Dakkar appeared behind him in the hall. His prima son would rule Matuko in his absence. Illy withdrew across the room, veiling her face with one long black hand.
Paula said to Saba, “No—as long as I can use your computer I can figure everything out, I think.”
“Get the contract advances as high as you can,” he said. He ignored Illy as if she were not there. “Remember, one-tenth of it goes to me. Where is Vida?”
“He’s asleep.” She could still hear Pedasen singing to him.
Saba waved his hand at Dakkar, standing in the doorway with one hand on the frame. “I’ve told him to keep watch on you. Make it easy for him, like a good girl.” He turned and walked out of the room, and with a backward glance at her Dakkar followed him.
Illy said, “All those instructions. You must be important.” She ran her hands down Paula’s arms. Her voice turned wistful. “He never once said how pretty you look.”
The collar of Paula’s new dress itched. David lay heavy in her arms. Boltiko stood directly before her, and the mob of younger children before her, blocking Paula’s view of the yard. She knew Saba was somewhere near the bilyobio tree because the steady murmur of voices came from that direction. This ceremony was obviously important, since Ketac had come all the way from Vribulo for it.
This was her family now, these people around her. David made her belong to them, to Boltiko and Illy beside her, the little children, the older boys having part in the ceremony, and the man taking ceremonious leave of them all. She felt no kinship with them. Sometimes she wondered how else she ought to see herself, an alien intruder, a guest, or a glorified slave. Maybe, like the man who rode across Lake Constance, if she saw what she really did, she would die of fright.
Illy turned her head slightly. Her face was covered, like Boltiko’s, only her beautiful eyes showing. Through the tail of her eye she glanced at Paula, and she moved a step backward and took Paula’s hand. Paula squeezed her fingers.
Saba took Ybix away to the Asteroids. Half the rAkellaron wanted contracts to trade with the Middle Planets, and they could not understand why Paula needed more time than a watch to draw them up. She began with Melleno, thinking that he would be easier to deal with because he was Saba’s ally. She was mistaken. He refused to give her information she needed and ignored some of her questions entirely. At first it made her angry, until she realized that he was not being arbitrary. He was simply acting like a man who could recite his pedigree back fifty-three generations to a mythical hero. To get his attention she had to assure him of his family’s glory and remind him of his duty to maintain it, and to convince him that trading with the Middle Planets was the way to do that.
With five cities and four million people under his rule, Melleno could demand three times the advances Saba had gotten, but the mention of money made him very short-tempered. She guessed he was afraid of seeming to be bribed; and anyway it was ignoble to need money. The payments had to be disguised as gifts and tribute, incidental to the real purpose of the contract which was to glorify Melleno among the fifty-three generations of Mellenos.
Tanuojin’s contract was much easier. Yekka was the newest city in Uranus and the biggest bubble in Styth. Only a hundred thousand people lived there, mostly small farmers. Although Tanuojin had been married to Melleno’s daughter, he himself had no family at all. Paula worked with his pitman and the man left behind in Yekka to rule in Tanuojin’s absence and they wrote a contract in plain language and straight terms.
The politics of the rAkellaron were actually simple: they bullied the weaker and obeyed the stronger; but they went about it with the formality of an Akopra. At first she thought that, if she could only find the right key, she could talk directly to the sense; but there was no key. The Styths responded only to the forms. She had to learn their diplomatic language phrase by phrase.
Slowly she grew confident in it. Matuko no longer seemed such a strange place. She walked in the city, she talked to Boltiko and Illy and slept with Illy, and she and Pedasen took care of David. The child was her clock in the timeless city. He walked, he ran, his babbling began to sound like words. She took him around the city with her, but once three or four slaves in the market threw street shales at her and chased her halfway home, and after that she left him in the compound.
“What did you bring for Paula?” Boltiko asked.
Paula looked up; Illy stopped pulling on her new gloves. The three women faced him across the little round glass table of Illy’s sitting room. He fussed with his mustaches. “I forgot.”
“Oh, Saba.”
“I’ll get her something in the White Market.”
Paula folded her legs under her. She sat deep in one corner of the sling chair. She was glad he had forgotten to bring her a present, which put her apart from the other women and the bawling horde of children. He had gotten everything in the Off-World Market anyway, before he left. Illy tugged the gloves off her hands.
“You can have these.” She thrust the soft leather handful at Paula.
“Don’t be silly,” Paula said.
Her arm extended toward her, Illy gave her husband a slashing look. “Take them.”
“Illy, they won’t fit me.” Paula tucked her hands in her sleeves. She glanced quickly at Saba, afraid he would suspect them. Illy’s eyes were liquid with tears. Slowly she put on the fawn-colored gloves. With a low cry she rushed into the sleeproom and shut the door.
“What’s the matter with her?” Saba said. Between them, Boltiko turned toward Paula. Her face brimmed with understanding. Paula stared at the prima wife a moment. Illy’s eunuch brought in a tray of cakes and fruit and set out the little dishes on the table. Boltiko turned away.
“Go ask Illy what she will drink,” Paula said to the slave. Saba was picking up a handful of cakes. Just after one bell he had come back from six hundred watches in Ybix; he had spent the whole low watch in bed with Illy. Boltiko caught Paula’s eye. Her small mouth was clamped shut, as if she bit on something foul. The slave poured whiskey for Saba and Paula and kakine for Boltiko.
“I have something for you,” Paula said to Saba. “A lot of money.”
“I saw Tanuojin’s contract in Saturn-Keda.” She had sent a copy of it with Melleno’s contract, since they were related. Saba swallowed a mouthful of cake. He picked up a white pala fruit. “He’s a little salty you know so much about Yekka.”
Illy came in and sat between them, her face stony. Saba ignored her, intent on the sweet juices of the pala fruit. Paula buried her fists in her lap.
“What does he expect—I can’t go to the Martians without knowing what I’m talking about.”
“If you brought him the five moons in a net he would call you a thief. He thinks you’re the kundra in the Akopra.”
Illy was staring at the table, her profile to Paula, her beautiful mouth swollen, her eyelashes tipped in gold. I use her the same as he does, Paula thought. As kindless as him. She said, “It’s amazing how much you find out—drawing up a contract like that.” Her voice sounded brittle. She cleared her throat.
“Are you keeping everything you learn?”
“Naturally. What happened on your mission?”
“Everything bad. The Martians were all running in convoys. We didn’t take a ship.” He picked up Illy’s hand in the soft skin glove and laid her palm against his cheek. To Boltiko he said, “Come feed me something that isn’t sweet.” She heaved quaking off the chair and followed him out.
Paula sighed. She smoothed her hair back from her face. Illy took off the gloves, her gaze on her hands.
“I nearly let him know about us, didn’t I?”