Local Custom (14 page)

"Not now," he interrupted softly, testing his sleeve between finger and thumb. "This fabric dries very quickly." He ran a quick hand through bright golden locks and made a wry face. "Hair, however—"

Anne laughed. "Adventures in bathing! You didn't need to take that on, my friend. I know Shan's a handful—"

"No more than Daav and I were at his age," Er Thom murmured, leading the way into the kitchenette. "Based on tales which have been told. Though the process by which one may get soup into one's ears seems to have escaped me over time—"

"It's a gift," Anne told him seriously, leaning a hip against the counter.

"As well it might be," he returned, back to her as he ferreted out glasses, corkscrew, and wine bottle.

Anne put her arms behind her, palms flat on the counter, watching his smooth, efficient movements. Her mind drifted somewhat, considering the slim golden body hidden now beneath the dark blue shirt and gray trousers. It was a delightful body: unexpectedly strong, enchantingly supple, entirely, warmly, deliciously male—Anne caught her breath against a throttling surge of desire.

Across the tiny kitchen, Er Thom dropped a glass.

It chimed on the edge of the counter, wine freed in a glistening ruby arc, and surrendered to gravity, heading toward the floor.

In that instant he was moving, hand sweeping down and under, snatching the glass from shattering destruction and bringing it smoothly to rest, upright on the wine-splashed counter.

"Forgive me," he said breathlessly, violet eyes wide and dazzled. "I am not ordinarily so clumsy."

"It could have—happened to anyone," Anne managed, breathless in her own right. "And you made a wonderful recover—I don't think the glass broke. Here—"

Glad of a reason to turn away from those brilliant, piercing eyes, she pulled paper towels out of the wall dispenser and went to the counter to mop up, avoiding his gaze.

"Just a bit of clean up and we're good as new. Though it is a shame about the wine."

"There is more wine," Er Thom replied, voice too near for her peace of mind. She straightened, found herself caught between counter and table and looked helplessly down into his face.

He raised his hands, showing her empty palms. "Anne—"

"Er Thom." She swallowed, mind stumbling. The man could
not
have heard her lustful thinking, she assured herself and in the next heartbeat heard her voice stammering:

"Er Thom, do
you
see sparkles?"

"Ah." He lowered his hands, slowly, keeping them in full view until they hung, open and unthreatening, at his sides. "I am no Healer," he said seriously. "However, you should know—Korval has given many Healers—and—and dramliz as well."

The dramliz, for lack of a saner way to bend the language, were wizards, infinitely more powerful than Healers. Dramliz talents embraced interactive empathy and took off from there: teleportation, translocation, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telelocution—every item on the list of magical abilities attributed to any shaman, witch or wizard worth their salt during any epoch in history.

If you believed in such things.

And Shan,
Anne thought, somewhat wildly,
sees sparkles.

"I—see." She took a breath and managed a wobbling smile. "I suppose I should have inquired further into the—suitability of your genes."

It was a poor joke, and a dangerous one, but Er Thom's eyes gleamed with genuine amusement.

"So you should have. But done is done and no profit in weeping over spoiled wine." He stepped back, bowing gently. "Why not go into the other room and—be at ease? I will bring the wine in a moment."

"All right." She slipped past, assiduously avoiding even brushing his sleeve, and fled into the common room.

"OH, IT'S JUST a mess," she was saying some minutes later in answer to his query. "Admin's being as bitchy as possible. You'd think—oh, never mind." She sighed.

"The best news is that everyone seems to be accounted for—but the cost in terms of people's work! Professor Dilling just stood in a corner during the whole meeting and shook, poor thing. I went over to see if there was something I could do, but he just kept saying, 'Thirty years of research, gone. Gone.'" She sighed again, moving her big hands in a gesture eloquent of frustration, and sagged back into the corner of the sofa.

"But surely," Er Thom murmured, from his own corner, "the computer files—"

"Paper," Anne corrected him, wearily. "Old Terran musical notation—some original sheet music. I'd helped him sort things a couple of times. His office was a rat's nest. Papers, old instruments—wood, metal—all blown to bits. Little,
tiny
bits, as Jerzy would have it." She reached for her wine.

