“This is Aisha,” said Rhillian.
“Another serrin beauty,” the patachi sighed. “I swear there must be something in the water in Saalshen. Please, you both must come and sit with me. It shall be my evening's entertainment. Guards, another chair, if you please.”
“My dear Patachi,” said Rhillian woundedly, following him to the chairs. “I fear you shall make me jealous.”
“A-ha!” Maerler turned in midstride, levelling a playful finger at Rhillian. “I have been informed that serrin do not suffer jealousy as humans do. Do you deny it?”
Rhillian gave a sultry smile. “I do not.”
“Oh the possibilities!” Maerler exclaimed, looking first at Rhillian, then at Aisha. The women gave each other a sultry smirk. Errollyn nearly laughed.
They sat, Rhillian and Aisha to one side, the patachi to the other. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” the patachi asked.
“I have news from Riverside,” said Rhillian, crossing her legs. “And I have spoken with Duke Rochel.”
“My dear lady, everyone has news from Riverside,” said the patachi, lazily. “Your Nasi-Keth friends causing trouble again. You should really keep them on a shorter leash.”
“The patachi knows very well that there is no leash. And I greatly doubt that you have heard this news from Riverside.”
Maerler looked at her, cautious for the first time, but hardly worried. “And what do you offer, with this gesture of information?”
“Cooperation. On matters of common interest.”
The patachi looked thoughtful. “There is a priest missing from the Porsada Temple,” he said then. “The cousin of Gregan Halmady. He has not been seen for a day at least, my sources tell me.”
Rhillian smiled faintly. “The patachi is most perceptive. My sources tell me that Symon Steiner had a priest murdered on the Riverside dock last night. A coincidence, do you think?”
“Sources?” There was no doubting the sudden light in Maerler's eyes.
“A witness,” Rhillian assured him. “You know how we see in the dark.”
A slow smile spread across Maerler's face. “Well, well,” he mused. “So the great allies of Steiner and Halmady are in conflict. Your little ruse worked.”
Rhillian inclined her head. “Randel Ragini was not a ruse, I had intended him for an ally. But discord within the Steiner ranks serves just as well.”
“M'Lady has the makings of a great patachi.”
Errollyn hid his expression with difficulty. Randel Ragini, killed in the Endurance. Rhillian had been cultivating him as an ally. Errollyn had been witness to several of those meetings. Surely Rhillian had not had him…? No, he dismissed the thought. Rhillian had been with him and Sasha when it happened, and had been genuinely surprised. But not dismayed. Nor had she let on to Sasha or Kessligh her relationship with young Randel. Errollyn had actually liked Randel. But Rhillian saw him only as part of a game for power.
It chilled him. The Rhillian he'd known was a kind person, if a determined one. Now she was changing. Family Ragini had close ties to Family Halmady by marriage. Steiner had come to suspect Ragini, and now evidently Halmady, too. Rhillian and Patachi Maerler were conspiring to bring down the Steiner alliance from within, by setting their most powerful families at each other's throats.
“It seems the conflict has moved to include the priesthood,” Rhillian observed. “A curious development for a body that does not take sides.”
Alron Maerler smiled. “The priesthood are on the gods’ side, M'Lady. Symon Steiner had better hope they don't find out.”
“I'd thought the Verenthane gods were omnipotent?”
Maerler's smile grew broader. “Like the serrinim, it seems. The priesthood wishes for a war, M'Lady. They'll support anyone who can bring it to them. Who that might be, however, is a matter for conjecture.”
“Even amongst priests?”
“Even amongst the gods, I'm sure.”
“And you, Patachi Maerler?” said Rhillian, fixing him with her most penetrating emerald stare. “Do you too desire this war?”
“No more than the last time you asked me. War is bad for business, M'Lady. It is no secret that the Maerler alliance is on the decline in Petrodor, relative to the enormous wealth of the Steiners. I would do well for my family merely to hold onto what we have, and perhaps reverse our decline in this city. I have no time to worry about foreign empires and old religious relics the archbishop insists should be returned to Enora. I have better things to worry about.”
“Then why have the priesthood not discarded him entirely?” Errollyn pressed as they followed a guard back down the long, dark stairway to the base of Sharptooth. “Clearly he offers himself to them as a potential leader of this army, or they would have abandoned him by now and thrown all their support behind Steiner.”
“It makes no difference,” said Kiel. “Steiner moves against us. They should be punished, as should all who would threaten Saalshen. We should make of them an example, as Maldereld once made an example of King Leyvaan and his army.”
They spoke in the alderese dialect, used mostly amongst the serrinim to discuss scholarly matters.
“You fear that I shall allow Patachi Maerler to win a decisive victory,” said Rhillian. “I know it is Kessligh's fear, he's expressed it to me often. But the balance here is fixed. Errollyn, you see the way the houses balance each other. It is kel'an tai.” In alderese, the term meant a symmetry of numbers. “Maerler may desire to win, yet the obstacles before him are vast. Even he cannot overcome the symmetry.”
“You're thinking like a serrin,” Errollyn retorted in profound frustration. “This…this symmetry, it's not a concept easily applied to human civilisations-”
“All the universe is a symmetry, and such symmetries encompass all,” said Rhillian with certainty. “Besides, even should Steiner fall to ruin, his lesser allies would survive. Maerler would face continuing opposition from trading families determined to preserve their fortunes. And Patachi Maerler is right in one thing-Maerler is much weaker than Steiner.”
“You think to control him?” Errollyn knew that Sasha sometimes suffered from the urge to strangle someone. His current frustration was not so intense, yet it was profound nonetheless. There had to be an angle of attack through Rhillian's carefully constructed logic, yet he could not find it. “We have neither the power nor the influence to control anyone! You cannot put a great grey bear on a leash and take it for a walk, Rhillian. It walks us. Or worse, turns and eats us.”
“There are always risks,” Rhillian said as the stairs turned a corner, and switched back the other way. “But they are less than the risks of doing nothing. We cannot value stability above change, Errollyn. For too long, we have attempted to purchase peace with the stability of tyrants, and achieved neither peace nor stability.”
“Errollyn does not speak for stability,” said Aisha from behind Errollyn. She spoke the dialect with greater delicacy than any of them and there was concern in her voice. “He speaks for change. He merely observes that a serrin perspective is an imperfect platform from which to view human society and thus judge the nature of impending change.”
“He would hand over the direction of the talmaad to the humans,” said Kiel, distastefully. “Into the hands of those who wish us dead.”
“You think the Nasi-Keth want us dead?” Errollyn snapped.
“I'm quite sure that Alaine would not care if we all dropped dead tomorrow.”
“Kessligh's friends lost lives in Riverside,” Errollyn said coldly, “fighting to stop the armament of forces preparing to attack the Saalshen Bacosh. You give precious little respect to their sacrifice, Kiel.”
“I did not ask them to make it,” said Kiel, unconcerned. “Saalshen has for too long placed the fate of the serrinim in the hands of humans. That time has passed. Either we show that we act for ourselves, or we admit weakness and invite our enemies to destroy us.”