Mouse and Dragon Page 4

  "I think, if you will bear with . . ." she said slowly, and paused.

  Daav tipped his head in an attitude of courteous listening.

  "I think that I must go to my sister. At the same time, I will inform Mizel that I—that I will reside for this present under your care."

  Daav took a deep breath, and leaned slightly forward, his eyes hard upon her face.

  "Is that your wish, Aelliana?" he asked, and once again she tasted that attitude of wrenching carefulness. "This must be as you wish it to be—not as I wish it, nor Clonak, nor anyone else, save yourself."

  "Yes," she said, feeling suddenly very small. "But, Daav—I trust you . . . more than Mizel."

  His mouth tightened, and he bowed his head. "I will try to be worthy of your trust, Aelliana."

  "You already have been," she said, reaching out to touch his hair. It was warm beneath her fingers, coarse and resilient. "Many times over."

  Chapter Five

  It must be the ambition of every person of melant'i to mold individual character to the clan's necessity. The person of impeccable melant'i will have no goal, nor undertake any task, upon which the clan might have reason to frown.

  —

  Excerpted from the

  Liaden Code of Proper Conduct

  The shabby round chair in the library was Sinit's favorite seat in all the house, big enough to curl around in with feet tucked up, bound book braced comfortably against a shapeless pillow. It was also a refuge of sorts; neither her brother nor her eldest sister were at all bookish, so most times Sinit could be certain of having the room to herself.

  This afternoon, however, the chair had no comfort to offer. Sinit had retired to it directly after lunch, taken with only Voni for company—and poor company at that. Apparently, Ran Eld's . . . Ran Eld's death had struck her hard, so that she could scarcely be troubled to correct Sinit's manner at table, much less prose on about the soup being watery—which Sinit, usually the most forgiving of diners, allowed that it had been—or the salad being wilted—which was inarguable—or the tea being tepid.

  After one half-hearted snap at Sinit to keep her elbows off the tabletop, Voni had drunk her soup, pushed the salad aside, and wordlessly handed Sinit her cheese roll. Then, she had risen, teacup in hand, and quit the dining room. Sinit heard her climb the stairs slowly, and the door to her room close with a snick.

  They were, so Mother had told them at breakfast, a House in mourning. That meant that all appointments were canceled, and no unseemly racket was permitted. She had given Sinit an especially stern look when she had said that, which was, Sinit thought now, curled uneasily into her chair, hardly just. It wasn't as if she were a baby. She had fourteen Standards—quite grown up, even if Voni chose to treat her as—

  Chimes sounded.

  Sinit blinked, slid out of the chair—and paused with one foot resting on the capacious seat.

  They were a House in mourning, and therefore ought to be closed to the world for the twelve-day of grief specified in the Code.

  On the other hand, if the chime sounded again, her mother would surely come out from her office, and that—might be very bad.

  Sock-footed, Sinit padded out of the library and down the main hall. She pressed her hand against the plate, waited for the tiny click that signaled the lock had cycled, and pulled the door open.

  Two pilots stood on Mizel's ramshackle porch: To the fore was a lady, trim and upright in her leather, her thin face dominated by a pair of vivid green eyes. A much taller pilot stood at her back, and Sinit knew his face all too well.

  "Delm Korval!" she gasped. Recovering her wits, she bowed, doorkeeper-to-honored-guests. "The House is in mourning, sir. Come again in a twelve-day and Mizel will receive you, gladly."

  "Sinit?" The lady's voice was fine—and familiar. "Have I changed so much overnight?"

  "Aelliana!" Sinit stared, finding her sister along the edges of this stranger's face. "I—you've done something with your hair!"

  Aelliana smiled. "Why, so I have. May we come in? I would have a word with you, if I might."

  "Of course you may come in!" Sinit cried, stepping back—and hesitated, looking up into Aelliana's escort's sharp, clever face. "Although—"

  "No, I will not have Daav await me on the porch!" Aelliana interrupted, stepping into the hall, Korval but a bare step behind her. "He is my copilot, and stands as close as kin, according to the Pilots Guild, so we had best let him in."

