Guilt Edged Ivory

by Doris Egan

  "For the love of heaven, Ky!" I glanced over toward Ran and Lysander, who were continuing the conversation by themselves.

  She smiled unrepentently. "You know, I never thought of you as having any nurturing instincts whatsoever. Or not till that afternoon my robe got stuck in the door at the jewelry shop and you spent the hour shaking keys over Shez's carriage to stop her wailing."

  "It had to be done."

  "And making noises like a ship taking off—"

  "All right, Ky."

  "Somehow I'd just never pictured you having such a good time with the next generation."

  "I know." Kylla saw me as the kind of person who'd mix up the pram with the grocery bags and send the baby off for delivery because I was too busy thinking of which third-person form to use in a translation.

  She kissed me again, then went to the low table by the wall and picked up a wrapped bouquet of flowers that I hadn't noticed before. She grabbed and swung them without respect for their delicacy, as though they were a frying pan.

  "What are they?" I asked. "I've never seen them before."

  She brought the bouquet over for me to inspect. "I don't know their name," she said, "but they're in season now. Lysander bought them for me on the way here."

  They were a violet blue, made up of masses of perfect, tiny petals that fooled the eye into thinking they were a single entity from a distance. A rich scent rose in a cloud from the wrappings. "They're wonderful! There must be hundreds of petals. Ran, what are they called?"

  "No idea," said Ran.

  Kylla bent over and patted my hand with friendly patron-ization. "We're all glad you like them, Theo. Ran, buy this woman more gifts. If a few flowers get her this excited, she must be deprived. When's the last time you gave her jewelry?"

  Ran stopped and thought. "I don't think I ever have."

  "Great gods," said Lysander, revealing volumes about his own relationship. After a moment he said, "What do you do when she's mad at you?"

  "If she's been angry with me, she hasn't told me. Theodora, have you been angry with me?"

  I said, "Not since that time in the Sector last summer. And neither of us had any opportunity to go shopping then."

  Kylla said, "Brother, rectify this matter. I speak as one with your interests at heart. Come along, Lysander."

  Her husband followed her to the door. "Ran, you'll let me know—"

  "I'll keep you up to date," Ran assured him.

  They left. Ran said to me, "If we want to interview the security guard, we'll probably have to get to his office early tomorrow, before his shift starts. That means rising at dawn."

  "Kanz, komo, and the destruction of profit." He was unsurprised at my immediate profanity; Ran knows I hate to get up early. Mentally I revised my schedule: I'd discuss the Tolla's offer with him tomorrow night—otherwise we'd be up till dawn debating it, and I'd be a wreck in the morning.

  "Want to hear about my tests on the ring?" he asked.

  "Tomorrow," I said.

  "Want to tell me about your meeting with the Telly-sian ambassador?"

  "Tomorrow."

  He walked over, knelt by the chaise, and put his head on my thigh. My hand went out to his hair, thick and soft. He lifted his face. "Don't tell me you're tired already. The night is young."

  The night wasn't all that was young. He slid his hands up to the drawstring that held my underpants, removing them without disturbing the silk of my outerrobe, a rewarding but complicated movement that required my cooperation. For a moment the memory of what he'd said the other night flashed through my mind, about my sexual performance. Just the sort of thing a self-conscious barbarian doesn't need to remember. At once he said, "What is it?"

  "Nothing. Please don't let me interrupt you."

  He chuckled and completed the maneuver. When he was finished, I said, "Ghost Eve before last, you gave me a necklace of caneblood with a jade pendant."

  He'd stood up as I spoke. Now he bent over. Just before his lips came down on mine he said, "I wish you'd thought of that while Kylla was in the room."

  Loden Broca Mercia, security guard with the Mercia firm, was on the day shift of his current assignment. He reported into the Mercia office on the corner of Gold Street and Luster at two hours after dawn—and dawn comes early in the summer. I was not at my keenest edge of awareness, to make my point more plain.

