Local Custom (9 page)

"Well done, bold-heart!" he cried in exuberant Low Liaden and heard his son squeal with laughter. He set him down on his feet and offered a hand, remembering to speak Terran. "Shall I show you a thing?"

"Yes!" his son said happily and took the offered hand for the short walk back to the piloting chamber.

BRONZE WINGS SPREAD wide, the mighty dragon hovered protectively above the Tree, head up and alert, emerald-bright eyes seeming to look directly into one's soul. Shan took a sharp breath and hung slightly back.

"It is Korval's shield," Er Thom murmured, though of course the child was too young to understand all that meant. He ran his palm down the image. "A picture, you see?"

The boy stepped forward and Er Thom lifted him, bringing him close enough to run his own hand down the smooth enameled surface. He touched the dragon's nose.

"Name?"

"Ah." Er Thom smiled and cuddled the small body closer. "Megelaar."

"Meg'lar," Shan mispronounced and touched the Tree. "Pretty."

"Jelaza Kazone," his father told him softly. "You may touch it in truth—soon. And when you are older, you may climb in it, as your uncle and I did, when we were boys."

Shan yawned and Er Thom felt a stab of remorse. A long and busy morning for a child, in truth!

"Would you like a nap?" he murmured, already starting down the hall toward the sleeping quarters.

"Umm," he son replied, body relaxing even as he was carried along.

He was more asleep than awake by the time Er Thom laid him down in the bed meant for the delm's use and covered him with a quilt smelling of sweetspice and mint.

"'night, Mirada," he muttered, hand fisting in the rich fabric.

"Sleep well, my child," Er Thom returned softly, and bent to kiss the stark brown cheek.

On consideration, and recalling his own boyhood, he opened the intercom and locked the door behind him before going back to the autodoc.

"yos'Galan, indeed," he murmured a few moments later, carrying the 'doc's gene-map with him into the piloting chamber.

He sat in the pilot's chair, eyes tracing the intricate pattern revealed in the printout. yos'Galan, indeed. He glanced at the board, fingered the gene-map and looked, with distaste, down at his shirt. He was not accustomed to sleeping in his clothing, and then rousting about, rumpled and unshowered, for half-a-day afterwards.

The board beckoned. Duty was clear. Er Thom sighed sharply and lay the gene-map atop the prime piloting board.

He wanted a shower, clean clothes. What better time than now, with the child, for the moment, asleep?

A shower and clean clothes, he thought, removing his jacket and laying it across the chair's back. Duty could wait half-an-hour.

"ER THOM? . . .  Shannie!"

Anne let her briefcase fall as she darted forward, flashing through the tiny apartment: Empty bedroom, dark bathroom, silent kitchen.

"Gone."

Pain hit in a hammer blow, driving the breath out of her in a keen that might have been his name.

Er Thom! Er Thom, you promised . . . 

But what were promises, she thought dizzily, where there was melant'i to keep? Anne swallowed air, shook her head sharply.

Shan was well, of that she was absolutely certain. Er Thom would not harm a child. She
knew
it.

But he would take his child to Liad.
Must
take his child to Liad. He had asked her to go with him on that urgent mission—and she—she had thought there was an option of saying no.

"Annie Davis, it's a rare, foolish gel ye are," she muttered, and was suddenly moving.

Three of her long strides took her across the common room. She smacked the door open and burst into the hallway at a dead run, heading for the Quad, the surrey station.

And the spaceport.

SHE SHOULD NEVER have trusted him, Anne thought fiercely. She should have never let him back into her life. She should have never let him back into her bed. Gods, it had all been an act, put on to lull her fears, so that she would leave Shan with him—she saw it now. And she—she so starved for love, so besotted with a beautiful face and caressing ways, incapable of thinking that Er Thom would do her harm, willing herself to believe he would—or could—stop being Liaden . . . 

She flashed down the stairs and out into the Quad, running as if her life depended upon it and, gods, what if he had already gone? Taken her son and lifted, gone into hyperspace, Jumping for Liad—how would she ever find him again? What Liaden would take the part of a Terran barbarian against one who was master trader, a'thodelm, and heir to his delm?

