“Nor — ah — um — worse. If he — ah — old Quetzal, you know. Resourceful. Cunning. Seen it myself, hundreds of times, eh? Ayuntamiento had the force, but he’d get ’round them. Get ’round Lemur and Loris, all of them. Old man, hey? Foolish old man. What they think. His Cognizance. Quetzal. But sly, Mayt — General. Very sly. Deep.”

She made a small sound of encouragement.

“Compromise. I — ah — sense it. I am not, um, clever, General. Try to be, indeed. Try. Some have said — well, it pares no parsnips. But not like old Quetzal. Experienced, though. My — ah — self. Conferences, negotiations. And I wind it. Wind it already. Be coadjutor, Incus. Obvious, eh? First thing anybody would, er, formulate. Old Quetzal would — ah — visualize? Comprehend the whole before Incus finished. Old man. Die soon, hey? A year, two years, to — ah — fit yourself into the position, Patera. I’ll be gone. I can, um, hear him as I — we — speak. So I didn’t dare, eh? Tell you. You see my predicament? The — ah — Loris. Galago. All the rest. Chems, every one of them. I suspected it for years. Meeting with this one, that one, entire days, sometimes. Saw them up close. Quetzal knows, he must.”

“But His Cognizance wouldn’t talk about it?”

“No. Ah — no. Too sensitive. Even for me, eh? He, Incus. I told you?”

“You told me he says Scylla’s made him Prolocutor.”

“He, um, offered me…”

One bony hand pushed back the straying lock, and Maytera Mint saw how violently that hand shook. “He offered you…?”

“A — ah — appointment. A position. He was,” Remora swallowed, “not abusive. It was not, I judge, his intent to be — ah — disparage. He said that I — I refused, to be sure. His prothonotary. His, ah, I — I — I…”

Maytera Mint nodded. “I see.”

“We have been, er, companions, Maytera. Coworkers — ah — partners in peace, hey? Son and daughter of the Chapter. We have conferred, and the same — um — consecrated vision has inspired us both.