Ancillary Sword (17 page)

“There’s writing on it,” said Medic.

“Seeing?” Seivarden frowned, puzzling out the words. “Seeing… something?”

“
Divine Essence of Perception
,” said Ship. “One of the last defeated in the wars. It’s a museum now.”

“It doesn’t look particularly Notai,” said Medic. “Except for the writing.”

“And the writing on this one,” said Seivarden, gesturing into view the image of the one that had come out of the Ghost Gate, “is all burned away. Ship, did you really not recognize it?”

Ship said, to Medic and Seivarden both, “Not immediately. I’m a little less than a thousand years old and never have seen
any Notai ships firsthand. But if Lieutenant Seivarden had not identified it herself, I would have within a few minutes.”

“Would you have, ever,” asked Medic, “if we trusted
Sword of Atagaris
?” And then, struck by a new thought, “Could
Sword of Atagaris
have failed to recognize it?”

“Probably it has,” said Seivarden. “Otherwise, surely, it would tell its lieutenant.”

“Unless they’re both lying,” said Ekalu, who had been listening in the whole time from the decade room. “They
are
taking the trouble to pick up a piece of debris that they might as well mark and let someone else take care of.”

“In which case,” remarked Seivarden, “they’re assuming
Mercy of Kalr
won’t recognize it. Which doesn’t strike me as a safe assumption.”

“I don’t presume to know
Sword of Atagaris
’s opinion of my intelligence,” said Ship.

Seivarden gave a small laugh. “Medic, ask
Sword of Atagaris
to tell us what they find when they examine that… debris.”

Ultimately,
Sword of Atagaris
replied that it had found nothing of interest, and subsequently destroyed the locker.

Citizen Fosyf’s house was the largest of three buildings, a long, balconied two-storied structure of polished stone, flecks of black and gray and here and there patches of blue and green that gleamed as the light changed. It sat beside a wide, clear lake with stony shores, and a weathered wooden dock, with a small, graceful boat moored alongside, white sails furled. Mountains loomed around, and moss and trees edged the lakeshore. The actual tea plantation—I’d seen it as we flew in, wavering strips of velvet-looking green running across the hillsides and around outcrops of black stone—was
hidden behind a ridge. The air was 20.8 degrees C, the breeze light and pleasant and smelling of leaves and cold water.

“Here we are, Fleet Captain!” Citizen Fosyf called as she climbed out of her flier. “Peace and quiet. Under other circumstances I’d suggest fishing in the lake. Boating. Climbing if that’s the sort of thing you like. But even just staying in is nice, here. There’s a separate bathhouse behind the main building, just across from where you’ll be staying. A big tub with seating for at least a dozen, plenty of hot water. It’s a Xhai thing. Barbarically luxurious.”

Raughd had come up beside her mother. “Drinks in the bathhouse! There’s nothing like it after a long night.” She grinned.

“Raughd can manage to find long nights even here,” observed Fosyf pleasantly as Captain Hetnys and her
Sword of Atagaris
ancillary approached. “Ah, to be young again! But come, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

The patches of blue-green in the building stone flared and died away as our angle on it changed. Around the other side of the house was a broad stretch of flat, gray stones, shaded by two large trees and thickly grown with moss. To the left of that stretched the ellipse of a low building, the nearer long side of wood, the nearer end and, presumably, the farther long side of glass. “The bath,” said Fosyf, with a gesture. On the other side of the mossy stone, up against a road that ran over the ridge and down to the house by the lake, sat another black and blue-green stone building, two-storied, but smaller than the main house and not balconied as it was. The whole side facing us was taken up with a terrace under a leafy, vine-tangled arbor, where a group of people stood waiting for us. Most of them wore shirts and trousers, or skirts that looked as though they’d been painstakingly constructed from
cut-apart trousers, the fabric faded and worn, once-bright blues and greens and reds. None of them wore gloves.

Accompanying them was a person dressed in the expected, and conventional, jacket, trousers, and gloves and scattering of jewelry. By her features, I guessed she was a Samirend overseer here. We stopped some three meters from the group, in the shade of the wide arbor, and Fosyf said, “Just for you, Fleet Captain, since I knew you’d want to hear them sing.”

The overseer turned away and said to the assembled people, “Here, now. Sing.” In Radchaai. Slow and loud.

