“Did he ask to come?”

“He’s bound to me,” Baru said, trying to grin. “Remember? Didn’t we get out of that ship? Aren’t we bound together, Tau, you and he and I?”

“If I let you do this,” Tau said, with absolute dignity and composure, “you must honor the principles of trim as you travel with me. A time may come when you wish to make one choice, and trim forces the other. Are you prepared for that?”

“Of course,” Baru said.

24. Iraji

24

IRAJI

“WE must go carefully,” the enact-colonel whispered to the ambassador-prince. “Death is in the air.”

“I wish,” Baru murmured, “that I’d stolen Yawa’s gown.”

“But you would miss this lovely wind!” Tau cried. “It doesn’t smell of plague or death. I should say it smells of … ginger.”

“It’s always the plague you don’t smell that gets you,” Osa said, straight-faced.

The escape from Helbride had been a contest of papers and insinuations. Prince Tau-indi had very deftly used their diplomatic freedoms to extract Baru and her companions from the surgeon’s authority. Under a filter mask it was easy to pass off Iraji as one of the Oriati boys, sick and in danger of death, going to the Oriati embassy. The only other complication had been a brief attack by the dancing seagull, which wanted Baru’s mask.

But they were safely away, passing through the swarm of moored ships, and now Iraji dozed in Tau-indi’s lap. Osa and Baru rowed. Shao Lune brooded in the stern.

Baru caught her eye. “Tell me about Kyprananoke.”

“You read the files.”

“They lacked your keen insight, Staff Captain.”

“If you insist.” Shao Lune was unamused. Perhaps, having maneuvered her way out of Helbride’s hold, she no longer cared to taunt Baru. That was quite unexpectedly hurtful. “While Falcrest held Kyprananoke we arranged the exile of the old Scyphu families. They inconvenienced our control. But when we withdrew our government, this left no one of any authority except for the barbers we had trained up as surgeons. The rebels fought for revenge on the collaborators, and the collaborators did what was necessary to hold their power. In the end the Kyprists retained control.”

“The Kyprists are surgeons?”

“Not all of them.” Shao Lune tipped her head back to breathe clean air. “Some are the generals of the old Republican Progress Regiment.”

“Secret police,” Baru translated.

“Yes.” Shao opened one storybook-perfect eye, wet red with exhaustion, still venomously alert. “They have excellent accountants, you know. We used them to prosecute the black market. Kyprananoke was our furthest port before we had Sousward, and in those days we were careful to keep all the trade in our hands.”

Shao Lune had probably not been more than a girl, those fifteen years ago. She said we as if she’d been there, because she was navy, and the navy had.

“And we left because…?”