"And your own work?" Er Thom wondered softly.

Anne laughed, though not with her usual ration of humor. "Oh, I'm one of the lucky ones. I lost the latest draft of a monograph I'd been working on—but I've got the draft before that saved down in the belly of Central Comp—some student work, files, study plans—that's the worst of it. The important stuff—the recordings, notes, my letters—is in the storage room I share with Jerzy—all the way over in Theater Arts. I doubt if it even got shook up."

"You are fortunate."

This time her laugh held true amusement. "Paranoid, more likely. I didn't care to have my work sitting about where just anyone could pick it up and read it. As a rule, when I'm working on something, I keep the notes with me—in my briefcase—and I have a locked, triple-coded account in Central Comp." She smiled, wryly. "Welcome to the world of cutthroat academics. Publish or perish, gentlefolk, please state your preference."

"'Who masters counterchance masters the world'," Er Thom quoted in Liaden. He tipped his head. "Central Administration—there are new duties required of you, in the face of this emergency?"

"Not a bit of it!" Anne assured him. "All that is required of us is that we continue precisely as we would have done, had the Languages Department not been—
redecorated
—in this rather extreme fashion. Exams are to be given
on schedule
—Central Admin has located and assigned—alternative—classroom space! Grades are to be filed
on time
—no excuses." She threw her hands up in a gesture of disgust.

"Some of these people lost
everything
! The exams they've already given are buried under a couple of tons of rubble, alongside of the exams still to be given! It was just sheer, dumb luck that I brought my lot home with me last night, or else I'd be trying to issue final grades on the basis of guess-and-golly!"

"Hah." Er Thom sipped his wine. "The explosion—do they know the cause?"

"An accident," Anne said, rubbing her neck wearily. "Which means they don't know. Not," she added, "that they'd tell a bunch of mere professors if they
did
know."

She sipped her wine, eyes closed. Er Thom sat quietly, watching her shuttered face, noting the lines of weariness, hating the demands of necessity.

Tomorrow will be soon enough to speak of the journey to Liad,
he told himself.
She is exhausted—wrought.

He took a sip of wine, wondering if he might properly offer to fetch her a Healer. It struck him as outrageous, that those to whom she owed service had not provided this benefit. To barely miss being blown up with the building where one's work was housed—Healers should have been present at the meeting at Central Administration today, available to any who had need. Had one of his crew been subjected to such stress—

"This is wonderful wine," Anne murmured, opening her eyes. "You never bought this at the Block Deli!"

He smiled. "Alas. It is from the private store of
Valcon Melad'a
—the ship of my brother, which he—lent—to me for this journey."

"Is he going to be a little annoyed with you for drinking up all his good red wine?" she wondered, eyes curiously alert, though the question was nearly idle.

"Daav does not care overmuch for the red," Er Thom told her, with a smile for his absent kin. He moved his shoulders. "We are brothers, after all. How shall it be except that I own nothing that is not his, nor he something that is not also mine?"

"I—see." Anne blinked and had another appreciative sip of wine. "Is he much older than you are?"

"Eh? Ah, no, he is the younger—" He moved his hand, fingers flicking in dismissal. "A matter of a few relumma—nothing to signify. You will see, when you have come to be our guest."

It was little enough, and truly he meant to say no more than that, but Anne's mouth tightened and she straightened against the flat cushions.

"I have decided," she said, not quite looking at his face, "that I won't be going to Liad. And neither will Shan."

Without doubt, here was the opening of the trade, which must be answered, at once and fully.

"Ah." Er Thom sipped, delicately, tasting not so much the wine as sorrow, that she forced this now, with her less than able and he with necessity to his arm—and a Master of Trade, besides.

"It is, of course, your decision to make," he murmured, giving her full view of his face, "for yourself. For Shan, it is a different matter, as we have discussed. The delm must Know him. Necessity exists."

It was gentler answer than he would have given any other—by many degrees—and still it seemed to him that her face paled.

