Adventures in the Liaden Universe #5
2001
ISBN 1-58787-208-0
“If you trade with Liadens, trade careful, and for the gods’ love don’t come sideways of honor.”
This set of notes was old: recorded by Great-Grand-Captain Larance Gobelyn more than forty Standard years ago, dubbed to ship’s library twenty Standards later from the original deteriorating tape. Jethri fiddled with the feed on the audio board, but only succeeded in lowering the old man’s voice. Sighing, he upped the gain again, squinting in protest of the scratchy, uneven sound.
“Liaden honor is—active. Insult—any insult—is punished. Immediately. An individual’s name is his most important possession and—”
“Jethri?” Uncle Paitor’s voice broke across Cap’n Larance’s recitation. Jethri sighed and thumbed ‘pause’.
“Yessir,” he said, turning his head toward the intercom grid set in the wall.
“Come on down to the trade room, will you? We need to talk over a couple things.”
Jethri slipped the remote out of his ear. As senior trader, Paitor was specifically in charge of the senior apprentice trader’s time and education.
“Yessir,” Jethri repeated. Two quick fingertaps marked his place in the old notes file. He left at a brisk walk, his thoughts half on honor, and only slightly less than half on the image of the woman on the poster.
HIS UNCLE NODDED him into a chair and eased back in his. They were coming in on Ynsolt’i and next hour Paitor Gobelyn would have time for nothing but the feed from the port trade center. Now, his screen was dark, the desk-top barren. Paitor cleared his throat.
“Got a couple things,” he said, folding his hands over his belt buckle. “On-Port roster: Dyk an’ me’ll be escorting the payload to the central trade hall and seeing it safe with the highest bidder. Khat’s data, Grig’s eatables, Mel’s on tech, Cris’ll stay ship-side. You…"
Paitor paused and Jethri gripped his hands together tight on his lap, willing his face into a trader’s expression of courteous disinterest. They had textile on board—half a dozen bolts of cellosilk that Cris had taken on two stops back, with Ynsolt’i very much in his mind. Was it possible, Jethri wondered, that Uncle Paitor was going to allow…
“Yourself—you’ll be handling the silk lot. I expect to see a kais out of the lot. If I was you, I’d call on Honored Sir bin’Flora first.”
Jethri remembered to breathe. “Yes, sir. Thank you.” He gripped his hands together so hard they hurt. His own trade. His own, very first, solo trade with no Senior standing by, ready to take over if the thing looked like going awry.
His uncle waved a hand. “Time you were selling small stuff on your own. Now.” He leaned forward abruptly, folded his arms on the desk and looked at Jethri seriously. “You know we got a lot riding on this trip.”
Indeed they did—more than a quarter of the Market’s speculation capital was tied up in eighteen Terran pounds of vya, a spice most commonly sold in five gram lots. Jethri’s research had revealed that vya was the active ingredient in fa’vya, a Liaden drink ship’s library classified as a potent aphrodisiac. Ynsolt’i was a Liaden port and the spice should bring a substantial profit to the ship. Not, Jethri reminded himself, that profit was ever guaranteed.
“We do well with the spice here,” Paitor was saying, “and the captain’s going to take us across to Kinaveral, do that refit we’d been banking for now, rather than two Standards from now.”
This was the news that might have had Dyk baking a cake. Jethri sat up straighter, rubbing the palms of his hands down the rough fabric of his work pants.
“Refit’ll keep us world-bound ’bout a Standard, near’s we can figure. Captain wants that engine upgrade bad and trade-side’s gonna need two more cargo pods to balance the expense.” He grinned suddenly. “Three, if I can get ’em.”
Jethri smiled politely, thinking that his uncle didn’t look as pleased with that as he might have and wondering what the down-side of the trade was.
“While refit’s doing, we figured—the captain and me—that it’d be optimum to re-structure crew. So, we’ve signed you as senior ’prentice with Gold Digger.”
It was said so smoothly that Jethri didn’t quite catch the sense of it.
“Gold Digger?” he repeated blankly, that much having gotten through, by reason of him and Mac Gold having traded blows on last sighting—more to Jethri’s discomfort than Mac’s. He hadn’t exactly told anyone on the Market the full details of the incident, Gold Digger’s crew being cousins of his mother, and his mother making a point more’n once about how she’d nearly ended up being part of that ship instead of this.
Jethri came forward in his chair, hearing the rest of it play back inside the whorlings of his ears.
“You signed me onto Gold Digger?” he demanded. “For how long?”
His voice echoed into the hall, he’d asked that loud, but he didn’t apologize.
Paitor raised a hand. “Ease down, boy. One loop through the mines. Time they’re back in port, you’ll be twenty—full adult and able to find your own berth.” He nodded. “You make yourself useful like you and me both know you can and you’ll come off Digger a full trader with experience under your belt—”
“Three Standards?” Jethri’s voice broke, but for once he didn’t cringe in shame. He was too busy thinking about a converted ore ship smaller than the Market, its purely male crew crammed all six into a common sleeping room, and the trade nothing more than foodstuffs and ore, ore and mining tools, oxy tanks and ore…
“Ore,” he said, staring at his uncle. “Not even rough gem. Industrial ore.” He took a breath, knowing his dismay showed and not caring about that, either. “Uncle Paitor, I’ve been studying. If there’s something else I—”
Paitor showed him palm again. “Nothing to do with your studying. You been doing real good. I’ll tell you—better than the captain supposed you would. Little more interested in the Liaden side of things than I thought reasonable, there at first, but you always took after Arin, anyhow. No harm in learning the lingo, and I will say the Liadens seem to take positive note of you.” He shook his head. “Course, you don’t have your full growth yet, which puts you nearer their level.”
Liadens were a short, slight people, measured against Terran averages. Jethri wasn’t as short as a Liaden, but he was, he thought bitterly, a damn sight shorter than Mac Gold.
“What it is,” Paitor said slowly. “We’re out of room. It’s hard for us, too, Jethri. If we were a bigger ship, we’d keep you on. But you’re youngest, none of the others’re inclined to change berth, and, well—Ship’s Option. Captain’s cleared it. Ben Gold states himself willing to have you.” He leaned back, looking stern. “And ore needs study, too, ’prentice. Nothing’s as simple as it looks.”
Thrown off, thought Jethri. I’m being thrown off of my ship. He thought that he could have borne it better, if he was simply being cast out to make his own way. But the arranged berth on Gold Digger added an edge of fury to his disbelief. He opened his mouth to protest further and was forestalled by a ping! from Paitor’s terminal.
The senior trader snapped forward in his chair, flipping the switch that accepted the first of the trade feeds from Ynsolt’i Port. He glanced over at Jethri.
“You get me a kais for that silk, now. If the spice sells good for us, I’ll OK that Combine key you been wanting. You’ll have earned it.”
That was dismissal. Jethri stood. “Yessir,” he said, calm as a dry mouth would let him, and left the trade room.
“PREMIUM GRADE, honored sir,” Jethri murmured, keeping his eyes modestly lowered, as befit a young person in discourse with a person of lineage and honor.
Honored Sir bin’Flora moved his shoulders and flipped an edge of the fabric up, frowning at the underweave. Jethri ground his teeth against an impulse to add more in praise of the hand-loomed Gindoree cellosilk.
Don’t oversell! he could hear Uncle Paitor snap from memory. The Trader is in control of the trade.
“Eight tor the six-bolt,” the buyer stated, tossing the sample cloth back across the spindle. Jethri sighed gently and spread his hands.
“The honored buyer is, of course, distrustful of goods offered by one so many years his inferior in wisdom. I assure you that I am instructed by an elder of my ship, who bade me accept not a breath less than two cantra.”
“Two?” The Liaden’s shoulders moved again—not a shrug, but expressive of some emotion. Amusement, Jethri thought. Or anger.
“Your elder mis-instructs you, young sir. Perhaps it is a testing.” The buyer tipped his head slightly to one side, as if considering. “I will offer an additional pair of tor,” he said at last, accent rounding the edges of the trade-tongue, “in kindness of a student’s diligence.”
Wrong, Jethri thought. Not to say that Honored bin’Flora wasn’t the heart of kindness, which he very likely was, on his off-days. A trade was something else again.
Respectful, Jethri bowed, and, respectful, brought his eyes to the buyer’s face. “Sir, I value your generosity. However, the distance between ten tor and two cantra is so vast that I feel certain my elder would counsel me to forgo the trade. Perhaps you had not noticed—” he caught himself on the edge of insult and smoothly changed course—“the light is poor, just here…”
Pulling the bolt forward, he again showed the fineness of the cloth, the precious irregularities of weave, which proved it hand woven, spoke rapturously of the pure crimson dye.
The buyer moved his hand. “Enough. One cantra. A last offer.”
Gotcha, thought Jethri, making a serious effort to keep his face neutral. One cantra, just like Uncle Paitor had wanted. In retrospect, it had been an easy sell.
Too easy? he wondered then, looking down at the Liaden’s smooth face and disinterested brown eyes. Was there, just maybe, additional profit to be made here?
Trade is study, Uncle Paitor said from memory. Study the goods, and study the market. And after you prepare as much as you can, there’s still nothing says that a ship didn’t land yesterday with three holds full of something you’re carrying as a luxury sell.
