“And Teenae?”
“How can you resist a child who worships the very ground you walk on? I was rough and uncouth with her and laid her without much thought to her own pleasure. It was a long time before her fierceness and brilliance tamed me. I found strength in her. She planted tolerance in me and ruthlessly tore at the inconsistencies I was so prone to have. All these things take time. They are not for beginnings.”
Comfort sighed with faraway eyes. “I feel so lonely with you. I suppose that’s because I haven’t known you long enough. I’m not at the middle yet.”
He pulled her to him, pleased with the warmth of her small body, feeling less lonely than he had for all the time he had been on Mnank. He caressed her. There was nothing he could say that was really appropriate. “A man should not talk to a Liethe of his wives.”
“Nonsense,” she replied sadly. “I have to know everything.”
Joesai wondered why, on the eve of every great event, the talk was so trivial — of gossip, of past events, of the shape of breasts, of how much whisky a man could hold before he fell over, of love and loneliness. She had lapsed into silence, words gone from her.
“Hi there,” he said.
“I don’t want you ever to forget me.” She took him then.
It was still dark when fever woke him. He tried to move and couldn’t. He could hardly open his eyes. The pale face of Comfort was staring at him. She was fully dressed in her brown travelling robe.
“You’re sick,” she said.
He tried to move his tongue and it was like moving a mouthful of dough.
“The paralysis isn’t part of the sickness. I’ve poisoned you with the juice of ei-cactus so that you won’t be able to kill me for having given all your judges the sickness.”
He tried to lunge at her by sheer will and managed only to fall on his own arm and pin it. Ponderous grunting noises came from his mouth.
She rolled him into a more comfortable position. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it. You were not wise to trust me. I arranged the escape of your friends with Nie’t’Fosal. So that you would not question me.” And she was gone.
He could still think. Thoughts came with an unfamiliar despair. I’ve made the one mistake I’ve never been allowed to make. He was dead and the Advance Court was dead and Joesai maran-Kaiel was an idiot. Aesoe had won, as usual. Joesai had been a foil to bring out the most deadly counterthrust of the Mnankrei and now they had made it and Bendaein would know what he was up against and respond to that, Bendaein the Cautious. I’ve disgraced my family. He could still cry though he could not wipe the tears from his eyes.
Hoemei had trusted him to wait, and he had grown impatient and gone to the city and brought back the pestilence as a lover. Noe had warned him. Teenae would have shot Comfort at a hundred man-lengths. Gaet would mourn him as he had Sanan — and then go find another husband. Fever began to take the coherence from his mind. Kathein’s child, bearing his genes, would give whatever kalothi he possessed one more risky chance but Kathein’s face faded into Joesai’s last image of Oelita — mad with her sudden belief in God. He had driven her to her death and now the Liethe were returning the favor.
Joesai’s most horrible loss was that there could be no Funeral Feast. No one would share his flesh. He would be cremated, unclean.
52
Why should a government which is doing what it believes is right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons.
THE STORM GALE lashed in from the sea, driving the spume off the wave tops. Teenae’s spies ducked into the hut and told her that the Mnankrei vessels had arrived. There hadn’t been enough warning because of the fog. Cursing, she scampered to the observation station just in time to see the three ships breaking into the relative quiet of the bay. She shouted orders in her first moment of confusion and then relaxed. Tonpa would have to delay unloading until the storm had subsided. She had plenty of time. The surprise would be hers. She waited.
A full day it took for the two smaller double-masted ships to dock and begin disgorging their wheat and casks of famous Mnankrei whisky. A flat barge shuttled loads of grain from the bigger three-masted vessel, Tonpa’s command. Curious boats surrounded the flagship. One of them was Teenae’s. Through a lens she watched the Stgal greet their saviors who would have the Stgal for snacks once their usefulness was done.
She gave orders for her rifles to take up position. Each of Tonpa’s men was assigned a double tail — an inconspicuous heretic and a Kaiel rifleman. Poor Gaet was probably hiding somewhere. He would not touch a rifle and he was not fond of violence. She had three portable rayvoices in operation and a whole system of rooftop flag stations, except she was using people and coded costumes instead of flags.
The first important message she received was that her bomb had been attached to the bottom of the flagship. It had two fuses, one a clock, already set and ticking, the other a sonically activated switch. The Mnankrei knew nothing of war.
The second important message she received was that the fire bombs for the smaller docked ships were in place. The Mnankrei knew nothing about the fate of the Spanish Armada.
The third important message she received, from a horrified runner, was that Gaet had taken it upon himself to negotiate with the Mnankrei and had been forcibly removed to the Temple and was now a prisoner of the sea priests and the Stgal.
She left her command post in a towering rage with four Kaiel riflemen who had to listen to the brunt of her cursing. “That husband of mine! A smile! A caress! A little flattery! A little haggling! He thinks himself able to trade with any man! What did I do to deserve a husband like that! I’ll have his hide for a duffel bag! He eats with his anus and pisses with his mouth! God! God above!”
Her rifle was swinging in the fierce grip of her hand, her black hair flowing and flapping about the bald streak down the center of her head that needed a shave, her breasts bobbing inside her light blouse with every angry pace that took her closer to the Temple.
She met the slyly smiling Stgal who presented her with their demand that the Kaiel return whence they had come. Her mind was a winter’s storm. She had to think quickly or Gaet would die. She wasn’t ready yet. They had captured Gaet too soon. The ships weren’t fully unloaded and the people of Sorrow needed that wheat. She pretended to pace, to consider the Stgal’s demand. Instead she passed to high ground and gave the signal.
A ripple of gaily colored gowns paraded upon the rooftops of Sorrow.
Distant whoomps broke the silence. There was a pause while the expression on the face of the Stgal changed. Then two great shafts of fire rose into the sky. “I shall write you a reply,” she said, turning to the Stgal. She could hear rifle cracks. There would be feasting tonight but her mind could only think of her beloved Gaet who had bought her in the child market. She fought back the tears, at a loss for words. Somehow the words that came to the paper she was preparing were Leninesque in their heartlessness.
“Your message received. It is necessary that Gaet maran-Kaiel be released immediately.” Immediately was Lenin’s favorite word. “All Stgal who do not comply will be pebbled without mercy by sunfall.” She paused to cross out “pebbled” — they would not know what that meant. She substituted instead a Leninist word they would understand, “liquefied”, and continued. “The Mnankrei fleet no longer exists. The sea priests occupying the town have been eliminated. Conduct yourselves accordingly.”