Mouse and Dragon

by Sharon

  “It may be that she was the author of our current situation,” he said slowly. “Indeed, the entries in the Diaries would seem to support the supposition. Perhaps it was wisdom.”

  “Not wisdom,” Er Thom said decisively. “Not malice, I think—but wisdom? No.” He straightened.

  “yos’Galan advises Korval,” he stated, in the mode of Subordinate-Line-to-the-Delm.

  Daav inclined his head. “Korval hears,” he returned, Delm-to-Subordinate-Line.

  “It is not the best care of the clan to huddle, safe, upon the homeworld. Korval is ships; Korval is pilots. If Korval allows fear to rule it, we become less than we are. More, we violate the law laid down for us by the Founder. Thus does yos’Galan advise the delm.”

  That the Founder would have found nothing wonderful in her heirs breaking faith, pirate that she’d been, Daav did not say. Instead, he inclined his head once more.

  “Korval hears yos’Galan.”

  “That is well. Does the delm require further service from yos’Galan this hour?”

  “I believe that our business is done,” Korval responded.

  “Excellent.” Er Thom smiled. “Now, tell me how matters fare between yourself and Pilot Caylon. She must think well of you, if she considers placing her ship in your hands.”

  “Her regard humbles me,” Daav said truthfully, “though there have been moments when I have wished that the Healers had meddled less with what was finished and done.”

  Er Thom tipped his head. “You speak of the bond? Truly, it is unsettling at first—who wishes to share his innermost self, with all one’s flaws and pettiness? I swear you will grow accustomed, brother, and then you will wonder how ever you went on—before.”

  “Aelliana reports something very like,” he admitted, setting his glass aside. “For my part—” He raised his head and met Er Thom’s eyes. “The link is only one-way, darling. She describes a condition like to what I have heard from you and from Anne. For myself, I experience nothing of the sort—”

  Er Thom shifted, pity on his face, his lips parting—

  “No—hear me,” Daav said, his eyes suddenly wet. “I do well enough—how many believe that Scouts are able to read minds, after all?”

  “But the full sharing,” Er Thom murmured.

  “The full sharing—is perhaps not to be ours. That the link functions at all is—ought to be—a joy. Indeed, she says that she finds it so, and I—I would far rather sit copilot to Aelliana Caylon than anything else I can contemplate.”

  “That is well, then.” Er Thom said, and leaned over to grip Daav’s hand, his fingers warm and firm. “It will be well, brother.”

  “Of course it will,” Daav said, and smiled, seeing some of the distress fade from his brother’s eyes. “How could it be otherwise?”

  He had walked from Jelaza Kazone to Trealla Fantrol, wanting to have time with his thoughts. After leaving Er Thom, he was again glad of the walk, this time to soothe his unruly emotions. His last message from Aelliana was that she was Chonselta-bound and might not return until late. It may have been that which encouraged him to follow the more circuitous paths down-valley, though Jelaza Kazone rarely felt empty to him any more.

  Whatever the case, the stars were well up by the time he opened a side door and stepped into a hall illuminated by night-dims—and a bar of bright light from the partly open library door. Frowning, he moved silently forward.

  Aelliana was curled into his favorite chair, her head bent over some handwork. She was wearing the green silk robe he had sent to her in Chonselta; the ripple of tawny hair that hid her face from him was damp, the light casting the drifting dry strands into an aura.

  He pushed the door wider.

  She looked up, smiling.

  “Daav. Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” he answered, stepping into the room. The object she had been so concentrated upon was a remote, its screen dense with figures. “Am I disturbing your work?”

  “Not at all,” she answered. “I was waiting for you. This—” She shook the remote lightly—“is a notion I’ve been considering. Only let me close down.”

  Her fingers flickered across the small keypad; the screen dimmed and she put the device on the table at her elbow. Daav came further into the room—like a moth drawn to the moon, he chided himself—and perched on the arm of the chair opposite.