Nor was there any law, thought Jethri, against Honored Buyer bin’Flora being critically short on crimson cellosilk, this Port-day. He took a cautious breath and made his decision.
“Of course,” he told the buyer, gathering the sample bolt gently into his arms, “I am desolate not to have closed trade in this instance. A cantra… It is generous, respected sir, but—alas. My elder will be distressed—he had instructed me most carefully to offer the lot first to yourself and to make every accommodation… But a single cantra, when his word was two? I do not…” He fancied he caught a gleam along the edge of the Liaden’s bland face, a flicker in the depths of the careful eyes, and bit his lip, hoping he wasn’t about to blow the whole deal.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, voice edging disastrously toward a squeak, “—my elder spoke of you so highly… I don’t suppose you might go a cantra-six?”
“Ah.” Honored Sir bin’Flora’s shoulders rippled and this time Jethri was sure the gesture expressed amusement. “One cantra-six it is.” He bowed and Jethri did, clumsily, because of the bolt he still cradled.
“Done,” he said.
“Very good,” returned the buyer. “Set the bolt down, young sir. You are quite correct regarding that crimson. Remarkably pure. If your elder instructed you to hold at anything less than three cantra, he was testing you in good earnest.”
Jethri stared, then, with an effort, he straightened his face, trying to make it as bland and ungiving as the buyer’s.
He needn’t have bothered. The Liaden had pulled a pouch from his belt and was intent on counting out coins. He placed them on the trade table and stepped back, sweeping the sample bolt up as he did.
“One cantra, six dex, as agreed. Delivery may be made to our warehouse within the twelve-hour.” He bowed, fluid and unstrained, despite the bolt.
“Be you well, young sir. Fair trading, safe lift.”
Jethri gave his best bow, which was nowhere near as pretty as the buyer’s. “Thank you, respected sir. Fair trading, fair profit.”
“Indeed,” said the buyer and was gone.
BY RIGHTS, he should have walked a straight line from Textile Hall to the Market and put himself at the disposal of the captain.
Say he was disinclined just yet to talk with Captain Iza Gobelyn, coincidentally his mother, on the subject of his upcoming change of berth. Or say he was coming off his first true solo trade and wanted time to turn the thing over in his mind. Which he was doing, merebeer to hand at the Zeroground Pub, on the corner of the bar he’d staked as his own.
He fingered his fractin, a slow whiling motion—that had been his thinking pattern for most of his life. No matter the captain had told him time and time that he was too old for such fidgets and foolishness. On board ship, some habits were worse than others, and the fractin was let to pass.
As to thinking, he had a lot to do.
He palmed the smooth ivory square, took a sip of the tangy local brew.
Buyer bin’Flora, now—that wanted chewing on. Liadens were fiercely competitive, and, in his experience, tight-fisted of data. Jethri had lately formed the theory that this reluctance to offer information was not what a Terran would call spitefulness, but courtesy. It would be—an insult, if his reading of the tapes was right, to assume that another person was ignorant of any particular something.
Which theory made Honored Sir bin’Flora’s extemporaneous lecture on the appropriate price of crimson cellosilk—interesting.
Jethri sipped his beer, considering whether or not he’d been insulted. This was a delicate question, since it was also OK, as far as his own observations and the crewtapes went, for an elder to instruct a junior. He had another sip of beer, frowning absently at the plain ship-board above the bar. Strictly no-key, that board, listing ship name, departure, arrival, and short on finer info. Jethri sighed. If the vya did good, he’d one day soon be able to get a direct line to the trade nets, just by slipping his key into a high-info terminal. ’Course, by then, he’d be shipping on Digger, and no use for a Combine key at all…
“’Nother brew, kid?” The bartender’s voice penetrated his abstraction. He set the glass down, seeing with surprise that it was nearly empty. He fingered a Terran bit out of his public pocket and put it on the bar.
“Merebeer, please.”
“Coming up,” she said, skating the coin from the bar to her palm. Her pale blue eyes moved to the next customer and she grinned.
“Hey, Sirge! Ain’t seen you for a Port-year.”
The dark-haired man in modest trading clothes leaned his elbows on the counter and smiled. “That long?” He shook his head, smile going toward a grin. “I lose track of time, when there’s business to be done.”
She laughed. “What’ll it be?”
“Franses Ale?” he asked, wistfully.
“Coming up,” she said and he grinned and put five-bit in her hand.
“The extra’s for you—a reward for saving my life.”
The barkeeper laughed again and moved off down-bar, collecting orders and coins as she went. Jethri finished the last of his beer. When he put the glass down, he found the barkeeper’s friend—Sirge—looking at him quizzically.
“Don’t mean to pry into what’s none of my business, but I noticed you looking at the board, there, a bit distracted. Wouldn’t be you had business with Stork?”
Jethri blinked, then smiled and shook his head. “I was thinking of—something else,” he said, with cautious truth. “Didn’t really see the board at all.”
“Man with business on his mind,” said Sirge good-naturedly. “Well, just thought I’d ask. Misery loves company, my mam used to say—Thanks, Nance.” This last as the barkeeper set a tall glass filled with dark liquid before him.
“No trouble,” she assured him and put Jethri’s schooner down. “Merebeer, Trader.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, wondering if she was making fun of him or really thought him old enough to be a full trader. He raised the mug and shot a look at the ship-board. Stork was there, right enough, showing departed on an amended flight plan.
“Damnedest thing,” said the man next to him, ruefully. “Can’t blame them for lifting when they got rush cargo and a bonus at the far end, but I sure could wish they waited lift a quarter-hour longer.”
Jethri felt a stir of morbid curiosity. “They didn’t—leave you, did they, sir?”
The man laughed. “Gods, no, none of that! I’ve got a berth promised on Ringfelder’s Halcyon, end of next Port-week. No, this was a matter of buy-in—had half the paperwork filled out, happened to look up at the board there in the Trade Bar and they’re already lifting.” He took a healthy swallow of his ale. “Sent a message to my lodgings, of course, but I wasn’t at the lodgings, I was out making paper, like we’d agreed.” He sighed. “Well, no use crying over spilled wine, eh?” He extended a thin, calloused hand. “Sirge Milton, trader at leisure, damn the luck.”
He shook the offered hand. “Jethri Gobelyn, off Gobelyn’s Market.”
“Pleasure. Market’s a solid ship—Arin still senior trader?”
Jethri blinked. The routes being as they were, there were still some who had missed news of Arin Gobelyn’s death. This man didn’t seem quite old enough to have been one of his father’s contemporaries, but…
“Paitor’s senior,” he told Sirge Milton steadily. “Arin died ten Standards back.”
“Sorry to hear that,” the man said seriously. “I was just a ’prentice, but he impressed me real favorable.” He took a drink of ale, eyes wandering back to the ship-board. “Damn,” he said, not quite under his breath, then laughed a little and looked at Jethri. “Let this be a lesson to you—stay liquid. Think I’d know that by now.” Another laugh.
Jethri had a sip of beer. “But,” he said, though it was none of his business, “what happened?”
For a moment, he thought the other wouldn’t answer. He drank ale, frowning at the board, then seemed to collect himself and flashed Jethri a quick grin.
“Couple things. First, I was approached for a closed buy-in on—futures.” He shrugged. “You understand I can’t be specific. But the guarantee was four-on-one and—well, the lodgings was paid ’til I shipped and I had plenty on my tab at the Trade Bar, so I sunk all my serious cash into the future.”
Jethri frowned. A four-on-one return on speculation? It was possible—the crewtapes told of astonishing fortunes made Port-side, now and then—but not likely. To invest all liquid assets into such a venture—
Sirge Milton held up a hand. “Now, I know you’re thinking exactly what I thought when the thing was put to me—four-on-one’s ’way outta line. But the gig turns on a Liaden Master Trader’s say-so, and I figured that was good enough for me.” He finished his ale and put the glass down, waving at the barkeeper.
“Short of it is, I’m cash-poor til tomorrow midday, when the pay-off’s guaranteed. And this morning I came across as sweet a deal as you’d care to see—and I know just who’ll want it, to my profit. A cantra holds the lot—and me with three ten-bits in pocket. Stork was going to front the cash, and earn half the profit, fair enough. But the rush-money and the bonus was brighter.” He shook his head. “So, Jethri Gobelyn, you can learn from my mistake—and I’m hopeful I’ll do the same.”
“Four-on-one,” Jethri said, mind a-buzz with the circumstance, so he forgot he was just a ’prentice, talking to a full trader. “Do you have a paper with the guarantee spelled out?”
“I got better than that,” Sirge Milton said. “I got his card.” He turned his head, smiling at the bartender. “Thanks, Nance.”
“No problem,” she returned. “You got a Liaden’s card? Really? Can I see?”
The man looked uneasy. “It’s not the kind of thing you flash around.”
“Aw, c’mon, Sirge—I never seen one.”
Jethri could appreciate her curiosity: he was half agog, himself. A Liaden’s card was as good as his name, and a Liaden’s name, according to great-grand-captain Larance, was his dearest possession.
“Well,” Sirge said. He glanced around, but the other patrons seemed well-involved in their own various businesses. “OK.”
He reached into his pouch and pulled out a flat, creamy rectangle, holding it face up between the three of them.
“Ooh,” Nance said. “What’s it say?”
Jethri frowned at the lettering. It was a more ornate form of the Liaden alphabet he had laboriously taught himself off the library files, but not at all unreadable.