One of the elders of the group leaned toward the person next to her and said, in Delsig, “I told you it wasn’t the right song.” A few gestures and a few whispered words under the somewhat agitated eye of the overseer, who apparently didn’t understand the reason for the delay, and then a collective breath and they began to sing. “
Oh you, who live sheltered by God, who live all your lives in her shadow
.” I knew it, every line and every part. Most Delsig-speaking Valskaayans sang it at funerals.

It was a gesture meant to comfort. Even if they hadn’t already known the reason for our coming, they could not have failed to notice my shaved head and the mourning stripe across my face, and Captain Hetnys’s. These people didn’t know us, quite possibly didn’t know who had died. We represented the forces that had conquered them, torn them away from their home world to labor here. They had no reason to care for our feelings. They had no reason to think that either of us knew enough Delsig to understand the words. And no expectation that we would understand the import of their song even if we did. Such things are fraught with symbolic and historic significance, carry great emotional weight—but only for someone aware of that significance to begin with.

They sang it anyway. And when they were finished, the elder said, bowing, “Citizens, we will pray for the one you’ve lost.” In perfectly comprehensible, if heavily accented, Radchaai.

“Citizens,” I replied, also in Radchaai, because I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to realize how much Delsig I spoke, just yet. “We are greatly moved, and we thank you for your song and your prayers.”

The overseer spoke up, loud and slow. “The fleet captain thanks you. Now go.”

“Wait,” I interjected. And turned to Fosyf. “Will you favor me, and give these people something to eat and drink before they go?” She blinked at me, uncomprehending. The overseer stared at me in frank disbelief. “It’s a whim I have. If there’s any question of impropriety, I’ll be happy to pay you back. Whatever is on hand. Tea and cakes, perhaps.” It was the sort of thing I’d expect the kitchen here to always have ready.

Fosyf recovered from her immediate surprise. “Of course, Fleet Captain.” She gestured toward the overseer, who, still clearly aghast at my request, herded the field workers away.

The ground floor of the building we were to stay in was one large, open space, part dining room, part sitting room, the sitting-room side full of wide, deep chairs and side tables that held game-boards with bright-colored counters. On the other side of the room we ate egg and bean curd soup at a long table with artfully mismatched chairs, by a sideboard piled with fruit and cakes. The line of small windows around the ceiling had gone dull with twilight and clouds that had blown in. Upstairs were narrow hallways, each bedroom and its attached sitting room carefully color coordinated. Mine was orange and blue, in muted tones, the thick, soft blankets on
the bed very carefully made, I suspected, to appear comfortably worn and faded. A casual country cottage, one might have thought at first glance, but all of it meticulously placed and arranged.

Citizen Fosyf, sitting at one end of the table, said, “This actually used to be storage and administration. The main building was a guesthouse, you know. Before the annexation.”

“All the bedrooms in the main house exit onto the balconies,” said Raughd. Who had maneuvered to sit beside me, was now leaning close with head tilted and a knowing smile. “Very convenient for assignations.” She was, I realized, trying to
flirt
with me. Even though I was in mourning and so her pursuit of me would be highly improper in the best of situations.

“Ha-ha!” laughed Citizen Fosyf. “Raughd has always found those outer stairs useful. I did myself when I was that age.”

The nearest town was an hour away by flier. There was no one here to have assignations with except household members—over in the main house, I assumed, would be cousins and clients. Not everyone in a household was always related in a way that made sex off-limits, so there might well have been allowable relationships here that didn’t involve intimidating the servants.

Captain Hetnys sat across the table from me,
Sword of Atagaris
standing stiff scant meters behind her, waiting in case it should be needed. As an ancillary, it wasn’t required to observe mourning customs. Kalr Five stood behind me, having apparently convinced everyone here that she, also, was an ancillary.

Citizen Sirix sat silent beside me. The house servants I’d seen appeared to mostly be Samirend with a few Xhais,
though I’d seen a few Valskaayans working on the grounds outside. There had been a small, nearly undetectable hesitation on the part of the servants that had shown us to our rooms—I suspected that they would have sent Sirix to servants’ quarters if they’d not been given other instructions. It was possible someone here would recognize her, even though she’d last been downwell twenty years ago and wasn’t from this estate, but another one a hundred or more kilometers away.

“Raughd’s tutors always found it dull here,” said Fosyf.

