Snare (47 page)

‘The commiz wants to issue a trans-canton warrant for Yarl’s arrest. He needs a formal complaint, of course. Master Zhoc and I thought of you immediately.’

Loy felt herself smile. ‘How kind,’ she said. ‘How very kind of you both.’

‘I thought you’d enjoy having your name on the thing.’ Wan got up. ‘I’ll just go tell the master. The commiz will want to meet with you tomorrow.’

‘Not today?’

‘He needs to sound out his fellow authorities first. That’s really why he’s here, to get the guild to send the transmits for him.’

‘Daccor, tomorrow, then. Tell him any time but noon. That’s when I hand back these exams. Which I’d better start reading right now.’

By the time Loy left the guildhall, the sun hung low behind summer clouds, turning the sky as scarlet as the lace-leaf trees that decorated the central square. Students in their pale yellow robes wandered past, talking in groups or walking hand in hand in pairs. The Loremasters Guild owned most of Inner Sarla, the precinct built by the Settlers out of their mysterious flexstone. Around the square stood glossy white buildings, most three storeys high, inset with windows made of some clear substance that no one remembered how to make or even name. Unlike glass, it never shattered, never scratched, never popped out during the worst earthquakes, even when the buildings swayed and groaned and the wood partitions built by the descendants of the Settlers split and fell.

Sarla, the second-biggest city in the Cantons, stretched out around the college. Tall hedges of dark red thornbush and golden tree-ferns set the precinct apart from the rest of the town, where the buildings were mostly woven from sturdy pink hill bamboid and dark purple lake rushes. In the clear light of summer the effect was nauseatingly sweet, or so Loy found it, as if the town were a tray of petits fours baked by giants. Her destination, however, down in the centre of town, had been built by the Settlers, though for some long-forgotten purpose. Behind a reflecting pool stood a dome of white flexstone, so magnificent that it seemed a logical choice for a synagogue once the Church of the One God had established itself.

Above the door, painted directly onto the flex, was the blue six-pointed star of King David, enclosing the smaller gold cross of Joshua the Martyr. Here the rabbis taught their congregations the Torah and Dorya, the law and the gifts, the service owed to God as explicated by the prophets and the hope of Heaven as promised by Joshua. A gravelled path led around the dome to a scatter of outbuildings, some white, some pink and purple. One long, low flexstone building, Loy’s destination, sat in the middle of its own garden, protected by a wall woven from brass wire and orange thorn vines. On the gate a chain held a big brass bell. Loy picked it up and rang.

In a few minutes Sister Taymah, wearing her long, white habit, her hair tucked into a blue headscarf, came out of the building. When she saw Loy she waved and jogged over to open the gate.

‘Hello, Loy,’ Taymah said. ‘Come to see Rozi?’

‘Yes. How is she today?’

‘A bit better. She’s in the chapel, but we’re not having formal service or anything. Come in, come in.’

The main sanctuary of the temple lay under the white dome, but around the back stood a private chapel for the sisters of the Order of Judith. Chairs woven of purple rushes filled most of the sanctuary, but up on a dais stood the Ark and the bimah, both beau-tifully constructed of true-oak wood. When the worship of the One God had been revived, the founders had been profoundly puzzled by one rule of temple design: seating the Ark on the wall facing Jerusalem. Jerusalem, they knew, existed back on Old Earth, its precise direction impossibly lost. However, it lay somewhere in the galaxy that rose every evening in the east, and a rising star meant hope, and so the Ark now stood against the east wall in every sanctuary.

On the west wall hung a gold cross with a crown of thorns centred upon it, a memorial to the prophet Joshua bar Josef, who had died trying to free his people from the power of those priestly hypocrites known as the Fairasee. At their bidding the Romai Khanate had nailed him to a wooden cross to die; now his symbol reminded the Cantons that powerful khanates were not to be trusted. His students had gathered his sayings, and a book of them lay on the small lectern across from the bimah.

In the front row Rozi was sitting, wearing a white dress but no headscarf. Her long dark hair hung straight down to her waist, and her face – her poor little face, as Loy thought of it – was so thin that her cheekbones bulged, sharp under the skin, and there were creases at the corners of her mouth.

At the sound of footsteps coming down the aisle, Rozi turned, saw Loy, and smiled with real pleasure. In the light from the oil lamp that burned perpetually in front of the Ark, her hazel eyes looked green, deep set – entirely too deep set. ‘Hullo, Mama,’ she said. ‘Exams must be over.’