“Norn ven’Deelin,” he said, hoping he had the pronunciation of the name right. “Master of Trade.”
“Right you are,” said Sirge, nodding. “You’ll go far, I’m sure, friend Jethri! And this here—” he rubbed his thumb over the graphic of a rabbit silhouetted against a full moon—“is the sign for his Clan. Ixin.”
“Oh,” Nance said again, then turned to answer a hail from up-bar. Sirge slipped the card away and Jethri took another sip of beer, mind racing. A four-on-one return, guaranteed by a Master Trader? It was possible. Jethri had seen the rabbit-and-moon sign on a land-barge that very day. And Sirge Milton was going to collect tomorrow mid-day. Jethri thought he was beginning to see a way to buy into a bit of profit, himself
“I have a cantra to lend,” he said, setting the schooner aside.
Sirge Milton shook his head. “Nah.—I appreciate it, Jethri, but I don’t take loans. Bad business.”
Which, Jethri acknowledged, was exactly what his uncle would say. He nodded, hoping his face didn’t show how excited he felt.
“I understand. But you have collateral. How ’bout if I buy Stork’s share of your Port-deal, payoff tomorrow mid-day, after you collect from Master ven’Deelin?”
“Not the way I like to do business,” Sirge said slowly.
Jethri took a careful breath. “We can write an agreement,” he said.
The other brightened. “We can, can’t we? Make it all legal and binding. Sure, why not?” He took a swallow of ale and grinned. “Got paper?”
“NO, MA’AM,” Jethri said, some hours later, and as respectfully as he could, while giving his mother glare-for-glare. “I’m in no way trying to captain this ship. I just want to know if the final papers are signed with Digger.” His jaw muscles felt tight and he tried to relax them—to make his face trading-bland. “I think the ship owes me that information. At least that.”
“Think we can do better for you,” his mother the captain surmised, her mouth a straight, hard line of displeasure. “All right, boy. No, the final papers aren’t signed. We’ll catch up with Digger ’tween here and Kinaveral and do the legal then.” She tipped her head, sarcastically civil. “That OK by you?”
Jethri held onto his temper, barely. His mother’s mood was never happy, dirt-side. He wondered, briefly, how she was going to survive a whole year world-bound, while the Market was rebuilt.
“I don’t want to ship on Digger” he said, keeping his voice just factual. He sighed. “Please, ma’am—there’s got to be another ship willing to take me.”
She stared at him until he heard his heart thudding in his ears. Then she sighed in her turn, and spun the chair so she faced the screens, showing him profile.
“You want another ship,” she said, and she didn’t sound mad, anymore. “You find it.”
“NO CALLS FOR Jethri Gobelyn? No message from Sirge Milton?”
The barkeeper on-shift today at the Zeroground Pub was maybe a Standard Jethri’s elder. He was also twelve inches taller and out massed him by a factor of two. He shook his head, setting the six titanium rings in his left ear to chiming, and sighed, none too patient. “Kid, I told you. No calls. No message. No package. No Milton. No nothing, kid. Got it?”
Jethri swallowed, hard, the fractin hot against his palm. “Got it.”
“Great,” said the barkeep. “You wanna beer or you wanna clear out so a paying customer can have a stool?”
“Merebeer, please,” he said, slipping a bit across the counter. The keeper swept up the coin, went up-bar, drew a glass, and slid it down the polished surface with a will. Jethri put out a hand—the mug smacked into his palm, stinging. Carefully, he eased away from the not-exactly-overcrowded counter and took his drink to the back.
He was on the approach to trouble. Dodging his senior, sliding off-ship without the captain’s aye—approaching trouble, right enough, but not quite established in orbit. Khat was inventive—he trusted her to cover him for another hour, by which time he had better be on-ship, cash in hand and looking to show Uncle Paitor the whole.
And Sirge Milton was late.
A man, Jethri reasoned, slipping into a booth and setting his beer down, might well be late for a meeting. A man might even, with good reason, be an hour late for that same meeting. But a man could call the place named and leave a message for the one who was set to meet him.
Which Sirge Milton hadn’t done, nor sent a courier with a package containing Jethri’s payout, neither.
So, something must’ve come up. Business. Sirge Milton seemed a busy man. Jethri opened his pouch and pulled out the agreement they’d written yesterday, sitting at this very back booth, with Nance the bartender as witness.
Carefully, he smoothed the paper, read over the guarantee of payment. Two cantra was a higher buy-out than he had asked for, but Sirge had insisted, saying the profit would cover it, not to mention his ‘expectations.’ There was even a paragraph about being paid in the event that Sirge’s sure buyer was out of cash, citing the debt owed Sirge Milton, Trader, by Norn ven’Deelin, Master of Trade, as security.
It had all seemed clear enough yesterday afternoon, but Jethri thought now that he should have asked Sirge to take him around to his supplier, or at least listed the name and location of the supplier on the paper.
He had a sip of beer, but it tasted flat and he pushed the glass away. The door to the bar slid open, admitting a noisy gaggle of Terrans. Jethri looked up, eagerly, but Sirge was not among them. Sighing, he frowned down at the paper, trying to figure out a next move that didn’t put him on the receiving end of one of his uncle’s furious scolds.
Norn ven’Deelin, Master of Trade… The name looked odd, written out in Terran, approximating spelling across two alphabets that didn’t precisely match, edge-on-edge. Norn ven’Deelin, who had given his card—his name—into Sirge Milton’s keeping. Jethri blinked. Norn ven’Deelin, he thought, would very likely know how to get in touch with a person he held in such high esteem. With luck, he’d be inclined to share that information with a polite-talking ’prentice.
If he wasn’t inclined… Jethri folded his paper away and got out of the booth, leaving the beer behind. No use borrowing trouble, he told himself.
IT WAS LATE, but still day-Port, when he found the right office. At least, he thought, pausing across the street and staring at that damned bunny silhouetted against the big yellow moon, he hoped it was the right office. He was tired from walking miles in gravity, hot, gritty—but worse than any of that, he was scared. Norn ven’Deelin’s office—if this was at last his office—was well into the Liaden side of Port.
Not that there was properly a Terran side, Ynsolt’i being a Liaden world. But there were portions where Terrans were tolerated as a necessary evil attending galactic trade, and where a body caught the notion that maybe Terrans were cut some extra length of line, in regard to what might be seen as insult.
Standing across from the door, which might, after all, be the right one, Jethri did consider turning around, trudging back to the Market and taking the licks he’d traded for.
Except he’d traded for profit to the ship, and he was going to collect it. That, at least, he would show his senior and his captain, though he had long since stopped thinking that profit would buy him pardon.
Jethri sighed. There was dust all over his good trading clothes. He brushed himself off as well as he could, and looked across the street. It came to him that the rabbit on Clan Ixin’s sign wasn’t so much howling at that moon, as laughing its fool head off.
Thinking so, he crossed the street, wiped his boots on the mat, and pushed the door open.
THE OFFICE BEHIND the door was airy and bright, and Jethri was abruptly glad that he had dressed in trading clothes, dusty as they now were. This place was high-class—a body could smell profit in the subtly fragrant air, see it in the floor covering and the real wooden chairs.
The man sitting behind the carved center console was as elegant as the room: crisp-cut yellow hair, bland and beardless Liaden face, a vest embroidered with the moon-and-rabbit worn over a salt-white silken shirt. He looked up from his work screen as the door opened, eyebrows lifting in what Jethri had no trouble reading as astonishment.
“Good-day to you, young sir.” The man’s voice was soft, his Trade only lightly tinged with accent.
“Good-day, honored sir.” Jethri moved forward slowly, taking care to keep his hands in sight. Three steps from the console, he stopped and bowed, as low as he could manage without falling on his head.
“Jethri Gobelyn, apprentice trader, Gobelyn’s Market.” He straightened and met the bland blue eyes squarely. “I am come to call upon the Honored Norn ven’Deelin.”
“Ah.” The man folded his hands neatly upon the console. “I regret it is necessary that you acquaint me more nearly with your business, Jethri Gobelyn.”
Jethri bowed again, not so deep this time, and waited til he was upright to begin the telling.
“I am in search of a man—a Terran,” he added, half-amazed to hear no quaver in his voice—“named Sirge Milton, who owes me a sum of money. It was in my mind that the Honored ven’Deelin might be willing to put me in touch with this man.”
The Liaden frowned. “Forgive me, Jethri Gobelyn, but how came such a notion into your mind?”
Jethri took a breath. “Sirge Milton had the Honored ven’Deelin’s card in pledge of—”
The Liaden held up a hand, and Jethri gulped to a stop, feeling a little gone around the knees.
“Hold.” A Terran would have smiled to show there was no threat. Liadens didn’t smile, at least, not at Terrans, but this one exerted himself to incline his head an inch.
“If you please,” he said. “I must ask if you are certain that it was the Honored ven’Deelin’s own card.”
“I—the name was plainly written, sir. I read it myself. And the sigil was the same, the very moon-and-rabbit you yourself wear.”
“I regret.” The Liaden stood, bowed and beckoned, all in one fluid movement. “This falls beyond my area of authority. If you please, young sir, follow me.” The blue eyes met his, as if the Liaden had somehow heard his dismay at being thus directed deeper into alien territory. “House courtesy, Jethri Gobelyn. You receive no danger here.”
