“I’ve heard quite a lot about the Gedesrede baanket,” Tatian said. He judged it was time to establish some sort of common ground. “Our—NAPD’s—chief botanist is a Stane.”
“I assume she’s on her way home now, then,” Wiidfare said.
Tendlathe said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “Which mesnie?”
“Riversedge,” Tatian answered. “And yes, Mir Wiidfare, she and Mats are heading up there in the next few days.”
Wiidfare started to sneer, but Tendlathe silenced him with a quick look. “That makes us kin,” he said, and grinned at Tatian’s quickly suppressed look of disbelief. “Closer than just Stane and Stane, I mean. My mother was from Riversedge, and I was practically fostered there. What’s her name? I’ll have to look for her.”
“Derebought Stane.” There was no point in using her compound name, Stane-Lanhos; Harans didn’t recognize the form—one more thing they didn’t admit to—and the reminder of her off-world marriage might undo all the good this conversation had done.
“Derebought,” Tendlathe repeated. “I’ll certainly look for her.”
Tatian nodded, not knowing quite what to say, not sure why Tendlathe was going out of his way to speak to him, and glanced out over the Glassmarket again. Something was moving on the fringes of the crowd, by the band platforms. He frowned, trying to make out what was happening, and saw movement among the drummers on the platform. Someone—the figure was totally indistinct at this distance—climbed or was lifted up to join them. There was a moment of confusion, and then the newcomer lifted a bright white-and-yellow disk drum over his or her head, began beating out a new, insistent rhythm. A banner rose at the back of the platform, nearly toppling a drummer, and unfolded on multiple supports to reveal painted shapes maybe twice life size. Tatian squinted at them, trying to read their elliptical message—they looked like yet more representations of the ubiquitous spirits, the interpreters to humans of Hara’s distant God—and heard Wiidfare mutter something.
“—fucking Modernists.”
Tatian glanced over his shoulder, startled by the vehemence of his tone, and saw Tendlathe’s hand close on the other indigene’s arm. His expression didn’t change, handsome face still smiling faintly, but Wiidfare winced, and Tatian saw Tendlathe’s knuckles pale as his grip tightened further.
“This is Bonemarche,” he said, and his voice sounded strangely tight, only a ghost of its earlier ease remaining. “Things are different in the mesnies. They wouldn’t stand for this there.”
Tatian looked back toward the banner, now fully opened, five figures—not the spirits after all, he thought, but more like caricatures of the five sexes, a Concord motif given a new, uniquely Haran shape—stood hand-in-hand against a stylized background of sea and sky. More figures, most in traditional dress, a couple in dull gray that might have been meant to stand for off-worlders, posed in front of the banner, but he was too far away to understand their mime. Uniformed mosstaas started to shove their way into the crowd, but the Stillers blocked their way: the protesters had chosen their moment well. He heard a laugh behind him, hearty, and sounding genuinely amused.
“They’ve got heart, the Stillers,” Temelathe said, “and brains. Not a milligram of common sense in the entire clan, but kilograms of brains.” He edged out on the balcony, distance glasses in hand, and the other Stanes scrambled to give him room. Tatian found himself pushed back against the doorway, the edge of the bricks digging painfully into his spine.
“It shouldn’t be allowed, my father,” Tendlathe said. He was still smiling, as though he’d forgotten to let his lips move; the expression looked ghastly against his sudden pallor, brown skin drained of blood. “It’s disrespectful to you, and to Stane. The mosstaas—”
Temelathe laughed again, as though his son had never spoken. “God and the spirits, that’s clever. And the one doing me’s very good.” He lowered the glasses, looked behind him, shrewd eyes—eyes that weren’t laughing at all, Tatian noticed—sweeping across the mixed crowd of Stanes and Maychilders and off-worlders. “Take a look, ser Mhyre, it’s almost a shame you’re missing the performance. Not that we aren’t delighted to have you here, of course.”
He thrust the glasses almost into Tatian’s face, and the younger man took them mechanically. He couldn’t refuse; it was less an offer than an order, and he thumbed the tuning wheel, buying the seconds he needed to get his own expression under control. Any pharmaceutical, any off-worlder, would have done anything for this display of Temelathe’s magnanimity, he thought. Why the hell did it have to be me? He raised the glasses, focusing the double lenses on the banner, and the scene beneath it leaped into sharp focus. A group dressed as men and women, though their bodies very obviously didn’t match their clothes, clustered in the center, watched by the two “off-worlders.” A man in overdone jewelry—and he was obviously meant to be Temelathe, from the padded shoulders and chest and coarse black and gray wig to the tricks of stance and gesture—was sorting the people in traditional clothes into pairs, matching “male” to “female” regardless of real gender or the mimed wishes of the people. Before he’d finished sorting, however, one of the “off-worlders” tapped him on the shoulder, pointed to a “man” who had been padded to resemble a herm. “Temelathe” shook his head, and the “off-worlder” offered something that looked like a purse. “Temelathe” took it, nodding vigorously, and shoved the “herm” toward the “off-worlder.” It was the most blatant representation of trade, and Temelathe’s connections to trade, that Tatian had ever seen on Hara.
“You see,” Temelathe said. “They are good, aren’t they?”
“They seem—talented,” Tatian answered, and handed back the glasses, wondering what he should have said. The Old Dame would have known, but %e was on New Antioch, and he was responsible for %er business here.
Temelathe laughed, throwing his head back, and a few of the other Stanes managed to laugh with him. Tendlathe lifted both eyebrows in disbelieving disdain. His color was coming back a little, but his mouth was still set in that faint, unreal smile.
“They are talented,” Temelathe said, still grinning hugely. “Clever and talented, that’s Stiller for you. No sense, but clever as monkeys. Of course, good mimics don’t make good actors, do they, ser Mhyre? And Lammasin Stiller’s a really talented mimic.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Tatian said, stiff-lipped. He felt a chill run through the room.
Tendlathe said, “The mosstaas should clear the market.”
Temelathe shook his head. “Nonsense. Let Stiller—let the Modernists, it’s not even all of Stiller, though it will be if I turned the mosstaas on them—let them have their day. It won’t matter.”
“This is what happens when you let people like Warreven have their say. Yes, it matters,” Tendlathe said, and his father took him firmly by the arm. Tatian saw the younger man flinch before he had himself under control again.
“It doesn’t, and it won’t,” Temelathe said firmly. “Let it be.” He looked around the room, visibly gathering his people. “Come, come, the first remove must be ready. Time and past for us to be fed.”
Most of the Stanes trailed obediently after him. Tatian waited in the doorway until the people on the balcony had filed past him and followed more slowly.
“Christ.” The voice and the curse were off-world, and Tatian turned to find Chavvin Annek at his elbow. She was the head of operations at the port, one of the most important off-worlders on Hara, someone whom even Temelathe would not want wantonly to offend; even so, Tatian wished she would keep her voice down.