Necessity's Child

by Sharon Lee

  “Go!” he snapped again. “The child…”

  Rafin made his decision with a sharp nod.

  “Stay here. We will come back for you.”

  He turned on that, loping on two good, long legs, a swift shadow passing through the shadows—and vanished.

  Rys closed his eyes, shaking, his shattered leg on fire, his muscles gone to water. He remained upright only because he was caught between the tension of crutch and wall. If either moved, he would fall, and become prey, to those who would beat him…

  …hard laughter while they stamped on his hand, and kicked him, time and again and he screamed at last, unable to rise, to fight, to move, one arm over his head, broken with a kick, and another…

  “Well met, Rys Lin pen’Chala.”

  A woman’s voice shattered the…memory. He gasped, eyes snapping open, straightening against the wall so that the crutch might be brought in, if—

  The woman standing before him smiled, her attitude gentle and without threat. She extended a hand and gently cupped his cheek, as if it were her right. Her fingers were cold.

  “Well met,” she said, again, in the blessed language of home. “I might have guessed that you would elude the Dragon.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Golden.” Nova fixed her henchman in her eye. “Would you care to explain your part in this tangle?”

  “My part?” He came into the room and dropped into the chair beside her desk. “My part’s simple enough, ma’am, and just like the boy said. I saw a child-on-the-street and since I’m a duly appointed law enforcement officer, according to way things are standing right now, I saw that there was some law to be enforced.” He gave her a grin. “Just doin’ my duty, ma’am.”

  Nova sighed. “The tangle I refer to is Kezzi’s arrival in this office on Syl Vor’s…arm. I wonder that you failed to use your considerable address, Mr. Golden, to intervene.”

  He sighed. “Well, see, I didn’t get to use any of that address, and if I’d’ve tried, ain’t neither one of ’em woulda heard me, they were that hot under the hair. What I piece together is that the girl might’ve taken Silver’s pen—there was a bit of byplay about did she need it, which she didn’t say she did, or didn’t, precisely. What I figured was that he was bringing her to have you put the fear o’winter into her, very insistent that she see his ma—your pardon, ma’am. That his ma see her.”

  Nova resisted the urge to rub her forehead.

  “Thank you, Mr. Golden,” she said, instead. “That is an important distinction.”

  “Yes’m, the boy seemed to think so, too. Made her say it out in the right order before we got on.”

  “With my son dragging her by the wrist down a public street, with your apparent approval.”

  “There again, I’m not exactly sure I caught the undertalk. The girl saw he was serious about having his way, is what I got, and she offered as a bargain that after she’d got seen, she’d go home to her gran. Silver agreed, quick and easy, but he still kept hold of her.”

  “Perhaps because the bargain did not include a promise not to take to her heels the instant he freed her.”

  “Well, there, see? I’m too trusting.”

  Nova laughed.

  “Very well, Mr. Golden, advise me. How shall we handle this for the child’s best safety? I fear I did harm, in pulling her true-name. If she is not to share such information with those beyond her house, then she may be punished—even severely.”

  Michael Golden frowned. “What’s the rule when somebody’s kin to two houses?”

  Nova blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said yourself that there’s some things that happen in this house that ain’t the bidness of those outside the house. So, if somebody belongs to two houses, with the same rule…”

  “You counsel a preemptive course. It may serve, though custom in such matters, varies considerably.” She paused, considering. “She was to return home to her grandmother?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Is that likely to be true?”

  It was actually comforting, that Michael Golden paused for a long moment of thought before making a slow reply.

  “I think that’s straight. The gran only come into it when the bargain was made, and I think that was a solid offer—” he glanced at her sideways, “—even if it wasn’t all-inclusive. Early in the day, there was a mother in the works, but she was talkin’ street.”

  Which was to say, offering whatever fantasy might serve her. Nova nodded.

  “The grandmother, then, is the person Kezzi looks to for comfort and for justice. I will write a note.” She opened the desk drawer and removed a sheet of paper—the formal paper, thick and eager for ink, with Korval’s Tree-and-Dragon in the top right corner and her name below.

