She realized suddenly that she was very hungry. Giving speeches on an empty stomach: bad for her. “Tibro, bring me luncheon,” she said. The girl put down the flute.
“Yes, Ambassador.”
“The white wine, I think — the gift from Fastias.”
“Yes, Ambassador.”
Fiona smiled as Tibro bustled out of the room: there was going to be a lot of talk downstairs. Probably it would get to Necias, eventually; and then Campas might be in for an interrogation. Well, the man was inventive: no doubt he could create a suitable story if he had to.
She frowned as she realized that Campas might simply go straight to Necias and give the Abeissu everything she’d just told him — there was certainly no proof to the contrary, nothing but her intuition that his promise to keep a confidence meant something. She had to trust someone, she thought stubbornly; she was all alone here.
Not that it much mattered. If Necias had asked the same questions, she would have told him the same story.
With, she knew, the same, appalling, inbuilt lie. The worst kind of lie, the sort that can be told while telling the most scrupulous, factual kind of truth. Campas’ accusations had been far too close. We ask nothing of you: Campas had been perfectly right that her subtle emphasis contained an evasion, and that eventually the spacefarers from Igara would ask payment for their help. She hadn’t dared answer that accusation, and so she’d turned the subject: her story, without containing a single lie, had diverted him from the most overwhelming truth of all.
She had called Campas friend; and he’d been surprised. Could a friend conceal such a truth from a friend? No: not a truth of that sort. Not the most gigantic truth, the truth why the Igarans had so hastily begun to travel from star to star.
The meal came, and Fiona, her exhilaration fading, ate it without enthusiasm. That lie would be paid for; she knew it.
Afterwards she returned to her room, to find that Vico had quietly cleaned it in her absence. She opened her trunk to transfer the recording of Campas’ visit to her larger-capacity recorder, and discovered, to her surprise, an urgent message from the ship. She frowned: this hadn’t happened before. She cued the communicator. The reply was instant.
“Fiona.” Tyson’s voice, sounding weary, discouraged.
“Yes, Tyson.”
“A problem, Fiona. Kira’s dead.”
And suddenly there were ridiculous tears stinging Fiona’s eyes — appallingly useless, of course, no good to Kira or anybody. But still the emotional hammer came, and flattened her against the anvil; she hadn’t realized that any news could strike her with such force.
Kira, laughing Kira, eager, so vibrant — now the first to pay the penalty for her idealism.
“What happened?” Fiona asked, when she had confidence her voice wouldn’t crack.
The tale was one of lunacy, of bad judgment by everyone concerned.
Kira had been pleased with her reception, and treated with all courtesy — and then, last night, Tastis had struck. Brodaini had come smashing into her apartments, seizing her in her bed, dragging her down to the prison. An emissary from Tastis had given her an ultimatum: she would inform her superiors that their knowledge would be used for the benefit of Neda-Calacas alone, or her life would be forfeit.
Fiona, seeing her knuckles whiten on the spindle as she heard of the attack, was suddenly thankful Necias had insisted on such proof in her own case — if Tastis had seen that huge atmosphere craft cruising above his city, he might have thought twice about using such brutal tactics.
Kira had told them their demands were impossible, but they hadn’t listened. They had simply shown her the instruments of torture available there in the dungeon, explaining their uses — and demonstrated them, in a few cases, on their other prisoners. She would have a night to think it over.
She was alone, her spindle having been confiscated; she’d taken off her privy-coat before going to bed. But the mission planners had foreseen even this; there was still a means of defense, and also of communication, both hidden beneath her own flesh. Kira had done what was necessary; she’d touched a point in her left armpit, at the soft bend of the left elbow, at another place on the wrist — that would have numbed a little area on her forearm. And then she would have begun to rub that spot with a spoon, or a piece broken off from a stool, or with her fingernail — with anything available — until the flesh was scraped away and her new communicator revealed among the bloody tissue. The ship had been contacted and the atmospheric-maneuverable shuttle sent down. While air-dropped flares lit up the sky around the city, attracting the attention of the watchers on the walls, Kira had, with a weapon hidden in her right arm, blasted her way out of prison and fought her way to the roof of the keep, where the speeding aircar dashed to meet her.
Too late. She was found dead on the roof, a Brodaini arrow in her ribs. The aircar crew burned every guard they could see and carried her body to the ship. They had been reprimanded for excessive use of violence.
Fiona, her fingers digging into her palms, repressed the urge to shriek at Tyson. Excessive use — my god! These people had purged half the great houses of the city. If she had been in the rescuers’ position, looking down at Kira’s body, she would have burned the entire keep down about their ears.
“New rules, Fiona,” Tyson said. “Keep your privy-coat on at all times, even when sleeping. We’ll want reports twice each day, instead of once.”
“Of course.”
“Anything to report?”
“No, nothing,” she said — why couldn’t they leave her alone? But then she remembered she had news after all. She rubbed her forehead, trying to clear her mind. “Oh, yes. Arrandal will declare war on Neda-Calacas tomorrow. The rest of the Elva cities will follow.” And not soon enough, she thought savagely.
“I’m sorry, Fiona,” Tyson said. “This must be a shock. She was someone very special. There will be a service for Kira tonight at the eighth hour, your time. Will you want to listen?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“We’ll signal when we begin. Oh, Fiona, one thing.”
“Yes?”
“This news — it brings no joy, Fiona. But don’t let this overwhelm you. You won’t do Kira any good by growing angry. Try to think what she would have wanted you to do.”
Fiona swallowed hard. Tyson knew her well; his words were well-meaning, but also pointed.
“I’ll try to remember,” she said. “Thank you, Tyson.”
Her numb fingers dropped the little spindle as she tried to switch it off; she cursed and kicked it across the room, knowing it would take no harm. Damn this world and its madness. These people didn’t deserve Kira; they didn’t deserve anything.
A sudden idea struck her, and she leaned back on her couch, considering it. Necias had asked her to accompany the army; and now the idea seemed an attractive one.
Of course the original purpose was gone. She would not be going as a neutral.
But she would see Tastis’ towers fall. That would be satisfaction enough.
CHAPTER 10
Tegestu looked at the four burn-scarred stone walls, then at the shade trees planted nearby with the fresh graves among the sod. Tastis’ men had passed this way, and left their devastation behind.
“Noon meal here,” he said. “There will be an hour’s halt.”
For the last three days he had seen much the same thing, over and over. Farmhouses burned, barns put to the torch, women outraged, animals slaughtered. Often, if the farmers hadn’t been able to get to their strongholds in time, the bodies of the peasants lying amid their animals. At least here there’d been some survivors — otherwise the dead wouldn’t have had burial.
It was logical, he had to admit. Tastis held the deissin and their motives in contempt: he knew they scorned demmin and cared overmuch for profit. Therefore he intended to make this war far too costly for Arrandal to wage— all he had to do, from his point of view, was to hold out until the deissin of the Elva realized there was no profit to be made here. And then, no doubt, they would give up and recognize his revolt as legitimate.