"I'm . . . glad to hear it. That—stuff—it's still a problem," Raj said soberly. "Nothing seems to keep people away from it, not with the Boregy girl eating it like candy. You'd think people'd have learned by now—" He shrugged. Richard shook his head.
"People never seem to learn."
By his face, unguarded for the moment, Raj could read the unspoken words.
Not even Mother.
Richard looked up, and caught Raj's eyes on him. After an awkward pause, he cleared his throat. "By the way, how are your studies with Father Rhajmurti coming?"
Raj swallowed. "All right, I guess. This stuff— it's not anything I can memorize. It's—I'm not sure, m'ser, I'm afraid even if I do pass, I'm never going to be a good Revenantist. When—when people I know are in trouble, I—I've got to help them, and hang karma."
Richard smiled, his earlier cool poise restored, and stood up. "For Marina's sake, I wouldn't want to see you act any differently, Rigel."
Raj knew a dismissal when he heard one; he stood likewise, edged past Richard to the door, made the right polite noises, and took his leave.
But he didn't go very far.
Just down two floors and over a few corridors, to another office—one not nearly so opulent as Richard's, but possibly more important to Kamat prosperity.
"... Michael Chamoun's cousin," Raj concluded; he sat back on the hard wooden chair, then continued with his own speculation. "Not enough to convict anybody, but maybe enough evidence to be embarrassing?"
"Could be." Thomas Mondragon leaned back in his own plain wooden chair and interlaced his fingers behind his blond head, looking deceptively lazy and indolent. Raj knew that pose. He also knew what it meant. Mondragon was thinking. Hard. "So why bring this news to me, Raj?"
"Because I still owe you," Raj said bluntly. "Because you may be playing m'ser Richard's game, but that doesn't mean his coat'll cover you if things get real sticky. Because I don't know if m'ser Richard will bother to tell you or not. He didn't tell me not to tell you, and my debt to you comes first."
Mondragon smiled, very slightly, and pointed a long index finger at him. "You're learning." .
"I'm trying, Tom," Raj replied earnestly. " 'Tisn't like the swamp, and it is. There're still snakes, only they don't look like snakes. There're still gangs, only they don't act like gangs. There're tests—and they're just as serious. Like this catechism stuff—" "How are you coming?" There seemed to be real warmth in Mondragon's murky green eyes; real concern.
Of course, that could just be concern over the Revenantist Inquisition taking up one of Thomas Mondragon's best informers, and one of the few folk who knew who and what he really was—but Raj didn't think so. As much as Mondragon could— and more than was safe or politic—he cared for Raj's welfare.
"All right, I think," Raj gave him the same answer he'd given Richard Kamat. "It's kind of hard to tell, but I think Father Rhajmurti figures we'll make out all right. Well, I know Justice will, but he's had a lot more practice in thinking Revenantist. The only thing that seems to help me is to try to think like I was God's own accountant."
Mondragon laughed at that, a deep-throated chuckle. The past few months had been good to Mondragon; he'd recovered from his near-fatal illness and more. And he and Marina were, if not on friendly terms, less at odds. Thanks to Raj's work, she no longer blamed him for her mother's perilous addiction to deathangel. There was still tension in the air whenever they met, but Raj wasn't certain what the cause was.
Could be just 'cause it's really Tom she wishes she was marrying. And not for a paltry year, either.
That might be what kept setting her off into hysteria, seeing as she and Tom met at least three or four times a week, since Mondragon had moved into quarters on Kamat at Richard's urging.
Jones had not much cared for that. Raj wasn't sure how Mondragon felt about it. But, at least to Raj's eyes, the suite of rooms that the new head of the Kamat-sponsored Samurai occupied looked more secure than Tom's old apartment on Petrescu. Raj could only hope that they were.
What Mondragon made of the situation, he couldn't tell; he could read the man a little better these days, but—well, Mondragon was Mondragon, and when he chose not to be read, there was no catching him out.
But for this moment, it seemed, his concern was on Raj.