  “I will see the children here in ten minutes, Mr. Golden, if you would be so kind as to fetch them.”

  * * *

  “Do you…know me?” Rys stared at the woman who smiled upon him with such kindness. She had touched his cheek as if they were kin—but they were not kin, that he knew without doubt. She bespoke him in the mode between comrades. Were they copilots, then? Lovers?

  He stared at her.

  She was Liaden, yes; her eyes light blue, her stance that of one who had no doubt of her ability to defend herself. Her face…her face was not familiar. Not in any wise familiar.

  He pushed himself to recall her, strained until a sullen flare of headache warned him to tax himself no further. So, she belonged, perhaps, to the time that was lost to him. And yet, his heart…

  He felt no spark of affection—no thrill of joy. He was, he noted distantly, shivering, but that was surely only the cooling breeze.

  “I know you,” the woman said, with no alteration in her gentle attitude. “Perhaps the question ought to be—do you know me?”

  “Forgive me,” he said carefully. “I…sustained injuries…”

  “Indeed, indeed! You need not exhaust yourself in explanations—I had learned…elsewhere of your misfortune. You must allow me to express my delight in beholding you! It had been my very great fear that you had not survived such rough handling.”

  She touched his face again, her fingers lingering. His shivering increased, and he pressed his back against the wall, wishing with everything in him that the brick might open and swallow him up.

  “You are very well situated for now, I think,” she murmured. “Though we will surely wish to speak again.”

  She looked closely into his eyes. “You will come to me, Rys Lin, when I desire it.”

  It was not a question. He felt the words strike something…something in that hidden place, each syllable waking a flare of agony.

  “I…”

  Her fingers pressed his lips, silencing him. She bent her head until her cheek rested against his, her breath warm in his ear.

  “Son eber donz Rys Lin pen’Chala.”

  Pain flared in his head; his vision shook with violent light; his stomach heaved, and he closed his eyes…

  * * *

  Beck had laid down a plate of cookies and a plate of cheese and crackers, with a pot of tea, at the little table in the corner.

  “’Less you want milk, there, missy?”

  “No,” Kezzi answered. “Tea!”

  “’Nother one just like the first one,” Beck said with a sigh. “Tea all around then—and not a cookie nor a drop for you, girl, until you wash those mitts. Show her where, Silver.”

  He took her to the wash-up room in the hall behind the kitchen, and washed his hands first, so she could see how everything worked.

  When it came her turn, she set to with a will, until her hands were white with lather.

  “What is your name?” she asked, abruptly.

  “Syl Vor yos’Galan Clan Korval.”

  She frowned slightly, nose wrinkling as she rinsed her hands clean, and reached for the towel.

  “But that’s not what they call you,” she said; “Mike Golden and Beck. They call y
ou Silver.”

  He sighed. “It was Mike Golden’s joke,” he explained. “Now the whole household has it.”

  “Hmph,” she said, and hung the towel on its bar. Syl Vor led her back to the kitchen.

  They sat across from each other at the little table. Kezzi picked up her cup, sipped—and Syl Vor did the same.

  “This is good, the tea,” she said.

  “I am glad that it finds approval,” Syl Vor murmured, remembering Grand-aunt Kareen’s instruction in how to behave at tea. “Beck’s cookies are good, too.”

  She gave him a hard stare, then took a cookie from the plate and bit into it, noisily. She chewed, swallowed, sipped. And nodded.

  “Yes,” she agreed, and reached for a cheese cracker.

  Syl Vor ate a cookie and drank his tea, watching her. She ate with neat efficiency, very quickly, as she had at lunch. Grand-aunt would say that she ate too quickly, and had no conversation.

  Having conversation was important so all who attended the meal could be entertained, and the pleasures of the table increased.

  As if she’d heard him—or had remembered a similar lesson in manners, Kezzi looked up.

  “You need to eat more than a cookie, if you want to, to…”

  He tipped his head, watching her cheeks darken. “To what?”

