"Master sergeant." He said it like a caress. "And your age is?"
"Twenty-eight Standards." She considered him, the lurking amusement, the straight shoulders, the cane, the mane of pinkish hair. "More or less."
He laughed and glanced at Emrith Tiazan, who stood, grim-faced and silent, near the desk.
"So you tell me you retired two years ago, with the rank of master sergeant. A private troop, perhaps? Industrial?"
"No," Miri had to tell him, against a building wave of dread. "Mercenary unit." She mustered enough nerve to glare into his perpetual amusement. "I was with the Gyrfalks before I retired. I began in Lizardi's Lunatics, which is how I came to be a sergeant in the first place. We got into a spot of trouble, command-chain broke down…"
"So you were made field sergeant." tel'Vosti tipped his head. "But your rank was upheld, once the—trouble—was past. And the Gyrfalks raised the stake by a star."
Suddenly, amazingly, he bowed. "A Master of mercenary sergeants by the time you attained twenty-five Standards! A significant feat, Lady yos'Phelium, for I have seen the Gyrfalks in action. Their conduct is always professional and they are most resourceful. Their services do not come cheap—am I correct, Emrith?—but they are worth their weight in cantra, each of them. Korval does well to guard his assets."
The door clicked, and opened to admit the wide-eyed doorman, barely seen behind the flat crate he carried against his chest. After him came a stern dark-haired woman in a crisp coverall: the senior med tech.
"Great," Miri whispered to Val Con, as tel'Vosti and the delm turned away to deal with the new arrivals. "Now maybe we can get this over and get outta here."
The crate had been placed against the desk, and the blue silk drawn away. Emrith Tiazan knelt before it and with her own hands loosened the seals. An Der helped her rise, a solicitous hand at her elbow, a ready arm by her waist.
She shook him off and stepped back. "Open it," she said harshly, and the boy bent to comply.
Val Con drifted forward, Miri at his side. They stopped to the right of Win Den tel'Vosti, who stood with both hands covering the knob of his cane, no amusement at all in his face. The med tech had shrugged and gone over to the couch, perching on the wide arm and watching the proceedings with a sort of distant interest.
An Der wrestled the cover loose and stepped away.
The med tech drew a noisy breath in through her teeth.
Nobody else moved at all, and Miri frowned, wondering why an old mirror should be the focus of such tension, such expect—
"Oh, shit," she breathed, and moved away from Val Con's side, staring at the reflection that didn't move—didn't move because it was a painting—a portrait, not a mirror. A portrait of a woman in flying leathers and loose-laced white shirt, arms crossed under slight breasts, legs braced wide, gray eyes direct in a willful, intelligent face, and the copper-colored hair done in a single long braid, wrapped three times around her head.
"Miri Tiazan," Emrith Tiazan said, voice still strained. "Who left the clan in disgrace."
"Who put the clan in disgrace by leaving," tel'Vosti corrected. "Be precise, Emrith."
"It is disgrace to ignore the delm's order!"
"But she never did ignore it—as you well know. She merely asked leave to postpone contract wedding until love's seed should bear fruit. Tamishon was in no great hurry, being content to know the contract was valid and eventually would be fulfilled. Four month's delay was no cause to abort the babe." He turned to Miri and bowed slightly, indicating fuller information forthcoming.
"The lad was dead, you see—she'd get no other child from him. And Baan Tiazan was a tyrant who ruled both his daughters hard, eh, Emrith?" He moved his shoulders when she gave no answer, amusement back in his eyes.
"She was not always dutiful, understand—that would be unlike her name. But she acquiesced in the large things, and made shift to come the sophisticate, in company."
Miri shook herself. "She ran away to have her kid," she finished, in Terran, too shaken to sort through sleep-learned modes. "She crashed on Surebleak and couldn't get home…"
"Is that what came of her?" tel'Vosti asked softly. His Terran was better than the delm's. "We had wondered."
She shook herself again, ran the Rainbow, fast, to get distance from the shock of the picture and the tension focused now on her. "I'm guessing," she told tel'Vosti. "She's dressed like a pilot—and there ain't any reason to choose Surebleak, when you got the whole galaxy ahead."
"So," he said, and looked ready to say more.
