Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (22 page)

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.

"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
shaal
s 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.

"I--there's
someone I need to see first, thanks."

Warreven glanced
sideways, to see a group sitting around one of the larger tables. A
tiny
luciole
glowed on the center of the table, between bottles of sweetrum and a
smoking pot, but it had been turned low, so that its light barely
reached the faces. Even so, he recognized one of them--Lammasin,
without the makeup and the padding that had made him look so much
like Temelathe--and that meant that the rest of the group would be
the other actors from the
presance
. "Do you think it's smart?"

"Æ?"

"Do you want to be
seen talking to them right now, for your sake or theirs?"

"It's a
wrangwys
house," Folhare said, impatiently. "Who's going to talk to the
mosstaas
?"

That was sheer bravado,
and they both knew it: the
mosstaas
had a network of informers that ran throughout the Dockside houses.
But there was no arguing with her in her present mood, Warreven
thought. He looked back at the table, ignoring the sound of the drums
calling the next dance, and saw a stranger, a woman in the full skirt
and shaped, peplumed jacket marked with the silver rings of the port
administration, leaning over Lammasin's shoulder. She said
something, her face shielded by the fall of her chin-length hair;
Lammasin waved her words away, then, changing his mind, beckoned for
her to sit beside him.

"If it'll be a
problem for you, of course," Folhare said, and made the words a
dare.

Warreven barely heard
her, seeing a second figure emerge from the shadowed corner where the
bar stood. Mhyre Tatian, his blond hair and beard unmistakable,
handed the off-world woman a bottle of something Warreven didn't
recognize, then stopped behind her chair. He looked almost protective
of her, as though he were guarding her, Warreven thought, though she
hardly seemed aware of his presence as she leaned toward Lammasin,
her bottle already pushed aside. He realized that Folhare was looking
curiously at him, and said, "No, not a problem."

Folhare's eyebrows
rose in patent disbelief, but Warreven ignored her, heading for the
table.

"Mir Tatian, I didn't
expect to see you here."

Tatian looked at him
over the neck of his bottle, one corner of his mouth curving up into
a sardonic half smile. "Mir Warreven. Congratulations on the
election."

He hadn't spoken
loudly, but a couple of the people at Lammasin's table heard and
looked up. Warreven took a step away, deeper into the shadows--no
need to be overheard as well as seen--and saw Folhare touch
Lammasin's shoulder, whisper something in his ear. "Thank you. I
think we have some unfinished business, you and I."

"If you mean Shan
Reiss's statement," Tatian answered, "it's finished business.
Sorry."

Warreven blinked,
startled by the refusal even to discuss it, and said, "Feeling that
way about trade, I'm surprised to find you here." He waved his
hand toward the dance floor, and the mix of off-worlders and
indigenes watching from the side tables.

Tatian made a face. "I
came with Annek." He looked at the table, where the off-world woman
was still talking earnestly. Lammasin hardly seemed to be listening;
seemed more intent on the smoke now rising from the pot in front of
him. "Is that guy, what's-his-name, Lammasin, a friend of yours?"

"A friend of a
friend," Warreven answered cautiously.

"We, Annek and I,
were at the Stane party at the White Watch House tonight," Tatian
said. "Mir Temelathe was not at all happy with that parody your
friends put on. He threatened to keep him from working, and Annek
thinks he can do it."

"Of course he can,"
Warreven said. "He recognized Lammasin, then?"

"Yes."

"Damn." Warreven
looked back at the table, at Folhare still hovering, an expression of
faint disgust shadowing her face as she watched Annek talking to
Lammasin. If Temelathe had recognized the actor, then Lammasin would
indeed need to lie low for awhile--it wouldn't be a bad time to
visit his home
mesnie
,
wherever that was, as long as it was out of Bonemarche. Irenfot
wouldn't be far enough away, was too much under the influence of
the Stanes, like all the cities on the Westaern, to be truly safe.
And besides, he added silently, the job that was supposed to take him
to Irenfot would almost certainly vanish, if the Most Important Man
was angry.

"Tendlathe was very
upset, too," Tatian said. "You might also tell your friends he
wanted to set the
mosstaas
on them."

"So what else is
new," Warreven said sourly. He remembered Tendlathe in the library
at White Stane House, hand clenched on the arm of his chair. "He
doesn't like off-worlders, he doesn't like Modernists, he doesn't
like trade, and most of all he doesn't like being reminded that
there really are five sexes. Facts like that confuse him. But I
appreciate the warning."