Which made it plain enough, to Jethri’s mind, that refusing to follow would be an insult. He swallowed, his breath going short on him, the Market suddenly seeming very far away.
The yellow haired Liaden was waiting, his smooth, pretty face uncommunicative. Jethri bowed slightly and walked forward as calmly as trembling knees allowed. The Liaden led him down a short hallway, past two closed rooms, and bowed him across the threshold of the third, open.
“Be at ease,” the Liaden said from the threshold. “I will apprise the master trader of your errand.” He hesitated, then extended a hand, palm up. “It is well, Jethri Gobelyn. The House is vigilant on your behalf.” He was gone on that, the door sliding silently closed behind him.
This room was smaller than the antechamber, though slightly bigger than the Market’s common room, the shelves set at heights he had to believe handy for Liadens. Jethri stood for a couple minutes, eyes closed, doing cube roots in his head until his heartbeat slowed down and the panic had eased back to a vague feeling of sickness in his gut.
Opening his eyes, he went over to the shelves on the right, half-trained eye running over the bric-a-brac, wondering if that was really a piece of Sofleg porcelain and, if so, what it was doing set naked out on a shelf, as if it were a common pottery bowl.
The door whispered behind him, and he spun to face a Liaden woman dressed in dark trousers and a garnet colored shirt. Her hair was short and gray, her eyebrows straight and black. She stepped energetically into the center of the room as the door slid closed behind her, and bowed with precision, right palm flat against her chest.
“Norn ven’Deelin,” she stated in a clear, level voice. “Clan Ixin."
Jethri felt the blood go to ice in his veins.
Before him, Norn ven’Deelin straightened and slanted a bright black glance into his face. “You discover me a dismay,” she observed, in heavily accented Terran. “Say why, do.”
He managed to breathe, managed to bow. “Honored Ma’am, I—I’ve just learned the depth of my own folly.”
“So young, yet made so wise!” She brought her hands together in a gentle clap, the amethyst ring on her right hand throwing light off its facets like purple lightning. “Speak on, young Jethri. I would drink of your wisdom.”
He bit his lip. “Ma’am, the—person—I came here to find—told me Norn ven’Deelin was—was male.”
“Ah. But Liaden names are difficult, I am learning, for those of Terran Code. Possible it is that your friend achieved honest error, occasioned by null-acquaintance with myself.”
“I’m certain that’s the case, Honored,” Jethri said carefully, trying to feel his way toward a path that would win him free, with no insult to the trader, and extricate Sirge Milton from a junior’s hopeless muddle.
“I—my friend—did know the person I mistakenly believed yourself to be well enough to have lent money on a Portweek investment. The—error—is all my own. Likely there is another Norn ven’Deelin in Port, and I foolishly—”
A tiny hand rose, palm out, to stop him. “Be assured, Jethri Gobelyn. Of Norn ven’Deelin there is one. This one.”
He had, Jethri thought, been afraid of that. Hastily, he tried to shuffle possibilities. Had Sirge Milton dealt with a go-between authorized to hand over his employer’s card? Had—
“My assistant,” said Norn ven’Deelin, “discloses to me a tale of wondering obfusion. I am understanding that you are in possession of one of my cards?”
Her assistant, Jethri thought, with a sudden sharpening of his wits on the matter at hand, had told her no such thing. She was trying to throw him off-balance, and startle him into revealing a weakness. She was, in fact, trading. Jethri ground his teeth and made his face smooth.
“No, ma’am,” he said respectfully. “What happened was that I met a man in Port who needed loan of a cantra to hold a deal. He said he had lent his liquid to—to Norn ven’Deelin, master trader. Of Clan Ixin. He said he was to collect tomorrow—today, midday, that would be—a guaranteed return of four-on-one. My—my payout contingent on his payout.” He stopped and did not bite his lip, though he wanted to.
There was a short silence, then, “Four-on-one. That is a very large profit, young Jethri.”
He ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am. I thought that. But he had the—the card of the—man—who had guaranteed the return. I read the name myself. And the clan sign—just like the one on your door and—other places on Port…” His voice squeaked out. He cleared his throat and continued.
“I knew he had to be on a straight course—at least on this deal—if it was backed by a Liaden’s card.”
“Hah.” She plucked something flat and rectangular from her sleeve and held it out. “Honor me with your opinion of this."
He took the card, looked down and knew just how stupid he’d been.
“So wondrously expressive a face,” commented Norn ven’Deelin. “Was this not the card you were shown, in earnest of fair dealing?”
He shook his head, remembered that the gesture had no analog among Liadens and cleared his throat again.
“No, ma’am,” he said as steady as he could. “The rabbit-and-moon are exactly the same. The
name—the same style, the same spacing, the same spelling. The stock was white, with black ink, not tan
with brown ink. I didn’t touch it, but I’d guess it was low-rag. This card is high-rag content…”
His fingers found a pattern on the obverse. He flipped the card over and sighed at the selfsame rabbit-and-moon, embossed into the card stock, then looked back to her bland, patient face.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
“So.” She reached out and twitched the card from his fingers, sliding it absently back into her sleeve. “You do me a service, young Jethri. From my assistant I hear the name of this person who has, yet does not have, my card in so piquant a fashion. Sirge Milton. This is a correctness? I do not wish to err.”
The ice was back in Jethri’s veins. Well he knew that Khat’s stories of blood vengeance were just that—fright tales to spice an otherwise boring hour. Still and all, it wasn’t done, to put another Terran in the way of Liaden Balance. He gulped and bowed.
“Ma’am, I—please. The whole matter is—is my error. I am the most junior of traders. Likely I misunderstood a senior and have annoyed yourself and your household without cause. I—”
She held up a hand, stepped forward and laid it on his sleeve.
“Peace, child. I do nothing fatal to your galandaria—your countryman. No pellet in his ear. No nitrogen replacing good air in an emergency tank. Eh?” Almost, it seemed to Jethri that she smiled.
“Such tales. We of the Clans listen in Port bars—and discover ourselves monsters.” She patted his arm, lightly. “But no. Unless he adopts a mode most stupid, fear not of his life.” She stepped back, her hand falling from his sleeve.
“Your own actions reside in correctness. Very much is this matter mine of solving. A junior trader could do no other, than bring such at once before me.
“Now, I ask, most humbly, that you accept Ixin’s protection in conveyance to your ship. It is come night-Port while we speak, and your kin will be distressful for your safety. Myself and yourself, we speak additionally, after solving.”
She bowed again, hand over heart, and Jethri did his best to copy the thing with his legs shaking fit to tip him over. When he looked up the door was closing behind her. It opened again immediately and the yellow-haired assistant stepped inside with a bow of his own.
“Jethri Gobelyn,” he said in his soft Trade, “please follow me. A car will take you to your ship.”
“SHE SAID SHE wouldn’t kill him,” Jethri said hoarsely. The captain, his mother, shook her head and Uncle Paitor sighed.
“There’s worse things than killing, son,” he said, and that made Jethri want to scrunch into his chair and bawl, like he had ten Standards fewer and stood about as tall as he felt.
What he did do, was take another swallow of coffee and meet Paitor’s eyes straight. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“You’ve got cause,” his uncle acknowledged.
“Double-ups on dock,” the captain said, looking at them both. “Nobody works alone. We don’t want trouble. We stay close and quiet and we lift as soon as we can without making it look like a rush.”
Paitor nodded. “Agreed.”
Jethri stirred, fingers tight ’round the coffee mug. “Ma’am, she—Master Trader ven’Deelin said she wanted to talk to me, after she—settled—things. I wouldn’t want to insult her.”
”None of us wants to insult her,” his mother said, with more patience than he’d expected. “However, a Master Trader is well aware that a trade ship must trade. She can’t expect us to hang around while our cargo loses value. If she wants to talk to you, boy, she’ll find you.”
“No insult,” Paitor added, “for a ’prentice to bow to the authority of his seniors. Liadens understand chain of command real well.” The captain laughed, short and sharp, then stood up.
“Go to bed, Jethri—you’re out on your feet. Be on dock second shift—” she slid a glance to Paitor. “Dyk?”
His uncle nodded.
“You’ll partner with Dyk. We’re onloading seed, ship’s basics, trade tools. Barge’s due Port-noon. Stick close, understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Wobbling, Jethri got to his feet, nodded to his seniors, put the mug into the wash-up and turned toward the door.
“Jethri.”
He turned back, thinking his uncle’s face looked—sad.
“I wanted to let you know,” Paitor said. “The spice did real well for us.”
Jethri took a deep breath. “Good,” he said and his voice didn’t shake at all. “That’s good.”
“OK,” SAID DYK, easing the forks on the hand-lift back. “Got it.” He toggled the impeller fan and nodded over his shoulder. “Let’s go, kid. Guard my back.”
Jethri managed a weak grin. Dyk was inclined to treat the double-up and Paitor’s even-voiced explanation of disquiet on the docks as a seam-splitting joke. He guided the hand-lift to the edge of the barge, stopped, theatrically craned both ways, flashed a thumbs-up over his shoulder to Jethri, who was lagging behind, and dashed out onto the Market’s dock. Sighing, Jethri walked slowly in his wake.
“Hey, kid, hold it a sec.” The voice was low and not entirely unfamiliar. Jethri spun.
Sirge Milton was leaning against a cargo crate, hand in the pocket of his jacket and nothing like a smile on his face.
