At last she turned and faced him. “Well,” she said, “for Elas’ inconvenience, I’m sorry. I shall send them word that you’re safe. You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”
Appetite was the furthest thing from his mind. His stomach was both empty and racked with pain, and with an outright fear that her sudden shift in manner did nothing to ease. “You,” he said, “frightened the wits out of my fiancée, made me a spectacle in the streets of Nephane, and all I particularly care about is—”
“I think,” said Djan in a tone of finality, “that we had better save the talk. Iam going to have dinner. If you want to argue the point, Shan can find you some secure room where you can think matters over. But you will leave the Afen— ifyou leave the Afen—when I please to send you out.”
And she called a girl named Pai, who recieved her orders with a deep bow.
“She,” said Djan when the girl had gone, “is chanto the Afen. I inherited her, it seems. She is very loyal and very silent, both virtues. Her family served the last Methi, a hundred years ago. Before that, Pai’s family was still chanto methis, even before the human occupation and during it. There is nothing in Nephane that does not have roots, except the two of us. Forget your temper, my friend. I lost mine. I rarely do that. I am sorry.”
“Then we will have out whatever you want to say and I will go back to Elas.”
“I would think so,” she agreed quietly, ignoring his anger. “Come out here. Sit down. I am too tired to stand up to argue with you.”
He came, shrugging off his apprehensions. The terrace was dark. She left it so, and sat on the window ledge, watching the sea far below. It was indeed a spectacular view of Nephane, its lights winding down the crag below, the high dark rock a shadow against the moon. The moonlit surface of the sea was cut by the wake of a single ship heading out.
“If I were sensible,” said Djan as he joined her and sat down on the ledge facing her, “if I were at all sensible I’d have you taken out and dropped about halfway. Unfortunately I decided against it. I wonder still what you would do in my place.”
He had wondered that himself. “I would think of the same things that have occurred to you,” he said.
“And reach the same answer?”
“I think so,” he admitted. “I don’t blame you.”
She smiled, ironic amusement. “Then maybe we will have a brighter future than other humans who have held Nephane. —They built this section of the Afen, you know. That’s why there is no rhmei,no heart to the place. It’s unique in that respect—the fortress without a heart, the building without a soul. Did Kta tell you what became of them?”
“Nemet drove them out, I know that.”
“Humans ruled Nephane about twenty years. But they involved themselves with the nemet. The mistress of the base commander was of the great Indras family—of Irain. Humans were very cruel to the nemet, and they enjoyed humiliating the Great Families by that. But one night she let her brothers in and the whole of Nephane rose in rebellion against the humans on the night of a great celebration, when most of the humans were drunk on telise.So they lost their machines and fled south and became the Tamurlin in a generation or so—like animals. Only Pai’s ancestor On t’Erefe defended the humans in the Afen, being chanand obliged to defend his human lord. The human Methi and On died together, out there in the hall. The other humans who died were killed in the courtyard, and those who were caught were brought back there and killed.
“Myself, I have read the records that went before their fall. The supply ship failed them, never came back—probably after reporting to Aeolus; it was destroyed on its return trip, another war casualty, unnoticed. The years passed, and they had made the nemet here hate them. They had threatened them with the imminent return of the ship for twenty years and the threat was wearing thin. So they fell. But when we arrived, the nemet thought the threat had come true and that they were all to die. For all my crewmates cared, we might have destroyed Nephane to secure the base. I would not permit it. And when I had freed the nemet from the immediate threat of my companions, they made me Methi. Some say I am sent by Fate; they think the same of you. For an Indras, nothing ever happens without logical purpose. Their universe is entirely rational. I admire that in them. There is a great deal in these people that was worth the cost. And I think you agree with me. You’re evidently settled very comfortably into Elas.”
“They are my friends,” he said.
Djan leaned back, leaned on the sill and looked out over her shoulder. The ship was nearly to the breakwater. “This is a world of little haste and much deliberation. Can you imagine two ships like that headed for each other in battle? Our ships come in faster than the mind can think, from zero vision to alongside, attack and vanish. But those vessels with their sails and oars—by the time they came within range of each other—there would be abundant time for thought. There is a dreadful deliberateness about the nemet. They maneuver so slowly, but they do hold a course once they’ve taken it.”
“You’re not talking about ships.”
“Do you know what lies across the sea?”
His heart leaped; he thought of Mim, and his first terrible thought was that Djan knew. But he let nothing of that reach his face. “Indresul,” he said. “A city that is hostile to Nephane.”
“Your friends of Elas are Indras. Did you know?”
“I had heard so, yes.”
“So are most of the Great Families of Nephane. The Indras established this as a colony once, when they conquered the inland fortress of Chteftikan and began to build this fortress with Sufaki slaves taken in that war. Indresul has no love of the Nephanite Indras, but she has never forgotten that through them she has a claim on this city. She wants it. I am walking a narrow line, Kurt Morgan, and your Indras friends in Elas and your own meddling in nemet affairs are an embarrassment to me at a time when I can least afford embarrassment. I need quiet in this city. I will do what is necessary to secure that.”
“I’ve done nothing,” he said, “except inside Elas.”
“Unfortunately,” said Djan, “Elas does nothing without consequence in Nephane. That is the misfortune of wealth and power.—That ship out there—is bound for Indresul. The Methi of Indresul has eluded my every attempt to talk. You cannot imagine how they despise Sufaki and humans. Well, at last they are going to send an ambassador,—one Mor t’Uset ul Orm, a councilor who has high status in Indresul. He will come at the return of that ship. And this betrothal of yours, publicized in the market today, had better not come to the attention of t’Uset when he arrives.”
“I have no desire to be noticed by anyone,” he said.
The glance she gave him was ice. But at that moment Pailechan and another girl pattered into the hall cat-footed and brought tea and teliseand a light supper, setting it on the low table by the ledge.
Djan dismissed them both, although strict formality dictated someone serve. The chanibowed themselves out.
“Join me,” she said, “in tea or telise,if nothing else.”
His appetite had returned somewhat. He picked at the food and then found himself hungry. He ate fully enough for his share, and demurred when she poured him telise,but she set the cup beside him. She carried the dishes out herself, returned and settled upon the ledge beside him. The ship had long since cleared the harbor, leaving its surface to the wind and the moon.
“It is late,” he said. “I would like to go back to Elas.”
“This nemet girl. What is her name?”
All at once the meal lay like lead at his stomach.
“What is her name?”
“Mim,” he said, and reached for the telise,swallowed some of its vaporous fire.