"Richard tells me you're doing well enough in your College studies—" He smiled as Raj's jaw sagged a little. "Yes, Raj, we talk about you. And that scapegrace brother of yours."
"You're gonna have to do more than talk about Denny," Raj said bluntly. Might as well let him have the bad with the good. "Granther's got the notion of making Denny heir to Takahashi—if he can get some sense pounded into him. And Granther reckons you to do the pounding. He told m'ser Richard as much."
Raj managed not to grin at the dismay that briefly flashed across Mondragon's face. The renegade Sword sighed and cast his eyes up toward the ceiling.
"Why me?" he muttered. "Why me?"
"Father Rhajmurti'd say it was your karma," Raj said impudently.
Mondragon's green eyes lowered and gave him a piercing glare—but there was a touch of good humor behind the glare. "Save that Revenantist cant for when you need it, boy," he warned. "Did anyone bother to think that your brother might not survive my gentle lessoning?"
Raj absently rubbed a bruise that ran across his bicep—legacy of one of his recent lessons with Mondragon. He was learning the art of keeping himself alive at the sometimes too-efficient hands of Mondragon. The down and dirty art of street-fence, which had very little to do with the proper fencing studies he was getting at the College.
"Granther told Richard that if Denny didn't shape up—it was better for him to dump Den back on the streets."
"Which means, eventually, the Harbor." Mondragon sobered immediately. "A very . . . efficient, man, your grandfather. A very realistic man."
"Tom—" this was very hard to say, but Raj had come to a few hard conclusions himself over the past few weeks, talking things over with Justice. And this was his first opportunity to talk to anyone except Justice about them. "Tom, you know I'd die for Denny. I really would. But—I can't keep him from going off and killing himself, can I? He's either gonna grow up, or—or he isn't. Either way, it's his doing, and not mine, and there isn't a damned thing I can do about it. Because right now he isn't gonna listen to me. I proved myself a fool too often for that. And even if he'd listen to me, that doesn't mean he'd believe me."
Mondragon blinked. "Well. You are learning."
Raj sighed, and rubbed his bruised arm. "Yey.
And it isn't easy. The learning, or believing it."
* * *
Raj let the crowd of students take him along the corridor while he concentrated on the material for his next class. Philosophy—like the things Father Rhajmurti was trying to drill him in—was not something you could handle by memorization.
He was so intent that he didn't bother to pay much attention to who was around him.
"Well, if it isn't the Doctor." The voice behind Raj held a sneer. Raj stopped, and turned—carefully— to face his newest tormentor.
Seems like there's always one. Back in the swamp, it was MacDac and Big Ralf. Tree had it in for me and Denny until Wolfling dumped him in the canal. So now it's Karle Hendricks. A new kind of game, different rules, but the same end. And I can't, I daren't fight him. Not physically, anyway.
Karle Hendricks; tall, dark, incredibly handsome. Captain of the fencing team. Son of the up-and-coming Hendricks family.
Certainly one of the most popular, if not the most popular, young man in Raj's class-group, not the least for the reason that he spread his silverbits around freely. Until Raj had arrived on the scene.
Raj was different, exotic—and good-natured. Scion of a foreign Nev Hetteker family perhaps, but under the aura of the rising star of the Kamats. The Kamats were there; which presumably meant that held true for the Takahashis. The Hendricks were only aspiring. All these things conspired to steal
some of Karle's followers and make them Raj's adherents, at least at first. Karle was not noted for his good nature; the friends he bought generally ended up being reminded at some point or other how much they owed to Karle. Karle was inclined to back his reminders up with unpleasant words, and sometimes more than just words.
Raj never asked anything of anyone, which state of affairs was novel, and somewhat attractive to some of Karle's more reluctant "admirers."
Karle was not amused.
If you were one of Raj's friends—you could find yourself facing Karle along a blade, at least in fencing practice. And Karle had his retaliations timed to a hair, for precisely when Father Abdi wasn't looking.
If you were one of Raj's friends, you could find yourself waylaid on the bridges some foggy night, and beaten up. While Karle and his friends were demonstrably elsewhere.
