon."
"Anticlimax effect, I guess. I'd been expecting to be dead."
"I suppose you and Sokol will be getting back to your regular careers now."
I looked at him. "Des, I hope you're not going to bring up that idea about fixing the flyer races."
"No, no. That would be stupid. Can't I just ask an old friend how she's doing?"
"Sorry." The room was quiet, lazy, and hot. The low voices of the two Imperial examiners and their current focus, Komo, buzzed in the background. There was a ceiling fan, run on electricity like the rest of upper class Shaskala, but for some reason they never turned it on. Maybe it wasn't working. "We'd like to get back to our regular careers, but I don't know if we can manage it. These people seem very keen on hearing all about our past."
"Ah. That's tough, sweetheart. But I know you two will think of something. And at least you're not dead."
I laughed. "Very true. And in that regard, I've been thinking about your old tah-friend, The Voice of the Emperor. I wonder why he decided to negotiate, instead of giving the Atvalids another chance. Eventually they would have taken us."
"Huh! Between Stereth and Sokol, we could have held them off for months." I doubted that, but perhaps the Negotiator had believed as Des did. "And the tah would have rotted, and the Emperor was probably already sick of the whole thing, or he wouldn't have sent out his Voice."
"That's true. And I suppose the Negotiator had a career to look to as well, and didn't want to spend his life in the Northwest Sector. I guess the deal was as much political as practical, like everything else on Ivory."
"No need to be so mournful about it, Tymon. It got you out of a hole, didn't it?"
"Out of one and into another—"
Just then the High Justice, a stocky man with a blue beaded cap and blue robes, took the platform in the front of the hall. Somebody yelled, "Attention for the High Justice! Attention!"
The High Justice cleared his throat. "Uh, it has become clear to officials that the rules of civilized combat have been violated by certain members of this band. Uh—" he turned to the man beside him. "How many do we have here?"
"Twenty-two this morning, gracious sir. Eight are in holding."
"By certain members of this band, probably here in this room! I'm telling you now, I have no intention of letting such a violation pass. I find it offensive, and when we identify the culprit he, or they, will find the full weight of Imperial might on them and their family."
Des and I looked at each other.
"So I'm asking right now for you all to save yourselves some trouble. Tell us which of you employed sorcery in the recent altercation with the Tuvin militia. I'm warning you, we will find out. And it will be easier on everyone if we find out now, instead of dragging the information out of you."
Thank the gods, nobody turned to look at me or Ran.
The High Justice waited. He did not look like a man
who compromised. Probably appointed by Nor Atvalid, patron saint of reformers.
After a moment he made an impatient "so be it" kind of gesture to one of the other officials, and left the platform. Des whispered, "What are you going to do?" There was no answer to that, so I made none.
They questioned three of us that day, taking their time. Lex was one of them, but I wasn't worried—he despised authority, except for Stereth, and was as stubborn with appointed officials as he was with anybody else. A good friend like Des would probably crack before Lex would. Somebody was bound to tell them who we were, though; statistics alone were against us.
I wondered what they would think when they got to me. They must have considered Cantry to be the sorcerer at one time, but they couldn't prove she was the one who'd sent the Atvalids' forces running for the hills—in fact, from her lack of education, she almost certainly wasn't. And they could have one, or two, or three sorcerers to contend with; there was no way of telling. They only needed to pick one, though, to satisfy the scapegoat needs of the High Justice.
So when they led us in the next morning, I was relieved to see Stereth there. He was flanked by two officials, and he still wore his bandit jacket and trousers, in spite of his dealings with the higher ranks of the Imperial hierarchy. His eyes met mine and I threw him a look with as much pleading as I could stuff into it. He ignored me and strode to the front of the hall, where the High Justice was sitting at a table, no doubt ready to give us another little speech. The High Justice had a drink on the table in front of him, a pile of cushions under his behind, and was fanning himself gently with a straw fan not unlike the one I'd borrowed. He paid no attention to Stereth for a moment; then he looked up, unimpressed.
"Yes?"
Stereth presented him with a sheaf of three or four pages, clipped together. "I have a notice from the Prime Minister advising you that the inquiry into the use of sorcery by some member or members of my band is closed."
The High Justice blinked slowly. He took the papers, also, very slowly, and spread them out on the table. He
licked his lips, took a sip from his glass, and started to read. He kept us waiting for a good twenty minutes. Finally he looked up again.
