Local Custom (10 page)

He stopped, dropping into a stillness so absolute the cat paused in its ablutions to stare at him out of wide yellow eyes.

"Anne Davis." He sipped wine, pensively, head cocked to a side. "Anne Davis, now." He sighed lightly. "It really is too bad, the things Scout candidates are required to read. But is it the identical Anne Davis, I wonder? And
was
it Anne Davis at all? Certainly it was linguistics—and rather startling in its way. My pitiful memory . . . "

Talking thus to himself, he went back to the desk, set aside the wine and opened a search program. In response to the command query he typed in a rapid half-dozen keywords, struck 'go' and leaned back in his chair.

"Now—" he began, looking significantly at the cat.

He got no further. The first chime signaling a match had barely ceased when the second, third, fourth, fifth sounded. There was a pause of less than a heartbeat before the sixth and final match was announced and by that time Daav was blinking in bemusement at the screen-full of information his first keyword had produced.

"Ah yes," he murmured, touching the 'continue' key. "Exactly so."

Anne Davis' list of publications ran two full screens, including the compilation and cross-check of major Terran dialects Daav had half-recalled. He noted the work had been upgraded twice since; the version he had read had been her doctoral paper.

He also noted that the focus of her study had undergone a fascinating shift of direction, the seeds of which were certainly to be found in that earliest work. Yet the intellectual courage required to begin the painstaking sifting and matching of Liaden and base-Terran, not to forget the language of the enemy—Yxtrang—seeking commonality . . . 

"A concept worthy of a Scout," Daav murmured, ordering the entire bibliography for his private library with a flash of quick golden fingers across the board. "Bold heart, Scholar. May the luck show you fair face."

The biography, accessed next, jibed very well with Er Thom's letter. Heidelberg Fellow Anne Davis, author of many scholarly papers (list appended) in the field of comparative linguistics, was indeed a native of New Dublin in the Terran Sector of Faerie. She possessed one sibling, Richard Davis, pilot; and was descended of Elizabeth Murphy, pilot, deceased, and Ian Davis, engineer, also deceased.

She was listed as the parent of one child, Shan yos'Galan, born Standard Year 1357.

"And a matter of very public record," Daav commented wryly. "One begins to comprehend Er Thom's feelings in the matter."

Eyes still on the bio, he reached out and spun the pin-beam screen around.

"A person of melant'i, forsooth," he murmured, frowning at the letter. "Is it possible he begs a
solving
for the lady? True enough, she will have no delm to solve for her, and if the child is to come to Korval . . . " He rescued his wine glass and leaned back in the chair, staring at the cloud-painted ceiling and sipping.

On the desk, the cat stirred, stretched and walked over the small gap to the man's lap, leisurely making itself comfortable.

"It may be alliance she wants," Daav murmured, toying with the cat's ear. "No bad thing, there, Relchin—and Professor Davis in pursuit of a notion likely to have found approval with Grandmother Cantra. There's University of Liad, after all, just over the valley wall—and all the lovely native speakers . . . "

The cat purred and moved its head so the man's fingers were tickling its chin.

"Simple for you to say so," Daav complained. "
You're
not asked to solve for one outside the clan! Nor is the coming of this child to Korval at all regular. What
can
Er Thom have been about?"

But the big cat only purred harder and kneaded Daav's thigh with well-clawed front feet.

"Stop that, brute, or I'll need a medic." Daav sighed. "Perhaps I should travel to University, see the lady and—no." He finished his wine and reached out a long arm to set the glass aside.

"Best to read the letter precisely as written, Relchin, eh? In which manner we must graciously respond to our erring a'thodelm and solicit details upon the nature of Korval's debt to Professor Davis."

So saying, and to the cat's disapproval, he spun the chair around to the pin-beam unit and began to compose his reply.

SHAN MADE A HEARTY dinner and went to bed without demur, a circumstance so unusual that Anne felt his forehead for signs of fever.

There was none, of course, which she had known in that secret pocket of her heart where she also knew if he slept or waked, was calm or distressed. The child was tired, that was all.

"Mirada wore you out, laddie, didn't he just?"

"Mirada?" Shan's lashes flickered and the slanting brows pulled together. "Mirada?

