Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction) (41 page)

"What's this all
about?" Tatian demanded, but quietly, his voice pitched to carry
only to Warreven's ears.

Warreven glanced back
at him, couldn't restrain a sudden wild smile. "They see
Agede--the Doorkeeper, one of the spirits, one of the powerful
spirits--not just me, and they see Agede is a herm, I'm a herm,
and that, Tatian, is how I'm going to win."

"Oh, my God," the
off-worlder muttered, and the words were more than half a prayer.

"Something like
that," Warreven agreed, and started toward the bonfire. Ȝe
could feel people watching, more and more of them turning to watch
their progress through the glare of the lights; 3e
could see, quite clearly, how the crowd parted for them.

The sound of the band
was louder than ever by the bonfire, more than one drum calling the
various lines of the song, flute soaring above to carry the melody.
People, men and women and the
wrangwys
,
were dancing in the firelight, maybe half-following the orderly
patterns of a traditional dance, the rest improvising in the confined
space. Warreven smiled again, feeling the drums in 3er
bones, feet automatically picking up the pattern, and a boy swung
toward 3im, hands out to
invite the dance. He was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, thin and
hungry-looking, dark hair cut close to his skull. Seeing Warreven,
his steps faltered, and Warreven held out 3er
hands in answer, took the boy's cold fingers, and twirled him
gently away. Ȝe caught a
quick glimpse of the boy's face, open-mouthed, blank with shocked
surprise, realized that he, too, was a herm. Ȝe
smiled, and held out the almost- empty sweetrum bottle, tossed it
toward 3er erstwhile
partner. The boy--herm--caught it awkwardly, two-handed, and
Warreven turned away, skirting the bonfire.

Ahead, the firelight
rose and fell on the faces of the people who blocked access to the
Gran'quai, reddening the colors of their ribbons, gleaming from the
metal of the chains and the pry bars in their hands. At the center of
the line, blocking the single opening in the barricade, was a group
all in single colors, red and purple and orange and yellow and green
and blue, all the colors of the spectrum; their hair was bound up
under turbans of the same color, lips and eyes painted to match,
hands gloved. Warreven suppressed a shudder at that reminder, but
they were clearly the leaders of this part of the protest, and 3e
made 3imself walk steadily
toward them.

"Don't look back,"
Tatian said, "but you've acquired a following."

Warreven felt 3er
shoulders twitch, painfully, but managed not to turn. "I'm here
to see Dismars," 3e
said, to the rana dressed in orange, and saw the woman shiver.

The man next to her,
all in green, said, "It's Warreven. He's expected."

He spoke loudly enough
to be heard over the sound of the drums, but Warreven, glancing down,
saw the orange woman's free hand curved in a propitiating sign. She
stepped aside, letting through the line, but the green man said, "Wait.
The off-worlder--"

"You're not closing
doors to me?" Warreven asked, gently, and the green man fell
silent. Ȝe stepped
through the line, and Tatian followed.

Behind the barricade,
on the Gran'quai itself, everything was different. The drums were
softer, muffled by the stacked crates, and there were no dancers.
Instead, a gang of dockers was busy with haul bars and an antigrav,
adding a final load of crates and balks of ballast wood to the
barricade. A devil, one of the portable engines that powered the
cranes, chugged softly to itself in the background, throttled down,
but ready. They were willing to keep things peaceful: that was the
message of the band, the bonfire and the dancers, the carnival in the
Market, but they were equally prepared to fight. Warreven wondered
how many more guns were hidden on the dock, how many tool lasers had
already been dragged up out of workshops and ships' holds, and
started as someone shoved something into 3er
hand.

It was a bottle, nearly
full, and 3e managed not
to drop it, seeing a woman sailor backing away, lifting two fingers
to her lips before she turned back to the barricade. The cork was
off, and 3e could smell
sweetrum. Ȝe sipped it,
not knowing what else would be mixed in it, and tasted starfire
bitter beneath the sweet. Ȝe
took a deeper swallow then, grateful for the drugs to numb the rising
pain behind his eye, and saw the leaders of the Modernists gathered
beneath one of the working lights, a noteboard propped up on a
bollard.

"I'll wait here,"
Tatian said, and stopped just outside the range of the light.

