Golden Witchbreed by Gentle Mary

Author:Gentle, Mary [Gentle, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780575128743
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2013-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

The SuBannasen trial – because that was what it was turning into – continued into Orventa at the usual slow Orthean pace. I attended, fitting appointments with s’an and t’an of the court into my spare time, and studying to become reasonably fluent in Peir-Dadeni. The envoy was becoming known in Shiriya-Shenin.

‘Rodion?’ It was towards the end of a cold morning. ‘How long ago did this message come?’

Eventually the ashiren slouched out of the back rooms, eyed me up and down, and said, ‘Not long.’

‘Well, couldn’t you have given it to me? Now I find out they want me at the inquiry again!’

Ke shrugged. Gawky, long-legged, this one was all adolescent, and well past the age for an ashiren to become adult.

‘I didn’t ask to be your l’ri-an, S’aranth.’ The use-name had all its old insolence.

There was some expression in kir face that reminded me of Ruric, but that was all the resemblance. Pale mane braided to mid-spine, slick diamond-patterned skin with a flush of gold to it, and tawny-gold whiteless eyes … ke was very much as the Witchbreed are always described. The other ashiren called kir Rodion Halfgold: an intimation that somewhere in kir ancestry was Witchbreed blood (but I was also told that interbreeding between Ortheans and that extinct race was never possible). Whatever the truth, it didn’t make kir life easy.

‘Find Haltern, tell him I’m on my way.’

‘Yes, S’aranth.’

As Rodion left, I realized something. I’d always seen ashiren as either male or female. Even Maric, who a year from now might be man or woman, I saw as a boy. (Once I came on them together, bent over an ochmir board, and – before I recognized him – saw Maric as a lean dark-maned girl.) But Rodion was neither, not in appearance or behaviour. In Dadeni robes, ke might be female, in Ymirian dress, male; and since those were purely Earth preconceptions I had to disregard them. I was forced into use of the neutral pronoun, and it was becoming natural to see all ashiren that way. I found it unsettling and a little frightening.

Ruric met me in the entrance to the Hexagram Hall.

‘Inquiries!’ she swore. ‘If it was up to me I wouldn’t inquire, I’d slit SuBannasen’s throat. I hear they want our evidence again?’

‘For all the good it’ll do, yes.’ The old woman’s defence so far consisted of a flat denial, and an invitation that anyone prove any of their accusations. Which was proving remarkably hard to do.

I saw Rodion out in the courtyard; ke ducked kir head and scuttled off.

‘Is it any easier?’ Ruric asked.

‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ I was truthful. ‘That child thinks it’s got a grudge against everyone.’

‘That’s my fault,’ the Orthean woman said, yellow eyes half veiled. ‘My Desert Coast mother must have come from Kel Harantish, I think, and the Witchbreed blood’s strong there.’

‘Ke must be – what, nearly fifteen?’

‘Yes, and still ashiren. That doesn’t help. When I was fifteen …’ She shrugged as we entered the main body of the hall, taking seats by the T’an Suthai-Telestre’s table.

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