“Clearly, Citizen,” said Captain Hetnys genially, “your idea of getting up early isn’t the same as ours.”
“Military discipline, Raughd,” observed Fosyf, voice indulgent. “For all your recent interest”—this with a sidelong glance at me—“you’d never have been suited to it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Raughd, airily. “I’ve never tried it, have I?”
“I went over the ridge this morning and saw your workers,” I remarked, not particularly interested in pursuing the issue of Raughd’s military fitness.
“I hope you could add some songs to your collection, Fleet Captain,” Fosyf replied. I inclined my head just slightly, barely an answer but sufficient.
“I don’t know why they didn’t just make ancillaries out of them,” observed Raughd. “Surely they’d be better off.” She simpered. “Two units off a troop carrier would do us, and still leave plenty for everyone else.”
Fosyf laughed. “Raughd has taken a sudden interest in the military! Been looking things up. Ships and uniforms and all sorts of things.”
“The uniforms are so appealing,” Raughd agreed. “I’m so glad you’re wearing yours, Fleet Captain.”
“Ancillaries can’t be new citizens,” I said.
“Well,” said Fosyf. “Well. You know, I’m not sure Valskaayans can be, either. Even on Valskaay there are problems, aren’t there? That religion of theirs.” Actually, there were several religions represented on Valskaay, and in its system, and various sects of all of them. But Fosyf meant the majority religion, the one everyone thought of as “Valskaayan.” It was a variety of exclusive monotheism, something most Radchaai found more or less incomprehensible. “Though I’m not sure you can really call it a religion. More a… a collection of superstitions and some very odd philosophical ideas.” Outside had grown darker still, the trees and moss-covered stones disappearing into shadow. “And the religion is the least of it. They have plenty of opportunity to become civilized. Why, look at the Samirend!” She gestured around, meaning, I supposed, the servants who had brought us supper. “They began where the Valskaayans are now. The Valskaayans have every opportunity, but do they take advantage of it? I don’t know if you saw their residence—a very nice guesthouse, fully as nice as the house I live in myself, but it’s practically a ruin. They can’t be bothered to keep their surroundings nice. But they go quite extravagantly into debt over a musical instrument, or a new handheld.”
“Or equipment for making alcohol,” said Raughd primly.
Fosyf sighed, apparently deeply grieved. “They use their own rations for that, some of them. And then go further into debt buying food. Most of them have never seen any of their wages. They lack discipline.”
“How many Valskaayans were sent to this system?” I asked Fosyf. “After that annexation. Do you know?”
“No idea, Fleet Captain.” Fosyf gestured resigned ignorance. “I just take the workers they assign me.”
“There were children working in the fields this morning,” I remarked. “Isn’t there a school?”
“No point,” Fosyf said. “Not with Valskaayans. They won’t attend. They just don’t have the seriousness of mind that’s necessary. No steadiness. Oh, but I do wish I could take you on a proper tour, Fleet Captain! When your two weeks is ended, perhaps. I do want to show off my tea, and I know you’ll want to hear every song you can.”
“Fleet Captain Breq,” said Captain Hetnys, who had been silent so far, “doesn’t only collect songs, as it happens.”
“Oh?” asked Fosyf.
“I stayed in her household during the fasting days,” Captain Hetnys said, “and do you know, her everyday dishes are a set of blue and violet Bractware. With all the serving pieces. In perfect condition.” Behind me, Ship showed me, Kalr Five was suppressing a satisfied smirk. We’d hardly eaten during the fasting days, as was proper, but Five had served what little we did eat on the Bractware and—no doubt purposefully—left the unused dishes where Captain Hetnys could see them.
“Well! What good taste, Fleet Captain! And I’m glad Hetnys mentions it.” She gestured, and a servant bent near, received murmured instruction, departed. “I have something you’ll be interested to see.”
Out in the dark a high, inhuman voice sang out, a long, sustained series of vowels on a single pitch. “Ah!” cried Fosyf. “That’s what I was waiting for.” Another voice joined the first, slightly lower, and then another, a bit higher, and another and another, until there were at least a dozen intoning voices, coming and going, dissonant and oddly choral-sounding.