  “How went your errands today?” he asked when she looked up.

  She sighed, very lightly. “Mr. dea’Gauss was everything that was accommodating and agreeable. Director Barq was … less so, I fear.”

  That dea’Gauss had been accommodating was scarcely surprising. Director Barq, however …

  “Was there a difficulty?” he asked.

  Aelliana moved her shoulders, as if she would cast the memory away.

  “There was no difficulty,” she said, “unless you count the realization of an unwelcome truth difficult.” She looked down at her hands, folded tightly on her lap. “Director Barq had apparently felt that my decision not to renew was a … strategy, and that my … relationship with Korval, as he phrased it, had given me insight into the fact that I had in the past been neither advertent, nor careful of my own best good. And so I became someone whom it was easy and natural to cheat.”

  The set of her shoulders and the tight clasp of her hands told him precisely how profound was her unhappiness.

  “We are all cheated, once,” he commented, which was the truth as he knew it personally. “It is how we learn not to be cheated twice.” He tipped his head. “Are you hungry?”

  She glanced up at him, green eyes wide and misty. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you hungry?” he repeated. “I confess that I am.”

  “Since you are so bold—yes, I am hungry. However, I didn’t wish to disturb Mr. pel’Kana.”

  “No need,” he said, rising and holding his hand down to her. “Come, we will forage for ourselves.”

  She put her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “This sounds risky,” she commented.

  “Not in the least! You must learn to have faith in me, Pilot.”

  *

  “There’s wine in the keeper,” Daav said, jerking his head toward the rear of the kitchen, as he opened the coldbox. “If you would be so kind as to pour for us?”

  Aelliana tightened the sash of her robe and moved off in the indicated direction, the floor tiles cool beneath her bare feet. By the time she had extricated a bottle of white wine by a process that could only be defined as True Random, Daav had taken over the corner of the counter nearest the stove, knife and cutting board to hand.

  She carried her burden to what was obviously a wine station, with glasses and cups hanging ready over a table topped with stone. Reaching up, she unracked two glasses, unsealed the wine and poured.

  “Where will you have it?” she asked.

  “In hand,” came the answer, so she took a glass to him.

  He had it from her with a smile, sipped—and laughed. “Yes! This will go excellently!”

  “I suppose I should have told you that I know nothing of wine,” Aelliana said ruefully. “But my mission came upon me so quickly … “

  “No, you have comported yourself with honor! It only remains for me to do my part.”

  Smiling, she drifted back down-counter, picked up her glass and looked about her. There were stools pushed under a high table set at an angle to the counter. She pulled one out and perched on it, watching as Daav deftly took four slices of brown bread from the loaf, sprinkled them with oil and set them on the flatiron he had placed on the stove. He unwrapped the block of cheese, and cut four thin slices from it, rewrapped it and pulled a second, smaller block to him. His motions were quick, but relaxed, without a wasted move, nor a stutter.

  “Will you like sweet sauce?” he murmured, without looking up from shaving paper-thin slices from the second cheese. “Hot sauce? Jam?”

  “Make them as you would for yourself,” she told him. She sipped
her wine—and gasped.

  Daav looked at her over his shoulder.

  “Is the wine not to your liking?”

  “I—It is very much to my liking,” she confessed, and raised her chin, determined that he not see her chagrined twice over the same bottle. “It will, I think, go very well with the cheese.”

  “I agree,” he said, his eyes dancing. “I see that you give me close supervision.”

  “As to that, I haven’t the first idea of how to make toasted cheese sandwiches! I find the process fascinating.”

  He grinned. “Watch well, then. The next time we require comfort, you will cook.”

  She shook her hair back, watching him ply the knife, so certain and so deft.

  “I might very well make an error, and lose comfort for both.”

  “Little chance of that.” He put cheese on two slices of the oiled bread, and pulled a small jar down from a shelf cluttered with such. Each slice was spread with a brownish sauce and capped with a second slice of bread. Daav lit the burner and reached for the turner hanging behind the stove.

