The ritual done, she would have breakfast—usually a round of bread from whatever local grain was available, and (real) tea—and then take her place on the mat and platform and wait for the day’s requests and complaints.
“Jen Shinnan invites you to supper this evening,” I told her, that next morning. I also ate breakfast, cleaned weapons, walked the streets, and greeted those who spoke to me.
Jen Shinnan lived in the upper city, and before the annexation she had been the wealthiest person in Ors, in influence second only to the head priest of Ikkt. Lieutenant Awn disliked her. “I suppose I don’t have a good excuse to refuse.”
“Not that I can see,” I said. I also stood at the perimeter of the house, nearly on the street, and watched. An Orsian approached, saw me, slowed. Stopped about eight meters away, pretending to look above me, at something else.
“Anything else?” asked Lieutenant Awn.
“The district magistrate reiterates the official policy regarding fishing reserves in the Ors Marshes…”
Lieutenant Awn sighed. “Yes, of course she does.”
“Can I help you, citizen?” I asked the person still hesitating in the street. The impending arrival of her first grandchild hadn’t yet been announced to the neighbors, so I pretended I didn’t know either, and used only the simple respectful address toward a male person.
“I wish,” Lieutenant Awn continued, “the magistrate would come here herself and try living on stale bread and those disgusting pickled vegetables they send, and see how she likes being forbidden to fish where all the fish actually are.”
The Orsian in the street started, looked for a moment as if she were going to turn around and walk away, and changed her mind. “Good morning, Radchaai,” she said, quietly, coming closer. “And to the lieutenant as well.” Orsians were blunt when it suited them, and at other times oddly, frustratingly reticent.
“I know there’s a reason for it,” said Lieutenant Awn to me. “And she’s right, but still.” She sighed again. “Anything else?”
“Denz Ay is outside and wishes to speak to you.” As I spoke, I invited Denz Ay to step within the house.
“What about?”
“Something she seems unwilling to mention.” Lieutenant Awn gestured acknowledgment and I brought Denz Ay around the screens. She bowed, and sat on the mat in front of Lieutenant Awn.
“Good morning, citizen,” said Lieutenant Awn. I translated.
“Good morning, Lieutenant.” And by slow, careful degrees, beginning with an observation on the heat and the cloudless sky, progressing through inquiries about Lieutenant Awn’s health to mild local gossip, she finally came around to hinting at her reason for coming. “I… I have a friend, Lieutenant.” She stopped.
“Yes?”
“Yesterday evening my friend was fishing.” Denz Ay stopped again.
Lieutenant Awn waited three seconds, and when nothing further seemed forthcoming, she asked, “Did your friend catch much?” When the mood was on them, no amount of direct questioning, or begging an Orsian to come to the point, would avail.
“N-not much,” said Denz Ay. And then, irritation flashing across her face, just for an instant: “The best fishing, you know, is near the breeding areas, and those are all prohibited.”
“Yes,” said Lieutenant Awn. “I’m sure your friend would never fish illegally.”
“No, no, of course not,” Denz Ay protested. “But… I don’t want to get her in trouble… but maybe sometimes she digs tubers. Near the prohibited zones.”
There weren’t really any plants that produced edible tubers near the prohibited zones—they’d all been dug up months ago, if not longer. Poachers were more careful about the ones inside—if the plants decreased too noticeably, or disappeared entirely, we’d be forced to find out who was taking them, and guard them much more closely. Lieutenant Awn knew this. Everyone in the lower city knew it.
Lieutenant Awn waited for the rest of the story, not for the first time annoyed at the Orsian tendency to approach topics by stealth, but managing mostly not to show it. “I’ve heard they’re very good,” she ventured.
“Oh, yes!” agreed Denz Ay. “They’re best right out of the mud!” Lieutenant Awn suppressed a grimace. “But you can slice them and grill them too…” Denz Ay stopped, with a shrewd look. “Perhaps my friend can get some for you.”
I saw Lieutenant Awn’s dissatisfaction with her rations, the momentary desire to say, Yes, please, but instead she said, “Thank you, there’s no need. You were saying?”
“Saying?”
“Your… friend.” As she spoke Lieutenant Awn was asking me questions, with minute twitches of her fingers. “Was digging tubers near a prohibited zone. And?”
I showed Lieutenant Awn the spot this person was most likely to have been digging in—I patrolled all of Ors, saw the boats go in and out, saw where they were at night when they doused lights and maybe even thought they were running invisible to me.
“And,” said Denz Ay, “they found something.”