‘Yes, pretty much. I’ve got one last job lot of grades to post.’

When Loy sat down in the chair next to her, Rozi kept smiling but went tense. She could stand to have no one touch her, not ever her mother, and Loy had long since given up trying to hug her daughter.

‘So,’ Loy said. ‘How are things?’

‘Pretty good. I uh – well, I’ve made a decision.’

‘Yes?’

‘I want to join the order. I want to become a neophyte here.’ Rozi hesitated, gulped a breath, and went on. ‘I don’t want to go to university.’

‘Oh Rozi!’ The words had spoken themselves, and Loy could hear the hurt in her own tone of voice. She forced out a smile. ‘I mean, you know your own mind best. But are you sure?’

‘Very sure, Mama. I knew you wouldn’t like it.’

‘Well, whether I like it or not, it’s your decision to make.’ Loy managed to get control of her voice at last. ‘I mean that, darling. It’s your life, and if you want to spend it here, well, then, that’s the way it’ll be.’

Tears welled in Rozi’s eyes and spilled down her gaunt cheeks. ‘Thank you,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve been so afraid to say anything, but then I realized, I was just afraid of everything, not really of you. So I decided I’d tell you as soon as I saw you.’

‘And, darling, I’m not angry, no. What does Mother Superior think?’

A side door opened, and Mother Superior herself swept in, draped in white from headscarf to robe to sandals, just as if she’d been lurking there, waiting for a cue. ‘Taymah told me you were here, Loy,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you.’

‘Not at all. Rozi just told me about her decision.’

‘Ah.’ Mother Superior’s wide grey eyes grew even wider. She had a round face, touched with pink on the cheeks, and smooth, thin, grey eyebrows that Loy suspected her of plucking in secret.

‘She says it’s all right.’ Rozi twisted around in her chair and beamed. ‘She says she’s not angry.’

‘Well, that’s wonderful! Thank you, Loy.’

Loy smiled, shrugged, and felt like an utter hypocrite, every bit as bad as Joshua’s hated Fairasee. She wanted to scream, you’ve stolen my daughter, you bitch! But she made small talk, chatted with both Rozi and Mother Superior, chatted with Taymah as well when the girl joined them, and smiled or looked serious as the chat demanded. At last, she felt, she’d martyred herself enough.

‘I’d better be going,’ Loy said. ‘I know you have your evening services soon.’

Mother Superior walked Loy to the gate. For a moment Loy paused, looking back at the dome, rising white against the darkening sky.

‘I’m glad for Rozi’s sake that you’re supporting her in this.’ Mother Superior’s voice was always calm, her vowels always round and full. ‘But it must be a disappointment to you.’

‘You’ve got sharp eyes. I hope I haven’t been rude?’

‘No, not at all. But after all, we’ve had these discussions before.’

‘Many times. I’d just hoped for something –’ Loy caught herself just in time. ‘Something different for her.’

‘Something better, you mean.’

Loy winced. ‘Oh, who’s to say what’s better? You’ve certainly got more of God left than I do of history.’

‘It’s impossible to lose God entirely.’ Mother Superior was smiling a calm, round smile. ‘Perhaps that’s what our exile here is supposed to teach us.’

‘Perhaps so. I have some awful news for you, by the way. One of our retired loremasters spotted Yarl Soutan in Bredanee. Apparently he’s riding north.’

‘How absolutely horrible!’

‘I was thinking that I shouldn’t tell Rozi.’

‘No, of course not. If for some reason she has to know, I’ll do it. She’s placed her spiritual welfare in my hands, after all.’

Mother Superior looked briefly, ever so briefly, smug; then concern reappeared in her eyes.

‘I see,’ Loy said. ‘Well, good evening. I’d better get home. I’ll be meeting with the commiz tomorrow.’

Loy walked away, waved once, kept walking until she’d left the compound behind and any chance of being heard with it.

‘You sanctimonious bitch!’ she muttered aloud. ‘You rotten sanctimonious bitch!’

She marched on home in something of a better mood.

Master Zhoc had arranged Loy’s meeting with the local Commiz duh Trib, Peer Duhmars, for late afternoon, when her classes for the day – indeed, for the entire spring session – had finished. Against the afternoon heat, the master’s big office was pleasantly cool, a dark, panelled room with glass in both windows. Bookshelves lined two of the walls. Loy found Peer Duhmars there ahead of her, sitting across from the master in a stiff-backed wooden chair that matched his posture, while Zhoc, thin and almost frail, with his grey hair and huge, dark eyes, lounged in a leather chair behind his massive desk. The commiz, heavy-set, his face square and florid, nodded her way.

