Local Custom

by Sharon

  Or she could raise sheep. Her arms tightened around her son.

  “I love you, Shannie.”

  “Love you, Ma.” He pushed back against her arms and lifted a hand to her face. His fingertips came away wet. “Sad.”

  “Sad,” she repeated, voice cracking. She tried a smile; it felt wrong on her face. “We’ll be happy again. I promise.”

  She stood and lifted him onto the table; plucked Mouse from the floor and laid it across Shan’s knees.

  “I’m going to call a cab,” she told him. “Then we can go to the Port.”

  It took a few minutes and some ingenuity to thread the university’s comm system, but she finally got an outside line and placed her call. The cab was promised in fifteen minutes, at the secondary door, as directed. Anne nodded to herself and cut the connection, glancing around Doctor yo’Kera’s cluttered, comfortable office for the last time.

  In an ocean of hurt, the pain of leaving his work undone, of walking away from the mystery of missing corroboration, was imbued with special flavor. Jin Del yo’Kera had been her friend, steadfast down a dozen years. In a way, she had loved him. Gods knew, she owed him more than she could ever repay. To leave him this way, with his research in shambles, his brilliance dimmed in the memories of his colleagues …

  She shook her head, denying the tears that made a glittering riot of the book-crammed shelves. Turning from the shelves, she found herself contemplating the flat-pic of three Aus at their sheep station: Mildred Higgins, Sally Brunner, Jackson Roy. Strong, straightforward people they seemed, smiling out of the battered frame. People who would see nothing odd in teaching a Liaden scholar to shear sheep.

  The flat-pic was slightly wrinkled, as if someone had lately had it out of its frame and reseated it imperfectly. Or, Anne thought, perhaps the picture was so old the paper was beginning to dissolve. She had a moment’s urge to take the thing off the wall and smooth the pic tidy. Shaking her head at the impulse, she turned back to Shan.

  “Time to go, laddie,” she said, swinging him to the floor. “Hold tight to Mouse, now.”

  She picked up her briefcase, took her son’s hand and stepped out into the hall.

  Shan uttered a sharp squeak and fell silent, his hand gone cold in hers.

  Fil Tor Kinrae finished his bow and smiled, coldly, up into her eyes.

  “Scholar. How fortunate that I meet you. We have much to speak about.”

  Anne inclined her head and allowed a note of irritation to be heard. “Alas, sir, I am unable to accommodate you today. I am bound for the Port.”

  “Then I am twice fortunate,” he said in his curiously flat voice. “I go to the Port, as well. Allow me to drive you.”

  “Thank you, no. I have transport.” She made to go past him down the hall, but he was abruptly before her.

  The gun in his hand was quite steady. He was pointing it at Shan.

  “You do not seem to grasp the situation, Scholar,” he said, and the mode was Superior to Inferior. “You will allow me to drive you to the Port. You will continue to do precisely as I command. Fail, and I shall certainly harm—that.” The gun moved minutely, indicating Shan.

  “He’s only a child,” Anne said slowly. Fil Tor Kinrae inclined his head.

  “So he is. Walk this way, if you please, and pray do not do anything foolish.”

  HE CAME TO HIMSELF in the gray of foredawn, face crushed into the hearth rug, one outflung hand clutching a tattered piece of red silk and a tawdry, fraying love knot.

  His body ached amazingly, but that was no matter. His mind was clear.

  He had dreamed.

  Baffling, grief-laden dreams, they were, that robed the veriest commonplace in twisty, alien menace until his stomach churned with the strangeness of it and his head felt likely to burst asunder.

  There were tolls demanded, now and again—he gave what was asked: His ring, his fortune, his peace. In return he was promised safe passage through the surrounding menace. He was promised love, melant’i and a return of peace.

  The toll-man demanded his son.

  “He’s my son, Er Thom!” he cried out and felt as if his heart were broken anew. “He’s a Terran citizen! Your clan doesn’t know and your clan doesn’t care!” He covered his face and wept aloud.