  "Good-day, Sinit Caylon," Korval said, his deep, grainy voice unexpectedly gentle. "I welcome the opportunity to thank you for the aid you gave to me—and to my pilot. I am in your debt."

  Sinit's cheeks heated. "Oh, no, please, sir! We are—we are perfectly in Balance. Pray regard it no more."

  "She thinks I'm going to eat her," the man said, perhaps to Aelliana. He bowed, easily. "You must really allow me to judge the magnitude of my own indebtedness. Your assistance was timely and to the point. I do not forget."

  Sinit swallowed and bowed acceptance—she could hardly brangle with him here in the entry hall, after all.

  "That's been settled, then." Aelliana said. "Truly, Sinit, we are both in your debt." She glanced about the hall. "Where is Mother?"

  "In her office," Sinit said. "She—Ran Eld . . ."

  "Yes, it must have struck her hard," Aelliana murmured. She took Sinit's hand and tugged her down the hall. "Let us go into the library. We must talk."

  Ran Eld had once kicked the library door in a fit of pique; it had never closed right after that. However, Korval pulled it as tight as it would go, then took his long self down to the farthest corner of the room, where he immediately began an earnest perusal of the shelves.

  Biting her lip, Sinit stared at his leathered back. The last time she had let this man into Mizel's House, her brother had died of it. Of course, if she had refused him, Aelliana might well have died of that. And what would Mother say, if she found him in-House now . . .

  "Sinit?"

  She gasped and spun 'round, staring into a face so familiar, and yet made so strange. It was the eyes, Sinit thought, so bright—or, no. It was that Aelliana had always used to wear her hair close around her face, as if she were in hiding. And she had stood with shoulders rounded in submission, Sinit remembered suddenly, while this lady—this pilot—stood straight, shoulders level.

  "Aelliana, I—" Tears rose, as they had when she had called Healer Hall. "I didn't know! You might have died in the Learner and I was sitting right here and I didn't know!" she wailed.

  Aelliana caught her, and gathered her close. Sinit began to sob in earnest, her forehead pressed into her sister's shoulder, the leather of her jacket slick and cool beneath heated skin.

  "Sinit, Sinit. All's well. More than well." Aelliana rocked her, and Sinit put her arms around her sister's waist in a fierce hug as the tears subsided somewhat.

  "If there is any one thing that I am grateful for," Aelliana went on, her voice soft and warm, "beyond my own happy outcome, is that you did not know I had been locked inside the Learner."

  "Why?" Sinit sniffled, smelling mint and leather.

  "Because you would have felt compelled to do something. To go against Ran Eld would have—" Her sister paused, arms tightening briefly. "It could have been very bad for you." Sinit raised her head, looking into a face suddenly gone gaunt, brilliant eyes fogged.

  "Ignorance spared you," Aelliana said, suddenly brisk. She smiled, too thin over her apparent pain. "And I am grateful."

  She put her hands on Sinit's shoulders and set her back, looking seriously into her face.

  "You must not blame yourself," she said. "Sinit—promise me that you will not. All has ended very well. Daav has said your assistance was invaluable and he does not, you know, simply say such things, unprovoked. I think you did just as you ought, and wisely. I thank you, and—and honor you."

  Sinit sniffled again, and lifted her chin, feeling a . . . warmth in the center of her chest, where the knot of frightened misery had lodged.
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  "That will do!" Aelliana said approvingly. "Now—"

  "Sinit, who was at the door?"

  Aelliana's eyes widened. Sinit felt her own heart stutter.

  The door went crookedly back on its track and Birin Caylon stepped into the room.

  Mother had been weeping, Aelliana thought; which surely she would, having only recently lost a favored child. Perhaps it was her air of weary disarray only, but she seemed . . . smaller, in some way: a woman edging beyond her middle years with trepidation.

  She froze for a moment in the doorway, arrested between one step and another, staring. It seemed that she, too, had failed of recognizing the House's third and least regarded child—then the moment was passed. Mizel completed her step, and inclined her head.

  "Aelliana!" she said, perhaps a little too loudly; perhaps with an unintended edge. "It is well that you are home, daughter. Sinit, why did you not bring your sister to me at once?"

