Mouse and Dragon (30 page)

By the time he returned with the wine, she had gathered the invitations into one pile, and discovered most, but she felt not all, of the letters.

"My lady wishes to make my time in bondage as short as possible," he murmured. "Perhaps she is not cruel, after all."

"Merely pragmatic," she said, rising to receive her glass. "I fear that some of the letters may have taken refuge beneath the furniture."

"Fear not, I will recover all. Please, rest from your labors and attend to your own matters."

Her correspondence had remained aloof upon the sofa cushions, where they had been joined by Relchin, who was asleep with his chin on an ivory card. She smiled, put her glass on the occasional table, and slid the letters free. The cat opened one eye, muttered and went back to sleep.

"Thank you," she said politely, retiring to the corner and curling against the pillows. She broke the seal on the first invitation, which was marked with the sign of a snake wrapped 'round a moon.

The gift of your time is solicited for a select gathering of friends at an informal midmorning tea in the garden at Glavda Empri on Metlin Eighthday of the current relumma. Acceptances only to Ilthiria yo'Lanna, Thodelmae.

"Who," Aelliana wondered, "is Ilthiria yo'Lanna?"

Daav looked up. He had resumed his seat on the floor and was engaged in dividing the invitations, still sealed into their envelopes, into two piles.

"Ilthiria yo'Lanna is my mother's best and oldest friend," he said. "Why do you ask?"

She held up the card.

"She invites me to a picnic on the grounds of Glavda Empri, but—surely not. It is in three days! I have not been introduced to the lady, and will know no one—"

"Ah, but there you are out!" Daav riffled the envelopes in his hand and held one up so that she could see the Snake-and-Moon. "Unless she has lost her touch—which is
not
the wager to take—this is my invitation to the same event."

"That was clever of her," Aelliana acknowledged. "Shall we go?"

"I should think that we must. She's very likely enjoyed herself immensely in choosing the guest list so that she may be the first to make you known to those whom you may find charming, interesting, or of use. We could hardly be so churlish as to deny her so much pleasure."

Aelliana frowned down at the card, trying to read intent into the few formal lines.

"Of use?" she murmured.

"Indeed. Lady yo'Lanna is nothing, if not a pragmatist—you see? Already you share ground in common! It appears that she is willing to ease your way into the world."

She looked up. "This is—a kindness?"

"So I believe, yes."

A kindness
. Aelliana sighed.

"Tomorrow, I will write Lady yo'Lanna a note, accepting her kind invitation and thanking her for her notice."

Daav grinned. "I shall do the same. In my own hand, mind, or I will have such a peal rung over me that it will be heard in the Low Port!"

She tucked the card back into its envelope, placed it on the side table, and sipped her wine before turning her attention to the other invitation.

The embossing was Korval's familiar Tree-and-Dragon; her name was written in glossy black ink in a hand so firm the pen had scored the paper.

She broke the seal and drew out the card.

Since their second, not entirely cordial interview, she had not again met Daav's sister. Indeed, it might have been said that, busy as she had been with other matters, the lady had slipped her mind altogether.

Alas, she had not been similarly forgotten.

She drew a breath.

"Ah, Kareen," Daav murmured, "so subtle."

He held what she could only suppose was a like card; shaking his head at it sadly.

"I will not be attending this
formal evening gather
," Aelliana stated.

Daav looked at her, one eyebrow up. "Whyever not?"

"Because it is a trap. Lady Kareen warned me that I would not be able to hold my place among the High. Now, she seeks to prove her course and shame me publicly. I will not attend."

"Don't you wish to prove her wrong?" Daav asked, with every appearance of seriousness.

"I fear that I will rather prove her correct."

"No, only think! Lady yo'Lanna's picnic is well before this evening gather. Recall that you will at that event be introduced to people whom she thinks you should know. I will grant that not all will be High House, but some will. Very certainly some, if not all, of those whose acquaintance you will make at Glavda Empri will also be present at Kareen's affair. And, you know, you will probably receive other invitations between—Kareen having been so kind as to give us more than half a
relumma
to prepare."

She considered him. "You wish me to enter battle?"

"Not in the least. Only attend and demonstrate to Kareen why her equations are faulty." He tipped his head. "If you refuse to attend this gather, she will only have another, you know. Refuse again and it will surely come to be known that
Korval's dependent
shows scant gratitude to the House."

It took the breath away, that summation, but Aelliana had to admit that nothing he said struck her as being beyond Kareen's scope. Certainly, it was to the lady's benefit to publicly discover her rag-mannered and worse. Not to mention that such a public humiliation must also score a strike upon Daav.

Stomach tight, she returned that card, too, to its envelope and put it with the first.

"Tomorrow," she said unwillingly, "I will send an acceptance." She looked up and met his eyes. "In my own hand."

He smiled, pride evident.

"We play on," he said and inclined his head. "Of course, I shall accompany my pilot onto this chancy port."

He placed his sister's card onto the smaller of the two piles, dropped the three remaining in his hand onto the larger, and picked up his other correspondence.

Aelliana sipped her wine, watching him lazily as he opened the first, and drew out a sheet of pale violet paper. He could have read no more than the first two lines before he dropped it, too, into the larger pile and opened another envelope.