  The offices were small and bare, only to be expected, I suppose, of a place where people were mostly sent out to work in other locations. No windows, only some vents and a ceiling fan to redistribute the heat. The building was old, modified for power packs in the visitor's area but with the smell of oil lamps coming from the other rooms.

  I sat on a bench, nodding, while Ran established the following facts with the Mercia branch head: That the Por-aths had hired a full dozen guards, spread over two shifts, with livery modified for the occasion. Five of these guards had been on the boat when Kade went swimming. (Between five guards and Eliana's personal fighting chaperone, Loden Broca had probably been right when he'd told Kade his sister was in no great danger.)

  Loden Broca, as his name implies, was of the House but not the family of Mercia—a firm of good reputation, small, but listed on the registry of fine Houses in the Golden Virtue Administration Building in the Capital Triangle. Still, what did that prove? Go into the Capital Triangle with enough coinage, and you can get anything listed anywhere. The Beggar Monopoly, the House of Helad, was top of the registry, from what I'd heard; they threw enough money at government officials that they were supporting the entire city police force. Anyway, that was the rumor. But the Mercia Guard Firm had a good reputation by word of mouth as well, and that was more to be relied upon than any official writings.

  Loden Broca had joined the House of Mercia two years ago, after paying for and receiving their course of education in Mercia security techniques. He was about twenty standard years old. The average age of the guards on duty at the Poraths' had been thirty-one; the average length of service, eight years. (Ran always likes to go for the numbers. Sometimes they come in handy.) Loden Broca was apparently just starting his career. As his branch supervisor made plain, losing the first son of the family one is protecting was not a good way to begin.

  "He's on probation," said Supervisor Ben Mercia, a trim, gray-haired man somewhere near his fifties. (Of House and family both, my reflexes pointed out at once; how far could you advance in this particular organization without snagging an adoption? Maybe Loden Broca should look into another line of work.) "I can assure you we're dealing with the matter appropriately, gracious sir. Every man on duty that day is undergoing a performance review. If Lord Por-ath wants to initiate disciplinary action—"

  "That's not why we've come," said Ran.

  "We've already returned our fee—our entire fee, not just that day's. But in plain fact, not every contingency can be anticipated. We offer no guarantees. If Lord Porath wants a face-price, I can only point out that first, we would never be able to pay the equivalent of a first son, and second, that this act would not make him popular with other security agencies or indeed other Houses—firms would be reluctant to sell their protection if they were to be held responsible for every… odd circumstance… that arose—"

  The words were rolling out like an opened bag of marbles. Ran gave up trying to find an opening and simply overrode him. "We're not here for that purpose, sir. We only wanted to ask a few questions of you, Loden Broca, and possibly some of the other guards on duty that day. That's it. Any reference to monetary arrangements will have to be gone into with the House of Porath itself."

  Ben Mercia stared at Ran suspiciously. "You said you represented the Poraths."

  "Not monetarily."

  The suspicious look remained. "Grant me your indulgence, gracious sir. I'll return in a moment." The supervisor turned and went into another room, closing the door behind him.

  Ran sat down beside me on the bench.

  "He's checking us out," I said.

  "I tho
ught you were fast asleep," he replied. "The sound of your snores was making conversation difficult."

  "What lies you tell. No wonder the man doesn't trust you." I closed my eyes again, my head leaning against the old plaster wall. "Anyway, I wasn't asleep; I was just—"

  "Resting your eyes, I know." Suddenly he jabbed me in the side.

  I didn't respond. "Ran, I can't keep you entertained every single moment."

  "No, look, open your eyes."

  I did so. Loden Broca had just entered the anteroom to our left. Another man was with him, slightly older, and familiar-looking. I said quietly, "The other one—was he on duty, too?"

  Ran frowned, remembering. "He directed our carriage driver the night of the garden party. And I think he was on the boat."

  "Let's talk to them both, as long as we've got them."

  He nodded. "The supervisor better finish his checking before they leave for their assignments."