"There will be a gene test," Emrith Tiazan snapped. "Med Tech, attend your duty!"
The tech came to her feet, looking open-mouthed from the picture to Miri. She looked finally at the old lady and bowed, rearranging her face into an expression of cool interest.
"As you say," she murmured, and drew a flat kit from her utility pocket. "If the young lady will attend me here…"
The blue dress felt nice.
It looked nice, too, Miri decided. In fact, she looked amazingly respectable for a woman who had lately been a mercenary master sergeant, a bodyguard, a fugitive from justice, a woman of all work, and a singer.
Whether she looked respectable enough to please the circus gathering in the reception room below was something she'd find out far too soon.
She took one last turn before the mirror, admiring the way the bluestone necklace lay just right against her throat. She was wearing her hair loose, held back with a set of deceptively simple silver combs. Central stores, located in the cavernous belowstairs had provided dress and combs. The necklace and matching ring were hers, gifts from Val Con, from a time when gifts from Val Con were potentially deadly.
"Very elegant," she told her reflection, and bowed pleasure at making acquaintance, remembering to include the hand-gesture one used toward newly-met kin.
"Gods," she said, and came slowly erect, as if the woman in the mirror might jump her. "Oh, gods, Robertson, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?"
Val Con's dressing room—the "apartment" set aside for their use was bigger than Zhena Trelu's whole house, back on Vandar—was on the opposite side of the bedroom. There were three other rooms—a parlor, an office and a bookroom, plus a bathroom the size of Lytaxin spaceport and a balcony that looked out over the East Garden.
A huge bed commanded the bedroom. Flowering vines grew up two of the posts and all over the canopy, dripping long tendrils like flowering curtains around the sides. Miri shook her head. Liadens… A whole room just to dress in, a garden growing in the bedroom, and a bunch of other stuff, here and there, apparently just done for pretty. She bit her lip, recalling the apartments she'd lived in as a kid, an endless succession of rats, peeling synth-lam walls and near-paneless windows leaking Surebleak's frigid winter winds.
"Forget it, Robertson," she whispered; "you ain't going back there. Never going back there."
The bed-flowers were pale blue with soft white stripes, lightly and agreeably perfumed. On impulse, she pulled one free and tucked it behind an ear as she continued across the cream-and-blue carpet to Val Con's dressing room.
He caught her eyes in the mirror as the door opened, and smiled.
"Cha'trez."
She tried to smile back—saw her reflection's mouth wobble and then straighten in distress as the big gray eyes got bigger, taking in the ruffled white shirt, the rich dark trousers, the green ear-drop and finger-ring—all the accouterments of a Liaden gentlemen about to attend a formal dinner.
Val Con spun, eyes and face serious.
"Miri? What is wrong?"
"I—" she shook her head and managed to dredge up a half-convincing grin. "You look like a Liaden, boss."
"Ah." His face relaxed and he came across to her, lifting a hand to touch her hair. "But, you see, I am a Liaden, which no doubt accounts for it."
"That's probably it," she agreed and sighed. "You ready to go face the lions?"
One brow rose. "Clan Erob? Hardly lions."
&n
bsp; "Yeah, and suppose that gene test comes out negative? You're OK, but I ain't the kind Erob usually has to supper."
"And the portrait of Miri-eklykt'i?" He touched the flower behind her ear with a gentle forefinger.
Miri sighed, recalling with a certain queasy vividness the face of the woman in the old painting. The resemblance was spooky enough if she was that one's granddaughter…
"I don't guess coincidence'll cover it, huh?"
"It seems unlikely in the extreme." He touched the flower again, then drew it from its resting-place.
"Not," he murmured, "for this sort of dinner."
"Huh?" Miri followed him into the bedroom. "It's against the law to wear flowers to dinner?"
"This particular flower," said Val Con, placing it gently in a cut crystal water glass, "is an aphrodisiac."
She blinked at him; blinked at the canopy. "And they've got 'em growing all over the bed?"
"What better place?"
"Right." She closed her eyes, willing tense muscles to relax.
"Miri?"
She looked at the pattern of him inside her head—bright and clear and beloved—then opened her eyes and grinned wryly at the proper Liaden gentleman before her.
