A week later, Ross was attending to the details of the prosecution of Almiss and Venahalee, and had called for Nan-Zee to be brought in for questioning. I decided to grant her amnesty. I think she was sinned against as much as sinning.
She stepped through the doorway, her eyes lowered. She seemed timid, respectful. Then I realized she hadn’t even noticed me. D’noe was at her side, looking as if he might break into tears.
She looked up slightly and smiled. “Ross was never one of my favorites,” she said, “but he’s much better in person.” She looked back at D’noe, “Can you do that?”
D’noe looked like he had been hit with a flambutteriron.* He stared at the floor, then glanced over to me. “No,” he said.
“No?” said Nan-Zee, outraged.
“I’ll do better,” he said.
*****
I asked to speak to Nan-Zee alone. “Two of them,” I snapped. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“The SongLuminants said to collect as many as possible,” she replied. “I was going to try for one each of the Archon’s emanations.”
“WHAT?” I choked. “Do you have any idea what a disaster that would be?”
“I do now,” she said. “D’noe was bad enough, but Lamark is pathetic. Not even close to Patrick.”
I wanted to smack this woman upside the head. “D’noe is fine, and Lamark probably will be too, if you give him a chance. But do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt them?”
“Why?”
“Why? Because they love you, that’s why!”
“Why is it any different than when a Cu’enashti has more than one emanation? I just wanted more than one at once. I really should’ve done them both on the same planet, but Venahalee wanted to get control of the grid in the Domha’vei and the colonies.”
“If you really want some hot threesome action, you’ll get a dual emanation at some point, I guarantee it. But no, it isn’t at all the same as multiple emanations of the same tree. Multiple emanations are brothers, and lovers, and the same essential being simultaneously. Separate trees are separate, and thus rivals. It’s basic biology: Cu’enashti self-pollinate. Don’t you know the most essential things about them?”
“I know what Elma told me. She said they’re useful slaves.”
“Elma needs an attitude adjustment which has been nine centuries in the making.”
“And I know what I saw in the media push. They said Cu’enashti are perfect, wish-fulfilling faeries who grant immortality and riches. And I know what the church told me: Ashtara is God. I wanted my own god.”
She may have prophetic gifts, but she doesn’t have two brain cells to click together. She deserves D’noe and Lamark. Of course she does.
“I’ll grant you permission to travel between here and the colony, but you’re to report your every move. And even if you don’t, SSOps will be watching. If you ever so much as wink at another nau’gsh, I’ll have your head on a pike. Understand, girl?”
Nan-Zee broke into childish giggles.
“You’re so cool!” she enthused. “Such a bitch! I should’ve figured it out. If I want a Cu’enashti like Ashtara, I have to be more like you.”
When she left, I rested my head against the cool plastic of my desk. Lady Magdelaine came in with a pitcher of Lemonzaid. “I’m declaring a new Matriarchal holiday,” I told her. “It’s called media silence day. It’s a memorial to our common sense.”
*A device used for making flambuttercakes – trans
Further Curious Tales of the Chevalier’s Arbor: The Sinking of the Elusive Queen