  Loden Broca had curly, wind-tousled brown hair, a jaunty step, and a quirky half-smile that he bestowed on the dispatcher as he was handed his schedule for the day. It was the sort of half-smile that suggests all this paperwork is a joke, but he'll be tolerant enough to go along with it. A few short encounters don't make a secure base to speculate, but I had the strong impression that Loden Broca was one of those men who do not like authority as it applies to themselves.

  I recalled that when we were first entering the pleasure boat, Kylla had made some remarks about his being extraordinarily good looking. I watched him closely as he touched his companion on the shoulder, making a joke. He was handsome, certainly, and I remembered that his eyes were particularly fine, but her comments seemed far beyond his desserts—more appropriate to a young god than a nice-looking boy on a planet that was overrun with vibrant and beautiful people. Ran put him in the shade.

  Ben Mercia's door opened. He nodded to us, then called, "Loden! Trey! Come in here!" He turned to Ran and said, "Trey Lesseret was on the Porath detail as well; I thought you might want to speak with him."

  It's nice to be anticipated. "Thank you," said Ran, as though it were no more than his due, and he added, "I trust I do not keep you from your duties." It would be easier to question them away from their supervisor.

  "Not at all," said Ben Mercia, sinking down on the bench by the window with what was almost a smirk. "I'm happy to stay and be of help."

  "Commendable." Ran rose to exchange polite bows with the two men entering the room. I got to my feet as well and made that incline of the head appropriate in the wife of a first of Cormallon, rather than the smile and matching bow I sometimes made in the course of easier social en-

  counters. I'm not really sure why; but I didn't feel at home in the Mercia Guard Service building, and wanted all the formal status I could get. I saw from a brief look that Ran took notice of my choice of greeting. "Loden Broca Mercia, Trey Lesseret Mercia, we've met briefly before. I'm Ran Cormallon, here on behalf of Lord Jusik Porath. This is my—" Wife? Assistant? "—colleague, Theodora Cormallon." And let them make what they will of the last name.

  "Honored by this meeting," said Trey Lesseret, and Loden Broca mumbled the same after him. Lesseret had at least a half-dozen years on his friend; he looked to be brushing thirty, a little shorter and stockier than Loden Broca, who was muscled, but on the slender side. Lesseret was paler, too, and his hazel eyes squinted toward us as though we were standing in the sun instead of with our backs against the wall of a windowless room in a cheaper quarter of the capital. He put one foot up on the boot-polisher stool by the bench. "Take it you're here about Lord Porath's boy."

  "Boy" was debatable, coming from him. Kade and he were probably of an age, though Lesseret looked as though he'd packed more experience into the time than the ex-first-son of Porath had.

  "Yes," said Ran, "a terrible tragedy."

  "Terrible," agreed Lesseret, adding briskly, "so how can I help you, gracious sir?"

  "My colleague and I are trying to get a better idea of what happened. Physically, I mean, in terms of placement. Who was where. Anything anybody saw."

  "I was in the lounge most of the time," Lesseret said at once. "My house-brother here was above-deck for a bit, having a smoke—" he gestured toward Loden Broca—"but I stayed by the musicians for the whole trip. Get a better view of the salon that way, you know."

  I said, "So you would more or less remember where people were?"

  He turned to me. "More, rather than less, gracious lady. It's the kind of thing I pay attention to."

  "What about you?" Ran addressed Loden Broca. "You could do the same for the upper deck?"

  The guard smiled. "You, this gracious lady, and another man and woman were the only people on the front side.

  There were three others looking down the canal by the railing in back."

  "Not including Kade."

  His smile vanished. "No. But he only came up for a moment."

  I thought Ran would ask Loden Broca now if he'd seen Kylla's mysterious stranger on Catmeral Bridge. Instead he pulled a familiar handkerchief from an inner pocket and untied the knot. "Both of you had a good view of Kade Porath," he said. "Can you tell me if he was wearing this the entire time he was on board?" He pulled out the last of the knot and extended the massive cadite ring.

  Lesseret was making a shrugging gesture, but Loden Bro-ca's expression was one of surprise, followed by blank incomprehension. His gaze went up to Ran's, a furrow cutting the golden skin of his brow.

  "What are you doing with my ring?" he asked.