  She sighed sharply, but surprisingly answered, snappish as Padi when she was caught out by surprise. “To grow tall, we say.”

  “I’m not tall yet,” he told her. “But I will be. My mother and my uncles are tall, and my cousins, too.” Aunt Anthora was slightly less tall, but there was, Syl Vor thought, no sense bringing Aunt Anthora into things just yet.

  “Don’t let ’im pull your leg, missy,” Beck said from the stove. “Ain’t a single one of ’em tall by Surebleak measure.”

  “But we are by Liaden measure,” Syl Vor pointed out. “I told you.”

  “You keep on telling me, hon. Meanwhile, a little bit o’cheese ain’t gonna hurtcha.”

  Kezzi used a forefinger to nudge the cheese plate toward him, meaningfully. It seemed that good manners insisted.

  Syl Vor took up a cracker with cheese and bit into it. It was good; the cheese sharp and the cracker spicy. He took another bite, which finished both, and sipped his tea.

  Behind them, the door to the kitchen opened.

  “Hey, Mike,” said Beck. “Snack?”

  “Gimme a snow-check on that. Silver, your ma wants you and Kezzi.”

  “Yes.” He drank the last of his tea, and stood up. Kezzi did, too, leaving half a cookie on her plate, which, he thought, showed that she held Mother in proper respect.

  She took a deep breath, then, and looked around the kitchen.

  “The house,” Syl Vor said quickly, and she blinked at him.

  “What?”

  “The House keeps you safe,” he expanded. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she told him.

  “Well, good,” Mike Golden said, holding the door wide. “’Cause I am.”

  “You,” Kezzi told him with dignity, “are very stupid.”

  “Mike is not stupid,” Syl Vor said sternly, and stalked through the door.

  Kezzi took a deep breath and followed him.

  * * *

  Syl Vor led the way to her desk with Kezzi a step or two behind, which was the proper configuration for sponsor and hopeful supplicant. Whether they had adopted the mode purposefully—that was more difficult to tell.

  Nova accepted her son’s bow with an inclination of her head, and hoped she wasn’t about to do something foolishly dangerous.

  “My son, I have considered your request and the merits of your proposed sister. In the interests of clarity, I have one question more, if you will allow?”

  He frowned, but made a courteous enough answer. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I thank you for your forbearance. It came to me, as I was turning the matter over in my mind, that you perhaps see this matter of achieving Kezzi as a sister to be…a solving. Do you?”

  He blinked. She had surprised him, this prodigy of hers.

  “I—the delm solves,” he said, suddenly and entirely a young boy caught unawares and offering up the bedrock of the universe for his answer.

  “Just so. The delm solves for the clan entire, and for those of the house who ask. But we all and each of us, my son, solve sometimes for ourselves. It is part of the process by which we become ourselves.”

  Syl Vor bit his lip.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that, yes, mother, it is a solving. I—”

  She raised her hand. “Enough. If you wish, we will speak more fully on the matter later. For now, I have promised a speedy decision.” She turned her head deliberately and met the girl’s eyes, held the contact for a slow count to six, then returned her regard to Syl Vor.

  “Your sponsorship is commendable, my son. I accept Kezzi as your sister. On condition.”

  “Condition?”

  That was the girl herself, stepping up to Syl Vor’s side, her eyes wide and the pulse in her throat beating a little quickly.

  “Not, I think, an onerous condition. Merely a time limit. You are accepted, Kezzi, with fullness and with joy, as Syl Vor’s sister.”

  “But for how long?” That was Syl Vor.

  “Three months, local.” She picked the envelope she had prepared from the desktop.

  “Kezzi, come here, please, child.”

  She obeyed, stepping lightly, and Nova remembered to smile into that set face as she extended the envelope.

  “I have taken the liberty of writing to your grandmother to explain this small custom of ours. Please take it and place it in her hand immediately you are returned to her.” She paused, and added, giving each word weight. “I make this request as your mother.”