"Tell you what, boss: This whole masquerade's gonna come crashing down over something as stupid as that flower. If you hadn't been here to tell me before I went on down, I could've blown everything." Everything, she thought: His melant'i; the melant'i of Line yos'Phelium; her own insignificant amount—all gone. Because of a flower.
"I ain't up for this," she said suddenly, feeling the panic boiling in her stomach. "Look, boss, I'm a soldier, not an actor—and nobody down there's gonna believe for one minute that I'm Lady yos'Phelium. Let's see if we can't catch the old lady and tell her we made a mistake, OK? All the meres in the city right now, there's bound to be somebody around who owes me dinner—"
"Miri—" That quick he was across the room, arms around her tight, cheek against hers. "It is not a masquerade, cha'trez. It is truth. We are lifemates. And a portion of our shared melant'i involves standing as lady and lord to Line yos'Phelium." He laughed softly. "For our sins."
She choked a half-laugh and pushed her face into his shoulder. "I'm gonna wreck your melant'i."
"No." He kissed her ear. "My lifemate is a lady of intelligence, wit, and courage. How else could it be, but that her melant'i supports and enhances my own? And together—" He slipped his hand under her chin and tipped her face so she could see the bright green eyes, awash in mischief. "Together, cha'trez, we are"—he bent his head, put his mouth next to her ear and breathed—"hell on wheels."
"You—" She laughed and hugged him hard before stepping away and taking his hand. "All right, let's go meet the family."
She stopped him at the hall door, though, struck by one more detail.
"We gonna let on I don't know your family from sliced bread? I don't think even tel'Vosti'd like a lifemating where I ain't met your First Speaker, much less you got her permission."
"A valid point," Val Con murmured and tipped his head, staring hard at nothing, with his brows pulled slightly together.
"Line yos'Phelium," he said after a bit, "presently includes Kareen, my father's sister; her son Pat Rin, and his heir, Quin. My father is Daav yos'Phelium, who is eklykt'i. His lifemate, my mother, was Aelliana Caylon. She is dead. I was fostered into the household of my father's cha'leket, Er Thorn yos'Galan, and his lifemate, Anne Davis. They, also, have died. Shan is Lord yos'Galan, Nova is First Speaker, Anthora is—Anthora." He paused.
"yos'Galan children are Padi, who is Shan's heir, and Syl Vor, who is Nova's. Korval's seat is Jelaza Kazone; yos'Galan's Line House is Trealla Fantrol. We are located to the north of Solcintra City. The ship of which Shan is captain and master trader is Dutiful Passage."
Miri considered him. "That's it?"
"Yes."
"Nothing else?" she persisted. "I don't wanna trip up."
"This should be sufficient to see us through dinner," Val Con said softly. "It is scarcely to be expected that a new bride will have complete intimacy of her lifemate's clan."
"Great." She shook her head as he opened the door and bowed her through ahead of him. "All right, Liaden. Just remember—it's your neck we're gambling with."
She'd never seen so many redheads in one place.
The reception room was jammed with them, male and female; old, young and in-between, with hair shading from the lightest strawberry blonde through orange, mere-red, auburn and a particularly striking mahogany.
Hand resting on Val Con's arm, Miri considered the crowd, noting the eyes that slid toward them and slid away— and also something else.
"You're tall!" she blurted, remembering at least to whisper, though there was no one directly beside them.
One eyebrow slid upward. "A little above middle height," Val Con acknowledged, lips twitching. "For a Liaden."
He glanced across the room to where Emrith Tiazan stood talking to tel'Vosti and a youngish woman with carroty hair piled high on her head. "We to the delm, now, cha'trez, to make our bows."
And to hear the results of the gene test. She sternly put down the rebellion in her stomach and walked head up at his side, fingers curled lightly around his wrist, trying to act like she didn't notice the way conversation ebbed at their approach and picked up again, once they were past.
"Is this a good idea?" she muttered out of the side of her mouth.
"No, of course not," Val Con muttered back and she almost laughed.
Emrith Tiazan's face saved her—half-relieved and half-approving, as if she'd expected them to show up for dinner in leathers. Miri felt a spurt of sympathy as she bowed respect for the host, Val Con bowing at the same instant.