There are not so—very many—yos'Galans,
Er Thom murmured in memory, and Anne gasped, speeding toward the blue light that marked the surrey station.

She was halfway across the Quad when they emerged, the boy straddling the man's shoulders. The man was walking unhurried and smooth, as if the combined weight of the child and the duffel bag he also carried was just slightly less than nothing.

"I'lanta!" the child cried, and the man swung right.

"Dri'at!" the boy called out then and the man obediently went to the left.

Anne slammed to a halt, fist pressed tight against her mouth, watching them cross toward her.

Shan was exuberant, hanging onto the collar of Er Thom's battered leather jacket, Er Thom's hands braceleting his ankles.

"I'lanta!" Shan called again, heels beating an abbreviated tattoo against the man's chest.

But Er Thom had seen her. He increased his pace, marching in a straight line, ignoring it entirely when Shan grabbed a handful of bright golden hair and commanded, "I'lanta, Mirada!"

"Anne?" The violet eyes were worried. He reached up and swung the child down, retaining a firm hold on a small hand. His other hand lifted and stopped a bare inch from her face, while she stood there like a stump and stared at the two of them, afraid to move. Afraid to breathe . . . 

"You're weeping," Er Thom murmured, hand hesitating, dropping, disappearing into a jacket pocket. "My friend, what is wrong?"

She drew a shaky breath, her first in some time, or so it felt, and found the courage to move her hand from before her mouth.

"I came home," she said, hearing how her voice wobbled, "and you were gone."

"Ah." Distress showed, clearly, for a heartbeat. Then Er Thom was bowing, graceful and low. "I am distraught to have caused you pain," he murmured, in Terran, though the inflection was all High Liaden. "Forgive me, that my thoughtlessness has brought you tears."

He straightened and moved Shan forward, relinquishing his hand. "Go to your mother, denubia."

"Ma?" The light blue eyes were worried; she felt his uncertainty as if it were her own.

Anne sank to her knees and pulled him close in a savage hug, her cheek against his.

"Hi, Shannie," she managed, though her voice still quavered. "You have a nice day?"

"Nice," he agreed, arms tight around her neck. "Saw Meg'lar. Saw—
spaceport
." He wriggled, proud of himself. "Saw ship and store and—and—"

He wriggled again, imperatively. Anne loosened her grip, found herself looking up into Er Thom's face.

Very solemn, that face, and the violet eyes shadowed so that she longed to reach out and touch him, to beg his pardon for having doubted—

Enough of that, Annie Davis,
she told herself sternly.
You touch the man and lose your sense—only see how it happened yestereve.

"It was necessary that I have clothes," Er Thom said gently, fingers brushing the bag at his hip. "Also, I have arranged that food be delivered to your dwelling—" His hand came up, fingers soothing the air between them. "It was seen that food was in shortage. I mean no offense, Anne."

"No, of course not," she whispered, and cleared her throat. She took Shan's hand and rose, looking down into her friend's beautiful, troubled face. "Er Thom—"

His fingers flickered again—indicating more information forthcoming.

"It is also necessary that I engage a—a
room
. This has not yet been done. If you desire to keep our son by you, I will complete this task." He hesitated, slanting a glance at her face from beneath thick golden lashes.

"I ask—may I visit you this evening? After supper?" He inclined his head. "It will be entirely as you wish, Anne, and nothing else. My word upon it."

"A room?" she repeated, looking at him in astonishment. She took a breath. "Er Thom, how long are you staying here?"

He glanced aside, then back to her face.

"Three weeks, you had said, until you might come to Liad."

"I said no such thing!" she protested, and felt Shan's hand tense in hers. She took another breath, deep and calming. "Er Thom, I am not going—" Then she remembered the letter in her sleeve and the unknown scholar's plea.

"Anne?"

She bit her lip. "I—perhaps—I will—need to go to Liad," she said, suddenly aware that it was cool on the Quad and that she had dashed out without snatching up a jacket. "A friend of mine—a colleague—has died, very suddenly, and I am asked to—" She shook her head sharply. "I haven't decided. The news just came this morning."

"Ah." He inclined his head and murmured the formal phrase of sorrow for a death outside one's own clan: "Al'bresh venat'i."