"Later, Shannie," Anne soothed, brushing the white hair back from the broad, brown forehead. "Go to sleep now."

But she had no need to coax; her inner sense told her sleep had already laid its spell.

Out in the great room a few minutes later, she shook her head at the parcels that had been delivered from the local grocer. Gods only knew where the man thought she was going to put all the various goodies he'd ordered, which included two tins of fabulously expensive, real-bean coffee.

"Well, and perhaps some of it will be for himself," she murmured, turning her back on the pile and resolutely picking up the first examination booklet.

She was very nearly half-way through the lot when the doorbell sounded, startling her into a curse.

"Ah, there, Annie Davis," she chided herself as she crossed the room, "always losing yourself inside the work . . . "

"Good evening." Er Thom bowed low as she opened the door—the Bow of Honored Esteem, she thought, frowning slightly. Most usually, he greeted her with the Bow Between Equals. She wondered, uneasily, what the deviation meant.

"Good evening," she returned, with as much calm as she could muster. She stepped aside, motioning him in with a wave of her hand. "Come in, please."

He did, offering the wine he carried with another slight bow. "A gift for the House."

Anne took the bottle, uneasiness growing toward alarm. Er Thom usually brought wine on his visits—a Liaden custom, she understood, which demonstrated the goodwill of the visitor. But he had never before been so formal—so
alien
—in his manner to her.

Clutching the symbol of his goodwill, Anne attempted her own bow—Gratitude Toward the Guest. "Thank you. Will you take a glass with me?"

"It would be welcome," he returned, nothing but stiff formality, with all of her friend and her lover hid down in the depths of his eyes. He moved a graceful hand, showing her the cluttered worktable and piles of exam booklets. "I would not, however, wish to interrupt your work."

"Oh." She stared at the desk, then at the clock on the shelf above it. "My work will take me another few hours," she said, hesitantly. "A break now, for a few moments, to drink wine with—with my friend . . . " She let it drift off, biting her lip in an agony of uncertainty.

"Ah." Something moved across his face—a flicker, nothing more. But she knew that he was in some way relieved. Almost, she thought he smiled, though in truth he did nothing more than incline his head.

"I suggest a compromise," he said softly. "You to your worktable and I to stow the groceries. The wine may wait until—friends—are able."

"Stow the groceries?" She blinked at him and then at the pile of boxes. "All that stuff won't fit in my kitchen, Er Thom. I'd hoped some was for you."

Surprisingly, he laughed—sweet, rare sound that it was—and she found herself smiling in response.

"A cargo-balancing exercise, no more." He reached out and slipped the bottle from her grasp. "I shall contrive. In the meanwhile, you to your examinations, eh?"

"I to my examinations," she agreed, still smiling like a fool, absurdly, astonishingly relieved. "Thank you, Er Thom."

"It is nothing," he murmured, moving off toward the pile.

He paused briefly to take off his jacket and drape it over the back of the easy chair before continuing on to the kitchen.

Ridiculously light of heart, Anne went back to her desk and opened the next blue book.

TRUE TO HIS WORD, Er Thom found room for every blessed thing in the boxes, then neatly folded the boxes and slid them into the thin space between the coldbox and the washer.

He used the few extra minutes Anne needed to finish grading her last paper to rustle up some of the freshly-foraged foodstuffs and carry the snack, with wine and glasses, into the great room.

"That looks wonderful!" Anne said, eyeing the tray of cheese and vegetables and sauce with real appreciation. She smiled at Er Thom and stretched high on her toes to work out the kinks, fingers brushing the ceiling, as always.

"Blasted low bridge," she muttered, as she always did. "How much could it cost to add an extra two inches of height?"

"Quite a bit, I should think," Er Thom replied seriously. "Two inches on such a scale of building very soon becomes miles." He moved his shoulders, studiously watching the wine he was pouring into the glasses, rather than the delightful spectacle of her stretching tall and taut above him. "And cantra."

Anne grinned. "I expect you're right, at that. But it's a nuisance to always be bumping my fingers on the ceiling tiles."

She sank down into a corner of the sofa and took the glass he offered her. "Thank you, my dear, for all your labors on my behalf."