  “Every toasted cheese sandwich is unique unto itself,” he said, picking up his glass. “Like art, there are no mistakes.”

  Aelliana sipped her wine, relishing the sweet flowery notes, and the bite of licorice beneath. Daav made a pleasant sight, his shoulders easy and his hips cocked, as he overlooked his project. He raised his glass for another sip, the muscles moving beneath his shirt, and she was suddenly, vividly warm, recalling the feel of his skin beneath her palms, his long legs, entwined with hers …

  Flushed, she raised her glass and drank, perhaps more deeply than the wine deserved. At the stove, Daav used the turner, and the sandwiches sizzled against the grill.

  Turning slightly, he put his glass down and reached into the cabinet to the left of the stove, pulling down two plates.

  “In a moment,” he said, over his shoulder, “we feast.”

  That was, she thought, a cue. She slid from the stool and retrieved his glass, carrying it with hers to the table before she fetched the bottle and refreshed both. The stool, she brought back to its proper place, and turned just as Daav arrived with the plates, each adorned with a toasted sandwich, cut neatly into halves.

  “Now, Pilot,” he said, folding his long self onto a stool, “I daresay you’ve never sampled anything like this!”

  She laughed, watching under her lashes as he picked up a half sandwich and juggled it along his fingertips. That was not play, she found a heartbeat later, as she picked up one of her own halves; the bread was hot, slightly oily, and smelled delicious.

  Carefully, she nibbled a corner, sighed and looked up to find him watching her.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “It’s marvelous,” she told him truthfully. “What is the sauce?”

  “Apple butter. You don’t find it too sweet?”

  “Not at all,” she assured him, and smiled. “Thank you, Daav.”

  “No need to thank me for taking proper care of my pilot,” he answered, and turned his full attention to his meal, Aelliana following suit.

  “Where,” she asked, after the plates were empty and the glasses refreshed again, “did you go?”

  “Ah. Daav visited his brother while the delm took counsel of his thodelm.”

  Aelliana felt her stomach tighten. “And the outcome?” she asked, striving for a calm voice.

  “Thodelm yos’Galan is of the opinion that it is Korval’s duty to show a bold face to the world. It is unbecoming of us to cower in the shadows, clinging to safety. He stops short of advising us to brawl in taverns and set up a business in the Low Port, but only just.”

  She considered that, sipping her wine gratefully. “Mr. dea’Gauss had said that there were protocols in place in his office, to accommodate those tasks that the delm now oversees,” she said, looking up into Daav’s sharp, attentive face. “He says that there is a promising younger on his staff whom he would very much like to accept those responsibilities—with oversight, of course.”

  “Of course,” he murmured.

  Aelliana sipped again, thinking of the papers that she had left, unexecuted, in Mr. dea’Gauss’ hands. There was, she decided, no need to mention them to Daav. After all, he had seen no need to tell her that he intended to settle half his fortune on her.

  “We are agreed, then? You will sit my copilot, and we shall enlist The Luck as a courier?”

  He smiled, and she felt her blood warm.

  “We are agreed,” he murmured. “How can we stand against the advice of both yos’Galan and dea’Gauss?”

  She laughed, and reached out to touch his hand, feeling his amusement bolster her own.

  “Now!” he said. “Would you like another toasted cheese sandwich?”

  She considered him, and the thought—the desire—that had formed, seemingly of its own.

  “I thank you,” she said, “but no. I believe that I would rather field—an impertinence.”

  Interest rippled from him, and perhaps a glow of pride.

  “And that would be?”

  She took a deep breath, his hand beneath hers on the table. “Might I see—your apartment?”

  There was a flutter of—Daav slid his hand away.

  Panicked, she looked up into his smile.

  “There is not very much to see, but if that is your whim—certainly. Let me clear the table while you finish your wine.”

