Local Custom (4 page)

"Er Thom." She barely heard her own whisper, hardly knew that she had increased her stride, until she was almost running toward him.

He met her halfway, extending a slim golden hand on which his amethyst master trader's ring blazed. She caught his fingers in hers and stood looking down at him, wide mouth curved in a smile no dimmer than the one he had treasured, all this time.

"Er Thom," she said in her rich, lilting voice. "I'm so very happy to see you, my friend."

Happy. What a small word, to describe the dazzling, dizzying joy that threatened to engulf him. He hung onto her hand, though it would have been more proper to bow. "I am—happy—to see you, also," he managed, smiling up into her eyes. "They keep you working late . . . "

She laughed. "A departmental meeting—it dragged on and on! I can't imagine what they found to talk about." She sobered. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Not very long." Hours. He had despaired a dozen times; walked away and returned two dozen . . .  three . . .  He showed her the bag he held. "Are you hungry? I have food, wine."

"My thoughtful friend.
Starved
. Come in." She tugged on his hand, turning him back toward the anonymous door that marked her dwelling place. "How long are you stopping, Er Thom?"

He hesitated and she looked at him closely.

"More than just today? Don't tell me that stupid meeting has kept me away for half your visit!"

"No." He smiled up at her. "I do not know how long I am staying, you see. It depends upon—circumstances."

"Oh," she said wisely, "
circumstances.
" She let go his hand and lay her palm against the door's lockplate. With a grand, meaningless flourish, she bowed him across the threshold.

Just within and to one side, he stopped to watch her cross the room, past the shrouded half-chora to the wall-desk, where she lay her briefcase down with a sigh. It struck him that she moved less gracefully than he recalled, and nearly gasped at the sharpness of his concern.

"Anne?" He was at her elbow in a flicker, searching her face. "Are you well?"

She smiled. "Just tired, my dear—that absurd meeting." She reached out, touching his cheek lightly with the tips of her fingers. "Er Thom, it's so good to see you."

He allowed the caress. Kin and lifemates alone touched thus: face-to-face, hand-to-face. He had never told her so; he did not tell her now. He turned his face into her palm and felt the icy misery in his chest begin to thaw.

"It is good to see you, also," he murmured, hearing the pounding of his heart, wanting—wanting . . .  He shifted slightly away and held up the bag. "You are tired. I will pour you wine—is that proper?—and you will sit and rest. All right? Then I will bring you some of this to eat." He pointed to a dark alcove to the right. "That is the kitchen?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "That's the kitchen. But, my friend, it can't be proper to put a guest to work."

"It is no trouble," he told her earnestly. "Please, I wish to."

"All right," she said, astonished and bewildered at the way her eyes filled with tears. "Thank you. You're very kind."

"Rest," he murmured and disappeared into the kitchen corner. The light came on, adding to the dim illumination of the living area. Anne sighed. There were signs of neglect everywhere: dust, scattered books and papers, discarded pens. Under the easy chair a fugitive rubber block crouched, defiant.

She turned her back on it deliberately, pulled off her jacket and curled into a corner of the couch, long legs under her, head resting on the back cushions. She heard small sounds from the kitchen as Er Thom opened and closed cabinets. The air filtering unit thrummed into sluggish life . . . 

"Anne?"

She gasped, head jerking up. Er Thom bit his lip, violet eyes flashing down to the glass he held and back to her face.

"I am inconvenient," he said solemnly, inclining his head. "Perhaps I may come again to see you. When you are less tired. Tell me."

"No." Her changeable face registered guilt, even panic. "Er Thom, I'm sorry to be a bad host. I'd like you to stay. Please. You're not
inconvenient
—never that, my dear. And if you leave now and your circumstances mesh, then you might not be able to come again. You could be gone again tomorrow."

He set the glass aside, caught the hand she half-extended and allowed himself to be drawn down to sit beside her.

"Anne . . . " Fascinated, he watched his fingers rise to her cheek, stroke lightly and ever-so-slowly down the square jaw line to the firm chin.