"Will you steal my son from me, Er Thom?" Nearly harsh, her voice, and her eyes glittered with the beginnings of anger.

"I am not a thief," he replied evenly. "The child's name is yos'Galan. You, yourself, named him. If there is question of—
belonging
—the law is clear." He tasted wine, deliberately drawing out the time until he looked back to her.

Her face had indeed paled, eyes bright with tears, mouth grooved in a line of pain so profound that he broke with the trade and leaned forward against all sense, to take her hand in his.

"Anne, there is nothing here for the Council of Clans—there is nothing between we two that must make one of us thief! Shan is our child. What better than we who are both his parents take him before the delm, as is proper and right? And as for declining the journey entire—what of your friend, who has died and left you duty? Surely you cannot ignore that necessity, aside from this other—" He was raving, he thought, hearing himself. What possible right had he to speak to her so? To demand that she embrace duty and turn her face to honor? What—

She snatched her hand away from him, curling it protectively against her breast.

"Er Thom," she said, and her voice shook, though her eyes were steady on his, "I am not Liaden."

"I know," he told her, his own voice barely more than a whisper. "Anne. I know."

For a long moment they sat thus, her eyes pinned to his, neither able to move.

"You're in trouble," she said slowly, and there was absolute conviction in her voice. "Er Thom, why did you come here?"

"To see you—once more," he said, with the utter truthfulness one owes none save kin—or a lifemate. "To say—I love you."

"Only that?"

"Yes."

"You've done those things," Anne said, and the tears were wet on her face, though she never moved her eyes from his. "You can go home now. Forget—"

"The child," he interrupted, hand rising in a sign of negation. "I cannot. Necessity exists." He flung out both hands, imploring, the trade in shambles around him. "Anne, I
am
Liaden."

"Yes," she said softly, putting her hands into his. "I know."

She closed her eyes, long fingers cool against his palms, and he watched her face and wished, urgently, for Daav to be here just now, to show them the safe path out of this desperate muddle that only became more confused with each attempt at repair . . . 

"All right." Anne opened her eyes. He felt her withdraw her hands from his with an absurd sense of loss.

"All right," she said again, and inclined her head.

"At the end of the semester, Shan and I will come with you to Liad," she said, intonation formal—a recitation of the conditions of agreement. "Shan will be seen by your delm and we will be the guests of Clan Korval while I help Professor yo'Kera's colleague sort out his notes. When that—duty—is done, my son and I will come home. Agreed?"

He retained enough wit to know he could agree to no such thing. Who was he, to guess what the delm might require? And there was yet that other matter between he and Anne, which the delm must adjudicate . . . 

She was watching him closely, eyes sharp, though showing weariness around the corners.

"I hear you," he murmured, matching her tone of formality. He bowed as fully as possible, seated as he was, and looked back up into her face. "Thank you, Anne."

She smiled, dimly, with her face still strained, and reached out toward him. Just shy of his cheek, her fingers hesitated—dropped.

"You're welcome," she said softly, and sighed, all her exhaustion and strain plain for him to see.

"I shall leave you now," he said gently, though he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and soothe her, to sit the night through, if need be, and watch that her sleep went undisturbed.

Fighting improper desires, he rose and made his bow.

"Sleep well," he said. "I shall come tomorrow, as I did today, and care for our child while you are away."

"All right." Anne made no move to rise, as if she did not trust herself to do so without stumble. She gave him the gift of another tired smile. "Thank you, Er Thom. Chiat'a bei kruzon."

He bowed, profoundly warmed. "Chiat'a bei kruzon, denubia," he replied and was so lost to propriety that the endearment passed his lips without awaking the least quiver of shame.

 
The Universe adorns
a flawless jewel.
Solcintra.

—From "Collected Poems" Elabet pel'Ongin, Clan Diot

RELUCTANTLY, DAAV lifted his cheek from the comfort of her breast.

"Olwen?"

"Mmm?" she murmured sleepily, raising a hand to push his head down. "Stop
fidgeting
."

"Yes, but I have to leave," he explained, shamelessly nuzzling into her softness.