“
They
were dull!” exclaimed Raughd. In a singsong, nasal voice, she declaimed, “
Citizen! In third meter and Acute mode, tell us how God is like a duck
.” Captain Hetnys laughed. “I always tried to make life more amusing for them,” Raughd went on, “but they never seemed to appreciate it.”

Citizen Fosyf laughed as well. I did not. I had heard about such amusements from my lieutenants in the past, and had already seen Raughd’s tendency toward cruelty. “Can you?” I asked. “Tell us in verse, I mean, how God is like a duck?”

“I shouldn’t think God was anything like a duck,” said Captain Hetnys, emboldened by my past few days of outward calm. “Honestly. A duck!”

“But surely,” I admonished, “God
is
a duck.” God was the universe, and the universe was God.

Fosyf waved my objection away. “Yes, yes, Fleet Captain, but surely one can say that quite simply without all the fussing over meters and proper diction and whatnot.”

“And why choose something so ridiculous?” asked Captain Hetnys. “Why not ask how God is like… rubies or stars or”—she gestured vaguely around—“even tea? Something valuable. Something vast. It would be much more proper.”

“A question,” I replied, “that might reward close consideration.
Citizen Fosyf, I gather the tea here is entirely handpicked and processed by hand.”

“It is!” Fosyf beamed. This was, clearly, one of the centers of her pride. “Handpicked—you can see it whenever you like. The manufactory is nearby, very easy to visit. Should you find that proper.” A brief pause, as she blinked, someone nearby having apparently sent her a message. “The section just over the ridge is due to be picked tomorrow. And of course the making of the leaves into tea—the
crafting
of it—goes on all day and night. The leaves must be withered and stirred, till they reach just the right point, and then dry-cooked and rolled until just the right moment. Then they’re graded and have the final drying. You can do all those things by machine, of course, some do, and it’s perfectly acceptable tea.” The smallest hint of contempt and dismissal behind that
perfectly acceptable
. “The sort of thing you’d get good value for in a shop. But this tea isn’t available in shops.”

Fosyf’s tea, Daughter of Fishes, would only be available as a gift. Or—maybe—bought directly from Citizen Fosyf to be given as a gift. The Radch used money, but a staggering amount of exchanges were not money for goods, but gift for gift. Citizen Fosyf was not paid much, if anything, for her tea. Not technically. Those green fields we’d flown over, all that tea, the complicated production, was not a matter of maximizing cost efficiency—no, the point of Daughter of Fishes was
prestige
.

Which explained why, though there were doubtless larger plantations on Athoek, that likely pulled in profits that at first glance looked much more impressive, the only grower who’d felt competent to approach me so openly was the one who did not sell her tea at all.

“It must take a delicate touch,” I observed. “The picking,
and the processing. Your workers must be tremendously skilled.” Beside me, Citizen Sirix gave an almost inaudible cough, choking slightly on her last mouthful of soup.

“They are, Fleet Captain, they are! You see why I would never treat them badly, I need them too much! In fact, they live in an old guesthouse themselves, a few kilometers away, over the ridge.” Rain spattered against the small windows. It only ever rained at night, Athoek Station had told me, and the rain always ended in time for the leaves to dry for the morning picking.

“How nice,” I replied, my voice bland.

I rose before the sun, when the sky was a pearled pink and pale blue, and the lake and its valley still shadowed. The air was cool but not chill, and I had not had enough space to run for more than a year. It had been a habit when I had been in the Itran Tetrarchy, a place where sport was a matter of religious devotion, exercises for their ball game were a prayer and a meditation. It felt good to return to it, even though no one here played the game or even knew it existed. I took the road toward the low ridge at an easy jog, wary of my right hip, which I had injured a year ago and which hadn’t healed quite right.

As I came over the ridge, I heard singing. One strong voice, pitched to echo off the stony outcrops and across the field where workers with baskets slung over their shoulders rapidly plucked leaves from the waist-high bushes. At least half of those workers were children. The song was in Delsig, a lament by the singer that someone she loved was committed exclusively to someone else. It was a distinctively Valskaayan subject, not the sort of thing that would come up in a typical Radchaai relationship. And it was a song I’d heard before.
Hearing it now raised a sharp memory of Valskaay, of the smell of wet limestone in the cave-riddled district I’d last been in, there.