Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(7)
“Have they executed that person yet?” the head priest asked, pointedly. It was the summary fate of any soldier who refused an order, let alone mutinied.
“Last I heard,” said Lieutenant Awn, breath tight and turning shallow, “the Rrrrrr had agreed to turn her over to Radch authorities.” She swallowed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Of course, it had probably already happened, whatever it was. News could take a year or more to reach Shis’urna from as far away as Ime.
The head priest didn’t answer for a moment. She poured more tea, and spooned fish paste into a small bowl. “Does my continued request for your presence present any sort of disadvantage for you?”
“No,” said Lieutenant Awn. “Actually, the other Esk lieutenants are a bit envious. There’s no chance for action on Justice of Toren.” She picked up her own cup, outwardly calm, inwardly angry. Disturbed. Talking about the news from Ime had increased her unease. “Action means commendations, and possibly promotions.” And this was the last annexation. The last chance for an officer to enrich her house through connections to new citizens, or even through outright appropriation.
“Yet another reason I would prefer you,” said the head priest.
I followed Lieutenant Awn home. And watched inside the temple, and overlooked the people crisscrossing the plaza as they always did, avoiding the children playing kau in the center of the plaza, kicking the ball back and forth, shouting and laughing. On the edge of the Fore-Temple water, a teenager from the upper city sat sullen and listless watching half a dozen little children hopping from stone to stone, singing:
One, two, my aunt told me
Three, four, the corpse soldier
Five, six, it’ll shoot you in the eye
Seven, eight, kill you dead
Nine, ten, break it apart and put it back together.
As I walked the streets people greeted me, and I greeted them in return. Lieutenant Awn was tense and angry, and only nodded absently at the people in the street, who greeted her as she passed.
The person with the fishing-rights complaint left, unsatisfied. Two children rounded the divider after she had gone, and sat cross-legged on the cushion she had vacated. They both wore lengths of fabric wrapped around their waists, clean but faded, though no gloves. The elder was about nine, and the symbols inked on the younger one’s chest and shoulders—slightly smudged—indicated she was no more than six. She looked at me, frowning.
In Orsian addressing children properly was easier than addressing adults. One used a simple, ungendered form. “Hello, citizens,” I said, in the local dialect. I recognized them both—they lived on the south edge of Ors and I had spoken to them quite frequently, but they had never visited the house before. “How can I help you?”
“You aren’t One Esk,” said the smaller child, and the older made an abortive motion as if to hush her.
“I am,” I said, and pointed to the insignia on my uniform jacket. “See? Only this is my number Fourteen segment.”
“I told you,” said the older child.
The younger considered this for a moment, and then said, “I have a song.” I waited in silence, and she took a deep breath, as though about to begin, and then halted, perplexed-seeming. “Do you want to hear it?” she asked, still doubtful of my identity, likely.
“Yes, citizen,” I said. I—that is, I–One Esk—first sang to amuse one of my lieutenants, when Justice of Toren had hardly been commissioned a hundred years. She enjoyed music, and had brought an instrument with her as part of her luggage allowance. She could never interest the other officers in her hobby and so she taught me the parts to the songs she played. I filed those away and went looking for more, to please her. By the time she was captain of her own ship I had collected a large library of vocal music—no one was going to give me an instrument, but I could sing anytime—and it was a matter of rumor and some indulgent smiles that Justice of Toren had an interest in singing. Which it didn’t—I—I–Justice of Toren—tolerated the habit because it was harmless, and because it was quite possible that one of my captains would appreciate it. Otherwise it would have been prevented.
If these children had stopped me on the street, they would have had no hesitation, but here in the house, seated as though for a formal conference, things were different. And I suspected this was an exploratory visit, that the youngest child meant to eventually ask for a chance to serve in the house’s makeshift temple—the prestige of being appointed flower-bearer to Amaat wasn’t a question here, in the stronghold of Ikkt, but the customary term-end gift of fruit and clothing was. And this child’s best friend was currently a flower-bearer, doubtless making the prospect more interesting.
No Orsian would make such a request immediately or directly, so likely the child had chosen this oblique approach, turning a casual encounter into something formal and intimidating. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of sweets and laid them on the floor between us.
The littler girl made an affirmative gesture, as though I had resolved all her doubts, and then took a breath and began.
My heart is a fish
Hiding in the water-grass
In the green, in the green.
The tune was an odd amalgam of a Radchaai song that played occasionally on broadcast and an Orsian one I already knew. The words were unfamiliar to me. She sang four verses in a clear, slightly wavering voice, and seemed ready to launch into a fifth, but stopped abruptly when Lieutenant Awn’s steps sounded outside the divider.