Gaet pushed his way through the trail to the maran’s coastal mansion, cursing the bump that had put a wobble in his wheel. Another job, retensioning the spokes! For a moment he stopped to examine the damage, but also to give himself time to think out his attack on his brothers. He turned the skrei-wheel upside down.
The maran were a strange group, viable because of the different substance of their individual abilities. Gaet knew that most of the world saw him as the easygoing lackey of his family. If Noe wanted to go to the theater he would go. If Hoemei had a political deal to make, Gaet would negotiate a resolution of the conflicts. He was known for his pleasures. He was too pliable to be seen as a strong man. And yet this family was his creation and he valued it above all other things in his life.
He spun the damaged wheel and watched it wobble. That was his skill — retensioning the spokes.
Some of his weakness was an illusion of his magic. As a child he had learned to appear to be giving way while he was leading. He retreated into carefully constructed traps. It had been no easy job to weld together the bonds between Hoemei and Joesai. It had taken trickery. They still clashed. They were still rivals, Joesai envying Hoemei’s analytical skill and Hoemei envying Joesai his game with danger. From time to time they had to be played off against each other.
He could already surmise the forces behind this clash. Neither Joesai nor Hoemei had been particularly adept in their handling of women. Joesai had been clumsy and Hoemei had been shy. Yet it had been Hoemei who had persisted in the pursuit of Kathein, the only dangerous game he had ever deliberately dealt himself. And Joesai had plunged into his conflict with Oelita, sure that he did not want her, sure of the soundness of the tradition from which he worked — only to find himself in play with a woman who could manipulate the nuances of wisdom that could never be embedded in tradition. Oelita had forced him to be rational.
How could Hoemei ever give up the danger that he had survived without the aid of Joesai’s defending fist? He would be fundamentally attached to Kathein. How could Joesai ever give up the feeling for philosophy that he had found far from Hoemei’s mind? He would be fundamentally attached to Oelita.
When Gaet finally arrived at the Coastal Predictor’s mansion, and quietly hung up his skrei-wheel before slipping upstairs, he found Joesai reading in the upper room overlooking the Njarae. Of the three rocky islands that rose from the sea only the ghost of the Child of Death peered through the fog at them. Joesai inserted a cloth marker in the book and turned down the wick of the lamp, until the pallor of the room’s bioluminous globe provided the dominant light.
“I’m pleased that you located Oelita,” said Gaet.
His largest brother let the book sag and stared at Gaet, unspeaking. The design of his face looked like the carvings from a death urn.
Gaet began again. “I hear of troubles.”
“Hoemei pulled a knife on me.”
Like the squabbles of little boys accusing one another. “And to get even, no doubt, you whacked him over the head with the latest philosophy.”
Joesai smiled wanly, turning his head to the invisible horizon. Gaet wondered if his brother was remembering how accusations were handled at the creche — a boy was punished for whatever crime he had loudly thrown upon another.
“So the old reprobate is dead,” said Joesai, changing the subject.
“That’s good for you. Your exile will be lifted by the new Prime Predictor.”
Joesai laughed, half in amusement and half cynically. “Maybe not!”
“God’s Eyes, brother, don’t look so glum. We haven’t run out of alternatives yet. The plan is not the strategy.”
“Oelita is a good woman. I think Kathein has betrayed us.”
Gaet became cold. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say about that right now. I want you to think about compromises. I’ve never yet seen a compromise between two adversaries that didn’t give them both more than each would have taken from his original plan.”
Joesai wasn’t listening. The rug and the stone tiles of the floor had captured his restless eyes. “I’m paralyzed. Fighting my own brother…”
Gaet did not let him finish. “I’ll be busy in the next few days. You’ll be doing some baby watching for me.” He began to leave.
Joesai grabbed his arm and took it in the wrist-to-wrist grip. “You old compromiser.” He squeezed. “Say hello to Oelita for me. I mucked that up again.”
For a while Gaet spent time in the kitchen with the servants, working the accounts and discussing the fight. The story they told was different than Noe’s story. Then he walked along the balcony and stopped beside the green glass of Hoemei’s window. He stared at the poignant love scene. They were still on the pillows together in a sleeping embrace. That was dangerous. If Kathein felt too unwanted, she would return to Kaiel-hontokae and take Hoemei with her. Such a schism could grow into divorce.
One-husband ducked inside and found the room of Jokain, first-son. They always thought of him as first-son even though they had never married Kathein. He was awake and busy building houses. The rug was the sea and blocks were on the sea, dredging for iron-reed. He did not speak but held up a hand so that Gaet would know not to walk all over the landscape and create ship-smashing waves with his feet.
Gaet smiled. Here was the savior of mankind. Kathein, for all her ruthless reason, was a religious fanatic, and yet… maybe she was right. This boy had a better chance of discovering the true nature of God than his flawed parents. “What are you building?”
“Those are boats. These are big houses, and those are little houses and that is a house for the sky-eye.”
“I need your help, Jokain. Your gene-father is building a real sky-eye on the roof and I want you to see that he does it right so that you can look at the stars with him. You are in charge of making sure that he gets up in the morning on time and dresses and eats all of his food.”
Jokain carefully placed another block. “Jo and Kath fight,” he said, and with the back of his hand knocked down his building with one sweep.
Gaet dropped to his haunches and wrapped his arms around the boy. “You know what families are for? We take care of each other when bad things happen like fights. You take care of Jo and I take care of Kath.”
“Who takes care of Ho?”
“Maybe I’ll send the twins to make him smile.”
Jokain thought it over. “What stars do I get to see?”
“Nika is bright these days. Nika is a planet like Geta with moons. You can look at the mountains of Scowlmoon. Maybe you can catch God.”
“Will Jo smile?”
“Sure. He likes you a whole lot.”
When Gaet arrived at Sorrow’s inn he was amused to find Honey wrapped up in the children. Gatee and the twins were down on the docks and Honey had them playing chasing games. That woman-shy creature had found a perfect way to avoid his wives.
First and foremost he gave Oelita his warmest greetings. If she couldn’t think of him as her husband, he wanted her to feel very strongly that she was his friend. There were no real obstacles between them. Gaet had been primarily responsible for seeing that the Kaiel contract with her people was kept and he knew there was no reasonable way she could fault him.
She hesitated but when she felt his warmth, she hugged him. “I’m glad to be back,” she said.
“What’s happening at the house?” asked Teenae, anxiously.
“I have my brothers on a stake. I did my creche father’s pre-butchery script on Joesai and Hoemei and spent the morning with Kathein. I was going to bring her into Sorrow with me, but the thought of handling five women at once weakened my nerve.”