Well, she was here to attract attention, after a fashion.
She stepped into the narrow streets, following the bearers.
The lanes were full of demanding humanity: hucksters, beggars, touts, hoteliers, prostitutes of both sexes, all soliciting her attention, her money, her soul. Their words clattered meaninglessly in her head; she would not pay attention. Not yet, she thought; she would stay herself a while longer, resisting the planet’s inevitable victory for at least another day.
It was a comforting thought, she knew; but it was a lie. The planet had already taken her; perhaps it would savor her awhile, but Echidne would inevitably swallow, and Fiona would spin helplessly down its throat... .
CHAPTER 1
The messenger wore a ruffled, sashed jacket, elaborately tooled boots, and his short-cropped hair that allowed cup-handle ears to protrude. He looked completely out of place in the austere audience hall, with its silent, waiting rows of Brodaini and their servants — forty men and women sitting in silence to hear the message from Acragas Necias, the Abessu-Denorru — the Community Speaker of the Arrandal assembly. The forty were present to support the dignity of Necias, since a public message from a person of authority required an audience large enough to support the sender’s dignity. Probably the messenger did not appreciate the courtesy. He did not seem aware, either, of the contrast he made, elaborate and gaudy in a hall occupied otherwise by Brodaini in simple, elegant armor, and by Classani servants in quiet, dignified livery.
“Drandor Tegestu Dellila Doren y’Pranoth,” the messenger began, the Gostu names rolling easily, carelessly, off his fat Abessla tongue, “salutations from the Abessu-Denorru.” His message, despite the Gostu flourishes, was delivered in Abessas. Tegestu, though he spoke Abessas well enough, waited for his translator’s version so that he could compose his answer while wondering at the message’s implications.
The message was simple enough. The Abeissu, Necias, requested the presence of Tegestu tomorrow at his palace, at the second hour after noon. Although couched as a request, the summons was nevertheless something approaching a command, and Tegestu had little realistic alternative but to obey.
Tegestu rarely presented himself to Necias in person, and then chiefly at carefully-scripted, ceremonial occasions, the usual traffic was by messenger. The summons, as peremptory as the flowery conventions to Abessla diplomacy permitted, bespoke a certain urgency.
Therefore news must have reached the Abeissu of the revolt in the twin cities of Neda-Calacas, four days’ sail to the northwest. The coup had been swift, virtually bloodless, and efficient — the hallmarks of a Brodaini conquest — and there had been no resistance after the first few hours. The city was now quiet.
Tegestu had been informed by his own spies two days ago, and very shortly thereafter by a formal message, delivered publicly by clattering horsebacked emissaries from Tastis, the new rebel lord who had taken the city — or, to use his full name, Tastis Senestu Tepesta y’Pranoth, Tegestu’s kinsman and former comrade-in-arms, head of kamliss Pranoth in Neda-Calacas as Tegestu was head of kamliss Pranoth in Arrandal.
Tastis, employed with his clan, sub-clans, and dependents as a defender of the twin cities, had revolted against his lords and taken the city himself. The message to Tegestu had claimed provocation, that he had been forced by insults to his house into the choice of rebellion or of becoming ar-demmin, honorless and outcast. The message had been sent in a curious fashion, with the ban of kantu-kamliss forbidding anyone outside the kamliss Pranoth from reading the message or even discussing it. Despite the ban that commanded secrecy, however, the message had been delivered quite publicly, and Tegestu’s employers, the lords of the city, were doubtless curious to know its contents, a curiosity that Tastis had no doubt anticipated when he sent the message under a ban that would forbid Tegestu from revealing it.
The message, therefore, had been sent as a provocation. To judge from the appearance of this overdressed messenger and his demand for a meeting, the provocation had succeeded.
His cousin’s revolt was something Tegestu had been dreading for years. Taking employment in the great cities of the south after having been driven from their own land, the Brodaini warriors had taken with them their dependents, their customs, and their warrior way of life; they had lived for the most part in their own quarter of the city, aloof from the bustle outside; they had thrived after their fashion, and their numbers increased.
There had always been tension between the Brodaini and their new masters, and as the numbers of Brodaini had grown the level of tension had risen. The two ways of life were incompatible: one sought wealth, and the other demmin; one was boisterous and aggressive, the other reserved and deadly. Separate quarters for the Brodaini had served to lessen the tension, but there had always been the danger of insult followed by outrage. The native mercenaries on which the local lords had formerly depended had been known to revolt against their masters, and the lords of the cities had never quite been able to accept Brodaini assurances that loyalty — nartil — was a subject of near-religious devotion, and that one of the vilest insults in the Gostu tongue was bearni — “mercenary.” The city lords had always feared a revolt by their servants.
And now the revolt had occurred in Neda-Calacas; Brodaini warriors were in command of the citadel, the city walls, probably the fleet. And Tastis, the rebel leader, had sent a private message to Tegestu in a very public fashion, calculated to heighten the tension between the two peoples and leading to further trouble, perhaps to further revolts. It seemed as if Tastis was aiming at a general Brodaini rebellion, and seizure of all the coastal cities.
And, as the message from the Abessu-Denorru showed, Arrandal’s merchant princes were realizing their danger. Their own intelligence systems were not as efficient as Tegestu’s, but it scarcely required efficiency to bring news of such a cataclysm. Necias had probably known of the revolt for at least a day, which accounted for the increased security around his palace, the citadel, and the city gates, as well as the bolstered patrols of mercenaries in the streets and the sudden alert that had set the fleet in a state of readiness. Tegestu’s men had observed the city’s preparations, but he had kept his own reactions limited: there was no obvious increase of security at the Brodaini keep, nothing to alarm the city lords. If there was to be provocation, it would not come from Tegestu’s people.
The messenger finished his address. Tegestu waited until the translator concluded before giving his own reply. The local habit of coating even simple requests in an icing of sugary, ornamental speech, which he had initially found so irritating, had its advantages: while waiting for the lengthy translation, he could compose his own thoughts.
The most reassuring reply would be a direct one, he thought.
“Tell the Abessu-Denorru Necias that, obedient to his will, I shall present myself at his palace at the second hour,” Tegestu said.
The messenger received the translation, waited for the icing, and then realized there would not be any. Brodaini prided themselves on direct, straightforward speech, and Tegestu had said all that was necessary.
“Drandor Tegestu, I will give your message to cenors-efellsan Necias,” the messenger said, direct himself for once, and was shown out by a pair of Classani in livery.
Tegestu shifted himself on his hard, low stool, glancing over the stark chamber. The others were facing forward dutifully, awaiting dismissal or further orders.
“There will be a meeting of the aldran at the fifth hour,” he said. “Those welldrani present in the keep will attend. Whelkran Hamila, you will see that those not present are informed.”
“Aye, bro-demmin Tegestu,” replied Hamila — an old, trusted soldier, renowned as a cunning tactician, a master of ambush and surprise.