“Real smart,” he said, “setting a Liaden on me.”
Jethri shook his head, caught somewhere between relief and dismay.
“You don’t understand,” he said, walking forward. “The card’s a fake.”
The man against the crate tipped his head. “Is it, now.”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve seen the real one, and it’s nothing like the one you’ve got.”
“So what?”
“So,” Jethri said patiently, stopping and showing empty hands in the old gesture of goodwill, “whoever gave you the card wasn’t Norn ven’Deelin. He was somebody who said he was Norn ven’Deelin and he used the card and her—the honor of her name—to cheat you.”
Sirge Milton leaned, silent, against the cargo bail.
Jethri sighed sharply. “Look, Sirge, this is serious stuff. The master trader has to protect her name. She’s not after you—she’s after whoever gave you that card and told you he was her. All you have to do—”
Sirge Milton shook his head, sorrowful, or so it seemed to Jethri. “Kid,” he said, “you still don’t get it, do you?” He brought his hand out of the pocket and leveled the gun, matter-of-factly, at Jethri’s stomach. “I know the card’s bogus, kid. I know who made it—and so does your precious master trader. She got the scrivener last night. She’d’ve had me this morning, but I know the back way outta the ’ground.”
The gun was high-gee plastic, snub-nosed and black. Jethri stared at it and then looked back at the man’s face.
Trade, he thought, curiously calm. Trade for your life.
Sirge Milton grinned. “You traded another Terran to a Liaden. That’s stupid, Jethri. Stupid people don’t live long.”
“You’re right,” he said, calmly, watching Sirge’s face and not the gun at all. “And it’d be real stupid for you to kill me. Norn ven’Deelin said I’d done her a service. If you kill me, she’s not going to have any choice but to serve you the same. You don’t want to corner her.”
“Jeth?” Dyk’s voice echoed in from the dock. “Hey! Jethri!”
“I’ll be out in a second!” he yelled, never breaking eye contact with the gunman. “Give me the gun.” he said, reasonably. “I’ll go with you to the master trader and you can make it right.”
“‘Make it right’,” Sirge sneered and there was a sharp snap as he thumbed the gun’s safety off.
“I urge you most strongly to heed the young trader’s excellent advice, Sirge Milton,” a calm voice commented in accentless Trade. “The master trader is arrived and balance may go forth immediately.”
MASTER VEN’DEELIN’S yellow-haired assistant walked into the edge of Jethri’s field of vision. He stood lightly on the balls of his feet, as if he expected to have to run. There was a gun, holstered, on his belt.
Sirge Milton hesitated, staring at this new adversary.
“Sirge, it’s not worth killing for,” Jethri said, desperately.
But Sirge had forgotten about him. He was looking at Master ven’Deelin’s assistant. “Think I’m gonna be some Liaden’s slave until I worked off what she claims for debt?” He demanded. “Liaden Port? You think I got any chance of a fair hearing?”
“The Portmaster—” the Liaden began, but Sirge cut him off with a wave, looked down at the gun and brought it around.
“No!” Jethri jumped forward, meaning to grab the gun, but something solid slammed into his right side, knocking him to the barge’s deck. There was a crack of sound, very soft, and Jethri rolled to his feet—
Sirge Mlton was crumbled face down on the cold decking, the gun in his hand. The back of his head was gone. Jethri took a step forward, found his arm grabbed and turned around to look down into the grave blue eyes of Master ven’Deelin’s assistant.
“Come,” the Liaden said, and his voice was not—quite—steady. “The master trader must be informed.”
THE YELLOW-HAIRED assistant came to an end of his spate of Liaden and inclined his head.
“So it is done.” Norn ven’Deelin said in Trade. “Advise the Portmaster and hold yourself at her word.”
“Master Trader.” The man swept a bow so low his forehead touched his knees, straightened effortlessly and left the Market’s common room with nothing like a backward look. Norn ven’Deelin turned to Jethri, sitting shaken between his mother and Uncle Paitor.
“I am regretful,” she said in her bad Terran, “that solving achieved this form. My intention, as I said to you, was not thus. Terrans—” She glanced around, at Paitor and the captain, at Dyk and Khat and Mel. “Forgive me. I mean to say that Terrans are of a mode most surprising. It was my error, to be think this solving would end not in dyings.” She showed her palms. “The counterfeit-maker and the, ahh— distributor—are of a mind, both, to achieve more seemly Balance.”
“Counterfeiter?” asked Paitor and Norn ven’Deelin inclined her head.
“Indeed. Certain cards were copied—not well, as I find—and distributed to traders of dishonor. These would then use the—the—melant’i—you would say, the worth of the card to run just such a shadow-deal as young Jethri fell against.” She sat back, mouth straight. “The game is closed, this Port, and I come now to Balance young Jethri’s service to myself.”
His mother shot a glance at Paitor, who climbed to his feet and bowed, low and careful. “We are grateful for your condescension, Master Trader. Please allow us to put paid, in mutual respect and harmony, to any matter that may lie between us—”
“Yes, yes,” she waved a hand. “In circumstance far otherwise, this would be the path of wisdom, all honor to you, Trader Gobelyn. But you and I, we are disallowed the comfort of old wisdom. We are honored, reverse-ward, to build new wisdom.” She looked up at him, black eyes shining.
“See you, this young trader illuminates error of staggering immensity. To my hand he delivers one priceless gem of data: Terrans are using Liaden honor to cheat other Terrans.” She leaned forward, catching their eyes one by one. “Liaden honor,” she repeated; “to cheat other Terrans.”
She lay her hand on her chest. “I am a master trader. My—my duty is to the increase of the trade. Trade cannot increase, where honor is commodity.”
“But what does this,” Dyk demanded, irrepressible, “have to do with Jethri?”
The black eyes pinned him. “A question of piercing excellence. Jethri has shown me this—that the actions of Liadens no longer influence the lives only of Liadens. Reverse-ward by logic follows for the actions of Terrans. So, for the trade to increase, wherein lies the proper interest of trader and master trader, information cross-cultural must increase.” She inclined her head.
“Trader, I suggest we write contract between us, with the future of Jethri Gobelyn in our minds.”
Uncle Paitor blinked. “You want to—forgive me. I think you’re trying to say that you want to take Jethri as an apprentice.”
Another slight bow of the head. “Precisely so. Allow me, please, to praise him to you as a promising young trader, strongly enmeshed in honor.”
“But I did everything wrong!” Jethri burst out, seeing Sirge Milton laying there, dead of his own choice, and the stupid waste of it…
“Regrettably, I must disagree,” Master ven’Deelin said softly. “It is true that death untimely transpired. This was not your error. Pen Rel informs to me your eloquence in beseeching Trader Milton to the path of Balance. This was not error. To solicit solving from she who is most able to solve—that is only correctness.” She showed both of her hands, palms up. “I honor you for your actions, Jethri Gobelyn, and wonder if you will bind yourself as my apprentice.”
He wanted it. In that one, searing moment, he knew he had never wanted anything in his life so much. He looked to his mother.
“I found my ship, Captain,” he said.
The number of high houses is precisely fifty.
And then there is Korval.
“I AM NOT worthy.”
Daav yos’Phelium bowed low. When he straightened, it was not to his full height, but with carefully rounded shoulders and half-averted face: a lesser being, faint with terror at his own audacity.
His mother would have laughed aloud at such obvious mummery. His delm—Korval Herself, she who held the future and life of each clanmember in her sedately folded hands—merely lifted an elegant golden eyebrow.
Daav schooled himself to stillness—small challenge for one who was a scout—face yet averted. He did not quite bite his lip, though the inclination was strong. Not all of his present display was artifice; it was no inconsiderable thing to bring Korval’s own Eye upon oneself, true-son though he be.
A full Standard minute passed before Korval shifted slightly in her chair.
“In the one face”, she said, reflectively, and in no higher mode than that of parent to child, “the question of how long you might stand there, cowed and silent, beguiles my closest interest. On the other face, it is Daav before me, and one cannot be certain but that this is a ploy engineered to rob us both of the pleasure of attending Etgora’s certain-to-be-tedious evening gather.” The mode shifted, and she was his delm once more, chin up and eyes no warmer than ice.
“Elucidate this sudden unworthiness. Briefly.”
Mode required that a petitioner accept the Delm’s Word with a bow. Daav did so, forehead brushing knees, and returned to the round-shouldered pose of inferiority.
“I have today received my quartershare accounting from dea’Gauss and with it certain documents needful of my attention. One of those documents was the Delm’s Formal Declaration of Heir, in which I discover myself named Korval-in-future.” He moved his shoulders, easing tension that was born not only of the unnatural posture.
“The information amazes?” Korval-in-present inquired. “Surely you are aware that you have been trained for the duty since you had sense of language.”
Daav inclined his head. “But I was not trained alone. Er Thom has been at my side, schooled as I was, word and gesture. We studied the same diary entries. We learned our equations at the same board. All in accordance with Delm’s Wisdom—that two be conceived and trained to the duty, to insure that Korval would have its delm, though yos’Phelium’s genes twice proved inadequate.”
He paused, daring a quick glance at his delm’s face from beneath modestly lowered lashes. No sign—of irritation, impatience, boredom. Or humor. Chi yos’Phelium had been a Scout herself before duty called her to delmhood, forty Standard years ago. Her face would reveal whatever she wished to show.