  He got everyone's attention in the room, no doubt about that. Neither Trey Lesseret nor Ben Mercia knew what significance the ring had, but they wanted to hear more. Ben Mercia insisted on hearing more, to Broca's acute and obvious discomfort. Ran solved the problem by buying the guard's services for the morning for a rather inflated fee, and a quarter hour later found the three of us wandering somewhat aimlessly down Luster Street, looking in vain for a place to sit and talk. The Mercia agency, when it came down to it, was happy to put another guard in Loden's place for the day if it could get an extra fee from us, and postpone its natural curiosity (in the form of Ben Mercia) in the higher cause of House profit. Ben Mercia knew his duty.

  "Your ring?" repeated Ran, as he scanned the scruffy shopfronts at this end of Luster.

  "A family inheritance," said Loden Broca. "The only one I've got, really. Boldness and prudence, the Broca mottoes." He smiled that twisty grin. "My father left it to me, and enough to put a down payment on security school. Though we don't know how that'll turn out, at the moment. I'm on probation."

  Ran said, carefully, "Would you have any guesses as to where we found the ring?"

  "You said Kade Porath was wearing it. That wouldn't surprise me. I gave it to him."

  I looked at his face as we turned the corner of Luster and Tin. He didn't seem to find anything unusual in the statement.

  "Pure charity?" prompted Ran.

  In this part of town people who ran small-scale, miserable businesses out of their homes sat on doorsteps, by windows, even in the gutter, trying to catch a breeze as they weaved and sharpened knives and made paper animals for the tourists over in Trade Square. There wasn't enough room here for courtyards in the back, so they took relief where they could, heedless of danger. But then, they were in more danger from each other than from any violent, gameplaying nobility, who probably wouldn't be caught dead in this neighborhood. I'd stayed in the equivalent of this sort of place when I first came to Ivory, but we'd had a bit more space—my inn had had a courtyard. That practically made me a merchant prince by comparison.

  Loden's face wore a wincing, sheepish look; he seemed to be picking through a pile in search of the proper words, and not finding any. "It wasn't," he began, and stopped again. We passed a massive, elderly woman in a faded orange robe, sitting on a stool by the curb, sharpening kitchen knives on a wheel. A bolt of ragged striped cloth had been rigged for shade in the branches of the spindly tree beside her. As we passed sh
e moved her stool back an inch, further into the shadows. "You see—" said Loden, and discarded those words, too. The old woman in orange glanced up and met my eyes; there was a crazy look there that, taken in conjunction with all these sharp objects, made me uncomfortable. I walked around to the other side of Ran.

  "It's like this," said Loden. He paused one more time. I had a momentary urge to yell spit it out, man't—which, fortunately, I got the better of, because he finally achieved takeoff velocity. "I play cards," he said, "not, you understand, that I'm a gambler. Just as a pastime. But it happened that I lost a lot of money one night—I'd had a few drinks, you know how that is," he said, confidingly, though in fact I had no idea how it was to get drunk and gamble my savings away. It was an alien concept. But then, other people are alien to us in so many ways I try to be careful about making any quick judgments. "So I ended up owing these fellows some money. And since I didn't have any to pay them back, I borrowed some."

  "Transferring your debt to someone else," I said, puzzled. "I don't see the point."

  "Well, it got these guys off my back," he said reasonably.

  "This new loan was at a lower rate of interest, then?" I asked.

  "Not exactly. Ah, no, it wasn't. But it was only one person to worry about."

  Finally outlines were emerging from the mist. I said, "Did you by any chance borrow this money from Kade Porath?"

  Ran stopped. He turned to Loden and said, "Are you trying to tell us that Kade was your creditor as well as your employer?"

  "Well, yes, it's not as if—"

  "Was this before or after the house party? I mean, did you meet Kade through being assigned to the Poraths, and borrow the money then?"

  "Uh, no, I borrowed it back at the beginning of spring. Five months ago. Kade knew I was with the Mercia agency and he chose us when he wanted to cover his sister's party. He said he may as well make sure I kept getting a salary."