by Sharon Lee
Walking long blocks in these absurd new boots, however, was only likely to give him blisters and bad temper. And, too, the process of becoming presentable had taken rather longer than he had expected. The House would certainly be awake by this hour, and if they were still at breakfast, then he could await his grandfather’s pleasure in one of the small parlors.
“A cab would be most welcome,” he told the tailor. “I thank you again, for your care.”
Severt’s Clanhouse was situated on Omarine Street; not in Chonselta’s first neighborhood, but well enough. It was pleasantly tree-lined, and the houses sat back from the public walk, protected from the prying eyes of passersby by small gardens.
Tom Lei pen’Chapen paused at the gate, looking over the garden, and, if truth be told, the flagged walk that meandered from the gate through the flowers, to the stairway that ended at the front door.
In theory, his palm print was known to the security systems. Which, in theory, would open both gate and door to him.
Standing there, he knew a moment of hope, that the security system had forgotten him after all this time; that the gate would remain closed to him; so that he might have a reason to turn away, and resume his life . . .
But no.
His life as it had been was gone. His clan had need of him; his delm had called him home. Once more, he was merely a game piece, one among many interchangeable game pieces in his grandfather’s endless quest for advantage.
He put his hand on the gate.
It swung open on well-oiled hinges.
He sighed, then, and settled his kit more firmly over his shoulder, before stepping into the garden, and following the path to the stairs.
The front door was opened, not by one of the House’s children, but by a butler, unknown to him. He gave his name, and the information that the delm had called him home.
“I was told to expect you, sir,” the butler said imperturbably. “The House is at breakfast. Will you join them at table, or will you await the delm’s pleasure?”
He was a mercenary sergeant with sixteen world-falls to his account. On one memorable occasion, he and eight others of his squad had not only denied a prime target to a full platoon of the enemy, but routed them.
He was not by any means a coward.
But the thought of meeting his entire extended family at the breakfast table brought a cold sweat to his brow, and a decided uneasiness to his belly.
“Thank you,” he said to nameless butler. “I breakfasted at the port. I will await the delm’s pleasure.”
“This way, then, sir.”
He was led, not to the public receiving parlor, only a few steps from the door, but down into the house, until at last the butler opened the door to the delm’s very office, and bade him be comfortable.
“Shall I have that taken to your rooms, sir?” the butler asked, by which he meant the kit bag Tom Lei yet carried. He surrendered it with a pang, refused the offered glass of wine, and, after the door had closed, wandered restlessly over to the shelves.
He was perusing the titles there when the door opened again, much sooner than he had anticipated, and a sharp voice exclaimed behind him.
“Well, you took your time getting here!”
Between one breath and another, his nerves steadied.
“I traveled with all haste, as instructed,” he said, and turned to face his grandfather.
“It’s been an entire relumma since I sent for you, sir!”
The old man hasn’t changed a hair.
That was his first thought. His second was that his grandfather had altered: he was older, thinner, the hair that had still shown streaks of black when last they’d met was silver, now.
“It is the nature of space travel, sir,” he said, speaking in the mode of younger to elder—damned if he was going to hold a conversation in clan-member-to-delm. And if he was going to be chewed out . . .
But his grandfather had apparently thought better of whatever else he had been about to say. Instead, he inclined his head, and moved to the desk.
“Pour for us,” he said shortly.
With prompt obedience, Tom Lei moved over to the wine table, and paused, uncertain of his memory.
“Do you drink the red?” he asked, more or less at hazard.
“At this hour? Canary.”
He located the bottle, poured two glasses, carried them to the desk and placed one by his grandfather’s hand.
The old man picked up the glass, and glared up at him, dark eyes narrowed. They were not much alike, Tom Lei and his grandfather, which was the crux of the matter. Tom Lei was Festival-get, and the mark of his fair-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned sire was far too plain upon him. He had looked a veritable ghost among his numerous black-haired, ebon-eyed, golden-skinned kin, taller than the tallest of them by time he attained his twelfth name day.
Worse than all of that, he had the misfortune to be the child of grandfather’s least-favored daughter, who he was pleased to style an imbecile, though how a woman who brought the clan the considerable benefit of her salary as a freight expediter could be thought an imbecile . . .
“Do not loom,” his grandfather snapped. “Sit down.”
He did so without comment, and sat holding the glass in his right hand.
“You look well enough,” his grandfather said. “I had been concerned that you would require more polish. A word or two in the ear of your Aunt Manza should see you set up in the wardrobe. Jewels . . .”
He frowned, his gaze falling on Tom Lei’s all-but-naked hands, and he felt a pang, that he had not remembered to get the state ring out of his kit and put it on.
“What is that you have on your hand?”
The tone was more disgusted than curious, and a hot reply leapt to his tongue.
Then, he glanced at his right hand, and the small token he wore there, remembering faces he would never see again, comrades, lovers, and friends, and for their sake, he chose to answer moderately and do no dishonor to the ring.
