Oschous reared back. “We are the true servants of the Confederation…”
Ekadrina waved dismissal. “Believe your own propaganda, Karnatika, at your own risk. I told Prime diss was a bad play; but de infighting among us tears his heart and diss can make an end of him, de strife. He cares less upon what terms we make de peace den dat we make him.” In the peculiar dialect of Noytáyshlawn, even abstractions demanded sex.
Gidula had come silently among them, and took the opportunity to scoff. “Will Prime join us in our struggle against Those of Name when Manlius prevails? Tell us another story. You are more entertaining than most.”
Ekadrina threw her cloak across her shoulder. She wore, underneath, a fine mesh of spun dispersal armor, and a belt and bandoliers well hung with weaponry. “Da Names can care for demselves,” she said, and added slyly, and not without a certain reserve, “Dere’s word dat some are abroad.”
Dawshoo started visibly. If the commons and the boots walked in fear of the Shadows, even the Shadows feared Those of Name. “They’ve left the Secret City?”
“Some. Maybe. What confines Dem? Remember da rumor years ago dat one once fled to da Periphery?” She grinned once more and turned away. “And now, if you will excuse me, I must see to my idiot brudder.”
When the leader of the loyalist Shadows had gone, Oschous sucked in his breath, expelled it, looked to Dawshoo. “So. There is an agreement. But will they abide by it?”
Ravn asked the better question. “Will we?”
The building complex had once housed an automill and the floorway was gridded by the lumpish bulks of gutted mill frames. The omni-tooling was long gone, of course, along with the robots—sold off when the mill went under—and most of the fittings had been harvested by the departing owners and then gleaned by scavengers. What remained was as a pencil sketch to a fine painting in oils. Large portions of the roof had blown away in this storm or that over the intervening years. Rust had claimed those metals capable of it; corrosion had tarnished the rest; rot had eaten into its timbers. Only the ceramics and plastics remained unmarked by the years, beyond a patina of grime and the assault of optimistic molds.
The exposed skeleton served as perches for the gathering of Shadows, though one might search twice to assure oneself that they were there. They embraced their namesakes cast by the setting sun, seemed indeed to be extensions of them, and their motions appeared no more than the natural elongations of the evening.
The interior had been decorated in gray with touches of gold and silver. A great banner of deep violet hung from the central rafter bearing a single silver tear in its field. Flanking it were two others: a sky-blue banner with a white dove and a forest-green banner with a yellow lily. The mons of the combatants, Manlius and Epri. A third banner hung to the side, one that Ravn did not recognize: bloodred with a white cross of the sort called “Maltese.”
“The Riff of Ashbanal,” Gildula told her as he followed her into the arbor. “He is to be judge of the kill. After all, it’s his planet.”
Among the spawn of the Abattoir, those Shadows assigned to police a single planet were held in some esteem by those who carried roving commissions. A roving commission usually meant singular assignments and particular targets, in and out, been and gone. A single planet might seem insignificant against the sprawl of the Spiral Arm, but it was large enough when a riff and his magpies must see to the apprehension of criminals, the punishment of treasons, the suppression of dissent, and the purging of corrupt officials, day in and day out. Riffs were marathoners among the sprinting Shadows.
A loggia had been cleared and a fountain set up from which a punch spiced with licorice and rum flowed across a bed of cleansing stones. Near the fountain, three of the Riff’s magpies played light music on lute, tambour, and viol. Personally played music on antique instruments! Shadows and their magpies stood about deep in conversation and laughter, enmities in abeyance, old friendships briefly renewed, orders and brotherhoods conferring on their particular concerns. Ravn paused to fill a cup. The cups were of frangible ceramic, purple to match the pasdarm flag, and bore the teardrop pattern.
“I’ve attended pasdarms,” said a magpie at the fountain, “where dozens of banners o’erhung the kill space, and the duels ran all day and through the night.” He wore the taiji of Ekadrina Sèanmazy, yin encircling yang encircling yin, and a numeral that marked him third in her following. He glanced at Ravn’s unnumbered brassard, but made no comment, and sipped his own drink. Yesterday, they might have been sent to kill each other. And tomorrow they might yet be. But for today, there was a Truce, and they were brothers in an ancient rite. “I’ve seen Shadows die in mock-combat,” he confided, “but this is the first I’ve been where the chapters read à outrance.”
“The fight will be no different,” Ravn told him, “only shorter. Dispersal armor is forbidden. And a purposed kill looks much the same as the accidental sort.”
Above them, Gidula’s comet banner unfurled on the sidelines, drawing the eyes of Magpie Three Sèanmazy. “The Old One,” he whispered. “’Tis a grand show, is it not?” His eyes roamed the banners on high, naming them, reciting their own famous passages at arms. “There! Lime, a lion. That’s Aynia Farer, and … yellow, two crows! Phoythaw Bhatvik, Ekadrina’s adviser. Crimson, a black horse. Oschous Dee Karnatika himself! Oh, there are great names here today … Did you witness the pasdarm, O Deadly One,” her chance companion asked, moist-eyed, “where the Hatborden fought Billy Chins? That was on Whitefield, Tobruk’s Sun. Aye! Was there e’er such noble courage shown? E’er such skill shown in gunplay or the knife? At the end of it, they exchanged their personal sidearms and pledged to fight again, when next the Fates allowed, though they never did. The entire set was taken to the Abattoir and displayed for a year and a day in the temple.” A sip from the spiced rum. “I hope he dies well.”
Ravn Olafsdottr did not ask him which combatant he expected to die. “The great game of the beautiful life,” she murmured. She emptied her cup, placed it upended on the sideboard, as was the custom, and prepared to leave for a perch in the rafters. But Magpie Three Sèanmazy held her arm, a gesture in other contexts potentially fatal.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“The great game of the beautiful life,” she said. “Why do you think we wear silver tears on our shenmats when we attend these affairs? Why do you think we decorate the kill space so gaily and discuss so avidly the art with which a stroke or a shot or a move was made? It is because within this space, within the ‘squared circle,’ it all has meaning. There is closure. There are rules, and within those rules the better warrior wins. Outside the arbor, it is not so orderly, not so pretty. Death is never according to the rules, and never the reward only of the less proficient. Much of the time, there is never even a reason; only a moment of carelessness. No one will stop to record our last brave words. Our final enemy will walk away and leave us to bleed out in some back alley. Or some natural disaster will fell us, and no one will ever know. The Hatborden died in an aftershock on Jasmine during the cleanup; and Billy Chins disappeared in the League, and none know where or why.”
The magpie had colored under these words. “Then why do you continue in the service?”
Olafsdottr shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“When your final enemy leaves you to bleed out,” he said, “pray that it be a Hound and not a brother Shadow.”
Ravn made a sign against Fate. “May it be so, save that the Hound lies bleeding.”
That lightened the other’s countenance. The Shadows might be in civil war among themselves, but they could agree about their enemies across the Rift of stars. “Well said, sister!” And they parted on a more amicable note.