Hilo took three steps into the living room and gripped the back of the sofa, leaning against it until he regained enough control to look up into his cousin’s face and speak. “Tell me what happened.”
Anden sat down on the edge of an armchair facing Hilo and told him everything he knew. He’d been on call, but napping in his apartment, when his pager went off and he was summoned to the hospital. The shock he experienced after expecting to deal with an ordinary patient emergency only to learn instead that the body of his nephew had been brought in by Fists of the Mountain must’ve been extreme, yet he’d come prepared to speak as calmly and factually as he could manage. When he was done, he stood and with shaking hands poured himself a shot of the strongest hoji in the cabinet.
The entire time, Hilo had listened and not said a word. The onset of agony was more intense than anything he could’ve prepared for even after the deaths of his brother and brothers-in-law, yet a small but conscious part of his brain remembered that Wen was still asleep upstairs in their bedroom, and that knowledge alone kept him from waking her by collapsing to the ground and howling like an animal.
He spoke at last. “Do you believe the story?”
Hilo, of all people, knew that with a strong enough motive and planning, a clean-bladed duel could be manipulated, that murder might’ve been arranged. Yet even as he asked himself feverishly, Who needs to die? he could not see the logic of an enemy at work. Ru’s death accomplished nothing for the Mountain, even less for the barukan gangs, or the Crews, or anyone else. Ru was not a Green Bone or an heir to the clan’s leadership. He was not a threat or an obstacle to anyone. All he had been was Hilo’s son.
Anden said, “The man in the car outside is Ru’s friend from college. I was wearing my jade when I talked to him and to the Kobens separately, and I didn’t Perceive any deceit. I’m not saying there was no ruse, Hilo-jen. Lott Jin’s men will do their own interviews and investigation, and if there’s anything suspicious, they’re sure to find it. All I can say is that from what we know so far, it seems . . .” Anden swallowed hard before looking into the Pillar’s face. “Right now, it seems like an accident. I’ll beg for death if I’m wrong.”
Outside, it seemed as if the world had ceased moving. Hilo came around the sofa and walked past Anden toward the stairs. The Pillar placed a heavy hand on his cousin’s shoulder as he passed. “Thank you, Andy,” he managed to say, quietly. Then he went upstairs to wake his wife and to tell her that their son was dead.
_______
The city of Janloon waited for the murderous rampage. No one was more reliable than Kaul Hiloshudon when it came to retribution, and for the death of his son, surely, there would be some terrible vengeance to be taken somewhere. Jaya spoke for many of No Peak’s expectant warriors when she arrived home from Toshon with a dozen of her Fingers and threw herself at her father’s feet, begging tearfully, “Da, tell me who we should kill, and I’ll do it!”
No one had an answer for her. Ru had offered the clean blade. The Horn’s men turned up no evidence that the Mountain nor anyone else had plotted Ru’s death. The college student who’d been with Ru at the club had been questioned so many times that he was near mental breakdown, and his story was corroborated by another eyewitness who spoke anonymously to the police. At Shae’s urging, Hilo spared Dano, whose only crime was that of being a worthless friend. Although they might be tangentially blamed for what had happened at the Little Persimmon, there was no evidence of a wider resurgent scheme by the Clanless Future Movement. After years of relentless persecution and the loss of foreign support, the CFM was already in its dying throes. Tadino’s attempt to goad the clans into war had been a desperate last gasp.
The day after the tragedy, the Pillar had gone into his study with his Weather Man, his Horn, and his cousin Anden. Hours later, they emerged, red-eyed and grim-faced, and Hilo had given orders to the clan. Until the circumstances of Ru’s death were fully understood, there would be no retaliatory attacks on the Mountain, no whispering of names, no shedding of blood without approval. He made it clear that his orders might yet change, but they were to be obeyed. Everyone in the clan knew it had been the Pillar’s advisors, all of them level-headed and prudent even at a time like this, who had together been responsible for his decision.
On the morning of Ru’s funeral, councilwoman Koben Tin Bett arrived at the Kaul estate with several members of her family. The heavyset, matronly widow was in her sixties now, still on the upswing of her political career despite recent frictions with her own Pillar. She wore a white shawl and her face was dusted with white mourning powder. With her was Ayt Ato, a college graduate at long last, and recently engaged to a member of the Tem family. Hilo agreed to come out of the house and meet them in the courtyard with his Horn and Weather Man in attendance.