“Er Thom,” Daav murmured, “has a steady nature; his understanding of our history and our present necessities is entirely sound. Of course, he is a master pilot—indeed, his skill over-reaches my—”
Korval raised her hand.
“A discussion of your foster-brother’s excellencies is extraneous to the topic.” She lowered her hand. “Daav yos’Phelium professes himself unworthy to assume the duty he was bred and trained for, thus calling a Delm’s Decision into question—that is your chosen theme. Speak to it.”
Daav took a deep breath, bowed. She was correct— of course she was correct. A Delm could not be wrong, in matters of Clan. That the Delm had mis-chosen her heir was no fault of her judgement, but his own error, in withholding information she required. He had intended to speak ere she had chosen, but he had not expected her to have chosen so soon.
He came to his full height and met his delm’s chill eyes squarely.
“Perhaps, then, I should have put it that I am unfit for the duty. While I am off Liad, performing even the most tedious of tasks required by scout Headquarters, my temper is serene and my judgement sound. I am scarcely a day on the homeworld and I am awash in anger. People annoy me to the edge of endurance. Mode and measure grate my patience. I cannot say with any certainty that my judgement is sound. Indeed, I fear it is dangerously unsound.” He bowed again, buying time, for this next was difficult, for all it needed to be said.
“I had been to the Healers, last leave, and asked that the distemper be mended.”
“Ah,” said Korval. “And was it so?”
Daav felt his lips twitch toward a smile—most inappropriate when one was in conversation with one’s Delm—and straightened them with an effort..
“Master Healer Kestra,” he said, “was pleased to inform me that many people find Liadens irritating.”
“So they do,” his Delm agreed gravely. “Most especially do yos’Pheliums who have not yet attained their thirtieth name-day find Liadens annoying. If you will accept the experience of one who is your elder, I will certify that the annoyance does ease, with time.”
Daav bowed acceptance of an elder’s wisdom. “I would welcome instruction on how not to do a murder in the interim.”
Korval tipped her head, looking into his eyes with such intensity he thought she must see into his secret soul. It required effort, to neither flinch nor look away, but less effort—noticeably less effort—than had been required, even five years ago.
“As concerned as that,” Korval murmured and looked down at her folded hands, releasing him. She was silent for a few moments, then looked back to his face.
“Very well. The Delm will take her Decision under review.”
Daav felt his knees give, and covered the slight sag with a bow of gratitude.
“All very fine,” said Korval. “But I will not start you in the habit of questioning Delm’s Decision.”
“Of course not.” He bowed again, every line eloquent of respect.
“So very well-trained,” Korval murmured, rising from her chair. “It’s nothing short of marvelous.”
FROWNING, DAAV CONSIDERED the gun.
It was not a pretty gun, in the way meant by those who admired jeweled grips and platinum-chased cylinders. It was a functional gun, made to his own specifications and tuned by Master Marksman Tey Dor himself. It was also small, and could be hidden with equal ease in Daav’s sleeve or his palm.
Etgora’s evening-gather, now. It might please his mother to dismiss this evening’s affair as tedious, but the papers forwarded by dea’Gauss had shown that it was not so long ago that Clan Etgora and Clan Korval had come at odds—and when Balance was done, it was Korval who showed the profit.
Etgora had pretensions. A clan with its profit solidly in the star-trade, they had strained after High House status, and fell but a hand’s breadth short before the loss to Korval set them a dozen Standard years further back from the goal. There was bitterness in the House on that count, Daav did not doubt.
However, if Etgora wished to secure its teetering position as a high-tier Mid House, they must show a smooth face to adversity. Of course they would place Korval upon the most-honored guest list. They could not do otherwise and survive.
By the same logic of survival, Etgora would take utmost care that no slight or insult befell Korval while she was in their care.
Which meant that Daav, chancy tempered as he knew himself to be, might safely leave his hideaway in its custom-fitted box.
And yet….
“Might,” he murmured, slipping the little gun into his sleeve, “is not ought.”
He glanced to the mirror, smoothed the sleeve, twitched the lace at his throat, touched the sapphire in his right ear and made an ironic bow. His reflection—black-browed, lean and over-long—returned the salutation gracefully.
“Do try not to kill anyone tonight, Daav,” he told himself. “Murder would only make the evening more tedious.”
THEY WERE ADMITTED to Etgora’s townhouse and relieved of their cloaks by a supernaturally efficient servant, who then bowed them into the care of a child of the House.
She had perhaps twelve standards, hovering between child and halfling, and holding herself just a bit stiffly in her fine doorkeeper’s silks.
“Kesa del’Fordan Clan Etgora,” she sand, bowing prettily in the mode of Child of the House to Honored Guests. She straightened, brown eyes solemn with duty, and wanted for them to respond, according to Code and custom.
“Chi yos’Phelium,” his mother murmured, bowing as Guest to House Child, “Korval.”
The brown eyes widened slightly, but give her grace, Daav thought; she did not make the error of looking down to see Korval’s ring of rank for herself. Instead, she inclined her head, with composure commendable in one of twice her years, and looked to Daav.
He likewise bowed, Guest to House Child, and straightened without flourish.
“Daav yos’Phelium Clan Korval.”
Kesa inclined her head once more and completed the form.
“Ma’am and sir, be welcome in our house.” She paused, perhaps a heartbeat too long, then bowed. “If you would care to walk with me, I will bring you to my father.”
“Of your kindness,” his mother murmured and followed the child out of the welcoming parlor, Daav walking at the rear, as befit one of lesser rank who was likewise his Delm’s sole protection in a House not their own.
Kesa led them down a short, left-tending hallway, through an open gateway of carved sweetstone and out into an enclosed garden, and the full force of the evening gather.
Etgora, Daav observed, as he followed his mother and their guide down cunning, crowded walkways, was a Clan which addressed its projects with energy. Challenged to display a clean face to the world, it did not hesitate to bring the world together immediately for the purpose.
A more conservative Clan, Daav thought, his quick, Scout-trained eyes catching glimpses of an astonishing number of High Houselings among the crowd, would have invited Korval, of course, to this first gather since its failure, and perhaps one or two others of the High Houses, at most. Not so Etgora, who seemed to have formed the guest list almost entirely from the Fifty, with a few taken from the ranks of the higher Mid-Level Houses, for the purpose, Daav supposed, of filling out odd numbers.
Progress along the pathways was slow, what with so many acquaintances who must be acknowledged with a bow. Both Daav and his mother several times had to duck under gay strings of rainbow-colored streamers and the imported oddity of Terran-made balloons.
At long last, they achieved the center of the garden, where a man slightly younger and a good deal less elegant than his mother was speaking with apparent ease to no other than Lady yo’Lanna. Daav owned himself impressed. Lady yo’Lanna was his mother’s oldest friend among her peers in the High Houses, and he held her in quite as much awe now as he had at six.
“Father,” Kesa bent deeply, the full bow of clanmember to Delm, and straightened self-consciously, shoulders stiff beneath her finery.
“Your pardon, good ma’am,” the gentleman murmured, and, receiving Lady yo’Lanna’s half-bow of permission, turned to face them.
“Kesa, my child, who have you brought me?”
“Father, here is Chi yos’Phelium, Korval, and Daav yos’Phelium Clan Korval,” the child said in the very proper mode of Introduction. She turned and bowed, House-Child to Guests. “Honoreds, here is my father, Hin Ber del’Fordan, Etgora.”
So Kesa’s father was Etgora Himself. It explained much, Daav thought, from the unexpected youth of the door guardian to her stiff determination to observe every mode precisely.
“Korval, you do me honor!” Etgora swept the bow between equals—theoretically true, between Delms, Daav thought wryly—and augmented it with the trader’s hand-sign for “master,” a nice touch, drawing on the common trading background of both Houses while publicly acknowledging Korval’s superiority.
His mother, Daav saw, was inclined to be amused by their host’s little audacity. She bowed just short of full Equal, accepting the master status Etgora acknowledged.
“To be welcome in the house of an ally is joy,” she said clearly into the sudden nearby silence. She straightened and extended a hand to touch Daav’s sleeve.
“One’s son, Etgora.”
“Lord yos’Phelium.” The bow this time was Delm to child of an Ally’s House: High Mode, indeed, but carried well, and necessitating, alas, the rather tricksy Child of a Delm to an Ally as the most precise response. He straightened in time to see his mother incline her head to Lady yo’Lanna.
“Ilthiria, I find you well?”
“As well as one can be in this crush. Etgora is proud of his achievement—and justly so!—but you and I know how to value an empty garden.”
Had he been less well-trained, Daav would have winced in sympathy for Kesa’s father. Lady yo’Lanna, it seemed, was not entirely at one with her host.
The pale eyes moved, pinning him. “Young Daav, newly at leave from the Scouts.”
He bowed, lightly. “I have no secrets from you, ma’am.”
“Do you not?” Her eyebrows rose. “Then come to me tomorrow and whisper in my ear the tale of how a certain mutual acquaintance came to break his arm in mid-Port evening before last.”
Damn. He bowed again, aware of his mother’s gaze on the side of his suddenly warm face.
“If that is your wish, then how can I deny you?”
“Very properly said,” Etgora interjected. “And who better to know Port gossip than a Scout, who are said to have ears in every cranny?” He turned, spied his daughter, yet standing stiffly to one side.