"All will be well," he said, soothing her with his voice as if she were a child instead of a woman grown. "I will be here tomorrow, Anne. Certainly tomorrow. And you—my friend, you are exhausted. It would be wrong—improper—to insist you entertain me in such a case. I will go and come back again. Tomorrow, if you like. Only tell me."

Her eyes closed and she bent her head, half-hiding her face from him. He held onto her hand and she did not withdraw it, though her free hand stole upward, fingers wrapping around the pendant at the base of her throat.

Er Thom's eyes widened. She wore the parting-gift, even now; touched it as if it were capable of giving comfort. And he, he here by her,
touching
her, speaking on terms that would lead any to assume them lovers, if not bound more closely still.

The magnitude of his error staggered; the cause that had brought him here suddenly showing the face of self-deception. He should never have given Anne nubiath'a.

He should never have sought her out again . . . 

"Er Thom?" She was looking at him, dark brown eyes large in a face he thought paler than it might be.

"Yes, my friend?" he murmured and smiled for her. Whatever errors were found in this time and place were solely his own, he told himself sternly. Anne, at least, had behaved with utmost propriety.

"I—I know that I'm not very entertaining right now," she said with a tentativeness wholly unAnne-like, "but—unless you have somewhere else you need—would rather be—I'd
like
you to stay."

"There is no other place I wish to be," he said—and that was truth, gods pity him, though he could think of a dozen places he might otherwise be needed, not forgetting his mother's drawing room and the bridge of the trade ship orbiting Liad.

He picked up the wineglass and placed it in her hand as he rose. "Drink your wine, my friend. I will be back in a moment with food."

IT WAS SOME time later, after the odd sweet-spicy food was eaten and the wine, but for the little remaining in their glasses, was drunk, before she thought to ask him.

"But, Er Thom, what are you doing on University? Another trade mission? There isn't anything to trade for here, is there?"

"To trade for? No . . . " He took a sip of the sticky yellow wine, then, with sudden decision, finished the glass.

"I am not here to trade," he told her, watching as if from a distance as his traitor body slid closer to her on the sofa and his hand lifted to fondle her hair. "What I am doing is seeing you."

She laughed softly as she set aside her glass. "Of course you are," she murmured, gently mocking.

She did not believe him! Panic galvanized him. She
must
believe, or all he had meant to accomplish by this mad breaking with custom was gone for naught. The Healers would take him, and reft him of distress, and it would be forgot, unknown, lost in a swirl of blurry dreaming . . . 

His fingers tightened in her hair, pulling her down as he tipped his face up to hers, hungrily, despairingly.

She came willingly, as she ever had, her mouth firm and sweet on his, calling forth the desire, the need, that had been touched by no other, before or since. The need that burned away names, clans and duty, leaving only she . . .  and he.

LATER YET, AND she asleep. Er Thom shifted onto an elbow, letting the light from the living area fall past his shoulder and onto her.

A Liaden would not count her beautiful. He believed that even among Terrans she was considered but moderately attractive. Certainly her face was too full for Liaden taste, her nose too long, her mouth too wide, her skin merely brown, not golden. And while chestnut was a very pretty color for hair, Anne wore hers with an eye to ease of care.

The rest of her was as strange to the standard of beauty he acknowledged: Her breasts, brown as her face and rosy brown at the very tips, were round and high, larger than his hand could encompass. She was saved from being top-heavy by the width of her hips, flaring unexpectedly from a narrow waist, and she moved with a pilot's smooth grace. Her hands were long-fingered and strong—musician's hands—and her voice was quite lovely.

He thought of the face of the latest proposed to him: Properly Liaden, well-mannered and golden. A person who understood duty, who would do as she was bid by her delm. And who would very properly rebuke Er Thom yos'Galan, should he but reach out a finger to trace the line of her cheek, or lay his lips against hers.

But I do not want her!
he thought, plaintive, childish, undutiful—strange. As strange as lying here in this present, in a too-large bed, his arms about a woman not of his kind, who expected him to sleep next to her the night full through; to be there when she awoke . . . 

Carefully, he slid down until his eyes were on a level with her closed eyes. For a long while, he stared into her unbeautiful, alien face, watching—guarding—her sleep. Finally, he moved his head to kiss her just-parted lips and said at last the thing he had come to tell her, the thing which must not be forgotten.