"Hello, Karle," Raj said, carefully, making sure he got his back to the corridor wall. "How did the competitions go?"
Karle smirked, his chiseled features painted with self-satisfaction. "I'm still team captain. Double everyone else's points. When am I gonna see you on the strip, minnow?"
So far Raj had managed to avoid being at any lessons shared by Karle.
He shrugged, and clutched his books a little tighter. "I just don't know, Karle. You know I've got a lot of studying to do for Father Rhajmurti's test."
He was trying to keep face and voice as neutral as possible. But he steamed inwardly, wanting to smash that insolently handsome face, longing to see that perfect body up to the ass in swamp mud. Eight, nine, ten. I'd still like to rub your face in muck. You bullying bastard. He ground his teeth as Karle made some remark about foreigners, insinuating that Raj and some of the perfumed delicates of the Chattelan might have a few things in common.
If I get into trouble with him, it'll come down on Richard's head. I could get thrown out of the College. It isn't gonna hurt me to let him bully me. So what if people think I'm a coward? What's it matter?
But it rankled, it rankled, particularly when he was remembering how he had faced down both MacDac and Big Ralf. Both of them killer-crazies, both encountered in the mud and filth of the swamp; madmen who'd been out for his blood. Not dancers along a fencing strip, in the clean, well-lit salle, with rules and judges overseeing everything; no, this had been in rotten weather, with knives and bare hands, and no rules except that the winner lived a little longer.
And Raj had killed them both with his own two hands.
"Of course, our doctor couldn't possibly be a coward, could he?" Karle asked the four or five students crowding around him.
They grinned. Raj fought down the impulse to say something.
Like, "Try me in the swamp some time, I've killed tougher crazies than you." Lord and Ancestors, that would get me in trouble. Right now I'm like Tom Mondragon. They know the name, here; they know I'm sori-of from Nev Hettek. But let it be known I'm that Rigel Takahashi, and the word'll be upstream faster than a steamboat. Then the Sword won't be able to ignore me.
He bit his tongue, and his stomach churned.
"Maybe he's a lover, not a fighter," suggested one of the others snidely. "I hear tell Marina Kamat must think so."
Raj's face flamed as they all snickered.
"I dunno, he don't look like much of a lover, either," Karle replied, circling around him and looking him up and down, critically. "I think Marina got herself somebody else on the side."
Raj felt a cold lump in his guts, and clutched his book until his hands hurt. That was too near the truth.
Way too near—
"Hendricks, are you and your little social club gonna block the corridor all day?"
Karle jumped as a hand came down on his shoulder. The hand was attached to a plump brown arm that belonged to Gopal Raza.
A senior student and one of the Rimmon Isle Razas. Standing beside him was ethereal Lelani Yakunin, another senior, and from another of the Elite Isle Families.
Raj could read Karle's face like the page of a book. Frustration—anger—then a conciliatory smirk. Neither of these two were people lowly Karle Hendricks dared to provoke.
"Don't pay any mind to this blowhard, kid," Lelani said maliciously. "Everybody knows Hendricks lets his mouth run while his brain's on 'idle.' You're the Kamat protege, aren't you? Takahashi?"
Raj nodded dumbly. Gopal squinted as he took a closer look at the badge on Raj's College sash. "Medicine, huh?" He laughed. "By the Wheel, Hendricks, you're even stupider than I thought!"
Karle scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped.
"Well, first of all, you've been blocking the corridor for about five minutes. As a senior student, if I was feeling mean, I could hand you down some demerits for that. Second, baitbrains, you've been picking on somebody who's gonna be a doctor some day. You ever bother to think about what that could mean in a couple of years?"
Karle's bafflement registered in the blank look he presented to Gopal and Lelani.
"Look, fishbreath—you wave that fancy rapier of yours around all the time. One of these days somebody is gonna take you up on a bridge-duel. Probably a lot of somebodies. And one of them is real likely to be better and sneakier than you." Gopal's round face and bland expression made his indifferent tone sting Karle all the more; Raj could tell by the tensing of the younger boy's shoulders. "And when that happens, you're gonna be looking up at a doc, and hoping he can keep you from bleeding to the death, or going infected, or maybe losing a leg or an arm. Ever stop to think that the doc you'll be looking at might just be Takahashi, here?"
