Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)(82)

Seivarden smiled, small and tight. “Indeed not,” she agreed.

“And I felt it would be improper for Security to arrest you on the dock. Though…” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat gestured, placatory, the pin on her cuff flashing once as she did. “You are in some legal difficulty, citizen.”

Seivarden relaxed, just slightly, shoulders lowering, jaw loosening. Barely detectable, unless you knew her. Skaaiat’s accent and mildly deferential tone were having an effect. “I am,” Seivarden acknowledged. “I intend to appeal.”

“There’s some question about the matter, then.” Stilted. Formal. A query that wasn’t a query. But no answer came. “I can take you to the palace offices myself and avoid any entanglement with Security.” Of course she could. She’d worked this out with Security’s chief already.

“I’d be grateful.” Seivarden sounded more like her old self than I’d heard her in the last year. “Would it be worth asking you to assist me contacting Geir’s lord?” Geir might conceivably have some responsibility for this last member of the house it had taken over. Hated Geir, which had absorbed its enemy—Vendaai, Seivarden’s house. Vendaai’s relations with Awer hadn’t been any better than with Geir, but I supposed the request was a measure of just how desperate and alone Seivarden was.

“Ah.” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat winced, just slightly. “Awer and Geir aren’t as close as they used to be, citizen. About two hundred years ago there was an exchange of heirs. The Geir cousin killed herself.” The verb Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat used implied that it hadn’t been an approved, Medical-mediated suicide but something illicit and messy. “And the Awer cousin went mad and ran off to join some cult somewhere.”

Seivarden made a breathy, amused noise. “Typical.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat raised an eyebrow, but only said, temperately, “It left some bad feeling on both sides. So my connections with Geir aren’t what they could be, and I might or might not be able to be helpful to you. And their responsibilities toward you might be… difficult to determine, though you might find that useful in an appeal.”

Seivarden gestured abortively, arms still tightly crossed, one elbow lifting slightly. “It doesn’t sound like it’s worth the trouble.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat gestured ambivalence. “You’ll be fed and sheltered here in any event, citizen.” She turned to me. “And you, honored. You’re here as a tourist?”

“Yes.” I smiled, looking, I hoped, very much like a tourist from the Gerentate.

“You’re a very long way from home.” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat smiled, politely, as though the observation were an idle one.

“I’ve been traveling a long time.” Of course she—and by implication others—were curious about me. I had arrived in company with Seivarden. Most of the people here wouldn’t know her name, but those who did would be attracted by the staggering unlikelihood of her having been found after a thousand years, and the connection to an event as notorious as Garsedd.

Still smiling pleasantly, Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat asked, “Looking for something? Avoiding something? Just like to travel?”

I made a gesture of ambiguity. “I suppose I like to travel.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s eyes narrowed slightly at my tone of voice, muscles tensing just perceptibly around her mouth. She thought, it seemed, that I was hiding something, and she was interested now, and more curious than before.

For an instant I wondered why I’d answered the way I had. And realized that Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat’s being here was incredibly dangerous to me—not because she might recognize me, but because I recognized her. Because she was alive and Lieutenant Awn was not. Because everyone of her standing had failed Lieutenant Awn (I had failed Lieutenant Awn), and no doubt if then–Lieutenant Skaaiat had been put to the test, she would have failed as well. Lieutenant Awn herself had known this.

I was in danger of my emotions affecting my behavior. They already had, they always did. But I had never been confronted with Skaaiat Awer until now.

“My response is ambiguous, I know,” I said, making that placatory gesture Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat had already used. “I’ve never questioned my desire to travel. When I was a baby, my grandmother said she could tell from the way I took my first steps that I was born to go places. She kept on saying it. I suppose I’ve just always believed it.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat gestured acknowledgment. “It would be a shame to disappoint your grandmother, in any event. Your Radchaai is very good.”

“My grandmother always said I’d better study languages.”

Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat laughed. Almost as I remembered her from Ors, but still that trace of gravity. “Forgive me, honored, but do you have gloves?”

“I meant to buy some before we boarded, but I decided to wait and buy the right sort. I hoped I’d be forgiven my bare hands on arrival since I’m an uncivilized foreigner.”

“An argument could be made for either approach,” Inspector Supervisor Skaaiat said, still smiling. A shade more relaxed than moments before. “Though.” A serious turn. “You speak very well, but I don’t know how much you understand other things.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Which things?”