  Kezzi’s mouth sagged, then firmed. Excellent. The child did have wits.

  She took the envelope in a hand not so grubby as formerly and bowed her slight, quaint bow.

  “I will deliver this to my grandmother,” she said, and the promise carried the ring of truth.

  “Excellent. I will then bid you good-day, Kezzi-daughter, and remand you to the care of your brother and of Mr. Golden. They will see you home. I expect that you will complete whatever home-study Ms. Taylor has assigned. On the morrow you will be attentive at school, and strive to learn as well as you may. If your grandmother permits, you will please come home with Syl Vor tomorrow after school.”

  “Yes,” Kezzi said in a low voice, and added, quickly, “Good-day.”

  “Syl Vor, you and Mr. Golden will come back immediately after you have seen Kezzi safely to her kin. I will inform your tutors that your study hours have been set back an hour. You will attend to them when you return. Dinner will also be set back an hour.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  * * *

  Kezzi walked down the hall between Mike Golden and Syl Vor yos’Galan Clan Korval. The thought at the top of her head was that she was being let go. And once she was back among the kompani, she would never, ever venture into the City Above again. She would stay below, and work in the gardens with Memit, or in the steam shop, with Pulka. She and Malda would run up and down the ramps for exercise, and she would, she would—

  “Wait,” Syl Vor said. “Kezzi, here.”

  She blinked out of her thoughts, and stared at the thing in his hand—a pen.

  The pen, she remembered suddenly. The very pen that had caused her to give her true-name to gadje and be taken into their family—for three months? No. No, she would not. She would return to the kompani. She would never—

  “Take it,” Syl Vor snapped, and she looked at him, irritated.

  “Why? It is yours, you say, and leave bruises on my wrist in proof.”

  His cheeks darkened somewhat, but he held the pen out still. “You said you needed it. You’re my sister. What’s mine is yours. If you need it, take it.”

  Need it? She never wanted to see it, or him, again. But it seem
ed plain that the quickest way back to the kompani was to take the pen from his hand and slip it away into the pocket that carried his mother’s letter to the luthia.

  “I have it,” she said.

  “Now that bidness is all caught up,” Mike Golden said, forcefully. “Let’s go. I don’t like the idea of making Beck hold the dinner all that long.”

  - - - - -

  She led them toward the shops, thinking that, if Malda had done as she had asked, surely there would be someone along the streets of the City Above, watching for her with sharp Bedel eyes. If Malda had not done what she had asked, or if he had been caught…

  No. She wouldn’t think of that.

  And, indeed, she had no need. Scarcely had they come into Commerce Street, and before Mike Golden could ask any inconvenient question, there came a high-pitched bark, and here was Malda himself, streaking down the sidewalk, dodging between gadje legs.

  Kezzi fell to her knees and opened her arms. From ten steps away, he leapt. She caught him, hugging his wriggling body to her, laughing when he licked her ear.

  “Ah, yes, yes! Bold and brave…”

  “Sister,” a voice interrupted their reunion, soft, but insistent. Well-known. Udari.

  She blinked up at him, Malda ecstatically licking her chin.

  “Brother?”

  “We were worried,” Udari told her, his eyes flicking twice—to Mike Golden and to Syl Vor.

  Kezzi sniffled, and came to her feet, holding Malda close.

  “These are Mike Golden and Syl Vor yos’Galan Clan Korval. They were bringing me to family,” she explained. “I have a letter, for grandmother.”

  Udari’s face altered; he looked at Mike Golden with courtesy.

  “Your care of my sister is appreciated, Mike Golden. She is safe in my hands, and I will take her even now to our grandmother.”

  “’Preciate it,” Mike Golden said in that particular tone of voice. She turned to face him. “This is my brother Nathan, Mike Golden. I will go with him.”

  “Right you are.”

  “Anna,” Syl Vor said, then. She turned, and he reached out to touch her sleeve, lightly, and with a wary eye on Malda.

  “I’ll see you in school, tomorrow,” he said. “All right?”