“That’s a nasty thing to do to Lammasin,” she went on. “That was meant to travel, that little verdict. He’ll have a hard time finding work now. Or worse.”
Tatian stared at her, unable quite for an instant to believe what she was saying. But this was Hara, and Temelathe did have that kind of power—and there was nothing at all that he or Annek could do about it.
He touched her arm gently, turned her toward the dining room. “Dinner, Annek.”
“He’s a friend. Lammasin, I mean. Oh, damn it, I’ve got to get word to him.”
“He’s bound to hear soon enough,” Tatian said.
“Not necessarily.” Annek shook her head. “This could mean real trouble for him.”
“I take it he’s not on the net?”
“No.” Annek lowered her voice. “Tatian, I need to ask a favor. I’ll owe you for it, I promise.”
Tatian looked warily at her. Having the port’s head of operations owe him a favor could be a very useful thing, certainly, but he’d already been warned away from Haran politics. “If I can, I will,” he said, and hoped it would be something reasonable.
“When we’re done here, and it can’t be soon enough, I’ve got to find Lammasin, warn him, before that bastard Tendlathe sets the mosstaas on him,” Annek said. “I don’t want to run the Dock Row bars alone. Will you come with me?”
Tatian hesitated. He could escort her safely enough—and it wouldn’t do him any harm to be seen to be a friend of Chavvin Annek’s this time of year, a voice whispered at the back of his mind. “All right,” he said. “Now, dinner. Before someone wonders where we are.”
Annek sighed, forced a smile. “You’re right, and thank you. But I can’t say I’m very hungry.”
“Nor am I,” Tatian answered, and they went on together into the brightly lit dining room.
~
Herm. (Concord) human being possessing testes and ovaries and some aspects of male and female genitalia; 3e, 3er, 3im, 3imself.
Warreven
For once, the sky had stayed clear for most of the baanket. As he and Folhare crested the hill above the Harbor Market, he could look across the lights of the harbor and see the brightest stars vivid against the seaward horizon. Only a few wisps of night haze obscured the familiar patterns; the moon was almost down, its thin crescent blurred by a thicker streak of cloud.
“A gorgeous night,” he said, and Folhare grinned.
“In more ways than one.”
Warreven smiled in response, and the land breeze strengthened, bringing with it the sound of drumming from the Glassmarket. A whistle shrieked, shrill and raucous, but then the wind eased, and the drums faded again. “Do you think the presance did any good?”
“It certainly got people’s attention,” Folhare said lightly.
“Seriously, Folhare.”
She didn’t answer for a moment, the only noise the click of her shoes against the paving. They were still a hundred meters above the Embankment, where the bars and dance houses stayed open all night, farther still from Dockside and the Gran’quai, where ships loaded and off-loaded cargo without regard to the clock. Warreven was suddenly aware of the empty street, the dark side alleys, and glanced reflexively behind him—but the night of the baanket was usually fairly quiet. Even so, he wasn’t sorry to see the blue glow of a police light on the side of a building a few meters farther along, marking an emergency summons box. Not that the mosstaas would be much help—it was always anyone’s guess if they would actually respond to a call, though the better districts paid a service fee to make sure of it—but the automatic alarm would wake anyone sleeping in the apartments above the shops and warehouses, and people were usually quick to keep the peace in their own neighborhoods.
“I hope so,” Folhare said at last. “I do think so. It made the issue pretty clear—and if nothing else, it got them laughing at Temelathe. That’s something, anyway.”
Warreven nodded. That had been impressive, the crowd’s gasps and the startled, not-quite-approving murmurs as people realized who the presance’s central figure was meant to represent, and then the spreading laughter, shock giving way to titillated amusement when the absurdity of the presentation struck home. Not everyone would believe it, of course, but for a few minutes, the Most Important Man had been reduced to a bumbling pimp. “He’s going to be furious. Your people had better keep their heads down for a while. Was that Lammasin who was doing Temelathe?”
“Yes.” Folhare gave a rueful smile. “He was supposed to be better masked than that. Oh, well, he’s scheduled to do some work in Irenfot after the holiday, so that ought to keep him out of trouble.”
“I hope so,” Warreven said. They had reached the Embankment then, and he turned right onto the broad walkway. The streetlights were brighter, more closely spaced, and most of the buildings were also lit, lights around a doorway or tracing a stylized, three-armed tree to indicate an open bar. Drumming and voices spilled out into the street as a door opened, were cut off again, and two mems left arm in arm, the same shaal thrown defiantly around their shoulders. Warreven watched them go, idly curious, and was not surprised to see them draw apart before they’d reached the first streetlight, the taller mem wrapping the shaal around his head to pass for male.
“Shall we try Shinbone?” Folhare asked, and Warreven nodded. That was his favorite among the dance houses; they hired decent drummers and kept the peace among the mix of clients.
Its doorway was brighter lit than most, surrounded by a double band of light, gold and green, and there were two trees outlined in lights to either side of the entrance. As usual, a slumped figure, so wrapped in layers of shaals and tunics as to be little more than a dark lump, sat just outside the pool of light, and extended a bowl marked with the Cripple’s crutch as they passed: Aldinogh, who owned Shinbone and three other houses along Harborside, was careful to propitiate the spirits, and anyone living who might be jealous of his prosperity. Warreven reached into his pocket, came up with a handful of small change, and dropped it into the bowl, saying, “From the lady, too.” He jerked his head toward Folhare.
The lurking figure didn’t answer, but Folhare gave him a grateful glance. Warreven hid a twisted smile. She might claim to be fully assimilated, a true Modernist, but she, none of them, could quite free themselves of the teachings of childhood. Oh, it was easy to explain why the customs had developed the way they did—Hara’s population was relatively small, but there were always people who ended up outside the mesnie system, either by choice or accident, and the tradition that said you could not safely refuse anyone who asked help in Caritan the Cripple’s name had obviously grown up to protect that minority—but, even knowing that, it was almost impossible to break those old habits.
The hulking doorkeeper nodded to them as they passed—from him, a major concession—and they went on into the single long room. Like every other dance house in the city, Shinbone had mechanical bars in each of the four corners, and a band platform at the far end of the hall, but at least here the tables surrounding the dance floor weren’t strictly divided between trade and the wry-abed. The groups crowding the tables were fairly well mixed—or at least, Warreven amended, the ones in the light were mixed. There was no way to know if the people groping in the dark at the edges of the room had stuck to the more usual divisions. “Do you want a drink?” he said, to Folhare, but she was looking past him into the shadows by the closest bar.