  “I came home,” he whispered distractedly, “and you were gone … “

  Full awake, lucid and calm, he rolled to his back, careless alike of complaining muscles and ruined finery. He stared up at the gray-washed ceiling and considered his own folly.

  Of course Anne did not care of Shan’s place in Line—that would be to think as a Liaden. To think as a Terran—to think like Anne—one would weigh the answers to such questions and find in them proof that the man she had asked to guard her melant’i—the man she loved too well to allow his sacrifice—had willfully cheated her, stolen her child and placed him beyond her reach—forever.

  Comes the same man pursuing his suit and Anne is flung headlong and frightened into a game so complex it might well give a seasoned player pause.

  The man cries lifemates—does he lie? He had lied once, had he not? Assume he lies—necessity demands it. Lie to him in return, a little; better, allow him to deceive himself. Play for time, play for the single, slender moment of escape.

  She had played well—brilliantly well, for one unused to the game. Yet she had been unable, even for necessity, to lie entirely. Honor would not allow her to wear the ring he had given.

  He wondered, lying there, if she had known her confidence to Daav would end thus, with Er Thom safely out of the way, and her path clear from nursery to space port. It seemed likely.

  He sighed and moved his head from side to side against the floor.

  Anne’s window of opportunity was today—this morning. She would take it—she must, or all play was for naught. He rather thought she would try to barter Moonel’s jewelry for passage away, an enterprise she might find more difficult than she had supposed.

  His course was clear. He spared a thought for his brother—but it seemed he was beyond feeling any new pain. The Healer would soon arrive; she must find an empty room when she did.

  He came to his feet, wincing a little at the protest of his muscles, and went along to the shower, stripping off his formal clothes as he walked.

  MUSCLES EASED BY A hot shower, Er Thom dressed in plain, serviceable trousers, plain shirt, comfortable boots. Each of the boots carried a cantra in the heel.

  The belt he ran around his waist carried two dozen cantra between the layers of leather; the cunningly-made silver buckle could be traded either for melt-price or as an artwork.

  From the lock-box he took other sorts of money: Terran bits, loops of pierced shell and malachite, rough-cut gems. These he disposed in several secret pockets about his person, and closed the safe on a dozen times the amount he had taken.

  He shrugged into his leather pilot’s jacket, feeling it settle heavily across his shoulders. Coins were sewn between the outer lining and the inner; more coins weighted the waist.

  For a moment he fingered his jewel-box, frowning—and decided against. He pulled a second, smaller box toward him, lifted the lid and brought the gun out.

  Quickly, he cracked it, checked it, reassembled it and slipped it into a jacket pocket. Extra pellets went into still other pockets. He closed the box and put it meticulously back in its place.

  So. He looked around his room, reviewing his plan.

  Anne’s first object must be to leave Liad. Thus, he would find her at the Port. Necessity might dictate that she bear her son away, but she loved Er Thom yos’Galan. He knew that. She would allow him to come close enough to speak to her—close enough to touch her.

  The gun weighed like a stone in his pocket. For a moment he hated it with an intensity that should have been shocking—then he shook the emotion away. He must make haste. Daav would be here with the Healer very soon.

  Pilot quick, he went back to the parlor and opened the window wide. The door was unlocked; he di
dn’t bother locking it or scrambling the access code. Such tactics would scarcely slow Daav. The best plan was to be gone, and quickly.

  He spared a glance for Jelaza Kazone, stretching tall and true across the valley, visible sign of Cantra yos’Phelium’s love for Jela, her partner, and the father of her child. Tears pricked his eyes; he dashed them away, swung over the sill and began the downward climb.

  DAAV RAN ACROSS TO the open window, heart in his mouth. Gods, no, he would not—

  But his brother’s broken body did not lie on the path so far below. Indeed, a cooler perusal of the vine that grew along the window and below discovered disturbed leaves, torn runners, crushed flowers—damage one would expect a climber to inflict.

  Daav swore, though with more relief than anger, for it was an appalling climb down a sheer rock wall and the vine very little aid, in case one should fall.

  “However, he did not fall,” Master Healer Kestra commented from behind him. “So you may lay that fear aside, if you please.”