Clearly Fosyf expected some sort of reaction from me. “What is it?” I asked.
“They’re plants,” Fosyf said, apparently delighted at the thought of having surprised me. “You might have seen some when you were out this morning. They have a sort of sac that collects air, and when that’s full, and the sun goes down, they whistle it out. As long as it’s not raining. Which is why you didn’t hear them last night.”
“Weeds,” observed Captain Hetnys. “Quite a nuisance, actually. They’ve tried to eradicate them, but they keep coming back.”
“Supposedly,” continued Fosyf, acknowledging the captain’s remark with a nod, “the person who bred them was a temple initiate. And the plants sing various words in Xhi, all of them to do with the temple mysteries, and when the other initiates heard the plants sing they realized the mysteries had been revealed to everyone. They murdered the designer. Tore her to pieces with their bare hands, supposedly, right here by this lake.”
I hadn’t thought to ask what sort of guesthouse this had been. “This was a holy place, then? Is there a temple?” In my experience, major temples were nearly always surrounded by cities or at least villages, and I’d seen no sign of that as we’d flown in. I wondered if there had used to be one, and it was razed to make way for tea, or if this whole, huge area had been sacrosanct. “Was the lake holy, and this was a temple guesthouse?”
“Very little gets past the fleet captain!” exclaimed Raughd.
“Indeed,” agreed her mother. “What’s left of the temple is across the lake. There was an oracle there for a while, but all that’s left now is a superstition about wish-granting fish.”
And the name of the tea grown on the once-sacred ground, I suspected. I wondered how the Xhais felt about that. “What are the words the plants sing?” I knew very little Xhi and didn’t recognize any words in particular in the singing discord coming out of the dark.
“You get different lists,” Fosyf replied genially, “depending on who you ask.”
“I used to go out in the dark when I was a child,” remarked Raughd, “and look for them. They stop if you shine a light on them.”
I hadn’t actually seen any children since we’d arrived, except for the field workers. I found that odd, in such a setting, but before I could wonder aloud or ask, the servant Fosyf had sent away returned, carrying a large box.
It was gold, or at least gilded, inlaid with red, blue, and green glass in a style that was older than I was. Older, in fact, than Anaander Mianaai’s three thousand and some years. I had only ever seen this sort of thing in person once before, and that when I was barely a decade old, some two thousand years ago. “Surely,” I said, “that’s a copy.”
“It is not, Fleet Captain,” replied Fosyf, very pleased to say it, clearly. The servant set the box on the ground in our midst and then stepped away. Fosyf bent, lifted the lid. Nestled inside, a tea service—flask, bowls for twelve, strainer. All glass and gold, inlaid with elaborate, snaking patterns of blue and green.
I still held the handled bowl I’d been drinking from, and now I lifted it. Five obligingly came forward and took it, but did not move away. I had not intended her to. I got out of my seat, squatted beside the box.
The inside of the lid was also gold, though a strip of wood seven centimeters wide above and below the gold showed what it covered. That sheet of gold was engraved. In Notai. I could read it, though I doubted anyone else here could.
Several old houses (Seivarden’s among them), and some newer ones that found the idea romantic and appealing, claimed to be descended from Notai ancestors. Of those, some would have recognized this writing for what it was, possibly would have been able to read a word or two. Only a few would have bothered to actually learn this language.
“What does it say?” I asked, though of course I knew already.
“It’s an invocation of the god Varden,” said Captain Hetnys, “and a blessing on the owner.”
Varden is your strength, it said, Varden is your hope, and Varden is your joy. Life and prosperity to the daughter of the house. On the happy and well-deserved occasion.
I looked up at Fosyf. “Where did you get this?”
“Aha,” she replied, “so Hetnys was right, you are a connoisseur! I’d never have suspected if she hadn’t told me.”
“Where,” I repeated, “did you get this?”
