“Sana,” Dauk Losun called. “How long before dinner?”
“It’s ready,” his wife called in reply, rushing back into the kitchen and bringing out a steel pot, which she placed on a trivet in the center of the table. “The pork stew is not quite done, but everything else is. I’ll bring it out later. Don’t stand there everyone; sit down and start eating!”
It was crowded around the table with six people. Dauk Sana had made more than enough food—spicy cabbage, shrimp with lemon chili sauce, and the belated vinegar pork stew, which had generous chunks of mushroom and egg in it—all of it traditional, homey Kekonese food, with the exception of the long, thick, dark salted crackers that went around the table in a basket; Espenians seemed to serve them as an accompaniment at every meal, for scooping up food like a spoon and dipping into soups and stews. Anden was seated next to Dauk Coru, who ate heartily and, like a good Kekonese son, complimented his mother on all the dishes.
Anden tried desperately to think of a way to start a normal conversation with his neighbor at the table without bringing up their awkward prior encounters. He kept glancing over, trying to see if he could spot the jade Coru wore. Anden leaned over, deliberately timing his reach for the basket of crackers so that his arm brushed close to the other man’s. A tingle went through his elbow and deep into his bones; he felt a firm tug in his gut, like a steel hook on the mouth of a fish before it’s yanked from the water. Anden broke into a sweat; it had been a long time since he’d been close enough to feel another’s jade aura. After such an absence, his own body’s unmistakable, longing reaction to the proximity of jade made him nearly dizzy. He shivered and drew his arm away.
“So, how long are you here for?” Coru asked.
“Hm?” Anden hastily pulled himself together. “Ah, two years. Long enough for me to complete the language immersion program and get an associate degree. That’s the plan, anyway.”
Coru took another mouthful of food without asking a follow-up question. After an unwieldy pause, Anden said, “So… Coru-jen, I hear you’re a student too. You’re going to law school?”
The other young man looked up at him and laughed. “Nobody calls me Coru except my parents and their friends. Everyone else calls me Cory.” He wiped his hand and held it out to shake Anden’s. “Now that we’ve met properly, yeah, I’m going into the law program at Watersguard U next fall. I’m taking this year off to do some community volunteering and save up tuition money working as a paralegal. And I’m planning to travel the country for six weeks next summer.” He tilted his chin up and raised his voice so his father could hear him. “Before I’m forced to follow in my sister’s footsteps.”
“You have an older sister?” Anden asked.
“Three of them.” Cory shook his head. “Feel free to pity me.”
Anden didn’t know what it was like to have so many sisters, but he too was the youngest in his family and had three older siblings, so to speak, and he said so. Cory got up from the table and took a framed family photograph from the mantel. Showing it to Anden, he said, “My oldest sister’s the lawyer; she works in the federal Industry Department. Her husband’s an engineer; they don’t have kids, though. My second sister studied nursing; now she stays at home with her two little ones. The third one—that’s her—she graduated with a degree in social work and got married just last year.”
All the Dauks bore family resemblance in the shape of their smiles and the broadness of their shoulders. Anden wanted to ask if any of Cory’s sisters were also Green Bones, but he’d made so many cultural mistakes and wrong assumptions in Espenia so far that he was hesitant. If the people here hid their jade, maybe it was rude to publicly ask if someone was a Green Bone. He studied the family photo appreciatively for another minute before handing it back to Cory.
“Your younger son is still at Watersguard, isn’t he?” said Dauk Losunyin to the Hians. “How’s he doing there? Is he still working on his doctorate?” The conversation between the four elders veered into talk and sundry complaints about their grown children, then turned to gossip about neighbors in the Kekonese parts of Southtrap. To Anden, it all seemed like talk that was far too common to be worth a Pillar’s attention, but Dauk Losun propped a heavy elbow on the table and listened with chin on fist as Mrs. Hian bemoaned the increasing traffic in front of their house and expressed concern about the couple across the street, the ones who were constantly fighting.
Dauk Sana had just cleared the dinner plates and brought out tea and a tin of Espenian biscuits when the doorbell rang. Cory opened it to admit a man who stepped inside and nodded in solemn greeting to all of them. “Dauk-jens. Mr. and Mrs. Hian.” He looked at Anden but didn’t say anything. The man took off his hat and coat and boots. He was wearing fine black leather gloves, and he took these off as well, but instead of leaving them with his coat, he tucked them into his front shirt pocket as he joined them at the dining room table. Cory pulled over another chair and the man muttered a thanks, helping himself to a biscuit as Sana poured them all tea.
This newcomer was the first man Anden had met in Espenia that made him think: Fist. He was not an especially large man, but everything in his manner—his sharp gaze, the way he stood and moved and carried his lean frame—suggested the capacity for violence. Kaul Hilo had once told Anden that good Fists had the minds of guard dogs—they could be friendly, smiling and wagging their tails, but they were always alert. If you made a wrong move, if you threatened what they valued, they wouldn’t hesitate to use their teeth. Without having ever met this person before, Anden recognized him immediately as someone who would fit in alongside the Maik brothers.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t join you for dinner,” said the man. His arrival signaled a shift in the evening; Anden suspected it had not been coincidence at all, but precisely timed. The idle chatter ceased. Chairs scraped back slightly from the cleared table; cigarettes and hoji appeared.
“Rohn-jen, you know you’re welcome anytime,” said Dauk Sana, but there was a subtle reserve in her voice that had not been there earlier. “How’s your shoulder feeling these days?”
Rohn said, “Much better after your healing sessions, Sana-jen.”
Dauk Losun gestured to Anden. “Toro, this is Emery Anden, a visiting student from Janloon. He’s only half-Kekonese, but his mother was a powerful Green Bone and he was adopted into the Kaul family of the No Peak clan as their youngest grandson.”
Anden was taken aback. All through this dinner he’d been under the impression that the Pillar of Southtrap knew him only as a student living with the Hians. Dauk Losunyin spoke in the same neighborly, casual tone he’d used all evening, as if Anden’s history was known to everyone, even though that was clearly not true. Cory’s eyebrows rose. He sat back and cocked his head, looking at Anden with heightened interest.
Rohn Toro dipped a cinnamon biscuit into his teacup. “Kaul is a famous name,” he said.
“Very famous,” Dauk Losun agreed, sitting back and rubbing his stomach with satisfaction after such a good meal. “I grew up in Kekon in a Green Bone family during the Shotarian occupation and was always hearing stories of the brave leaders of the One Mountain Society. Ayt Yugontin and Kaul Seningtun—the Spear and the Torch. After my father killed a Shotarian policeman, the Society helped me and my mother and sisters to escape to Espenia. Those three weeks in the hold of a cargo ship were the worst of my life. But gods be thanked, we arrived safely in our new country, with nothing but the clothes on our backs. I was fourteen years old.” The Pillar gazed at Anden intently. “Young man, I tell you this so you understand that I have the highest respect for your family. I make it my business to know what happens in this neighborhood, so when Mr. and Mrs. Hian called to say they were bringing you to meet me, of course I had to ask some questions and find out more about you. Now that I know who you are, my family and I want to help you in whatever way we can.”