“Juen Nu has already sent Remi a secret shipment of jade, but the man is also asking No Peak for half a million thalirs to buy weapons and bribe local officials,” Terun said. “The money would be delivered in cash by the Horn’s side, but would first need to be moved into the country through No Peak shell companies.”
“We can’t have anything that happens in Resville connected to the business side of the clan,” Hami said firmly. “Remi is a criminal, even if his crimes benefit us.”
“There’s a small risk, but we’ll be careful to cover our tracks.” Terun scribbled a few notes to himself on a legal pad. “But it’ll be an expensive year for the clan.”
Hami and Terun both looked to the Weather Man for the final say. In the same afternoon, she was authorizing a campaign to publicly promote the positive aspects of jade, and facilitating the transfer of secret funds to a Resville gangster. Trying to run a Green Bone clan in Espenia was a conundrum, fraught with contradictions. That was the cost of working in foreign territories and cultures, through intermediaries and allies. Of fighting proxy wars.
“Move the money,” she said. “Quickly and quietly.”
CHAPTER
22
Sons of the Clan
Kaul Rulinshin had been in Little Hammer before, on shopping trips and to school team relayball games, accompanied by an adult family member and at least two Green Bone bodyguards. Usually Aunt Lina, the mother of his cousin Maik Cam, or Aunt Imrie, the wife of the Horn, or occasionally Ru’s uncle Anden, would take the children around town if the trip required leaving the city’s neutral and No Peak–controlled districts. Ru’s father and mother and his aunt Shae were too high in the clan to enter Mountain territory without important purpose and the permission or invitation of their adversaries. It was a matter of clan etiquette. Ru understood the rules; he was twelve years old, after all, and the son of the Pillar. So he knew that what he and his brother were doing now—sneaking unaccompanied into an enemy district to watch Ayt Atosho duel a challenger—was not technically forbidden by clan law but was also not something his parents would ever allow them to do.
It had taken threats to convince Niko to come along. Ru considered it necessary that his brother be part of the excursion so they would be in trouble together if their parents found out. Besides, Niko of all people should watch Ayt Ato fight so he could learn about the man he would one day have to contend with as a rival Pillar. It was for Niko’s own good.
“I have exams coming up. I have to study.” Niko was fifteen, a year-five at the Academy. “I’m sure our Fists will have spies with camcorders recording the whole thing. Even if they don’t, there’ll be plenty of informers selling footage afterward.”
“Come on! Aren’t you more cut than that?” Ru kept his voice down so Jaya wouldn’t hear them. The whole family was home for Seventhday dinner, but the younger members had been sent outside after dinner so the adults could hold their usual conversations in the dining room. If Ru’s sister knew what they were planning, she would demand to be included. She was only eleven, a whole fourteen months younger than him, entirely too young to participate, but that would not stop her from ratting them out to their parents if she did not get her way. “Hearing about something isn’t nearly the same as being there in person,” Ru insisted.
“Is that what you’re going to say about the whipping you’ll get from Da?” Niko asked with deadpan archness. The Pillar made Niko call him uncle, out of respect to his real father, but the boys spoke of their parents as siblings would.
Ru had long ago discovered that his brother was oddly impervious to goading. Not like Jaya. You could call Niko a coward, an idiot, an ugly dogface, and he would only respond with an unmoved, contemptuous stare. “Fine, then, I’ll go by myself,” Ru said, deploying his final weapon, which he knew was sure to succeed so long as he meant it, because in spite of all his apparent indifference, Niko would not allow his little stone-eye brother to get himself into deep shit.
The next day, a Firstday, they skipped school at the same time and met at the subway station on Lo Low Street, where they chained up their bikes and rode the train to their destination. They did not expect to be recognized, but Ru kept the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. Niko was wearing a billed cap and a zipped-up track jacket that covered his Kaul Dushuron Academy uniform shirt. They were careful not to talk about anything that might identify them as members of the Kaul family.