Fosyf gave a short laugh. “And single-minded, yes, but I already knew that. I bought it from Captain Hetnys.”
Bought it. This ancient, priceless thing would have been nearly unthinkable as a gift. The idea of anyone taking any amount of money for it was impossible. Still squatting, I turned to Captain Hetnys, who to my unspoken question said, “The owner was in need of cash. She didn’t want to sell it herself because, well, imagine anyone knowing you had to sell something like that. So I brokered the deal for her.”
“And took your cut, too,” put in Raughd, who I suspected wasn’t enjoying being eclipsed by the tea set.
“True,” acknowledged Captain Hetnys.
Even a small cut of that must have been staggering. This wasn’t the sort of thing an individual owned, except perhaps nominally. No living, remotely functional house would allow a single member to alienate something like this. The tea set I had seen, when I had been a brand-new ship not ten years old, had not belonged to an individual. It had been part of the equipment of a decade room of a Sword, brought out while my captain was visiting, to impress her. That one had been purple and silver and mother-of-pearl, and the god named in the inscription had been a different one. And it had read, On the happy and well-deserved occasion of your promotion. Captain Seimorand. And a date a mere half a century before the ascendancy of Anaander Mianaai, before the set had been taken as a souvenir of its owner’s defeat.
I was sure the bottom of the inscription in the box lid now before me had been cut off, that On the happy and well-deserved occasion was only the beginning of the sentence. There was no sign of the cut—the edges of the gold looked smooth, the wood underneath undamaged. But I was sure someone had removed it, cut a strip off the bottom, and put back what was left, centered so that it didn’t look so much as though part of the inscription had been removed.
This wasn’t something passed down for centuries among some captain’s descendants—those descendants would never have removed the name of the ancestor who had left them such a thing. One might remove the name to conceal its origin, and even damaged this was worth a great deal. One might conceal its origin out of shame—anyone who saw it might be able to guess which house had been forced to part with such a treasure. But most families that owned such things had other and better ways to capitalize such possessions. Seivarden’s house, for instance, had accepted gifts and money in exchange for tours of that ancient, captured Notai shuttle.
Stolen antiques, the Sword of Atagaris lieutenant had said. But I had not imagined anything quite like this.
Add in that supply locker. “Debris.” Any writing conveniently obscured—like this tea set.
Captain Hetnys had thought it was important to station her ship by the Ghost Gate. A piece of debris that was likely more than three thousand years old—and extremely unlikely to have ended up here at Athoek to begin with—had come out of the Ghost Gate. A piece of a Notai shuttle.
Captain Hetnys had made a great deal of money selling a Notai tea set nearly as old as that supply locker likely was. Where had she gotten it? Who had removed the name of its first owner, and why?
What was on the other side of the Ghost Gate?
14
Back in my room, I removed my brown and black shirt, handed it to Kalr Five. Had bent to loosen my boots when a knock sounded at the door. I looked up. Kalr Five gave me a single, expressionless glance and went to answer it. She had seen Raughd’s behavior these past few days, knew what this was likely to be, though I admit I was surprised she had chosen to make this blatant a move so soon.
I stood aside, where I would not be visible from the sitting room. Picked up my shirt from where Five had laid it, and drew it back on. Five opened the door to the hallway, and through her eyes I saw Raughd’s insincere smile. “I wonder,” she said, with no courteous preamble, “if I might speak privately to the fleet captain.” A balancing act, that sentence was, offering Five herself no consideration whatsoever, without being rude to me.
Let her in, I messaged Five silently. But don’t leave the room. Though it was entirely possible—indeed, likely—that Raughd’s idea of “private” included the presence of servants.
Raughd entered. Looked around for me, bowed with a sidelong, smiling glance up at me as I came from the bedroom. “Fleet Captain,” she said. “I was hoping we might… talk.”
“About what, Citizen?” I did not invite her to sit.
She blinked, genuinely surprised, I thought. “Surely, Fleet Captain, I’ve been plain about my desires.”