  His apartment was on the same side of the hall as hers; it warmed her absurdly to think that they shared a like view of the inner garden. He opened the door and stepped back to allow her first entry, as if she outranked him—or the place was hers by right.

  She looked up into his face, which was perfectly and politely bland. She raised her hand—and let it fall before she touched him.

  “Daav? If you had rather not … “

  “You had wanted to see it,” he murmured. “Please, satisfy yourself.”

  Thus commanded, and regretting her impertinence fully, she stepped into the room.

  She had meant—when she saw how much it distressed him, she had meant only to look, and then to go away and leave him his peace. But the room drew her in, step by wondering step, and she with just enough sense to keep her hands clasped behind her. The shelves begged study—there were books, certainly, but interesting stones, figurines, shells, and other things that she would need to ask him what they were, and what he thought of them.

  A comfortably-shabby double chair covered in dusty blue sat at an angle to the fireplace, a book open, facedown on the seat. By the window, where in her apartment the computer desk held pride of place, stood a worktable of another kind, bladed tools were neatly set to hand; wood in different shapes, colors and textures were sorted to the sides. The comm unit sat on a table of its own; message light dark.

  She moved on, her steps Scout-silent on overlapping rugs, pausing as she came to a wall covered so closely with pictures that the wood could not be seen. A star map caught her eye, and a portrait of the tree, drawn in a childish hand. A flatpic of a fair-haired woman with piercing blue eyes, and another, of a brown-striped cat …

  Aelliana took a breath, and spun slowly, seeking to memorize this place that was so clearly and definitively Daav’s place.

  Her spin brought her ‘round to face him, standing as still as a wild thing to one side of the open door, watching her from hooded black eyes. She bowed, as one who has been granted a great boon.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and took a breath. She wanted to stay here in this room that seemed to embrace her and hold her close, but that would indeed be an impertinence. Daav, she understood suddenly, did not have people here. He had an entire house in which to entertain whom he would—friends, even lovers, need never come here.

  “I will bid you good night, van’chela,” she said gently. “Dream sweetly.”

  She moved toward the doorway.

  “Aelliana.” So soft, his voice. Almost, she thought she had imagined it.

  She t
urned. He held out his hand, fingers slightly curled; she put her palm against his.

  “Will you stay?” he asked, and she read his desire, that she would, and his fear—that she would refuse him.

  She stepped forward, standing on her toes to lay her arms around his neck.

  “Yes,” she said, setting her cheek against his. “I want to.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  In an ally, considerations of house, clan, planet, race are insignificant beside two prime questions, which are:

  1. Can he shoot?

  2. Will he aim at your enemy?

  —From Cantra yos’Phelium’s Log Book

  Kiladi had achieved a third degree.

  Now that, Daav thought, was unexpected in the extreme. He had been certain that the good scholar’s plea for a remote defense, relying solely on the body of his work, would be roundly rejected by the Guardians of Knowledge at Dobrin University. However, it would appear that the existence of Scholar Kiladi’s previous degrees had borne some weight with the accrediting committee. He opened the folder, barely glancing at the chip beneath its protective covering before running his eye down the short lines detailing the committee’s decision.

  Jen Sar Kiladi comes to Dobrin University already an accredited expert in comparative linguistics and diaspora dynamics. His numerous monographs and articles illuminate him as a scholar of rigorous and impeccable methodology. Therefore, though his request to waive a personal defense is unusual, it is the decision of this duly convened meeting of the Dobrin Guardians of Knowledge to honor the scholar’s plea.

  The Guardians and three unaffiliated Scholar Experts have closely examined the dossier submitted by Scholar Kiladi, taking particular care to scrutinize his sources and test his conclusions against the key literature in the field.

  Having performed this examination, it is the judgment of the Guardians of Knowledge of Dobrin University that Jen Sar Kiladi is without a doubt fitted to be elevated to the ranks of Scholar Expert of Cultural Genetics.