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We have some of the police in our pocket, it’s true, but they have more. At the end of the day, Kromner and his men are Espenians, and we are foreigners, so the police take their side. And so do people in general, because they’re told by the news that Kekon is harming the war effort in Oortoko by hoarding all of the world’s jade, even though that’s not true.
Mrs. Hian cried, “What can be done, Dauk-jens, if the law won’t allow people to wear jade to protect the community, but the police can’t be trusted? It is so unjust.”
Like many Espenians, he spoke animatedly, barely pausing long enough for the translator standing at his elbow to finish relaying his words, but there was also a certain reserve in his manner, a calculating, mercenary quality in his frank gaze. It wasn’t that the Espenians were greedy, precisely, Hilo thought, but they always seemed to be holding back some human warmth, shrewdly considering how to make the deals to get what they wanted.
“As different as our history and cultures are, we have one crucial thing in common,” said Corris, pausing to allow the translator to catch up. “A fierce sense of national pride and independence, and an equally fierce loyalty to our friends and allies.” Those were at least two things, not one, Hilo felt like pointing out, but Ambassador Mendoff nodded and smiled in agreement, and the Kekonese listened politely to the foreigner’s hyperbole.
Hilo had always found that when things were unclear, when he couldn’t immediately see the right action to take in a confusing situation, he needed to get closer. Talk to the right people, understand it all better. The solution was always there on the street, somewhere in plain sight.
The two men’s gazes met over their jade auras, and Anden saw Hilo immediately recognize Rohn Toro in the same way Anden had recognized him when he’d first walked into the room at the Dauks’ house after dinner—as a certain sort of man every clan must have.
Rohn and Tar greeted each other with perfectly equal shallow salutes, like a meeting between two dogs of the same size.
Dauk Losun and Kaul Hilo were separated in age by thirty years. “The gods favor you, Kaul-jen, to have given you two sons already and perhaps a third on the way,” Dauk said. “The third will be a girl,” Hilo said. “That’s how it seems to be in our family.” “Nevertheless, a blessing.”
Someone has to lead the community when needed. It’s my honor to hold that responsibility, but I’m not ashamed to admit that most of the time I rely on the straightforward good sense of my wife. My son is the only one of our children who wears jade. He’s like a bee that sips from every flower—he’s known and liked by everyone, and, Heaven help me, he’s also a lawyer-in-training, so I like to keep him close.”
A faint smile played over Hilo’s lips; he seemed amused that despite being a Green Bone himself, Dauk had been so quick to jump to assumptions based on the stereotype of the Kekonese as instinctively violent.
“Funny, isn’t it? No matter where you are in the world, the one thing that keeps men from killing each other is a fear of what’ll happen after they’re dead.”
Green Bones often had small physical mannerisms—twisting the rings on their fingers, straightening their shirt cuffs, touching or tugging at their collar—subtle movements to draw attention to their green when interacting with other people. It was hard to notice and quell such unconscious habits.
The ways things worked here, the prevailing culture of concealment… no wonder there was so much crime in this country.
The air had the musty smell common to wealthy, old buildings.
There was nothing more important than personal relationships; they were what made clan oaths real and not merely words that could be spoken by anyone.
“A dog that was once starved will bark at anyone who comes near his food, no matter how much he has now.
You know the saying, ‘Too dark to see green’?” Anden nodded; the idiom usually referred to locations or situations so evil and desperate that even Green Bones did not feel safe entering. These days, it was also commonly used to describe books or movies with especially grim themes in which there was no morality and the protagonists died in the end—the opposite of the traditional adventure stories with victorious Green Bone heroes.