"I love you, Anne Davis."

His voice was soft and not quite steady, and he stumbled over the Terran words, but it hardly mattered. She was asleep and did not hear him.

 
Melant'i —A Liaden word denoting the status of a person within a given situation. For instance, one person may fulfill several roles: Parent, spouse, child, mechanic, thodelm. The shifting winds of circumstance, or 'necessity,' dictate from which role the person will act this time. They will certainly always act honorably, as defined within a voluminous and painfully detailed code of behavior, referred to simply as 'The Code.'
To a Liaden, melant'i is more precious than rubies, a cumulative, ever-changing indicator of his place in the universal pecking order. A person of high honor, for instance, is referred to as "a person of melant'i," whereas a scoundrel—or a Terran—may be dismissed with "he has no melant'i."
Melant'i may be the single philosophical concept from which all troubles, large and small, between Liad and Terra spring.

—From "A Terran's Guide to Liad"

LATE IN THE morning, loved and showered and feeling positively decadent, Anne stood in front of the tiny built-in vanity. A few brush-strokes put her shower-dampened hair into order, and she smiled into her own eyes as her reflected fingers found and picked up her pendant.

"Anne?"

She turned, transferring her smile to him. An elfin prince, so Brellick had described him, enticing Anne to meet a real, live Liaden. And elfin he was: Slim and tawny and quick; hair glittering gold, purple eyes huge in a beardless pointed face; voice soft and seductively accented.

The eyes right now were very serious, moving from her hand to her face.

"Anne?" he said again.

"Yes, my dear. What can I do for you?"

"Please," he said slowly, gliding closer to her. "Do not wear that."

"Don't wear—" She blinked at him, looked down at the fine golden chain and pendant seed-pearls, artfully blended with gold-and-enamel leaves to look like a cluster of fantasy grapes.

This is a misunderstanding,
she told herself carefully;
a problem with the words chosen.
Er Thom's command of Terran tended to be literal and uneasy of idiom—much like her careful, scholar's Liaden. It made for some interesting conversational tangles, now and then. But they had always been able to untangle themselves, eventually. She looked back into his eyes.

"You gave this to me," she said, holding it out so he might see it better. "Don't you remember, Er Thom? You gave it to me the day
Dutiful Passage
—"

"I remember," he said sharply, cutting her off without a glance at the pearls. He lay a hand lightly on her wrist.

"Anne? Please. It was—it was given to say good-bye. I would rather—may I?—give you another gift."

She laughed a little and lay her hand briefly over his.

"But you won't be here long, will you? And when you leave again, you'll have to give me another gift, for another good-bye . . . " She laughed more fully. "My dear, I'll look like a jewelry store."

The serious look in his eyes seemed to intensify and he swayed closer, so his hip grazed her thigh.

"No," he began, a little breathlessly. "I—there is a thing you must hear, Anne, and never forget—"

The doorbell chimed. Anne glanced up, mouth curving in a curious smile, and raised her fingers to touch his cheek.

"That's Jerzy," she said, laying the pendant back in its carved ivory box. She moved past him toward the living room. "Er Thom, there's someone I want you to meet."

He stood still for a moment, running through a pilot's calming exercise. Then, he went after her.

The man who was coming in from the hallway was not large as Terrans go; he was, in fact, a bit under standard height for that race, and a bit under standard weight, too. He had rough black hair chopped off at the point of his jaw and a pale face made memorable by the thick line of a single brow above a pair of iron-gray eyes. He was carrying a cloth sack over one shoulder and a child on the opposite hip. Both he and the child were wearing jackets; the child also wore a cap.

"Jerzy delivers kid latish in the a.m., as promised. Notice the nobility of spirit which would not allow me to steal him, though I was tempted, ma'am. Sore tempted."

"You're a saint, Jerzy," Anne said gravely, though Er Thom heard the ripple of laughter through her words.

"I'm a lunatic," the young man corrected, bending to set the child on his sturdy legs. He knelt and pulled off the cap, revealing a head of silky, frost-colored hair, and unsealed the little jacket, much hampered by small, busy hands.