“It signifies that I made sixteen world-falls as a mercenary, and saw action on each.”
His grandfather frowned.
“Is that an honor?”
“It is . . . an accomplishment,” Tom Lei said, and added, “among mercenary soldiers.”
His grandfather sat back in his chair, hands steepled before him. His eyes were on Tom Lei as if he studied the merits of an art work set before him.
“Excellent. You will wear that ring.” The frown returned. “Where is your clan necklace?”
“I had never had one,” Tom Lei said, and felt the slow burn of old anger. “When I came fourteen, you told my mother to find me a suitable employment that was out of your sight and cost you nothing.”
“Whereupon you joined the mercenaries,” said his grandfather.
“Whereupon,” he corrected, though he might more wisely have allowed his grandfather’s history to stand, “we went first to the Healers, who tested me, and found that I might safely be trained as a servant in the Halls. That training would have required money, however.
“After the Healers, we went to the Scouts. I was tested and offered a scholarship to be trained in a specialty. The scholarship, however, was dependent upon a small donation from my House.
“With both of these options rejected by the delm—” and, he added to himself, my mother with a new bruise on her face—“then, yes, we went to the mercenaries, and I was enlisted as a ’prentice soldier. The results of the Scouts’ testing came with me, and I was trained in languages and protocol.” He did not say that the mercenaries had paid his mother a signing fee, of which she had given him half. He didn’t know what she might have done with that money, and even after so long he feared to betray her to her father.
“The mercenaries do not appear to have taught you to curb your insolence,” his grandfather observed, and continued with scarcely a pause. “Never mind. You will have a clan necklace; you will have everything that a son of Severt ought to have, and honor, too. You will be
required to attend me. You will do as you are told, and you will say that which I give you to say. In this way you will bring benefit to your House, and increase our standing among the clans. Do you understand me?”
Well, no; he didn’t. But, when had he ever understood aught about his grandfather save that the old man hated the sight of him, and considered him a drain upon the resources of the House?
“Yes, sir,” he said, mildly.
His grandfather failed to look pleased. He stood, abruptly. Tom Lei came to his feet as well.
“Go and find Manza. Tell her that you’ll want good clothes; that I intend to take you about and show you to everyone. Can you do that?”
“I believe it may not be beyond me.”
Dammit, Tommy, hold your tongue!
He met his grandfather’s black eyes, and waited for the explosion.
It didn’t come.
“Leave me,” his grandfather said.
Tom Lei bowed and left the room.
His aunt Manza was in her own office at the back of the house; a small room the one charm of which was the tall narrow window that gave out onto the back garden. She heard his grandfather’s instructions with no expression on her face, reached into the middle drawer of the desk and withdrew a gold chain from which a golden icon in the shape of Severt’s shield twinkled. He received it from her hand and slipped it on over his head without looking at the shield.
“The clothes you are wearing were got in Chonselta,” she said then.
He nodded. “This morning, at bin’Dekel’s shop, on East Port Street,” he said. “I thought it best, were I not to show up in my traveling gear.”
His aunt smiled, faintly.
“You never were a fool,” she commented. “So, since Master bin’Dekel has your measurements, as of this very morning, and since his work is perfectly unexceptional, I will call him immediately and order in those things Severt desires you to have. They will be sent up to your rooms when they are delivered.” She turned to her screen, tapped a key.
“There is a small card party this evening to which I daresay you will accompany your grandfather, if you are to be shown to everyone.” She looked at him appraisingly. “What you are wearing now will do, though it should be freshened . . .”
“I bought a second suit, much like this,” he said, and she inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“Tomorrow night is pen’Valer’s reception, for which you will need something more, but we will have it by then.” She moved her shoulders. “You’re in the back hall, second floor; the middle suite.” Another glance, this one slightly softer. “It has much the same view as this room, and is quite the nicest suite on the hall.”
She turned back to her screen; he was dismissed to quarters.
He stood his ground.
“Aunt.”
She looked up, frowning.
“Where will I find my mother?”
The frown grew deeper and for an instant, he thought she would refuse to tell him.
Then she sighed, and shook her head.
“Your mother died six Standards ago,” she said.
His mouth dried, and he had to ask it—had to ask it, though it brought dishonor on the House even to think the question.
“By Grandfather’s hand?”
Aunt Manza came half out of her chair, her face richly flushed . . .
. . . and sank down again, with something that might have equally been a laugh or a sob.
“We had all feared that, at one time or another,” she said, as if to herself. “Why should Elza’s son not have feared for her, too?” She met his eyes.
“Be at peace, child. She was struck by a lorry as she crossed the street in the port, on her way to work, late she was, that morning, and likely failed to look. The lorry driver said she darted out from between delivery vans in front of the market; he barely saw her, and had no time to stop.”