"Thank you," Anne said and hesitated. "You can stay with us, you know," she heard herself say. "I know that the couch isn't what you're used to . . . " She let the words die out, even as Er Thom's fingers flickered negative.

"I do not think that—would be wise," he said softly, though the glance he spared her was anything but soft. "May I visit you, Anne? This evening?"

"All right," she said, around a surprising tightening of her heart. "For a little while. I have—examinations to grade."

"Thank you." He bowed to her, touched his fingertips to Shan's cheek.

"This evening," he murmured and turned, boot heels clicking on the Quad-stones as he walked back toward the surrey station.

"'Bye, Mirada!" Shan called, waving energetically.

Er Thom glanced back over his shoulder and raised a hand, briefly.

"C'mon, Shannie," Anne murmured, looking at her son so she wouldn't have to watch her lover out of sight, as she had done once before. "Let's go home."

 
The most dangerous phrase in High Liaden is coab minshak'a: "Necessity exists".

—From "A Terran's Guide to Liad"

" . . . GUIDE THE DELM'S attention to the appended gene-profile for Shan yos'Galan, who has twenty-eight Standard Months.

"The mother of this child is Anne Davis, native of New Dublin, professor of comparative linguistics, Northern Campus, University Central, Terran Sector Paladin.

"One regrets that a profile for Professor Davis is not at this time available. Although professional necessities have denied her the opportunity to pursue her own license, she is descended of a line of pilots. Her elder brother, Richard, holds first-class-pending-master; her mother, Elizabeth Murphy, had held first-class, light transport to trade class AAA. The records of these pilots is likewise appended, for the delm's information.

"It is one's intention to bring the child with his mother before the delm's eyes on the second day of the next relumma, the earliest moment Professor Davis may be released from the necessities of her work. One implores the delm to See the child welcomed among Korval, to the present joy and future profit of the clan.

"One also begs the delm's goodwill for Professor Davis. She is a person of melant'i who is owed balance of Korval through the error of the clan's son Er Thom.

"In respect to the delm,

"Er Thom yos'Galan."

"Twenty-eight Standard Months?" Daav stared at the screen, torn between disbelief and a woeful desire to laugh. "I should allow that a matter to resolve, indeed!"

On the desk beside the pin-beam unit, Relchin lifted his head and stared daggers of outraged comfort, which tipped the scale firmly to laughter. Daav chucked the big cat under the chin and hit the advance key, calling up the appended gene-map.

"Well, and the child's out of yos'Galan," he admitted to Relchin a moment or two later. "But what's it to do with me if a Terran lady sees a way to combine profit with pleasure? Especially where there's young Syntebra so eager to wed an a'thodelm and do the thing by contract and Code, with no untoward scandals." He skritched the cat absently behind the ears.

"Er Thom wants to buy the Terran lady off, that seems the gist of thing, don't you think? And he wants the boy for the clan, though as Aunt Petrella and my sister will no doubt both inform us, Shan is
not
a yos'Galan name." He frowned at the gene-map once more.

"Child might well be the devil of a pilot. Er Thom's very good, you know, Relchin. One needs make a push to stay abreast of him—though it won't do to let him know that, of course. The clan is always eager to welcome pilots . . .  The matter comes down to the lady's price, as I see it—and the lady's price must be high, indeed, else why did he simply not pay it out of his private account?"

The cat vouchsafed no answer and after a moment Daav called up the records of the lady's brother and mother.

"Adequate, certainly, but the lady herself is no pilot. Who can say but she's no more than a bumble-fingered pretty-face and the child takes all from her? Only see how it is with Kareen, eh, Relchin? Though it must be recalled that yos'Galan, at least, has always bred true."

He was quiet for a time then, absently stroking the cat and staring not at the screen but at a point just above it.

"No, it won't do," he announced at last, snapping out of the chair and striding to the bar. He poured himself some misravot and wandered out into the middle of the room, holding the glass and glaring down at the rug.

"Has Er Thom run mad?" he inquired, perhaps of the cat, which was busily washing its back. "Implore the delm to See a child unacknowledged by yos'Galan? Put the clan into uproar, set thodelm against delm, open vistas untold to Kareen's despite and all for the sake of an untried child and some person named
Anne—
"