  "Sinit and I had an urgent matter to discuss," Aelliana said, drawing their mother's attention to herself. "I insisted that we speak immediately."

  She felt a subtle shifting in the air to the rear and right, and put her hand behind her back. Warm fingers met hers, squeezing gently. She was aware of a sense of heightened determination, absent only a heartbeat before, and a thrill of space-cold anger, gone before she could shiver.

  Mother frowned slightly, then looked up and over Aelliana's shoulder, directly, so she judged, into Daav's face. Her mouth thinned, but she bowed with courtesy, delm-to-delm.

  "Korval. Mizel is in your debt; do not doubt that we shall see ourselves Balanced, and that soon. At this moment, however, our House is in mourning, and I ask that you honor our grief. Sinit, pray show Delm Korval to the door."

  "No!" Aelliana said sharply, which was not how one spoke to one's delm.

  Mizel's stare was equal parts disbelief and anger.

  "I beg your pardon, daughter?"

  "Daav is my copilot," she said, arguing Guild rule as if it had meaning here, in the heart of her own clanhouse. "He has a right to be here."

  "Having delivered you to your kin, his protection—which Mizel honors—bows to mine. Korval is aware of these things, daughter, if you are not." She looked to Daav once more.

  "Korval, I do not ask by-your-leave within my own walls, but I will plead your indulgence. There has been a death in this House. Further, it would seem that the child you return to us is . . . beyond herself, and perhaps yet burdened with the effects of her misadventure. Pray, withdraw."

  "Ma'am," Daav said gravely, "I cannot. My pilot requires that I stand with her, and here is where she stands." He paused, and Aelliana had a sense of weighing, as of two courses of action, and then—

  "If my pilot has fulfilled her commission here, then certainly, I shall leave with her."

  "Leave with her?" Mizel's voice expressed disbelief. "She is only just arrived, and in a state quite unlike her usual self. Where would she go?"

  Aelliana cleared her throat. "In fact," she said, her voice sounding much steadier than she felt, "I had only intended to stop for a moment, ma'am, to speak to Sinit. I have . . ." She took a breath, squeezing Daav's hand so hard her fingers ached, felt a rush of certainty, and met her delm's eyes.

  "I have placed myself under Korval's protection."

  For three heartbeats, Mizel stared into Aelliana's face, her own devoid of expression.

  "I see," she said at last, and again addressed herself to Daav.

  "With Korval's permission," she said, in the mode of delm-to-delm, "Mizel will speak with the clan's daughter Aelliana in private."

  Once again, that thrill of frigidly intense, short-lived anger.

  "That decision of course rests with Pilot Caylon," Daav said, also in delm-to-delm.

  Mizel sniffed. "Indeed." She gave Aelliana a hard look.

  "Step into my office, if you please, Aelliana."

  For a moment, she thought she would not; that she would declare that anything Mizel had for her could be heard by her copilot as well.

  The weight of culture, however, is not always so easy to shrug aside.

  Aelliana inclined her head, licking lips gone suddenly dry.

  "Daav," she said, and her voice quavered, now. "Pray wait for me. I will be—I will be no longer than a quarter-glass."

  There was a sense of weighing, and of worry. Then he slipped his fingers away from hers and there remained only—worry.

  "Pilot's choice," he said, in the mode between comrades. "I will wait for you, Aelliana; never doubt it."

  "Very good," Mizel said, acidly. "Pray accept the hospitality of our House. Sinit, fetch refreshments—and call your sister down to entertain our—guest."

  "Now, Aelliana, you will tell me truthfully: This placing of yourself into Korval's hands—was that coercion?"

  The door to the delm's office shut very firmly indeed, and no sooner had it done so than Aelliana's throat closed, all the old fear clawing in her belly. Mizel walked behind her desk and stood, hands gripping the back of her chair, waiting with visible impatience.

  "Well? Or am I to take silence for assent?"

  "No!" The word tore her throat, as if it were edged. "Daav would not coerce me!"

  Mizel sniffed. "Korval did not arrive at their reputation by accident, daughter. I learn—from news reports, and . . . other sources . . . rather than from your own lips—that you have some skill as a pilot, and are also the owner of a spaceship. Korval cannot help but to covet you for those reasons. Pilots and ships are at his clan's core; and it is well-known that dragons are acquisitive of treasure."