For a moment he froze, panicked that she might somehow know of the plea he had made on her behalf to Daav—Then he shook himself, for of course she only meant the task this evening, which was in truth nothing to one accustomed to balancing the holding pods of a starship.

"You are welcome," he said, since she seemed to wish hear him say it, and was rewarded by her smile.

Carefully, he sat on the opposite end of the sofa, striving to ignore the way his blood heated with her nearness, the shameful desires that clamored for ascendancy over honor and melant'i . . .  He sipped wine, set the glass gently aside and steeled himself to look up into her face.

"I regret," he said, clearing his throat because his voice had gone unexpectedly hoarse. "I regret very much to have caused you pain, Anne. It was not understood that you would arrive home at an early hour. I erred and I wish you will forgive me."

She blinked. So
that
was the reason for his earlier stiffness. Almost, she reached out to touch his cheek. It was only the memory of the searing, unreasoning passion that the least touch of him awoke that kept her hand resting lightly on her knee.

"I forgive you freely," she said instead, smiling at him warmly. "It was—foolish of me to have panicked that way. You had given me your word and I should have—" Dangerous ground here: Fatal to say that she had
doubted
his word. "—I should have remembered that."

"Ah." He gave her a slight smile in return. "You are kind."

He hesitated then, putting off the moment when he must, in honor, ask what melant'i trembled to conceive. And it was not, he admitted to himself, wryly, as he would admit it to Daav, honor's argument that most compelled him. Rather, it was happy circumstance that honor in this instance bent neatly 'round his heart's desire.

He sipped his wine and had a nibble of cheese, all but trembling with desiring her. Sternly, he pushed the passion aside. He had sworn that it would be precisely as Anne wished it, with none of Er Thom yos'Galan's unruly passions to disarm her. There were proposals to be considered here; trade to be engaged upon. He took a deep breath.

"Anne?"

"Yes, love?" The intensity of her gaze betrayed a passion as unruly as his own and almost in that instant of meeting her eyes he was lost again.

Gritting his teeth, he shifted his gaze and swallowed against the flood tide of desire.

"I have a—proposal," he managed, hearing his voice shiver with breathlessness. "If you will hear me."

"All right," she said. Her voice seemed odd, as well, though when he turned to look at her, she had her face averted, watching the wine glass she had set upon the table. "What proposal, Er Thom?"

"I propose—" Gods, his thodelm would berate him and his delm also—perhaps. She was outside the Book of Clans—Terran, Terran, Terran to the core of her. She was bread to nourish him, water to slake him—desire to torment him until he could do nothing else but have her, though it flew in the face of clan and Code and—yes—of kin.

"I propose," he repeated, forcing himself to meet her eyes with a calmness he did not feel, "that we two be wed."

 
If fate decrees you'll be lost at sea, you'll live through many a train wreck.

—Terran Proverb

"WED?" ASTONISHMENT overrode exultation—barely. With the force of both emotions rocking her, she heard her own voice, stammering: "But—I'm not Liaden."

Er Thom smiled slightly, slender shoulders moving in a fluid not-shrug. "And neither am I Terran," he said, with a certain dryness. He half-extended a hand to her, thought better of it and reached instead for his wine glass.

"It would be proper," he murmured, with exquisite care, for who was he to instruct an equal adult in proper conduct? "Proper—and well-intended—for you and I to be bound by contract—wed—at the time our son is Seen by Korval."

Exultation died with an abruptness that was agony. No lover-like words from Er Thom, Anne thought with uncharacteristic bitterness—when had she had even an endearment from him? This was expedience, nothing more. Unthinkable that a man of Er Thom yos'Galan's melant'i come home to show his delm a doxy and a bastard when he might, with only a little expense, show instead a wife and legitimate heir. Anne blinked through a sudden glaze of tears and willed herself to believe that the pounding of her heart was caused by anger, not anguish.

"No, thank you," she said shortly, proud that her voice was sharp and even. She turned her head, refusing to look at him, and reached for her glass.

"Hah." His hand—slim golden fingers, one crowned by the carved amethyst ring of a master trader—his hand lay lightly on her wrist, restraining her, waking fire in her belly.