Stereth was standing in the same position, as full of patience as though he'd just stepped into the room a second ago.
The High Justice said, "May I ask how you got these
so quickly?"
"Got them?" repeated Stereth. "I was given them. It's hardly my place, or yours, to dictate to the Prime Minister."
The High Justice put the papers back in order, roughly, and clipped them together. He handed them back to Stereth with a sharp gesture, as though he'd have preferred them to be a dagger. "Thank you. I've been informed."
It was a dismissal. Stereth stayed, however, and took a new, folded set of papers from the inside of his tattered bandit jacket. "I also have a set of release orders for a couple of the people here. The woman known as Tymon, the man Sokol."
Ran was standing across the room; our eyes rriet.
The High Justice didn't look at us—he didn't know which ones we were. He squinted up at Stereth. "The processing of this group is not complete."
"Nevertheless, they're to be released today. The order is dated yesterday, to be effective at the first hour this morning. At this moment they're already free to go—technically, of course. It awaits your pronouncement."
The High Justice pushed back his low table and got up from the cushions. He faced the room and said, "The two detainees known as Sokol and Tymon are free to go." He spat out the words like unidentified wine at a nobleman's party.
Stereth smiled, bowed, and withdrew. He gestured for Ran and me to follow him, and we wasted no time in doing so. At the entrance to the hall, I turned around and looked back.
People had settled again into their places. Carabinstereth wasn't there that morning. Grateth was dozing. During the long twenty-minute reading of the Prime Minister's papers, Des had started a game of Red Geese up with one of the bailiffs. Des' head disappeared below a bench and I heard the snap of dice hitting the wall. I smiled. Nobody in the
band ever played Red Geese with Des because it was a game he won with a frequency significantly higher than statistics would dictate, no matter whose dice he seemed to be using. His head came up again, but he wasn't looking my way, and I heard his voice saying, "Oh! Tough luck, my friend!" with all evidence of sincerity.
Then the door closed, and we were outside. No chance to say good-bye. It was the last time I saw them. We were standing on the dazzling white steps of the Justice House, under the blue, merciless late-summer sky, with Stereth and two guards from the court who were apparently there to see that we both left peaceably.
Ran took a few steps down, but I turned to Stereth. "I don't get it," I said. "The High Justice was so sure of himself—" I stopped. "You bribed the Prime Minister."
He grinned. "Always start at the top, Tymon. It saves time."
I said, "But how?" When he continued to look at me with that expression of mild interest I flushed and said, "I don't mean I think it would be impossible morally."
"Thank the gods for that, Tymon."
"But you can't have enough left in the kitty to bribe someone who's rich in his own right. Can you?"
"Not everyone is as interested in money as you and me," he said.
"So how? Have pity, Stereth. Tell me what you did."
"I told the gentleman that I wasn't interested in his job," he said.
That's right—I remembered. Annurian had wound up with the prime ministership in the end. And it was traditional to get your buy-off in money and power both. Stereth went on, "I told him I wasn't interested in any of the usual posts, either."
The guards seemed to want me to move on, but I wasn't budging. "What did you ask for?"
"Minister for Provincial Affairs."
"Gods, why? I didn't even know there was a Minister for Provincial Affairs."
"Maybe I like the way it sounds." That damned smile was still there, as though he found me amusing. In fact, Stereth looked more relaxed and more pleased with himself than I'd ever seen him.
I said, "Is this the beginning of an era?"
The smile widened. "When next we meet—if we do— you won't know me."
"Why not? —Oh. Is that an order?"
"An order, or a favor from a friend. Whatever works."
The guard beside me said, "You'll have to come along now."
Stereth said to him, " 'Gracious lady.' She's not a prisoner now. Address her properly."
"Gracious lady," agreed the guard, unwillingly. He tugged at my arm, and I took another couple of steps away.
Stereth said, "And I wouldn't worry about retribution, Tymon; your psychological assessment was on the mark. There've been several suicides in the House of Atvalid. They're taking this very hard."
He turned and went up the steps. I continued down, led by the guard, my mind going in circles. The Governor, of course… I called, "Stereth! The Steward, too?" The son had been a friend of Sembet Triol's once.
But Stereth had gone inside.
Ran was waiting at the bottom. He said, "No suspicious characters on the street. They seem to be really letting us go."