  He turned back to her and bowed fully. “My apologies, Master Healer. It appears my brother had—business elsewhere.”

  “Urgent business,” she agreed in her dry way. She paced to the hearth rug, bent to pick up a scrap of red fabric and a bit of gold ribbon.

  “The room,” she murmured, her face losing its accustomed sharpness as she reached for nuance beyond the mere physical.

  “The room tells me of great distress, of two people—wounded, yet fighting for understanding—of—resolution … “

  “Two?” Daav demanded, for surely Er Thom would not have been so disobedient as—A breeze from the window mocked the thought.

  From the hearth-rug, Master Kestra frowned. “Two? Of course—No. No, I believe you are quite correct. Three people. But surely one is—a child? A rather exceptional child. I would be interested in making the child’s acquaintance, I think.”

  “It had been intended,” Daav said as his mind raced, placing piece against piece until he had the shape of how it must have been.

  The lady would not leave without the child, he thought, with icy calm. Er Thom would not stay without the lady. The luck send I’m in time to catch them at the Port!

  “Master Healer, I am wanted urgently elsewhere.”

  She turned from her study of the mantelpiece and gave him a look of sleepy amusement, running the red-and-gold ornament absently through her slender fingers.

  “Go along, then. I shall await your return.”

  Without even a bow he was gone, running at the top of his considerable speed.

  A few moments later the sound of a landcar’s engine came through the open window and faded rapidly into the distance.

  The Healer sat cross-legged upon the hearth rug, dreamy-eyed and languorous. She smoothed the tattered little love token flat on her palm, closed her eyes, and prepared herself to listen.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  To be outside of the clan is to be dead to the clan.

  —Excerpted from the Liaden

  Code of Proper Conduct

  SHE SPOKE ONCE ON the ride to Solcintra Port, to offer their captor the jewels in her briefcase, in trade for their freedom.

  “I am not a patient man, Scholar,” Fil Tor Kinrae replied without sparing a glance at her face.

  Anne sat back in the short, cramped seat, shoulder bumping the opaqued window, put her arms around her son and tried to think.

  Marksmanship had been part of her required course of study at the Academy of Music. She had never been comfortable carrying a gun, though, and given the habit up on her return to New Dublin.

  Of course, she attended the mandatory self-defense practice course for faculty every other semester. But the prospect of taking a gun away from an undoubted professional while ensuring he did not shoot her child iced her blood.

  Perhaps a chance would present itself when they left the car. If she could keep between Shan and the gun—in her lap, Shan twisted to push his face against her breast.

  He hadn’t uttered a sound since his squeak of terror in the hallway, miles and minutes ago. Anne lay her cheek against his hair and stroked him silently, hearing the echo of his fright, feeling her own muscles tense in response.

  Don’t, she warned herself sharply. For the gods’ sake, gel, don’t set up a loop. The laddie’s frightened enough—and you need your wits about you.

  She closed her eyes and deliberately thought of Er Thom as he had been back on University, after it was settled that Shan would come to Liad—after they could be easy with each other again. She thought of his understated humor, his care and his thoughtfulness. She thought of him cross-legged on the floor, assisting in the design of a block tower; she thought of him holding Shan in his lap, telling a story in his soft, sweet voice …

  In her lap, Shan relaxed, the hand that clutched her sleeve loosened. Anne resolutely thought of the good times, and it seemed that she could see him before her, his hair brighter than gold, his eyes purple and compelling beneath winged brows. The mind-image grew sharper until it seemed she need only extend a hand to feel the silked surface of his old leather jacket, to finger the new scar along the shoulder, to touch his cheek—once more …

  The car stopped.

  She sat up, Shan tensing against her. Now, perhaps …

  The door popped open. Fil Tor Kinrae reached in, grabbed Shan by one arm and dragged him from Anne’s lap.

  “Ma!” he shouted, then gasped into silence. Anne flung out of the door—and froze, staring at the gun.

  “Good,” the man said without inflection. “Have the goodness to bring the case, Scholar. If the child makes another sound he will regret it. Impress that upon him, won’t you?”