Warreven nodded, and
stepped forward. "I'm here."

Ȝe
saw one of them--a younger man, someone 3e
didn't know--touch his lips, saw Folhare's sudden grin and
Losson's angry stare. Dismars said, "Warreven." He, too, had
pitched his voice to carry beyond the little group, to identify 3im,
take away the mask of the spirit. Which isn't possible, Warreven
thought, not tonight, not this time, you called me, and here I am,
not what you expected and not what you can use. Ȝe
spread 3er hands, and
smiled.

"Is Temelathe really
coming, then?"

"He's on his way,"
Dismars said, grimly, and Losson broke in.

"And we need to be
sure we're all after the same things."

"You wanted me here,"
Warreven said. "Here I am."

Ȝe
saw Dismars and Losson exchange quick glances, and then Dismars said,
"And we're glad of it. I appreciate your help, Warreven."

Wait until it's over,
Warreven thought. Ȝe said
nothing, however, just waited, and Dismars looked back at the
noteboard.

"All right," he
said. "We've made a list of our demands--you're welcome to
take a look, Warreven--but the main thing is, we want to speak at
the Meeting."

Warreven accepted the
noteboard that Folhare held out to 3im,
worked the controls to glance quickly down the list. Gender
law--described as "trade and related questions"--was there all
right, but looking at the faces surrounding 3im,
3e couldn't muster much
confidence in their willingness to press the question.

"Without that,"
Dismars went on, his eyes fixed on Warreven's face, "without
that, we can't hope to achieve anything."

"And we can't get
anything if there's a riot," Losson growled.

"We can't stand up
to the
mosstaas
,"
a younger man corrected, frowning.

"And we lose any hope
of getting support from the
mesnie
s,"
Losson said.

"All right,"
Dismars said sharply. "Are you willing to talk to Temelathe with
us, Warreven?"

"I'll talk to him,"
Warreven said.

Dismars opened his
mouth to say something more, but a woman's voice from the barricade
interrupted him.

"Æ, miri, the Most
Important's here."

"How many?" Dismars
called back.

"One caleche," the
woman answered. "And three, no, four big shays. All
mosstaas
."
Behind her, the band's steady beat faltered, and then the leaders
had it under control again. "They're stopping at the Embankment,
though."

"Right." Dismars
took a deep breath, looked around the circle of faces, including even
Warreven in his intent stare. "Let's go."

He led the way out
through the opening in the barricade, the rainbow-dressed line
parting to let them through. Warreven, following at the back of the
group, was aware of Tatian behind 3im,
sliding through the barricade unchallenged. In the Market, the crowd
was silent, no one dancing now, despite the continued music of the
rana band on the platform; there was a smaller crowd--the people who
had followed 3im to the
barricade, Warreven realized, with a sudden thrill--to the left of
the bonfire, mostly the odd-bodied, their attention swiveling between
the barricade and the approaching
mosstaas
.
The shays had stopped at the edge of the Market, and
mosstaas
,
dozens of them, armed with riot guns and cast-ceramic breastplates,
spilled from the open bodies, formed up neatly on the worn stones.
Warreven looked toward the platform, toward the stairway that led
back up to the ware- house street where the rover was waiting, saw
yet another group, not part of the rana, not yet, but from the
shanty, watching just outside the market lights. A few of the people
who had been dancing slipped away as 3e
watched, but the shanty dwellers remained.

Something moved in the
darkness beyond the shays, and a heavy caleche slid past them into
the light. The crowd parted for it, reluctant but wary, closed in
again as it ground to a stop just beyond the bonfire. The passenger
door opened, and Temelathe stepped out. A
mosstaas
followed, pellet gun at the ready, and then Tendlathe, slim in the
firelight. He looked over his shoulder at the shays, but made no
gesture. He started to follow his father, the trooper instantly at
his shoulder, but Temelathe waved them back, and they stopped a meter
or so from the caleche. Temelathe looked almost incongruously
ordinary as he crossed the open space between the two groups, a
bulky, gray-haired, gray-bearded man in plain trousers and an
old-fashioned vest over a new-style shirt, his hair still knotted at
the nape of his neck. Warreven felt old loyalties tugging at 3er
heart, looked deliberately past him to Tendlathe, standing a little
ahead of the
mosstaas
now, both hands deep in the pockets of his trousers.