"Of course, if Stereth arranged it. I guess it'll take a while longer for the rest of the band." I glanced at the guard. He waited till we'd both stepped off the bottom step of the Justice House, then turned and went back inside.
Ran said, "They probably have a groundcar we can rent at the inn we stayed in before." As we walked down the street he said, "Theodora? Do me a favor. Don't call them 'the rest of the band.' "
It felt very odd walking that street, past the sculptured facades of the Shaskalan city buildings, dropping from one life into another. I've dropped into a few different lives in my time, and it never gets any easier. The only comfort is that now I know the disorientation will eventually fade. I don't know what I'll do if someday it doesn't.
When we reached the inn they brought out an old, battered car, a poor relation to the one we'd driven up in from the capital in another season of time. One of the inn's servants, a thin young man with a slightly snobbish look, held the door open for us to inspect it.
Ran turned to me suddenly. "We don't have any money," he said.
He must have been mentally returning to his old identity as well, for his voice held the childlike bewilderment of a Cormallon caught without funds.
"Yes, we do," I assured him. "They returned my effects to me while we were in holding." I counted out a few tabals and gave them to the servant.
Ran was staring. "Where did you get that?"
"It's the bounty I got from turning you in in Kynogin." I had thought it was a reasonable answer. Then we were looking at each other and laughing, with more than a touch of hysteria. The servant regarded us warily, no doubt wishing the inn had required a background check. Still laughing, Ran took the door from him and held it open while I got inside.
Neither of us felt like speeding back to the capital, so we drove carefully down the winding Plateau road, and toddled along like tourists through the fields and meadows beneath. Farmers, wagons, long fragrant rows of fruit trees, and a constant cough of dust behind us from the dirt road. In the afternoon we stopped one of the approaching wagons and bought some bush-apples from a boy in a dirty robe, who let us drink from his waterbag. Later I started to doze as we went along the part of the route that lines the river. More trees, and long slopes of lawn, then the wide stripe of silver water and a low orange sun…
When I woke again, hours later, it was dark and we were zooming through the bogs that line the road to the north of the capital. Ran must have kicked up the speed while I was asleep. He looked tired.
"Hello," I said, stretching.
"Almost there," he said.
Thinking about it, it was a little surprising to me that Ran hadn't headed us for the main Cormallon estate; he'd been through a lot, and it was the only place he ever felt really safe. But that was hard to reach without an aircar, and meant a long trip west, around the southern edge of the Sector. We could be in the capital a lot sooner, and I for one would be happy to see familiar surroundings.
Finally we passed under the old Northern Gate, through
the streets of cheap shops near the wall, and down one of the special boulevards built in the last century or two to handle bulkier traffic.
Ran drew up at our house in the residential section, halting the car near the automated security station.
We got out awkwardly, our muscles stiff from the long ride. As we neared the front door, I saw that the light on the parcel receipt was flashing.
"The receiving station's full," I said to Ran.
He grunted. Clearly he was too tired to deal with it now.
"Probably wedding presents," I said.
"They should have been sent to Cormallon," he commented with some disapproval. And we went inside.
The first time I ever saw that house, with its rich woods and tapestries, I thought it was palatial. Now I thought of it as "snug." As I entered it, I had that familiar double-vision feeling that comes from returning to a place one has been too long away from. The rooms looked homey and normal, and alien and strange.
I took a bath. I rolled up my very much used robes and threw them in a corner, and I settled into the big white tub on the second floor. Ran had most of his robes off too, and padded in and out of the bath in his bare feet, scattering mail. "This one's yours. This one's yours. This one's yours—"
Ran was under the impression that any mail he didn't want to receive belonged to me. Apparently he'd thought the better of checking the receiving station. The Cormallon sense of duty always got to him when it had any amount of time to work.
"Kanz."
"What?" I asked, luxuriating in the water. I hadn't had a bath since—heavens, I hadn't even been able to bring myself to use that tub Clintris na'Fli had brought back, last seen abandoned on the hill with a sediment of quick-set in it.
Where was Clintris now? She hadn't been one of the people in the fort that night. Pain in the neck though she was, I hoped she was all right.
"A dozen pieces of mail from our would-be client. Probably wanting to know where his reports are… and then
wanting to cancel the assignment. I don't look forward to seeing him."
I could believe that. Of course, we knew now that the Atvalids were no family to get allied with, but so did everybody else in good society on the continent.