“Citizen. I am in mourning.” I had not had time to clean the white stripe off my face for the night. And she could not possibly have forgotten the reason for it.
“But surely, Fleet Captain,” she replied sweetly, “that’s all for show.”
“It’s always for show, Citizen. It is entirely possible to grieve with no outward sign. These things are meant to let others know about it.”
“It’s true such things are nearly always insincere, or at least overdone,” Raughd said. She had missed my point entirely. “But what I meant was that you’ve undertaken this only for political reasons. There can’t possibly be any real sorrow, no one could expect so. It’s only needed in public, and this”—she gestured around—“is certainly not public.”
I might have argued that if a family member of hers had died far from home, she might want to know that someone had cared enough to perform funeral duties for that person—even if the rites in question were foreign, even if the person who performed them was a stranger. But given the sort of person Raughd apparently was, such an argument would have carried no weight, if it had even been comprehensible to her. “Citizen, I am astonished at your want of propriety.”
“Can you blame me, Fleet Captain, if my desire overwhelms my sense of propriety? And propriety, like mourning, is for public view.”
I was under no illusions as to my physical attractiveness. It was not such that it would inspire propriety-overwhelming enthusiasm. My position, on the other hand, and my house name might well be quite fascinating. And of course, it would be far more fascinating to someone wealthy and privileged, like Raughd. Entertainments might be brimful of the virtuous and humble gaining the favorable notice of those above them, to their and their house’s ultimate benefit, but in daily life most people were fully aware of just what would happen if they deliberately sought such a situation out.
But someone like Raughd—oh, someone like Raughd could set her sights on me, and she might pretend it was all down to attraction, to romance or even love. No matter that in such a case no one involved would for a moment be unaware of the potential advantages.
“Citizen,” I said, coldly. “I am well aware that you are the person who painted those words on the wall in the Undergarden.” She looked at me with wide-eyed, blinking incomprehension. Kalr Five stood motionless in a corner of the room, ancillary-impassive. “Someone died as a direct result of that, and her death has very possibly put this entire system in danger. You may not have intended that death, but you knew well enough that your action would cause problems, and you d
idn’t really care what those were or who was hurt by it.”
She drew herself up, indignant. “Fleet Captain! I don’t know why you would accuse me of such a thing!”
“At a guess,” I said, unruffled by her resentment, “you were angry at Lieutenant Tisarwat for spoiling your fun with Citizen Piat. Who, by the way, you treat abominably.”
“Oh, well,” she said, subsiding just a bit, her posture relaxing, “if that’s the problem. I’ve known Piat since we were both little and she’s always been… erratic. Oversensitive. She feels inadequate, you know, because her mother is station administrator and so beautiful on top of it. There she is, assigned to a perfectly fine job, but she can’t stop thinking it’s nothing compared to her mother. She takes everything too hard, and I admit sometimes I lose patience because of it.” She sighed, the very image of compassionate regret, even penitence. “It wouldn’t be the first time she’s accused me of mistreating her, just to hurt me.”
“Such a fucking bore,” I quoted. “Funny how the last time you lost patience with her was when everyone was laughing at her joke and she was the center of attention. Rather than you.”
“I’m sure Tisarwat meant well, telling you about that, but she just didn’t understand what…” Her voice faltered, her face took on a pained expression. “She couldn’t… Piat couldn’t have accused me of painting those words on the wall? It would be just the sort of horrible thing she’d think was funny, when she was in one of her moods.”
“She hasn’t accused you of anything,” I said, my voice still cold. “The evidence speaks for itself.”
Raughd froze, completely still for an instant, not even breathing. Then she said, with a coldness that nearly matched my own, “Did you accept my mother’s invitation just so you could come here and attack me? Obviously, you’ve come here with some sort of agenda. You turn up out of nowhere, produce some ridiculous order forbidding travel in the gates so the tea can’t get out of the system. I can’t see it as anything less than an attack on my house, and I will not stand for that! I’m going to speak to my mother about this!”