  Anne licked her lips and looked down into her son’s wide silver eyes. “Shannie,” she said, keeping her voice firm and even, “you have to be very quiet, OK?”

  He swallowed and nodded, keeping his face turned away from the man who held him. Anne reached into the car and pulled out her briefcase.

  “Good,” Fil Tor Kinrae said again and moved the gun. “This way, Scholar.”

  They were in an alley, thin, dirty and deserted. Anne walked past two empty shop fronts and turned into a third, obeying the movement of the gun. The man pushed ahead and shouldered the door open, dragging Shan into a dank vestibule. He pointed the gun at a set of twisty, ill-set steps.

  “Up.”

  Obediently, she went up, minding the shallow stairs and hearing, in the hidden pocket of her mind, the sound of her son’s silent sobbing.

  At the top of the flight was another door, this one slightly ajar.

  “In.”

  Anne pushed the door wide and walked in. Behind her the door closed, tumblers falling loudly.

  The woman at the console spun in her chair, snapping to her feet in such haste her many earrings jangled.

  “Cold space, it’s the yos’Galan’s Terran!” The hard gray eyes went past Anne. “And the mongrel. Have you gone mad?”

  Fil Tor Kinrae sent Shan reeling against Anne’s legs with negligent brutality and walked within, moving his shoulders.

  “What business of mine, if the yos’Galan keeps cows?”

  “And is so very careless as to lose them,” the woman agreed, running a hand on which a master trader’s amethyst gleamed over her close-cropped head. “Well enough. But that child is Korval, my friend, and if you believe the Dragon will not tear the Port to ground to find him, you have run mad!”

  “But they’re not at the Port, Master ven’Apon,” Kinrae explained in his flat voice. “They’re at the university.”

  “Oh, are they?” The hard eyes flickered over Anne’s face.

  “That might serve,” she allowed. “I trust no one saw you take them.” Her face shifted. “And I trust you’ll allow them to be found far away from here, as well. I need no trouble with Korval, thank you. The yos’Galan has already done me the favor of calling my name before the Guild, scar his face!”

  Kinrae stared at her. “If I cho
se to leave them here, I hope to hear no word from you, Master.”

  “Leave your dirty linen to me, will you?” the little woman demanded hotly, putting her palms flat on the desktop. “Damn you, wash your own laundry.”

  The gunman looked at her blandly. “I believe you’ve had handsome payment.”

  “And worked handsome hard!” the woman retorted. “I’ve told you I’m called before the Guild! How if I scrub clean and show the gentles the way of buying a master trader’s license?”

  “Would you sing that song?” he wondered flatly. “But birds have such short lives, Master ven’Apon.” He moved his gun, negligently.

  “I shall be using the back room and I expect I shall not be disturbed.” The gun was on Anne, who was holding Shan against her and stroking his hair.

  “Touching. This way, Scholar.” He reached out and pulled Shan away, fingers twisted in the back of the child’s collar. “Bring the case.”

  SHE HAD NOT ATTEMPTED to sell the jewels back to Moonel, nor had she been seen in the Gem Exchange. He considered it unlikely that she knew of the less-savory establishments on the border of Mid-Port. Besides, they would not give her near the sum she must have.

  It could perhaps be judged an error of play, that she had not asked him for money. How simple a matter, after all, to point out that her purse was slimmer than she liked. He would have emptied his pockets at her word. It was thus, between lifemates.

  But Anne, Er Thom thought, standing at the curb on Exchange Street—Anne would see such asking to be dishonorable, the coins themselves tainted, devalued by deceit.

  Wondering where next to seek her, he stuck his hands into his pockets, shuddering when his fingers touched the gun.

  Ah, gods, beloved, must it be this path?

  But there: Anne had chosen their course; to unchoose it was not possible. Bound to her as he was, with spider-silk lines of love and lies, it was his part, now, to follow.

  He stepped off the curb and crossed the busy street, walking back to his car, puzzling over where she might have gone. Frowning and abstracted, he lay his hand against the door, and spun around, certain he had heard someone call his name.