He saw it, in his mind’s eye. Saw her crouching between the vans; saw her gauge her chances . . .
“It was deliberate.” It was a certainty, not a question. His grandfather might be a cipher to him, but he had known his mother well.
Aunt Manza’s mouth twisted with old pain.
“Between us—I think it was, yes. We don’t speak of it, here in the House. Most especially not to your grandfather.”
A warning. He bowed.
“Thank you. I know you were my mother’s friend.”
She sniffed.
“Not enough her friend,” she said quietly. She looked down at the screen and touched a series of keys.
“You will wish to inspect your room,” she said. “If you have particular requirements, in terms of furniture or ornaments, please speak to me.”
“Yes, Aunt,” he said, and left her to her work.
Card party, breakfast fancy, afternoon gather, another card party . . . Had he not been trained to endure tedious social gatherings, he might have gone into a decline.
Happily, there was other employment for him. Aunt Manza stood as Nadelm Severt, which meant that his grandfather had piled all of the clan’s administrative work upon her, thereby keeping himself free for intrigues and gambling with the clan’s fortunes. He offered his assistance, and, after a long, considering look, his aunt had accepted it. This was how he had learned the state of the clan’s finances.
“We ought to remove to the estate, and sell the town house,” Aunt Manza told him, “but the delm will not hear of it.”
No, of course not.
When he was not helping with the nadelm’s endless work, he walked. Fifteen Standards as a soldier had left him unfit for the sedentary life of an office clerk, or a Liaden gentleman.
The exercise was at first the conscious part of his walking, but he found the ingrained habits of a soldier marking out the territory, and after day eight he knew short-cuts and potential danger points, knew the corner across from the park where he’d likely find a proctor leaning within view of the public comm station, the corner where the halfling fashionistas flirted with any who might notice them. He avoided the park’s mirror-pool, which reminded him only too much of Cardimin’s pond-pocked city and the ugly house-to-house fighting there.
Had he not been on duty for the House, he might well have enjoyed the walks, over time. But no. During his walks, he turned over the conversations he was included into, as Delm Severt’s grandson, as Delm Severt’s secret weapon.
His grandfather had, indeed, an odd set of acquaintances, and peculiarly interesting for someone who had a particular training . . .
. . . as, for instance, his own training: not only to endure, but to listen to the unspoken conversations, and deduce the hidden strategies.
Before the end of the first card party, it was perfectly plain to Tom Lei that his grandfather had managed to ingratiate himself with some members of Houses that could only be called High. During the breakfast fancy, it also became plain that there was a secret project with which those same High Houselings required assistance; a secret desperate enough that they could not afford to be choosy regarding such minor matters as social standing or melant’i.
By the time he and his grandfather had returned home from the second card party, Tom Lei was quite frightened.
His grandfather was ambitious, yes. His grandfather had always been ambitious; and as a result, he had always played at stakes somewhat above his reach. That he was good at the game was evidenced by the fact that Severt had not plummeted into obscurity, but had actually made some small gains in the clan’s social standing.
But this game—the game in which he, Tom Lei, was somehow a high-stakes pawn—this game was dangerous even beyond his grandfather’s understanding.
Korval was involved—and Korval was not—was never—to be considered anything less than dangerous, though they had been banished from Liad, and had only days remaining until their departure.
But there was more—something he couldn’t quite hear, in the whispers between the words said aloud, but which made him shiver, nonet
heless.
It was also plain that he, himself, was being vetted and passed up a ladder of individuals who were increasingly important in this business of whispers and secrets.
What he would find at the top of the ladder, he dared not guess.
After he had been four weeks in the house, he was called into the presence of his grandfather and his delm before the midday meal, and there received from him his instructions for the coming evening’s entertainment.
“You will dress in your best. I will send rings; you will wear them on your left hand. On the right, only the honor-ring you have from the mercenaries. You will tonight be at my side; you will follow where I lead. Do you understand me?”
This is it, he thought; this is the big one; all the smaller hurdles have been conquered. Perhaps he ought to be proud of himself—of his skill—that he had been passed all the way to the top.
But what was he to do, he thought, alone in his rooms, after the rings had been sent up, and he had chosen three for his left hand. The course of honor, according to the Code, was to obey his delm. But if his delm was about to ruin the clan, by engaging in a game the stakes of which were higher than even the Highest Houses ought offer? Where was honor then?
On the few occasions when he had been required by his duty to operate at such rarefied heights, he had instructions; a goal; backup from a commander who had been bold, yes, but who did not gamble blindly, nor waste his counters.
No, he thought, staring down into the garden from his window. The goal must be to preserve the clan, if it came to that, tonight. He must prevent his grandfather from doing anything foolish. That must be his course. He was the only one of Severt able to stand against the delm; the rest had long ago been beaten down by his will.
Decision taken, he turned from the window and lay down on his bed, to nap and recruit his wits for the coming test.
