“Are you here to arrest me?” Queter asked, without moving, her face not betraying the tension that had forced that question into the open. Only the barest hint of it in her voice. Grandfather, and the others around the table, sat still as stone, hardly daring to breathe.
“I am,” I replied.
Queter unfolded her arms. Closed her hands into fists. “You are so civilized. So polite. So brave coming here alone when you know no one here would dare to touch you. So easy to be all those things, when all the power is on your side.”
“You’re right,” I agreed.
“Let’s just go!” Queter crossed her arms again, hands still fists.
“Well,” I replied calmly. “As to that, I walked here, and I think it’s raining by now. Or have I lost count of the days?” No reply, just tense silence from the people around the table, Queter’s determined glare. “And I wanted to ask you what happened. So that I can be sure the weight of this falls where it should.”
“Oh!” cried Queter, at the frayed edge of her patience finally. “You’re the just one, the kind one, are you? But you’re no different from the daughter of the house.” She lapsed, there, into Radchaai. “All of you! You take what you want at the end of a gun, you murder and rape and steal, and you call it bringing civilization. And what is civilization, to you, but us being properly grateful to be murdered and raped and stolen from? You said you knew justice when you heard it. Well, what is your justice but you allowed to treat us as you like, and us condemned for even attempting to defend ourselves?”
“I won’t argue,” I said. “What you say is true.”
Queter blinked, hesitated. Surprised, I thought, to hear me say so. “But you’ll grant us justice from on high, will you? You’ll bring salvation? Are you here for us to fall at your feet and sing your praise? But we know what your justice is, we know what your salvation is, whatever face you put on it.”
“I can’t bring you justice, Queter. I can, however, bring you personally into the presence of the district magistrate so that you can explain to her why you did what you did. It won’t change things for you. But you knew from the moment Raughd Denche told you what she wanted that there would be no other ending to this, not for you. The daughter of the house was too convinced of her own cleverness to have realized what that would mean.”
“And what good will that do, Radchaai?” asked Queter, defiant. “Don’t you know we’re dishonest and deceitful? Resentful where we should be docile and grateful? That what intelligence we superstitious savages have is mere cunning? Obviously, I would lie. I might even tell a lie you created for me, because you hate the daughter of the house. And me in particular. In the strikes—your pet Samirend will have told you of the strikes?” I gestured acknowledgment. “She’ll have told you how she and her cousins nobly educated us, made us aware of the injustice we suffered, taught us how to organize and induced us to act? Because we could not possibly have done those things ourselves.”
“She herself,” I said, “was reeducated afterward, and as a result can’t speak directly about it. Citizen Fosyf, on the other hand, told me the story in such terms.”
“Did she,” answered Queter, not a question. “And did she tell you that my mother died during those strikes? But no, she’ll have spoken of how kind she is to us, and how gentle she was, not bringing in soldiers to shoot us all as we sat there.”
Queter could not have been more than ten when it had happened. “I can’t promise the district magistrate will listen,” I said. “I can only give you the opportunity to speak.”
“And then what?” asked Grandfather. “What then, Soldier? From a child I was taught to forgive and forget, but it’s difficult to forget these things, the loss of parents, of children and grandchildren.” Her expression was unchanged, blank determination, but her voice broke slightly at that last. “And we are all of us only human. We can only forgive so much.”
“For my part,” I replied, “I find forgiveness overrated. There are times and places when it’s appropriate. But not when the demand that you forgive is used to keep you in your place. With Queter’s help I can remove Raughd from this place, permanently. I will try to do more if I can.”
“Really?” asked another person at the table, who had been silent till now. “Fair pay? Can you do that, Soldier?”
“Pay at all!” added Queter. “Decent food you don’t have to go in debt for.”
“A priest,” someone suggested. “A priest for us, and a priest for the Recalcitrants, there are some over on the next estate.”
“They’re called teachers,” Grandfather said. “Not priests. How many times have I said so?” And Recalcitrant was an insult. But before I could say that, Grandfather said to me, “You won’t be able to keep such promises. You won’t be able to keep Queter safe and healthy.”
“That’s why I make no promises,” I said, “and Queter may come out of this better than we fear. I will do what I can, though it may not be much.”
“Well,” said Grandfather after a few moments more of silence. “Well. I suppose we’ll have to give you supper, Radchaai.”
“If you would be so kind, Grandfather,” I said.
17
Queter and I walked to Fosyf’s house before the sun rose, while the air was still damp and smelling of wet soil, Queter striding impatiently, her back stiff, her arms crossed, repeatedly drawing ahead of me and then pausing for me to catch up, as though she were eager to reach her destination and I was inconsiderately delaying her. The fields, the mountains, were shadowed and silent. Queter was not in a mood to talk. I drew breath and sang, in a language I was sure no one here understood.
Memory is an event horizon
What’s caught in it is gone but it’s always there.
It was the song Tisarwat’s Bos had sung, in the soldiers’ mess. Oh, tree! Bo Nine had been singing it to herself just now, above, on the Station.
“Well, that one’s escaped,” said Queter, a meter ahead of me on the road, not looking back at me.
“And will again,” I replied.
She paused, waited for me to catch up. Still didn’t turn her head. “You lied, of course,” she said, and began walking again. “You won’t let me speak to the district magistrate, and no one will believe what I have to say. But you didn’t bring soldiers to the house, so I suppose that’s something. Still, no one will believe what I have to say. And I’ll be gone through Security or dead, if there’s even any difference, but my brother will still be here. And so will Raughd.” She spat, after saying the name. “Will you take him away?”
“Who?” The question took me by surprise, so that I hardly understood it. “Your brother?” We were still speaking Delsig.
“Yes!” Impatient, still angry. “My brother.”
“I don’t understand.” The sky had paled and brightened, but where we walked was still shadowed. “Is this something you’re afraid I’ll do, or something you want?” She didn’t answer. “I’m a soldier, Queter, I live on a military ship.” I didn’t have the time or the resources to take care of children, not even mostly grown ones.
Queter gave an exasperated cry. “Don’t you have an apartment somewhere, and servants? Don’t you have retainers? Don’t you have dozens of people to see to your every need, to make your tea and straighten your collar and strew flowers in your path? Surely there’s room for one more.”
“Is that something your brother wants?” And after a few moments with no reply, “Would your grandfather not be grieved to lose both of you?”