“I make that my business.”

“So my spies noticed. In Sorrow such behavior is unheard of. It is your mission to work toward a mutual solution to the collective problems of those people who have sworn their loyalty to you. Who but a Kaiel thinks that way? A Kaiel is nothing in our councils until he represents somebody. It matters not where his genes come from, nor who his father was, nor who his mother was, nor the lineage of his teachers. You have a following. That is Kaiel. Why should I talk to a Stgal who rules because his father built a house on some hill? If the Stgal made a deal with me, would I have the loyalty of the people of Sorrow? No. If I make a deal with you, will I have the loyalty of your people? I believe that would be so.”

“I hardly speak for the most powerful of Sorrow. My people are mostly lowly in kalothi.”

“You speak with a misordered appreciation of kalothi. Does not a man who can bond himself to another for a mutual goal have greater kalothi than the fool who tries to carry a house upon his own back?”

“You’re made of brass. I’m to sell you our land and our heritage and all the people in it, and with that piece of paper from me, you will march in and take everything!”

Aesoe roared amusement. “Your attention span is short! How many heartbeats ago was I telling you to drive a hard bargain with Hoemei? I meant a bargain you will be satisfied with — now, tomorrow. I can deal with you because you represent more than yourself. I don’t know your people. How would I know what they want? How should I know what they need? You do. And Hoemei knows what we can give.”

“The coast is not for sale.”

“Vomit of God! Once there was a fool who found a bar of gold in the desert that was too heavy for him to carry so he guarded it and left his bones guarding it! Is that your thought?”

“In Getan mythology wherever there is a fool, there is also a wise man.” She was asking him to continue his story.

“The wiser man found the bar and could not carry it, either. He selected a friend he could trust and offered him half the gold to help him carry it to the city. Is not the moral self-evident? For a whole bar of gold you can buy nothing. For half a bar you can buy even immortality for your genes! Is help so bad? Is a man who offers you help, because you can help him, to be viewed as an enemy who will cheat you? Make a deal with me!”

“I’m cynical about deals. I’ve made contracts before.”

“Build all the guarantees you want into it! Of course some of the deal will fall through. A contract is a piece of paper made now. It has flaws. We can’t foresee the future. Look into the Archives and see how often I’ve been wrong. But when the deal deviates from its stated purpose, you don’t cry and feel cheated and rave about the dishonesty of your partner, you sit down and deal again until you are satisfied. You change the conditions to meet whatever happened up there in the future. What would I gain from cheating you? Position? A few pieces off the board in the early game? What is that worth to me if your children feel the necessity to cheat my children because you were cheated? Then the Kaiel would die! Then I would die! My sperm is on ice until the day when my dealings make their long-term payoff. How many priest clans are extinct because they didn’t learn to live beyond immediate gain? The Stgal are surviving now by covert dealings — a smile to your face, and poison in your cup. How long will they last? How many drops of kalothi is there in the most flawless dishonesty? All I ask — make a deal with me that satisfies you.”

“It will have to satisfy you, too.” She was struggling with the force of his attack.

“Of course!”

“I think I understand you. You will outdo yourself to take half of my gold.”

“God’s Eyeballs! Have I been raving in vain? You do not understand me. I want the privilege of being with a lovely woman while I get a hernia hassling her gold to market. I like the joy of planning how we’re going to spend it. Now do you understand me!”

“Yes. You’re a lecher.”

34

BENDAEIN HOSA-KAIEL was old enough to be wise yet young enough to be willing to partake in an arduous crusade. He had long been known as a man of action whose cautious strategy had extended Kaiel influence eastward around the Itraiel almost to the Sea of Tears. He was a scholar and a prime voice of the Expansionists. The full ten fingermen of his Hand Council argued with him in the den of his mansion, only Joesai remaining stoically silent.

Bendaein’s face design was asymmetrical, built around knife wounds he had received during the gruesome subjugation of the lower Itraiel as a precocious youth. The marred face, layered with experience, gave this Event Mover authority in the eyes of his fellows but to Joesai it looked like the slashed face of a loser. The younger man had heard over mead that Bendaein had been skinned during the opening play of the Itraiel campaign and had been forced to borrow a coat to survive.

Joesai broke a toothpick with casual force. Bendaein did have a reputation as a fast learner. However, from his pedantic words, Joesai suspected that he was not so much of a fast learner as he was a fast reader. He had even minted a name for their foolhardy venture: the Gathering of Outrage — useful if they should survive long enough to be written into history.

Bendaein planned to execute his Gathering with a meticulous respect for the formalities established by previous Gatherings. Such was Geta’s meager transworld law. Joesai found himself displeased with this sensible approach. A Gathering was by its nature an aberration, a response to something the Chants could not anticipate. Who would have predicted human genes in profane bugs? What could any past Gathering say about that crime?

Joesai grunted objections, mainly to himself, while others talked. Tradition was for the everyday: marriage and food and love and death. He felt in his ribcage the danger in patterning actions upon the rituals of past Gatherings. What did any of them have in common? If you really studied them you found that Gatherings had a predisposition to disperse in the desert from hunger and thirst. The underclans had a name for the phenomenon — a Gathering of Bones.

Joesai had contempt for the self-righteous indignation he was hearing. The Kaiel must know what a Gathering could become! They were a Gathering’s wardens who had stayed to feel its consequences! When the whisky was flowing did not Kaiel jokes hint that Mi’Holoie’s crusaders had sacked wealthy d’go-Vanieta — from whose ashes Kaiel-hontokae was to rise — more from the hunger of the trek than from piety?

His mind wandered to thoughts of Kathein as his eyes wandered from Bendaein to the wall tapestries. The weaving was of Orthei craftsmanship, a rich scene of mass Ritual Suicide, common enough as a theme, save that Joesai could not locate its source. The rite was not as it was in these parts of the world. The man and the woman making their Contribution had slit their throats rather than their wrists and blood ran down their bodies in crimson dye, their eyes vacant. Temple courtesans and luxury abounded, the excuse for the tapestry. A particularly voluptuous courtesan, life-size, caught him with the enticing look of her threads.