From the glazed look in Karle's eyes, that was a scenario he'd never bothered to entertain. The two seniors laughed, and pushed their way past Raj on down the corridor.
"I can tell you something, Hendricks," Lelani called over her shoulder. "If I stood in that pair of shoes, I'd think real hard about what kind of karma I'd been earning. Remember what's happened already. Remember, 'what goes around, comes around.' "
Raj wriggled out of the press of bodies while their paralysis held, his own jaw aching, his teeth clenched, his throat tight with anger.
What goes around, comes around. Yeah, sure. But not soon enough.
The room between his bedroom and Justice's was six strides wide and twelve long. Not much room for walking out the anger that threatened to turn Raj inside out.
Raj paced the narrow confines of the sitting room, as Justice watched him with a worried expression.
"God, I'd like to get him up a dark cut some night!" Raj fumed between clenched teeth. "Up a dark cut and get my hands on him—" He reached the wall and turned jerkily, as he drove his fist into his palm. "Coward, am I? Stinking Chat boy-lover? Just one chance, that's all I ask—just one—"
"Raj," Justice said unhappily, "You aren't really thinking of—"
"Getting him alone, then pounding his face into a walkway?" Raj stopped pacing abruptly, and pivoted to face his roommate, his shoulders sagging with sudden resignation. "No. Damn, though, I'd like to give him a real taste of instant karma. Man-to-man, at hand to hand I could beat him."
Justice's expression of skepticism stung.
"I could!" Raj snapped. "All m'ser Karle Gupta Ivanovitch Hendricks knows is school fighting. Most of it by the rules—and then he only knows how to bend the rules, he don't know how to break 'em. Where I—"
He stopped, before he could say "where I come from," and changed his choice of words. "—he don't know street-fighting. I could have him down on the floor inside five minutes, an' I could beat him black and blue without him laying a finger on me."
"And what would that prove?" Justice asked quietly.
"That I'm as good as he is! Better!"
"He'd sing a different tune. He'd tell everybody you ambushed him, say you cheated. And by his way of thinking—by the way most of the hightowners think—you would have cheated. And he might give you trouble with Administration. That's not too healthy, these days. Especially if anybody finds out you were the source of those Crud-medicin
es."
"Yeah—but dammit, Justice, he'd never forget what I did to him!"
"Exactly," Justice replied. "Exactly. He'd never forget. And he'd make sure nobody else did, either. There's a canaler saying for situations like that. 'Don't look back. There might be something gaining on you.' "
"You don't understand," Raj cried, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.
Justice just sighed. "Raj, I've got a tutoring session; I've got to go. Why don't you take your foil over to the gym and work some of that frustration out?"
Raj watched in silence as he picked up his books and notepad, and reached for the door handle. And hesitated for a moment, then looked back over his shoulder.
"Whatever you think, I do understand, friend. I really do. And—never mind."
Raj sagged down into a chair as Justice left, dosing the door softly behind him. For a while he just sat, stomach churning, head aching, trying to calm himself down. When all his best efforts failed, he decided to follow Justice's advice, and go work some of his frustration out physically. If he went to the salle at the gym, he'd probably be able to find someone for fencing practice. At the least, he could take out his anger on the target-dummy. He grabbed up his foil and mask from the corner, checked to make sure that his keys were still in his pocket, and stalked out, slamming the door to the suite behind him.
It was still hot, even with the sun long down; the air was deathly still. The flames of the torches lighting the bridges rose straight up, unwavering. Somewhere below, Raj could hear people talking, laughing; the sounds of boats being poled along the canals. No sound of motors—not under the new Edict. Merovingen was the quieter for that.
Raj got all the way to the College, and was actually on the wide, paved walkway that led to the gym, when his sense of something wrong made him tense and look around.