Loy took a chair half-way between them. Duhmars reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a long roll of rushi.

‘I have the warrant all drawn up,’ the commiz said. ‘All it needs is your signature, Mada Millou. Then I can file it with the Council.’

‘Thank you, Mizzou Duhmars.’ Loy took the proffered rushi and leaned back to read it. In the long welter of legal language certain phrases stood out as if written in blood: assault and battery, forced intercourse, sodomy, lacerations, attempted intimidation of witnesses. She read fast and tried to avoid them. Finally she found the proper place for her signature as complainant.

‘Sign it with your full title,’ the commiz said.

‘I intended to.’ Loy stood up and glanced at Zhoc’s desk, normally a sea of books and rushi. An inkwell and pen stood ready in a cleared corner. As she signed, she was wishing that she were a real sorcerer like in the ancient stories, who could put a curse on Yarl, perhaps one that would make his testicles wither away with great pain. For a moment she stood waving the rushi to let the ink dry, while both Zhoc and Duhmars watched her with eyes that displayed the proper degree of concern. To them it was a serious matter; she knew that, she was grateful, but she also knew that neither shared her rage. She handed the warrant back to Duhmars.

‘I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’ Duhmars stood and concentrated on rolling up the warrant. ‘When it comes to trial, you’ll be called, of course.’

‘Good.’

Loy sat back down and watched Zhoc escort the provo to the door. Duhmars paused with his hand on the jamb.

‘I’ll remember what you told me about that third Kazrak,’ Duhmars said. ‘Damned strange thing!’

‘Yes, it is,’ Zhoc said.

Zhoc closed the door and walked back, slowly, to his desk. He sank into his chair with a long sigh.

‘You look tired,’ Loy said.

‘I haven’t been sleeping well,’ Zhoc said. ‘Having Yarl around does that to me.’

‘Me, too, actually. What’s this about a third Kazrak?’

‘It might be very good news. Onree thinks it is.’ Zhoc straightened up and rummaged through the rushis on his desk. ‘Ah, here we are. Yarl manages to make enemies wherever he goes, the
charming fellow. There’s another Kazrak – his name is Zayn Hassan – following him, and as far as Onree can tell, this Hassan might rid us of the man once and for all if he catches him. Apparently Yarl tried to have him murdered.’

‘I’ll wish Hassan the best of luck, then.’

‘As will I.’ Zhoc tossed the rushi onto the clutter, then leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s bad enough that Yarl’s in the Cantons, but bringing Kazraks with him? I suppose they’re heading to Burgunee. There’s that other Kazrak there, the one Yarl was so thick with.’

‘What other Kazrak? What is this with Kazraks? All of a sudden they’re crawling out of the walls! Or wait – you mean that exiled leader, don’t you? The khan?’

‘Yes, Jezro Khan.’

‘But why is Yarl bringing them?’ Loy felt suddenly weary. ‘I don’t trust Kazraks, I really don’t. I’m just glad that the Landfall Treaty set them up on one side of the Rift and us on the other.’

‘So were the Settlers.’ Zhoc flashed her a wry smile, then let it fade. ‘I wonder what Yarl’s been telling them?’

‘Probably the exact same thing he told his followers here.’

‘That we should be trying to go “home”, as he keeps calling it? Probably so.’ Zhoc leaned back in his chair and looked up as if he could see the galaxy through the ceiling. ‘Return to the stars! Doesn’t he realize that if it were possible the guild would have figured it out by now? How can he not have realized?’

‘You told him often enough.’ It was Loy’s turn for the wry smile. ‘If the original Shipfolk couldn’t find their way back, how are we supposed to?’

‘Exactly. We should have realized it early on, that he was going mad, I mean. It’s generally considered madness, at any rate, when someone becomes obsessed with doing the impossible.’ Zhoc shook his head. ‘I feel it deeply, that I failed to reach him. Can’t he see how destructive it is, offering people false hopes?’

‘I don’t suppose he really cares. He wants to act the part of a messiah and have a whole crowd of people telling him how wonderful he is.’

‘He had something for everyone, didn’t he? The young people loved the very idea of all those gadgets, all those machines. And the old people – well, I can see the appeal myself.’ Zhoc sat up and swivelled his chair around to smile at her. ‘A hundred and
twenty years of life guaranteed, and in perfect health. Who wouldn’t want it?’