Dauk Losun and Dauk Sana greeted the visitors at the front door. Cory was there too, home from Watersguard University for the two-week-long Harvest’Eves break. Fortunately, after fruitless months of surveillance, the police appeared to have given up on staking out the Dauks’ home, or perhaps they too were taking a holiday break. The Dauks had gone to some effort to make their modest home look presentable to an important visitor. The counters and the banister gleamed from polish; new, brighter lights had been put in over the kitchen; a vase of fresh flowers on the dining table scented the air pleasantly. Dauk Losun was more formal than usual; instead of his typical sweater, he was wearing a gray shirt and a red tie with a gold clip, and he was not quite his normal unassuming self. He greeted Kaul Hilo with a respectful salute, saying how pleased he was to meet the Pillar of the great No Peak clan in person and inquiring as to his flight. From behind his father’s shoulder, Cory flashed Anden a quick smile, which Anden barely acknowledged with one of his own before averting his gaze. He’d spent months impatient to see Cory again, but right now he was too unbalanced by his cousin’s presence and the strangeness of different parts of his life coming together under one roof.
Hilo quickly put his hosts at ease by smiling his lopsided smile, complimenting them on aspects of their house, and joking about the food served on Kekon Air. As they entered the dining room, Anden saw his cousin’s gaze fall on the statues and vases carved from bluffer’s jade. A smirk tugged at the corner of Hilo’s mouth, imperceptible to anyone but Anden; it was gone in an instant. When Dauk Losun brought out a bottle of fine hoji and opened it to serve in advance of dinner, Hilo told them about one of his Fists who’d been maimed in a battle and lost his arms but now ran one of the best hoji distilleries in Janloon. Was Dauk a hoji connoisseur? Hilo would be pleased to send him a case. Maik and Rohn stood silently near their bosses, watching the exchange and each other with respect and subtle caution.
Dauk Sana, wearing a high-collared, matronly green dress, brought out dish after dish of food to the dinner table, apologizing for the meagerness of the meal even though it was obvious that she’d been slaving in the kitchen all day to cook a dozen dishes. Hilo said that his own mother could not have done so well, which made Dauk Sana beam with pleasure. “I had plans to make one other seafood dish and a sweet cake, and I would have, if my daughters had been here to help, but one lives far away, another is home with a sick child, and the third is traveling for some sort of industry conference.” She sighed and said, “At least Coru was good enough to lend a hand in the kitchen this afternoon.” She doled more food onto her son’s plate with obvious affection. “The youngest child is usually the most helpful.”
Hilo seemed to consider this comment as he regarded Cory, no doubt Perceiving him to be a Green Bone like his parents and Rohn. Anden felt a tremble in his stomach, a sudden, ridiculous protectiveness. Hilo smiled in a teasing, friendly way and raised his hoji glass to Dauk Coru. “The youngest is also the most spoiled, the one who gets away with anything.”
Cory laughed a little uncertainly and glanced at his father. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
From across the table, Dauk Losun said, “Do you have children, Kaul-jen?”
Hilo said, “I have two sons. They’re one and three years old. My wife and I are expecting a third child.”
Dauk Losun and Kaul Hilo were separated in age by thirty years. “The gods favor you, Kaul-jen, to have given you two sons already and perhaps a third on the way,” Dauk said.
“The third will be a girl,” Hilo said. “That’s how it seems to be in our family.”
“Nevertheless, a blessing.”
After dinner, Dauk Sana cleared the empty dishes and leftovers to the kitchen. There was still plenty of food left; Hilo, Anden, and the Dauks had dined heartily, but Maik Tar and Rohn Toro, seated next to their respective Pillars, had eaten little and spoken less. It was their unstated but mutually understood role to remain observant and on guard. This was a friendly meeting, but nonetheless one between clan Pillars that did not know each other.
Cory stood up to help his mother clear the table. Anden got up as well, wanting to be helpful and feeling suddenly out of place at the table of Green Bone men. In the kitchen, Cory put a stack of dishes on the counter and whispered, “Your cousin’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” Anden asked.
“Someone like you but a lot older. Serious and intimidating. Black suit, sunglasses, carrying half a dozen knives on his body. Jade on gold chains hanging off his neck and wrists.”
“You’ve been watching too many of those idiotic Shotarian crime movies.”
Cory laughed softly, a sound that always made Anden’s heart skip a little. “Do you think he’s really going to do anything to help us with the Crews, or is he here for some other reason?”
Anden felt oddly accused, as if he was expected to know the Pillar’s mind, and it was his fault the Dauks had gone to so much trouble to prepare for this evening. “I don’t know,” he said.
Dauk Sana took a fresh pot of tea back out to the dining table. “When are we going to get together?” Cory whispered, now that they were alone in the kitchen. He put his hand on the small of Anden’s back and slipped his fingers under the waistband of Anden’s pants.
Anden moved away, extricating himself. How could Cory think about that right now, with his parents and the Pillar of No Peak sitting in the room next to them? “Maybe Secondday,” he said, when he saw the faintly hurt expression on Coru’s face. “We’ll talk later.”
They went back into the dining room. Tea and cigarettes and glazed quartered plums were on the table. Maik and Rohn had edged their chairs back, so that they sat slightly behind the two Pillars. Anden stood in the doorway for a second, unsure of where he ought to place himself, but Maik Tar hooked the leg of Anden’s empty chair with his foot and moved it deliberately next to his, so it was clear that Anden was expected to sit on the Kaul side, behind Hilo.
Anden did so. To his surprise, Sana’s and Cory’s seats remained where they were at the table, on either side of Dauk Losun. Dauk said, with an air of casual explanation, “Kaul-jen, I hope you don’t mind if I ask my wife and son to remain a part of our conversation. We’re usually not formal around here, and even though the people in our neighborhood call me Pillar, it’s more as a sign of respect than an official title. Someone has to lead the community when needed. It’s my honor to hold that responsibility, but I’m not ashamed to admit that most of the time I rely on the straightforward good sense of my wife. My son is the only one of our children who wears jade. He’s like a bee that sips from every flower—he’s known and liked by everyone, and, Heaven help me, he’s also a lawyer-in-training, so I like to keep him close.”
Anden had rarely heard Dauk Losun speak at such length and so humbly. With this opening, however, Dauk was setting the terms of the conversation and signaling his own standing as a man of influence. He was like a leopard facing a tiger; he possessed far less jade, less wealth, and less power in his country than Kaul Hilo held in Kekon, but he was a Green Bone leader in his own right and not the sort of man who would be pushed around by a visitor in his own home.