"Ma'am," he said, soft voice pitched so that it carried across the still sea of redheads, "we offer thanks for the grace and care the House has shown us."
"It is the House's honor," the old woman said into the silence, "to guest its ancient ally and friend." She looked up across the room then, and raised her voice, though it wasn't necessary.
"Hear me, my children, for I tell you of wonder and joy. Come to us only today is Miri Robertson, who is of Erob by Tiazan, this without doubt." She looked hard at Miri out of stern gray eyes.
"Turn," she ordered, still loud enough for the whole room to hear, "Miri Robertson Tiazan, that your cousins may see your face and rejoice."
Sure. She squared her shoulders and turned, looking out over the mob and seeing precious little rejoicing—unless you counted an orange-haired somebody around eight or ten— she wasn't too good at guessing ages that young—who was grinning fit to split her face.
"See also Val Con yos'Phelium," Emrith Tiazan continued behind her, "Thodelm and Second Speaker of Clan Korval, our oldest and most honored ally. It is through Korval that we rediscover our kinswoman." There was something of a stir at that and a bigger one when Val Con turned around to face them.
"It is further told the clan that Miri Robertson Tiazan and Val Con yos'Phelium have each seen the face of the other's heart and, having seen, joined hands and hearts and lives together."
Sleep-learning kept Miri from a gulp; years of dicing and playing cards for kynak and money kept her face straight. Damn, she thought, put that way it sounds all mystic and misty and stuff, when it's just him and me holding together and doing what needs doing…
The carrot-top who'd been talking to Emrith Tiazan and tel'Vosti came forward and bowed, thin face earnest.
"Line Tiazan acknowledges Miri Robertson Tiazan and welcomes her with joy."
Miri returned the bow, hand automatically signing recognition of kinship. "Lady Tiazan, I am honored." tel'Vosti stepped up next, bowing all courtly over his cane. "Line tel'Vosti sees Miri Robertson Tiazan with delight, welcomes her with honesty and acknowledges her with anticipation."
She almost grinned at him, but sleep-learning kicked in, and pattern recognition with it, adding up all the things the Code didn't say, like that Liaden
society was controlled, yeah, and formal, sure, and all those pretty words and modes and gestures were the weapons you used to survive in an unending, cut-throat competition. Melant'i and Balance. Face or no face. And here was tel'Vosti, who had lived a long lifetime immersed in well-bred in-fighting, giving her a non-standard greeting, there in front of delm and everybody. Tweaking her, he was. Trying her, to see what she'd do.
She bowed, timing it to centimeter and millisecond. "My Lord tel'Vosti." High Tongue Equal, that was the mode; it leaned on Val Con's melant'i, but that was fine, since he was thodelm just like tel'Vosti, and the whole room had just heard the delm say she was a thodelm's lifemate. "I see you with appreciation, hear you with understanding, and acknowledge you with trepidation."
The brown eyes gleamed; the rest of his face remained merely polite. No way to tell if she'd scored points. She didn't think she had. But she didn't think she'd lost any either. Even was OK; tel'Vosti'd said it himself, when he'd been talking about Val Con's uncle. Inside her head Val Con's pattern held steady, inscrutable as a mandala.
The delm stepped forward, indicating Thodelm Tiazan with a backhanded wave. "Your cousin Bendara, daughter of your late cousin Cel Met Tiazan."
The carrot-top gave a little bow, barely more than a heavy nod of the head. "Cousin Miri."
Miri gave the bow back, "Cousin Bendara," straightened and felt Val Con shift, oh-so-slightly, at her side. She directed Bendara's attention his way with a copy of the delm's backhanded gesture. "One's lifemate, Val Con yos'Phelium."
Bendara bowed again, a shade deeper than equality of rank demanded, as if maybe Val Con had more time in grade. "My Lord yos'Phelium."
"My Lady Tiazan." His voice was soft as always. She couldn't see his bow.
The delm waved for her attention again, this time for a man of late middle years, hair aggressively red, hazel eyes hooded.
"Your cousin Dil Nem, son of your late uncle Kern Tiazan."
Again the heavy nod, the exchange of names; the pass on to Val Con.
"Your cousin Ilvin, daughter of your cousin Jen Sar Tiazan, who is from clan at present."
Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9 Page 91
