“We’re Kauls; all our decisions are clan decisions, even the ones that seem private,” Hilo said. “You think I didn’t know that people would talk about the Maiks, about Wen being a stone-eye? Of course I knew. I gave Kehn and Tar every chance I could to earn green and prove their worth to the clan. I got Lan’s blessing to marry Wen. You’ve got to do the same with Maro, because he’s not going to be a force in No Peak. He’s a nice person, but the clan’s not for him. I’m sure he’ll go far in his own world, and he’ll have a good life if he’s with you, but he won’t be at the table after dinner when we talk clan business. Ever. He has to know that going in, I’ll have to have that talk with him if and when you come to me. I think he already knows it about himself, so I don’t think it will be a problem. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; tonight was just a dinner, like you said, so let’s end the subject for now.”
“Let’s do that.” Shae heard her words come out sour and a little numb. She wanted, more out of instinctual habit than anything else, to be angry at Hilo, but nothing he’d said was untrue.
Hilo yawned. “I should go. Ru’s going to wake me up before dawn.” He gazed out across the garden. “How’s Andy?”
The question came so completely out of the blue that Shae had no response at first. Their cousin had been in Espenia for more than a year, and Hilo had not once asked about him. Whenever Shae mentioned she’d spoken to Anden on the phone, or gotten a letter from him, Hilo listened but never replied. His question now was delivered as simply and unexpectedly as a coma patient opening his eyes and asking what time it was.
“He’s doing well, I think,” Shae said. She tried to recall the most recent long-distance conversation she’d had with Anden, perhaps a month ago. “He says he’s getting good grades and the family he’s staying with treats him well. He’s made friends and is even playing relayball. He tells me there are people wearing jade in Port Massy, if you can believe it. Among the Kekonese immigrants, there’s a small, informal clan of sorts, and Anden’s gotten to know the local Pillar and his family.” Shae shook her head incredulously. “I can’t believe he traveled thousands of kilometers from Kekon to find himself among Green Bones again.”
“I’m not surprised.” Hilo spoke quietly. “Green isn’t easily rubbed away.”
The following morning, Shae arrived in her office on Ship Street to find Woon waiting for her, looking unusually agitated. She felt a flash of worry—perhaps things were not all right between them after all, perhaps that was why he hadn’t told her about his engagement, and he had somehow learned that Hilo had informed her last night—but then her aide handed her a copy of the
Shae stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then read the rest of the article in mounting disbelief. It cited confidential sources and documents proving that seven years ago Kaul Shaelinsan had been in the employ of the Espenian military as a civilian informant. Over a period spanning eighteen months, she had cooperated with the Espenian intelligence services to advance foreign economic and political interests in Kekon. In return, she’d been handsomely paid and granted a student visa to attend graduate school in Windton with her boyfriend, an Espenian military officer of Shotarian ancestry. A number of anonymous clan insiders testified that this betrayal on the part of his favorite grandchild had rendered the late Kaul Seningtun heartbroken and caused a rift in the Kaul family that preceded the Torch’s physical and mental decline.
The newspaper began to shake in Shae’s hands. She threw it onto the desk and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the table. “This is Ayt Mada’s doing,” she whispered. Only yesterday she’d been smug about using the Espenians to deal a blow against the Mountain’s operations. She’d wondered when and how Ayt would respond, and now she had her answer.
At the height of the clan war, Ayt had dug into Shae’s background, had used her own spies and sources to discover everything she could about Shae’s past in an effort to sway her into turning against Hilo. Now she’d fed that information to the press. Shae’s decisions as Weather Man had already garnered detractors, and the Oortokon War, which had been going on for eight months with many casualties and little discernible progress, had fanned public hostility against foreigners and Espenia to a high point. Ayt had calculated her attack to be perfectly destructive.
Woon spoke from behind her. “How should we respond, Shae-jen?”
