“You look like death. No, you look like the Doorkeeper.”
Warreven looked sideways, found his reflection in the glass of the nearest window. With the black bandage covering one eye, he did look a little like the popular drawings of Agede the Doorkeeper, the spirit of death and birth and change. “Thanks,” he said sourly, and did not reach for the sweetrum. Agede was always drawn with a cane and a bottle; there was no need to complete the resemblance.
“The tech said you should be sure and reschedule your appointment, have your eye looked at sometime tomorrow.”
“Reschedule?” Warreven scowled at the invisible camera.
“They wanted to see you this afternoon,” Malemayn said. “I mentioned it to Tatian, but he thought—we both thought—it was better to let you sleep. The tech said you should be sure and come in tomorrow, though.”
Warreven nodded, not looking at the off-worlder. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked Tatian’s looking after him, wasn’t sure he entirely disliked it, either. But then, it had been Malemayn’s decision, too.
“I’m going to stay for another hour or so,” Malemayn went on. “Oddyny said she’d be back to take another look at Hal, and she said she’d have time to give me an update then. And then I’m going home and get some sleep.”
“What about Hal?” Warreven asked, a little too sharply. The old fears rose in his mind: Haliday left alone, unconscious, the doctors deciding to castrate, or simply not to save, 3er ambiguous body, all because there was no one there to protest—
“Relax,” Malemayn said. “I made it very clear, and Dr. Jaans was with me, that Hal’s to be treated like they’d treat an off- worlder. I left a couple hundred megs with the ward nurse, too.”
Warreven nodded, appeased. “That ought to be enough.”
“I’ll pay more if I have to,” Malemayn said.
“Let me know what I can put into the pot,” Warreven said.
Malemayn shook his head. “We’ll adjust this through the partnership. Once this is all over. Æ, Raven, I don’t know how we’re going to keep working, with Hal in the hospital and you supposed to be being seraaliste—”
He broke off, shaking his head again, this time in apology, and Warreven looked away, embarrassed. “I know, Mal, I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t my idea.”
“And this wasn’t Haliday’s either,” Malemayn said. “I know.” He sighed, looked down at something beneath the camera’s line of sight. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you if there’s any change, any news at all, but if you don’t hear from me, everything’s fine.”
Warreven nodded again. “Give Hal my love,” he said, softly, even though he knew Haliday couldn’t hear the message yet. Malemayn nodded, and broke the connection.
“I hope you don’t mind my not waking you,” Tatian said, after a moment. “I went in and looked, but you were pretty well out of it.”
In the main screen, a shay filled with mosstaas pulled into the Market, and Warreven caught his breath before he realized it was a clip from the day before. “It’s all right,” he said, still watching the screen. “I think sleep was probably the best thing for me.”
“That’s what I thought,” Tatian agreed.
The image in the screen changed again, returning to the live feed. Warreven frowned, trying to figure out where the cameras were stationed—on the Embankment, maybe, or on the Customs House balcony—and the off-worlder cleared his throat.
“Look, it’s maybe none of my business, but you might want to think of moving Haliday now. If 3e’s well enough, of course.”
“Æ.” Warreven tipped his head to one side, felt the muscles tighten, but the pain was distant now, deadened by the sweetrum and the doutfire.
“You know your planet better than I do,” Tatian said, his voice abruptly formal. “I’m not presuming to tell you your business. But this doesn’t look good to me.” He gestured to the screen.
Warreven looked again, seeing the line of dockers and ranas mixed together, the crude barricade—and also the drums and dancers, a pair of flute players now leading the performance. “It’s still a rana, still within the law,” he began, and broke off, hearing the absurdity of his own words.
“So was yesterday,” Tatian muttered.
“I know.” Warreven stared at the screen, seeing not these dancers but Faireigh, hearing her voice soaring easily above the other voices. Go down, you snow-white roses, she had sung, and Tendlathe would never forget that, any more than he had forgotten Lammasin’s insult. Or Warreven’s own, the insult of his existence. Warreven suppressed a shiver, looked away from the screen. “What have they been saying, what’s the Most Important Man doing about this?”
“Staying clear,” Tatian answered. “Oh, they said about an hour ago that he’s meeting with the harbormasters and the head of the mosstaas, supposed to be deciding if this is interfering with trade, but as best I can tell, he’s waiting for it to die down on its own.”
“That’s smart.”
“Not necessarily.” Tatian glared at the screen, and the image shifted to a pan along the length of the Gran’quai and the boats tied up there. “See there? It is interfering with commerce, and the pharmaceuticals aren’t going to put up with that for long.”
Warreven frowned, for a moment not seeing anything different, and then realized that the usual traffic of dockers’ drags and devils was completely absent. No one was off-loading; the ships’ crews were idle, or with the dockers at the barricades. “It’s only been one day,” he said. “Does that make enough of a difference?”
“Not one day,” Tatian said, grimly. “But if this isn’t settled—well, I already spoke to my people. They said the Big Six are starting to get a little nervous. They’re shipping a good million a day right now, and they can’t risk losing the harvest.”
Neither could the mesnies, Warreven thought. They would be putting pressure on Temelathe to end this, too, especially the conservative mesnies of the Equatoriale—and with the pharmaceuticals and Tendlathe also pushing to close down the protest, Temelathe would have a hard time balancing all those demands. And if there was more trouble—if Temelathe tried to send the mosstaas in again, tried to disperse a legitimate raria after they’d singularly failed to stop the ghost ranas and their violence…. The people at the Harbor wouldn’t stand for it two days in a row. They would fight, and then Temelathe would have no choice but to turn the mosstaas loose on them. And that would give Tendlathe the excuse he needed to act.
“What about Tendlathe?” he said aloud. “Where’s he supposed to be?”
“With his father, I guess.” Tatian looked at him, his expression very serious. “Look, did you mean what you said—God, was it only the day before yesterday? That Tendlathe was behind the ghost ranas, and Lammasin’s murder?”
Warreven laughed. “Despite what Hal thinks, I don’t say things like that lightly. Yes, I think he’s responsible—and I told him so to his face—which didn’t exactly endear me to him, I suppose. But we’ll never prove it.”
“So he’s responsible for this, too?” Tatian waved his free hand, the gesture taking in the bandaged eye, the second bandage hidden under Warreven’s tunic. “Beating up you and Haliday?”
“Probably,” Warreven answered. It hurt more than he’d expected, admitting that, acknowledging that the man he’d grown up with had almost certainly arranged the attack, was the person who’d planned not just the beating but the ritual humiliation. “He—Tendlathe thinks that we—the wrangwys, and you off-worlders, too—aren’t really human anymore.”