"Miri, mirrimi,"
Temelathe said, and though he didn't seem to raise his voice, it
was pitched to carry easily through the crowd, and along the line of
people in front of the barricade. "This is outside of enough. I
understand your complaints, and I agree, this lawlessness, these
ghost ranas, have to be stopped, but this is no way to get anything
done. Disperse now, and we can meet properly in the morning."

There was a murmur,
half angry, half uncertain, and Dismars shook his head. His voice
wasn't as clear as Temelathe's, but it would carry to at least
the nearer of the crowd. "Tomorrow isn't soon enough, mir. We
need to talk now."

"I agree that we need
to talk," Temelathe said, "but not like this." He gestured, the
broad sweep of his hand taking in the bonfire and the ranas as well
as the barricade and its guardians. "There's a lot that needs to
be said, to be discussed, but not like this. We need to sit down
together, without any lives at stake. This, this is an illegal
gathering, and I can't permit it to go on. Disperse now,
peacefully, and we can talk tomorrow."

"This is legal,"
Losson said.

Dismars said, "Mir,
yesterday's rana was dispersed, when it was well within the bounds
of law and custom. And we got nothing for that, an act in good faith,
except that the ghost ranas attacked two more people. I can't in
conscience ask people to disperse under those circumstances."

Tendlathe sighed,
jammed his hands into his pockets. It was an act Warreven had seen
before--the bluff, good-hearted man from the Stanelands, a little
confused by the modern world, but willing to learn--and 3e
took a step back, away from the others. Ȝe
wouldn't, couldn't, let 3imself
be taken in this time.

"Yesterday was an
error, miri, that I admit. An overzealous officer, holding too fast
to the letter of the law."

"Under the
circumstances," Dismars repeated, "our people will be most upset
if they have to disperse again. Especially with nothing to show for
it."

"We can talk tonight,
if you insist," Temelathe said. "Though I'd've expected a
little more consideration for an old man."

"Mir, I wouldn't
insult you," Dismars answered, and Temelathe showed teeth in a
quick grin. Warreven looked past him to see Tendlathe still standing
frozen, hands still in his pockets. The firelight threw the planes of
his face into harsh relief, the expressionless stare and the moving
eyes.

"But if I must, I
must," Temelathe said. "I'm willing to talk all night, if
that's what it takes to get this settled."

"We would ask for a
preliminary undertaking first," Dismars said.

Temelathe spread his
hands. "I'm prepared to talk."

"There are issues
that have to be discussed more generally," Dismars said. "At the
Meeting."

"The Meeting's out
of my control," Temelathe said, but the protest was only
perfunctory. "That's a matter for the Watch Council."

"And we know how
influential you are, mir," Dismars answered. "But these things
need to be discussed, and the Meeting's the only forum where all of
us have a voice."

"What issues?"
Temelathe faced the younger man squarely, his spread-legged
stance--the Captain's stand--apparently relaxed, only the
rigidity of his shoulders to betray any hint of nervousness. Behind
him, Tendlathe took a single step forward, then seemed to think
better of it.

"A round dozen,"
Dismars said. "To name a few, there's the question of how
contracts are awarded to the pharmaceuticals, there's the whole
question of trade--most of all, there's whether or not we should
join the Concord. All those need to be dealt with, mir."

"Not everyone agrees
with you," Temelathe said.

Dismars looked over his
shoulder, the glance as good as a gesture. "All these people are
with me. They're not just Bonemarche, mir, we're from all over,
mesnie
s as well
as the city."

"I could ask the
Council to schedule you to speak at the Meeting," Temelathe said.
He smiled thinly. "That's your right, after all. But I can't
make promises regarding individual issues. The contracts, for
example, or trade, those are clan issues, or city issues, those don't
belong in the Meeting."

"They affect
everyone," Dismars said.

Temelathe shook his
head. "I can't make promises for your clans. You're a
Maychilder, he's a Trencevent, the lady there I know is Black
Stane--you'll have to take this up with your own clans. But I can
offer you the chance to speak."