“Kesa, my jewel. Lord yos’Phelium will wish to reacquaint himself with his age-mates, as he is just returned from the Scouts. Pray show him to the Sunset Garden—and then you may refresh yourself.”
He turned to Daav.
“Card tables have been set out, sir, and other light amusements. Please, be easy in our House.”
He flicked a glance at his mother, who inclined her head.
“Amuse yourself, Daav, do. Etgora will wish to walk Ilthiria and myself through his garden. I will require your arm in two hours.”
“Ma’am.” He bowed obedience to the Delm, then a general leave-taking to Lady yo’Lanna and Etgora. This done, he bowed once more, very gently, and offered his arm to Kesa del’Fordan, “Lady Kesa, will you walk with me?”
She hesitated fractionally, brown eyes lifting to his face in a child’s straight look of assessment. Whatever she saw convinced her that he was not having fun at her expense, for she stepped forward and put her hand lightly on his sleeve.
“Certainly, I will walk with you,” she said, unselfconsciously. “How else may I show you to the Sunset Garden?”
“Very true,” Daav replied gravely. From the edge of his eye, he saw Etgora offer an arm and his mother take it. “In which direction shall we walk, then, Lady?”
“This,” she said, moving a hand to the west, belatedly adding, “Of your goodness.”
The pathways toward sunset were somewhat less crowded than those they had followed from the house. That was not to say, Daav thought, that the paths were empty or that the garden reposed in tranquility.
He bowed briefly to Lady pel’Nyan and moved on, Kesa del’Fordan silent on his arm. Etgora, he considered, had come a fair way to making a recover. Lady yo’Lanna’s attendance had of course assured the attendance of several other Houses of rank. And if she were inclined to smile upon Etgora…
Or, Daav thought suddenly, if Ilthiria yo’Lanna attended at the request of her old friend Chi yos’Phelium, Delm of the ancient ally of her House? Oh, yes, that fit well. Especially when one heard one’s mother declaring herself comforted in the presence of an ally. Korval had never taken allies easily, to the benefit, mostwise, of the more conservative Clans.
Daav made a mental note to review the Summary of Balance dea’Gauss had sent more closely. He had missed the reason that Etgora was thought necessary to the interests of Korval. Presumption had, of course, been answered, but it seemed that the upstart clan could not be allowed entirely to sink. Thus, this gather, with its theme of courteous and charming commonsense, and everyone of consequence in attendance.
In consideration of which, Daav said to himself, you are in arrears of your duty.
He tipped his head, assessing his companion from beneath his lashes. She looked pale, he thought, and her jaw was definitely clenched too tightly for fashion. Her shoulders moved like boards beneath the pretty silk tunic and the hand that rested against his sleeve put no pressure on his arm at all.
He cleared his throat gently and smiled when she looked up, startled.
“I hope you will allow me to commend your performance as House Guard,” he murmured. “I am persuaded that you stand the duty often.”
Kesa blushed, lashes flickering. “Not,” she said, somewhat faintly, “so very often.” She paused, glancing aside, then looked back to his face.
“In fact,” she said, rather breathlessly, “this evening is the first time I have stood between the House and the world. It is—it has been my brother’s duty, you know—he is the elder—but, this evening, he… He asked our father for other work.”
“Very proper in him,” Daav murmured, noting her hesitation and drawing the conclusion that Kesa’s brother’s “ask” had very little of “if-you-please” about it. “So this was your first time a House Guard? I am all admiration. Well I remember my first time at the door—a mere dinner party, nothing like what we have here!—and I was wishing for nothing but my bed before even half the guests were arrived!”
She actually laughed, and Daav ducked as they passed beneath a string of balloons and streamers.
Kesa paused, frowning up at him and the balloons just behind his head.
“I do not—you are very tall, are you not? I recall my father said that Korval is a tall Clan. He—Jen Dal was to have made certain the lines were strung well above—but I am certain,” she said in a sudden rush, “that he could not have realized that, that—”
“That the pickpocket who wishes to rob Korval must bring his own stepladder,” Daav said lightly, rescuing her from what could only be an unfortunate culmination of her sentence.
Kesa frowned. “I do not entirely—”
“Ah, Daav! I had heard the Scouts had released you to us!”
The voice was lovely, as was the lady. Two years ago, he had been besotted with both. He was no longer besotted, but he was indebted to her for a lesson well-delivered and equally well-learned, and so he bowed, with courtesy.
“Bobrin, good evening to you.”
She returned his bow, eyes teasing his face, then straightened, one hand rising to her flower-braided hair. Her eyes left his face, and found Kesa.
“It is Etgora’s daughter, is it not?”
Kesa bowed low—Child of the House to Honored Guest. “Kesa del’Fordan, Lady del’Pemridj.”
“Just so.” Bobrin inclined her beflowered head, then shot Daav a glance of pure mischief. “Take advice and walk carefully with this one, House-daughter. Daav—” she paused, likely on the edge of more specific mischief. Daav met her eye squarely, and had the satisfaction of seeing her look aside.
“Daav,” she said, “Good evening.”
She swept down the path and Daav became aware that he was gritting his teeth. Deliberately, he relaxed his jaw and looked down at his companion.
Kesa was staring after Bobrin, brown eyes wide. After a moment, she sighed and glanced up at Daav.
“She is a very beautiful lady. I—do you think when I am grown I might wear flowers in my hair?”
When you are grown, Daav thought, my hope is that you will care more for other matters—even for what I deduce is your scapegrace brother—than for the dressing of your hair.
Her look, however, was appealing—and she was, after all, a child—so he swallowed his initial answer and instead looked about with wide amaze, flinging his arm out.
“Why, here we are in the very heart of a garden! What is to prevent you from having flowers in your hair this instant, if you wish it?”
“I—” She, too, stared about, as if she just now realized their setting, then looked back to his face.
“No one, that is, I have yet to learn the—the proper manner in which to place flowers in the hair.”
“Ah, there you are fortunate,” Daav said gaily. “I have some training in the placement of hair-ornaments. Perhaps you will allow me to be of service to you.”
The brown eyes took fire. “Would you? I—I would be in your debt.”
“Not a bit of it.” Daav said stoutly. “It is a pleasure to share my skill. Now, which flowers will you have?”
She moved to the edge of the walk, staring at the orderly rows of blossom. “That, if you please,” she said, pointing to a low, spike-leafed shrub. Its indigo blooms were flat and multi-petalled, noteworthy without being ostentatious, and a good match for the silk Doorkeeper’s tunic.
“Excellent,” Daav murmured approvingly and bent to pluck one. The stem was woody, but broke easily. “Yes, very good. Now, my Lady, if you will step over here, so that we do not impede traffic while this very delicate operation is performed…”
Kesa stepped to his side, Daav inclined his head to Lord Andresi—another of his mother’s cronies—who smiled and passed on without comment.
“Now, then,” Daav said. “I will wish you to stand very tall, but not at all stiffly. True beauty is never ill at ease. Very good. A moment, now, while I discover the perfect placement—yes, I believe so.” He hesitated, flower poised. “Be easy, Lady Kesa, but as still as you may—”
He moved, Scout-quick, smoothing her thick brown hair with one hand while he slid the flower home just above her right ear.
“Let us be certain that it is well-anchored,” Daav said, hands hovering. “Move your head now—look up at me. Ah—”
“Stand away from my sister!”
The voice was, of course, too loud. Had the phrase been whispered it would have been too loud, at this gather. Daav sighed and glanced up.
The young man bearing down on them had something of Etgora’s look to him, albeit Etgora in an ugly pet. He had, Daav judged, about twenty Standard years.
“Calm yourself, sir,” Daav said moderately. “I am doing your sister no harm.”
“I will be the judge of that, sir!” the other snapped. “As kinsman, I—”
“Jen Dal, be still!” Kesa flung about—the flower stayed firmly in place, Daav saw with pleasure. “There’s nothing amiss.” She swallowed and glanced back to Daav. “Lord yos’Phelium, here is my brother Jen Dal del’Fordan. Jen Dal, here is Daav yos’Phelium Clan—”
“I know who he is,” Jen Dal said awfully. “Sir, you have not yet put yourself at a decent distance from my sister.” Kesa made a sound rather like a splutter, which Daav interpreted as outrage. Her brother spared her a single withering glance.
“Be still, Kesa. This is a matter of honor.”
“If it’s a matter of my honor,” Kesa said, with spirit, “then I should judge the damage and the price, not you.”
“Completely by Code,” Daav said, uneasily aware that they were attracting a crowd.
The young gentleman stared at him, eyes hard with hatred. So, thought Daav, the balloons were not strung so low by accident. Here’s one who has taken Etgora’s fall as a blow to his heart, and cannot see ’ round his anger to the greater good of the house.
“My sister is a child, sir. It is as ludicrous to expect her to know proper Code as it is to expect her to know all the faces of harm.”
Daav drew a breath, trying to still the quick flare of anger. For Kesa’s sake, for the sake of Etgora’s value to Korval, he would not lose his temper. He would quell this self-important upstart and dismiss him, then disperse the growing crowd of the curious. He was Chi yos’Phelium’s son. These things were not beyond him.
“Sir, your concern for your kin does you credit. However, I feel that you have allowed an elder sibling’s natural partiality—”
Jen Dal del’Fordan turned his face away.
