It was empty, all the lights switched off to save on power fees, and Malemayn said, from behind him, “Where’s Chattan, then?”
“I thought he’d be waiting,” Warreven answered.
“Raven?” Haliday’s voice came from the inner room. “What the hell is going on?”
Warreven frowned, wondering what 3e was talking about this time, and Malemayn chuckled.
“What have you done now?”
“I don’t know,” Warreven said, quite seriously, and went into the offices.
It was bright, all the lamps lit and the heavy curtains drawn tight against the contrast-destroying sun. They had divided the space into three cubicles when they formed the partnership and moved in, but the gray foam-core walls barely reached Malemayn’s shoulders, so that anyone could see in to the clutter and the bulky computers with their illuminated screens. Haliday stood in the center space, hands on hips, glaring down at one of the three screens that was linked to Bonemarche’s narrowcast networks. Ȝe was wearing off-world clothes, as usual, and as always it gave Warreven a small shock to see the anomaly of 3er body revealed so clearly by the close-fitting fabric. But then, Haliday had always been stubborn that way: 3e had insisted from childhood that 3e was herm, not the boy 3e had seemed to be then, and even now, after 3e had lost 3er case, and been declared legally a woman, 3e refused to answer any pronoun but 3er own.
“What’s Raven done this time?” Malemayn asked, and dropped the wallet that held the court disks on the nearest desk.
“Since when did you get into politics?” Haliday demanded, 3er eyes still fixed on Warreven.
“Æ?” Warreven said.
“Politics. You know what that is, though you always say you won’t play—except when Temelathe calls, of course.” Haliday touched the top of the display. “Why’d you wait to put your name on the list, Raven, were you afraid I’d talk you out of it? Or were you afraid I wouldn’t?”
“What are you talking about?” Warreven asked, and came around the cubicle wall to get a look at the screen.
Haliday stepped out of his way, pressing 3er hips against the edge of the desk platform. “I’m talking about the election lists, that’s what.”
Warreven scanned the screen without answering. It was less than a week to the two-day Midsummer holiday, and most mesnies and clans and the five overarching Watches that governed them held their elections then, but what that had to do with him…?
And then, in the center of the screen, he saw his own name, set opposite the post of Stiller seraaliste. He stared at it for a moment, feeling remarkably stupid, and Malemayn said behind him, “I wonder who put your name in.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t,” Haliday said to Warreven, but 3er voice had lost some of its anger.
“Yes,” Warreven said, still staring at the screen. There was only one other candidate, the minimum required by clan law, and the name was all too familiar. Daithef Stiller was a perennial candidate, and more than a little mad; he had never yet been elected to anything. “I mean, yes, I didn’t do it,” he said, and wondered if he sounded as foolish as he felt.
“Who sponsored him?” Malemayn said.
“The nominating officer was Waterson, who’s speaker for the Haefeld mesnie.” Haliday made a face. “That’s over on the sunset coast. Seconding was someone called Tortisen, of Luccem. I don’t know either of them, and I can’t find a directory listing, electronic or paper, for either one.”
“Well, there’s a simple solution,” Warreven said, and reached for the ancient monophone that stood beside the computer. Parts of the system had come to Hara on the settlement ship five hundred years before—and it had been seventy years out of date on the day of landing—but it was still the only system that was certain to reach all the outlying mesnies. Down in the Equatoriale and along the sunset coasts, there were still small mesnies, mostly household size, that had evaded Temelathe’s order to accept a network terminal; a larger number of others had simply refused to assign anyone to answer the system’s mail. He punched code numbers from memory, lifted the headset, and waited until the tinkle of routing codes was finally replaced by a human voice.
“Black Watch House,” the voice—a man’s—said in franca, and then repeated the words in creole.
“Who’s the Stiller electing officer?” Warreven asked. “There seems to have been an error in the list.”
There was a little silence, and then the voice answered, “That’s Brunwyf, out of the Luccem mesnie—it’s a woman’s post this year. She’s away up north now, though. Can I take a message?”
“Is she on the system?” Warreven asked, without much hope. “Or the phone?”
“I’m sorry, mir. I don’t know if the line’s been patched yet. Can I take a message?”
And if Luccem is as traditional as I remember, Warreven thought, there’s no point in even trying the network. “Yes,” he said aloud. “You can tell her Warreven called, of the Ambreslight mesnie. Someone’s put my name on the list by mistake, and I’m not a candidate.”
“Warreven,” the voice repeated, and there was another little silence. “I’ll give her that message, mir.”
“Thank you,” Warreven said, but the connection was already broken. He set the headset back in its place, an unpleasant suspicion forming. Brunwyf was a nobody, just as Luccem was one of the minor mesnies, but it was matrilineal, and her father and husband were both Maychilders, part of the string of Maychilder marriages that Temelathe had sponsored over the last thirty years. Which meant—or could well mean—that Brunwyf was part of the faction that was aligned with the Most Important Man. “What do you know about Brunwyf, of Luccem?”
Malemayn shook his head. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Isn’t she married to a Maychilder?” Haliday asked. “That’s one of the matrimesnies, anyway, and they’re Traditionalists, that do know.”
“And Traditionalists in Haefeld,” Warreven agreed. “So why in all hells would they nominate me?”
“You’re hardly a Traditional candidate,” Malemayn said, with a grin.
“So they must’ve been doing someone a favor,” Haliday said. “Your would-be father-in-law, Raven?”
Warreven gave 3im a sour look. “It’s possible. In fact, I can’t think of anyone else who’d bother. But I can’t think why.”
“Nor can I,” Haliday said.
“Well, it’s hardly important,” Malemayn said. “They can’t make you run if you don’t want to, Raven—not even Temelathe can manage that without it looking really bad. So as soon as what’s-her-name gets back from Luccem, you can pull your name off the list.”
“Do you really want to bet against Temelathe?” Warreven asked, and Malemayn shook his head.
“Not iron, no. But this would be hard even for him.”
“I can think of three ways he could force it,” Haliday said, 3er voice gone suddenly cold. “But the simplest—well, look who the other candidate is. If Temelathe really wants you to be seraaliste, Raven, all he’d have to do is rule that we can’t add late candidates. He’s head of the Watch Council, he can do it. And then we get Daithef as our seraaliste.” Ȝe smiled, not pleasantly. “I think you’d run, Raven, don’t you?”