  Daav only desired her ship? For the blink of an eye, she believed it, as the herself of only a day past would have done. Surely, he would need some reason, other than the dubious pleasure of her company . . . But no. She knew him better than that.

  Aelliana took a breath and looked into her delm's eyes.

  "Clan Korval owns dozens of ships of all classes, ma'am. There is nothing about a Class A Jump to tempt them. As for Daav—he is my copilot. He offered his best care, as he is bound to do, and I accepted the course he proposed, after consideration. You do not know him, and cannot speculate upon his reasons."

  "I have no need to speculate upon his reasons; they are quite apparent." Mizel pulled her chair back. "He must look to the best good and profit of his clan. As must we all."

  She sat down behind her desk and pointed peremptorily at the stiff wooden chair to Aelliana's right.

  "Sit."

  Unwillingly, she obeyed, placing her feet carefully, so that she might rise quickly, and balanced, should there be need. The back of her neck prickled as if in anticipation of the door opening behind her.

  "You may not yet have received the news," Mizel said slowly, giving Aelliana a hard stare. "Your brother will—no longer disturb your peace."

  Disturb her peace? A dozen memories rose: Ran Eld striking her across the face; twisting her hair; slamming into her room in the dark of night, dragging her out of her bed to huddle, impotent, in the corner while he hurled the contents of drawers and shelves randomly about. Ran Eld, gloating at the course her marriage had taken, and lovingly telling over each bruise; smiling when she flinched from the shadow of his raised hand . . .

  "Disturb my peace?" she repeated. "Say rather that he sought to destroy me by every means at his hand!" She took a breath, meaning to stop there, for surely she had already given a grieving parent pain enough—but her traitor voice continued, in a tone so cold she shivered, hearing it: "Though not too early, nor too easily. There would hardly have been any pleasure in that."

  Mizel inclined her head. "He has paid the final price," she said, her voice stringently steady in the mode between delm and clan member. "Your safety and your peace is now assured in our House." She took a breath, and continued more briskly.

  "Ran Eld's . . . departure leaves Mizel thin. Your resources and your intelligence are needed in the service of your clan. Your grandmother had thought highly of you, and c
onsidered that you might best stand as nadelm. We had, as you know, disagreed upon the point—where two are worthy, it is often the case, and no dishonor to any. Now it is come time for you to take up duty, and learn what must be done to husband Mizel's interests. I do not hide from you that we are in . . . unfortunate straits. I believe that we may make a recovery, if we are diligent and wise, and if all the clan accepts their duty, and, in the case of those more able, beyond their duty."

  Aelliana swallowed, her stomach tight, breath short. She could feel the bars snapping in place around her, shutting her away from Daav, The Luck, her comrades . . .

  "To absent yourself in these times of turmoil is less than even the simplest duty to the House demands. Korval will accept this, when you tell him that your clan has need of you. As I have said, and as I do swear to you, on the honor of our clan, you are safe here among us."

  Safe. In this house where she had been tortured, while the delm preferred not to see. Where she and her resources—her ship!—were suddenly seen as precious. In this clan where both her delm and her mother knew her for the murderer of her brother. And neither would forgive her.

  "So!" Mizel said, placing her hands flat atop the desk. "It is decided. You will inform Korval of your obligations, thank him—graciously, mind you, Aelliana!—for his many kindnesses to yourself, and release him to his own affairs. You will be able to rest easy here, and recuperate further—"

  Aelliana stood. She must stand, she thought, her heart pounding, or the weight of Mizel's words, the weight of duty, would bind her where she sat and she would never, never free herself; never fully realize this new self, who was not entirely ruled by fear . . .

  "Why?" she gasped.

  Her delm glared. "Because there is no one else, if you will have it," she said coldly.

  Aelliana inclined her head. "No, ma'am, forgive me. I am well aware of the logic that would have you heap duty upon me. My question is: Why did Mizel send no one to me at Healer Hall? Sinit knew where I was, and yet—it was not kin who sent clothes to replace mine that were torn, or to offer companionship on the way home. It was Daav who came, not you."