“Kesa,” he said, as if Daav had finished speaking—no, as if Daav had never begun to speak!—“pray remove yourself from the proximity of this—person.”
Tears filled the brown eyes. “Jen Dal, he is our guest! I am quite unharmed, Lord yos’Phelium was only placing a flower in my hair, as I asked him to do!” There was a ripple through those gathered at that, but Jen Dal was unmoved.
“This man is son of a House with a long history of predation among the lesser Houses. I will not see him attack my kin. He will—”
Oh, gods, Daav thought, suddenly seeing the destination of the farce. You fool! He leaned forward and touched Kesa lightly on the sleeve.
“Lady, your brother is correct. You cannot stay this.”
For a heartbeat, the brown eyes searched his face, then she stepped back, bowed fully—House child to Honored Guest—and turned, she walked away as sedately as one with years of negotiation behind her, and the crowd parted to let her through.
“You, sir,” Jen Dal del’Fordan cried, “will satisfy the honor of my House!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Daav said, voice stringently calm, despite the anger trembling within. “The honor of your House is intact, as you well know.”
“I know nothing of the sort. Korval destroys Clans as casually as I pluck a flower.” The last was said with a sneer and Daav caught his breath at the sheer, blinding stupidity of the man. Did he not know that even now Korval and Etgora were mending the damage given his Clan? Did he not know that with Korval’s patronage and the smiles of the High Houses, Etgora would recover its loss and reap new profits before Kesa signed her first Contract lines?
“You do your sister an injustice—you call her honor and her understanding into question before all these.”
He threw an arm out, showing the so-quiet crowd damming the pathway. “Is this the path a brother treads, in the task of keeping his kin safely? Your understanding is at fault in this, sir. Neither Etgora nor Etgora’s children has taken lasting harm from Korval. Have done and stand away.”
Jen Dal del’Fordan smiled. “And I say,” he returned, voice, without doubt, pitched to carry far into the gardens, “that Korval has tainted Etgora’s honor. Everyone here has heard me. I will have satisfaction, sir!”
Fool! Daav raged, forcing himself to breathe deeply. He bowed, deliberately, in the mode of Master to Novice, taking a savage satisfaction in the gasp from the crowd.
“Call the House’s dueling master,” he said, and his voice was not-quite-steady. “I will satisfy you.”
From tine corner of his eye, he saw the crowd waver and reform with Etgora and his mother in the first rank. His mother’s face was very calm.
THE CARD TABLES in the sunset Glade had been hastily removed to make room for the combatants. Clan Etgora’s dueling master bowed to Daav.
“My Lord yos’Phelium. As the one challenged, you may choose the weapons of the duel. The House can provide pistols, swords, knives, or Turing forks from its own arsenal. If you wish a weapon we do not own, the House will acquire a matched set of the weapon of your choice, within reason. If it appears, in the judgement of the Master of the Duel, that your weapon has been chosen with an eye to indefinitely postponing this duel, you will be required to choose another weapon. Is this understood, sir?”
“It is.” Daav closed his eyes, briefly considering edges and explosives, bludgeons, the perfectly tuned gun in his sleeve, but—no. Such weapons were insufficiently potent; they limited one to the infliction of mere physical damage. He required—he would have—a fuller Balance.
Daav opened his eyes and pointed at the gaily colored balloons, strung on their strings at the edge of the glade.
“There is my weapon of choice, sir. If the House is able, let a dozen of those be filled with water and let both my opponent and I choose three. Can this be done?”
The dueling master bowed. “Indeed it can. And the distance?”
“Twelve paces, I believe,” Daav said, counting the moves. “Yes, that will do.”
“Very well,” said the dueling master and went away to give instructions.
The balloons arrived in very short order and were placed, carefully, on the lawn. A murmur rose up from the crowd—and an outcry from Daav’s opponent.
“What is this? Toys? Do you consider a challenge from Etgora a matter for mockery, sir? Dueling master! Take these insults away, sir, and bring us the matched set in the mahogany case!”
The dueling master bowed. “The rules of the duel state clearly that weapons are the choice of the challenged, sir. Lord yos’Phelium has chosen balloons filled with water, at twelve paces. He is within both his rights and the bounds of the duel.”
“I will not—” began Jen Dal, but it was Etgora who spoke up from the sidelines.
“Do you know, my son, I think you will? Lord yos’Phelium has made his choice. Plainly, he is a man who stands by his decisions, no matter how foolish they may appear. I would counsel you to do the same.”
“Lord yos’Phelium,” said the Master of Duel, “choose your weapons.”
Daav stepped forward, knelt in the grass and picked up the first balloon. It was not quite as firm as he wished and he set it aside. The second pleased him and he cradled that one in his arm. The third…
“Will you hurt him?” Kesa asked from his side. He glanced at her, unsmiling.
“I do not think these will hurt him, though that is always a danger, in a duel.”
“But you will make him ridiculous,” said Kesa. “Jen Dal hates to be laughed at.”
“Many people do,” Daav said, finding his third weapon in the seventh balloon. He tucked it neatly in the cradle of his left arm and rose to his feet. “Stand clear of the firing range, Lady Kesa. Of your kindness.”
She hesitated a moment longer, throwing one of her disconcertingly direct looks at his face. Then she bowed, simply, as between equals, and walked sedately to her father’s side, in the first rank of spectators.
Daav waited while his opponent randomly picked his weapons, then stomped to the center of the field, the balloons wriggling and threatening to leap from his ineptly crossed arms.
The dueling master held his hands over his head.
“The contestants will count off six paces each, turn and stand steady. First shot to the challenged. A hit is counted only on a strike to the body of one’s opponent. The affair is finished when each contestant has expended his ammunition. The win goes to the contestant who has taken the least hits, or to he who draws first blood. In case of tie, Lady yo’Lanna shall decide the victor.” He lowered his hands and stepped back.
“Gentlemen, turn. Count off. One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Turn! Lord yos’Phelium, fire at will.”
Deftly, Daav plucked a balloon from the cradle of his arm, gauged its flow, probable spin and mass—and threw.
The balloon elongated, caught up with itself, tumbled once and hit Jen Dal’s tunic, dead center, with a satisfying splat. Someone in the crowd laughed, and quickly stopped.
“This is a farce!” shouted Jen Dal.
“It is a duel,” the master returned sternly. “Attend, if you please, sir. The shot is yours.”
Jen Dal clumsily tipped his balloons onto his off-hand, snatched one free, holding it firmly—as it happened, a bit too firmly, for the sphere exploded, showering him with water.
Ignoring the resulting curses, the dueling master looked to Daav, who sent his next balloon high into Jen Dal’s left shoulder.
The dueling master had scarcely given his sign before the sodden young man had snatched up his second balloon—somewhat less robustly—and hurled it in Daav’s direction.
It was a good throw, only missing by twelve or fifteen inches.
Daav weighed his last balloon in his hand and considered deloping.
“A duel with toys and water,” Jen Dal del’Fordan called from his position. “Korval takes good care that it spills no blood for honor.”
The balloon was airborne before Daav had taken conscious thought. It sped, hard and true, and struck his opponent precisely in the nose.
Jen Dal howled, dropped his remaining balloon and bent double, both hands rising to his face. Med-techs rushed in from the sidelines and the dueling master raised his hands above his head.
“Lord yos’Phelium has drawn first blood! The duel is done!”
“HOWEVER DID YOU hit upon water balloons?” his mother inquired some time later, in the privacy of Jelaza Kazone’s upstairs parlor.
“Something I read of Terran custom,” Daav said hazily. “You know what Scouts are, ma’am!”
“Indeed I do,” she replied, sipping wine and looking out into the peaceful night-time garden.
Abruptly, she turned from the window. “Daav, I am persuaded you did right to speak to the Delm about your worthiness to stand Korval.”
He froze, heart rising into his throat. She had seen! Observing the duel with Korval’s Own Eyes, she had seen his error. She understood that at the moment of decision he had not acted for the good of the Clan but from his own sense of injury, exacting a Balance—a Balance brutal of a halfling’s dignity.
Worse, he had gained an enemy of his own rank—for he had heard, later, that Jen Dal was Etgora’s heir—who hated him now, and would surely hate him when they both came Delm-high. All his mother’s careful work, undone. Undone, because Daav could not put the good of all before his own bad temper.
It must be Er Thom, now, he thought. With Er Thom as Korval, Etgora may deal without malice, saving only I’m kept sanely out of sight…
Belatedly, he became aware of his mother’s eyes upon him, and bowed. “Ma’am….”
She raised her hand. “Speak not. I will tell you that the Delm has reviewed her Decision, based on what she has seen of your understanding and judgment this evening. You acted as well as inexperience might, preserving both Etgora’s heir and the peace between our Houses. with age will come… tidier… solutions.” She smiled faintly.
“You are na’delm, my son. Korval-to-be. I trust you will not feel it necessary to revisit the matter. I doubt you will find the Delm so accommodating again.”
He stared, speechless. She had seen with Delm’s Eyes, but she had not understood. Korval Herself had erred in a matter of Clan. He moved his head, trying to clear his vision, which was abruptly indistinct.
His mother moved forward, smile deepening. “Don’t look so stricken, child,” she said gently. “You’ll do very well.” She raised a hand to cup his cheek. “Or at least as well as any of us have.”