“I am warned,” said Kurt.
“Today,” said Nym, “there was a curse spoken between the house of Tefur and the house of Elas, before the Upei, and we must all be on our guard. T’Tefur blasphemed, shouting down the Invocation, and I answered him as his behavior deserved. He calls it treason, that when we pray we still call on the name of Indresul the shining. This he said in t’Uset’s hearing.”
“And for the likes of this,” said lady Ptas, “we must endure to be cursed from the hearthfire of Elas-in-Indresul, and have our name pronounced annually in infamy at the Shrine of Man.”
“Mother,” said Kta, bowing low, “not all Sufaki feel so. Bel would not feel this way. He would not.”
“T’Tefur’s number is growing,” said Ptas, “that he dares to stand in the Upei and say such a thing.”
Kurt looked from one to the other in bewilderment. It was Nym who undertook to explain to him. “We are Indras. A thousand years ago Nai-methi of Indresul launched colonies toward the Isles, south of this shore, then laid the foundations of Nephane as a fortress to guard the coast from Sufaki pirates. He destroyed Chteftikan, the capital of the Sufaki kingdom, and Indras colonists administered the new provinces from this citadel. For most of time we ruled the Sufaki. But the coming of humans cut our ties to Indresul, and when we came out of those dark years, we wiped out all the cruel laws that kept the Sufaki subject, accepted them into the Upei. For t’Tefur, that is not enough. There is great bitterness there.”
“It is religion,” said Ptas. “Sufaki have many gods, and believe in magic and worship demons. Not all. Bel’s house is better educated. But Indras will not set foot in the precincts of the temple, the so-named Oracle of Phan. And it would be dangerous in these times even to be there in the wall-street after dark. We pray at our own hearths and invoke the Ancestors we have in common with the houses across the Dividing Sea. We do them no harm—we inflict nothing on them, but they resent this.”
“But,” said Kurt, “you do not agree with Indresul.”
“It is impossible,” said Nym. “We are of Nephane. We have lived among Sufaki; we have dealt with humans. We cannot unlearn the things we know for truth. We will fight if we must, against Indresul. The Sufaki seem not to believe that, but it is so.”
“No,” said Kurt, and with such passion that the nemet were hushed. “No. Do not go to war.”
“It is excellent advice,” said Nym after a moment. “But we may be helpless to guide our own affairs. When a man finds his affairs without resolution, his existence out of time with heaven and his very being a disturbance to the yhia,then he must choose to die for the sake of order. He does well if he does so without violence. In the eyes of heaven even nations are finally answerable to such logic, and even nations may sometimes be compelled to suicide. They have their methods,—being many minds and not one, they cannot proceed toward their fate with the dignity a single man can manage, but proceed they do.”
“ Ei,honored Father,” said Kta, “I beg you not to say such things.”
“Like Bel, do you believe in omens? I do not,—not, at least, that words, ill-thought or otherwise, have power over the future. The future already exists, in our hearts already, stored up and waiting to unfold when we reach our time and place. Our own nature is our fate. You are young, Kta. You deserve better than my age has given you.”
There was silence in the rhmei.Suddenly Kurt bowed himself a degree lower, requesting, and Nym looked at him.
“You have a Methi,” said Kurt, “who is not willing to fight a war. Please. Trust me to go speak to her, as another human.”
There was a stir of uneasiness. Kta opened his mouth as if he would protest, but Nym consented.
“Go,” he said, nothing more.
Kurt rose and adjusted his ctan,pinning it securely. He bowed to them collectively and turned to leave. Someone hurried after; he thought it was Hef, whose duty it was to tend the door. It was Kta who overtook him in the outer hall.
“Be careful,” Kta said. And when he opened the outer door into the dark: “Kurt, I will walk to the Afen with you.”
“No,” said Kurt. “Then you would have to wait there, and you would be obvious at this hour. Let us not make this more obvious than need be.”
But there was, once the door was closed and he was on the street in the dark, an uneasy feeling about the night. It was quieter than usual. A man muffled in striped robes stood in the shadows of the house opposite. Kurt turned and walked quickly uphill.
Djan put her back to the window that overlooked the sea and leaned back against the ledge, a metallic form against the dark beyond the glass. Tonight she dressed as human, in a dark blue form-fitting synthetic that shimmered like powdered glass along the lines of her figure. It was a thing she would not dare wear among the modest nemet.
“The Indras ambassador sails tomorrow,” she said. “Confound it, couldn’t you have waited? I’m trying to keep humanity out of his sight and hearing as much as possible, and you have to be walking up and down the halls—He’s staying on the floor just below. If one of his staff had come out—”
“This isn’t a social call.”
Djan expelled her breath slowly, nodded him toward a seat near her. “Elas and the business in the Upei. I heard. What did they send you to say?”
“They didn’t send me. But if you have any means of controlling the situation, you’d better exert it,—fast.”
Her cool green eyes measured him, centered soberly on his. “You’re scared. What Elas said must have been considerable.”
“Stop putting words in my mouth. There’s going to be nothing left but Indresul to pick up the pieces if this goes on. There was some kind of balance here, Djan. There was stability. You blew it to—”
“Nym’s words?”
“No. Listen to me.”
“There was a balance of power, yes,” Djan said. “A balance tilted in favor of the Indras and against the Sufaki. I have done nothing but use impartiality. The Indras are not used to that.”
“Impartiality. Do you maintain that with Shan t’Tefur?”
Her head went back. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but then she grinned. She had a beautiful smile, even when there was no humor in it. “Ah,” she said. “I should have told you. Now your feelings are ruffled.”
“I’m sure I don’t care,” he said, started to add something more cutting still, and then regretted even what he had said. He had, after a fashion, cared; perhaps she had feelings for him also. There was anger in her eyes, but she did not let it fly.
“Shan,” she said, “is a friend. His family were lords of this land once. He thinks he can bend me to his ambitions, which are probably considerable, and he is slowly learning he can’t. He is angry about your presence, which is an anger that will heal. I believe him about as much as I believe you when your own interests are at stake. I weigh all that either of you says, and try to analyze where the bias lies.”
“Being yourself perfect, of course.”
“In this government there does not have to be a Methi. Methis serve when it is useful to have one—In times of crisis, to bind civil and military authority into one swiftly-moving whole. My reason for being is somewhat different. I am Methi precisely because I am neither Sufaki nor Indras. Yes, the Sufaki support me. If I stepped down, the Indras would immediately appoint an Indras Methi. The Upei is Indras: nobility is the qualification for membership, and there are only three noble houses of the Sufaki surviving. The others were massacred a thousand years ago. Now Elas is marrying a daughter into one—so Osanef too becomes a limb of the Families. The Upei makes the laws: and the Assembly may be Sufaki, but all they can do is vote yea or nay on what the Upei deigns to hand them. The Assembly hasn’t rallied to veto anything since the day of its creation. So what else do the Sufaki have but the Methi? Oppose the Families by veto in the Assembly? Hardly likely, when the living of the Sufaki depend on big shipping companies like Irain and Ilev and Elas. A little frustration burst out today. It was regrettable. But if it makes the Families realize the seriousness of the situation, then perhaps it was well done.”
“It was not well done,” Kurt said. “Not when it was done, nor where it was done, nor against what it was done. The ambassador witnessed it. Did your informants tell you that detail? Djan, your selective blindness is going to make chaos out of this city. Listen to the Families. Call in their Fathers. Listen to them as you listen to Shan t’Tefur.”