“How is Merovy?” Fate asked. “Has she finished her medtech internship yet? And how is Tammis? I miss his voice too, and his music, without my days at the College. And Dana—?”
“Dana is doing well. With the new medicine he’s been taking, his back is much improved again; his arthritis is virtually gone. Merovy will be licensed in a fortnight,” Clavally said.
“Wonderful.” Fate smiled. “And Tammis—?” she prompted, when no one said anything more. “They make such a good match, it gives one hope for the future.”
“They’re fine,” Clavally said, but the animation went out of her voice. Moon looked at her in surprise. “Their work keeps them both so occupied … she complains that they don’t spend enough time together anymore.”
Fate’s expression altered. “That will change when her studies are finished, ] imagine.”
“I don’t know.” Clavally glanced down. “Perhaps. I hope so. Maybe it will.”
“I didn’t realize they were having problems,” Moon said softly, selfconsciously. “Tammis hasn’t said anything about it to me….” He said almost nothing at all about what was going on in his life, and she hadn’t even been aware of it. They talked about the mers, or research, when they saw each other these days’ nothing personal. Ariele avoided her as if she had a contagious disease.
Tammis did seem moodier than usual, she realized, just as Ariele seemed even more willful. But until now she had not thought about why—any more than she had thought about why neither of them had asked her the question she had been anticipating for months: The question of who their real father was. They had nevei asked … and her only emotion had been relief.
It had been her responsibility to bring it up, not theirs. But she had been too preoccupied with the Hegemony… with her own troubled feelings for the two men who had equal claim to the title “father.” Too self-obsessed… too much like Arienrhod. Guilt writhed like eels in her stomach. She picked at her food, suddenly without appetite. “I’ll try to speak to him,” she said. Try. She had been trying for weeks, months now, without success.
“And how is Sparks?” Fate pressed on, with determined good-naturedness through their awkward silence. “He hasn’t been by in some time. Is he still working on that program to recreate segments of a damaged fugue structure? What was it he said: ‘It was like mending mathematical lace.’ His mind amazes me. …”
Moon traced the rough, random patterns of ancient glue-lines on the table surface, as she considered the fact that she had no idea Sparks had even been working on such a project. “I don’t know. He isn’t at the palace much these days He’s … he’s involved in some … business venture, with some of the Winters he used to be … close to, when he was with Arienrhod.” Her voice faded until it was barely audible.
“Ah,” Fate said, and that was all. She glanced away, her eyes moving randomly around the room. Moon wondered what she was seeing, inside her thoughts.
“But we didn’t come to spoil your day with dreary moments of our lives that probably mean nothing,” Clavally said, forcing a smile. “Everything changes, today’s tears are tomorrow’s absurdities, after all.”
“And speaking of change—” Moon matched Clavally’s tone with resolute lightness. “I’ve been informed by the offworld government that the Prime Minister and the Assembly will be paying one of their traditional visits to Tiamat, in only a few months.”
“A few months?” Fate said, her disbelief showing. “Isn’t that early? They used to come every … twenty-two years, wasn’t it—?”
“It would have been a hundred years, if they hadn’t got the stardrive back, remember.” Moon smiled. “They are so pleased to have us as a new jewel in their crown that they are breaking with their own tradition, and visiting us out of sequence.” Hei smile, and her voice, turned faintly ironic.
“Is that so?” Fate said, her own voice still full of incredulity.
“So they say,” Moon answered. “What they mean may be another matter. But the offworlders are encouraging us to put on our traditional Festival for the arrival, to celebrate ‘the new union of our cultures,’ as they put it. I’ve said we’ll cooperate…. Why not, after all?” She felt something stir inside her, like spring. “We might as well embrace change gladly, as we’ve always done, in our way; because it will have its way with us whether we like it or not. That’s what the Festivals mean; that’s what they’ve always been there to symbolize: to greet change with rejoicing and celebration, make something beautiful and alive of the moment, to hold in our memories.”
“Will there be a Mask Night?” Fate asked, leaning forward on the table. “How could there not be?” Moon touched her hand, remembering the mask of the Summer Queen. “We need to cast off our old lives with the proper ritual, because we’ve been handed our new ones already.”
“But it takes years—decades—to make enough masks for everyone. We used to work from one Festival to the next, whole families of maskmakers, to make them all.…” Moon saw the sudden realization and loss that filled Fate’s face. She would not be among them, this time.
“We have manufactories now,” Moon said; her hand tightened over Fate’s. ? “They can do a great deal of the repetitive work…. The masks may not be such works of art this time; but they can be ready. And by the next Festival, they can be both. Tor has recommended a man named Coldwater to me; she thinks he would be willing, and his production complex is suitable, with some minor alterations. She also said it would be a way to reuse some of the vast quantities of trash the offworlders have been making us such a present of.…” She flicked the plass wrapper from her meat pie. “The rubbish can be turned into raw material to produce mask forms. She thought that if you were willing, you might advise Coldwater about supplies, and designs.…”
Fate’s face eased as she listened, as she adjusted her expectations and considered the possibilities that change had set before her. “Yes… yes, I could do that, I suppose. I—”
There was a knock at her door. They all turned, startled by the sound. “This day is full of surprises,” Fate said.
Clavally started to rise from her seat; Moon stopped her, getting up in her place. The other women let her go to the door, their surprise unspoken but palpable. She reached for the handle, somehow certain that it was Sparks who had come here to see Fate, to share with her all the things he had not shared with his wife. Suddenly eager to tell him that another Change was coming, that there would be another chance for them to cast off old lives and try again…. She opened the door.
She sucked in her breath, staring at the face she found there, so unexpectedly. “BZ,” she whispered. She saw his stunned disbelief, as plain as her own.
“Moon—?” He glanced away, at the house-front; past her into its interior, and finally back at her face. “Is this the home of Fate Ravenglass?”
She nodded and moved aside, opening the bottom half of the door to let him in. He was alone, without bodyguards, and not in uniform. He wore a loose-sleeved tunic and pants, a dark cloak and a wide-brimmed hat; everyday clothing for a Kharemoughi businessman or trader. She would not have glanced at him twice, in the street. He looked at her in equal wonder, seeing her wearing the native clothing that she still preferred, when the requirements of politics and ritual did not force her to dress to meet the expectations of others.
He stepped into the room, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light, and to sharing the room with her. He looked away from her finally, taking in the presence of Clavally and Fate.