Smiling, feeling very much at peace, Aelliana turned her attention to her own letter. The envelope bore the ship and planet sigil of the Liaden Scouts over the words
Verisa pel'Quinot, Scout Academy.
She broke the seal and withdrew a single sheet of white paper, light and crisp to the touch.

The letter itself was brief, consisting merely of a proposition, and a request for a meeting, if the proposition pleased.

Aelliana smiled. If it
pleased
? Of course it pleased! The inevitable presence of Scouts in her Math for Survival seminar had never failed to delight her. To be offered an entire student contingent composed only of Scouts and those whom the Scouts thought it worthwhile to train—

"Now there's the smile of a conqueror," Daav murmured. "One rarely sees so much delight on a single face."

"I have cause, I think," she said. "Scout Academy writes to ask if I would consider teaching the advanced seminar there."

"A coup, indeed! Will you accept?"

"Certainly, it is tempting. I very much enjoyed working with Scouts. At least I must speak with Scholar pel'Quinot and see what she envisions."

"If talk comes to contract, recall that you have dea'Gauss to call upon."

She began to say that she would scarcely trouble the gentleman with so trivial a matter, but pressed her lips together without uttering the sentence. Only see how well she had done with her other employment contract!

Perhaps it would be a . . . good idea to ask Mr. dea'Gauss if one of his staff might be available for the task.

"I will remember," she said, picking up Scholar pel'Quinot's letter once more.

"I swear that the man is prescient," Daav murmured, his tone an interesting mixture of humor and resignation.

She looked up. "Is there something amiss?"

"Likely not," he said, giving her a half grin. "Mr. dea'Gauss has a matter which requires my personal attention, and asks that I meet with him at my earliest possible convenience."

Aelliana glanced toward the dark-filled windows.

"Which will be," Daav said, folding the letter back into its envelope and placing it on the smaller of his two piles, "tomorrow." He lifted an eyebrow.

"We have finished reading our mail," he said, his voice low and intimate.

Aelliana felt her belly tighten, and her breath came ridiculously short. She tried not to let him see these things, however, and calmly put her letter with the others.

"Your geas is lifted," she said coolly, raising her glass for a sip.

Daav smiled. "Then I am no longer required to be a gentleman."

Effortlessly, he came to his feet and approached her comfortable corner, his eyes on hers. She could not look away from his face; she could not move . . . 

Gently, he took her glass and placed it on the table, keeping her hand in his. She found that she could move, after all; he raised her and she stood shivering and breath-caught as he loosened her sash. The robe fell open and he bent to kiss her breasts.

Love is best given to kin, and joy taken in duty well done.
—
Vilander's Proverbs, Seventh Edition
 

They had breakfast on the balcony overlooking the inner court, at not a particularly early hour. Daav had gone in to dress while she dawdled over her second cup of tea; he returned, overneat in his town clothes, to join her for a third.

"Is there anything that I might bring you from the city?" he asked.

"Nothing springs immediately to mind," she answered. "Please convey my best regards to Mr. dea'Gauss."

"Certainly. It may be that I will return in time for lunch; it may be that I will not. Mr. dea'Gauss was not as plain as he might have been regarding the nature of our business."

"Mr. pel'Kana will see that I don't stint myself," she said, smiling at him from a vast inner contentment. "In the meanwhile, I have my letters to write, and an appointment to fix. After that, I may walk in the garden, or find Lady Dignity and stroke her."

"It sounds a full day, yet not overly fatiguing," Daav acknowledged with a grin. He rose and kissed her, sweetly, on the cheek. "Will you sleep with me tonight, beautiful lady?" he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.

Aelliana shivered.

"Eventually," she said.

He laughed at that and went away. She finished her tea as she wrote out her acceptances, taking especial care with the note to Kareen yos'Phelium, then dressed and placed a comm call to Scout Academy.

By the time she came belowstairs, portcomm under arm, it could fairly have said to have been midday. She stopped in the kitchen to ask for an apple, some cheese and a bottle of cold tea, and carried these out into the garden, where she made camp on the bench surrounded by gloan-roses. She opened the computer and was very soon lost in the complexities of sub-rational mathematics.

It was there that Mr. pel'Kana found her more than an hour later, her lunch forgotten on the bench beside her, the sunlight threading her tawny hair with gold.

"Your pardon, Pilot," he said softly. "This was brought, express. You left no instruction . . ."

Immersed as she had been, it took a heartbeat, or longer, for her to understand the words.

"Express?" she repeated, frowning up from the screen. "I did not ask for—an express what, Mr. pel'Kana, if you please? I fear I am—somewhat fuddled."

"Your pardon," he said again, and held up a letter for her to see. "This arrived for you by express messenger, Pilot. I thought you would want it. If not, I will take it away and place it with the rest of the correspondence."

"Oh, I see! I will take charge of it. It was kind of you to bring it out."

"Not at all, Pilot," he said, placing the envelope into her hand. "May I bring you anything else? A muffin, perhaps?"

"No, thank you, I am quite well-provisioned."

"Of course, Pilot," he answered and left her, walking as if he were not quite accustomed to grass.

She glanced down.

Mizel's seal leapt at her from a field of too-bright white; her name written out in blue ink in her mother's familiar hand.

Aelliana's stomach clenched. For a moment, she thought of merely tearing it up, unread, and scattering the bits among the roses.

But that would be craven; unworthy of a pilot, and to refuse a letter from kin—that was smaller than she knew herself to be.

She broke the seal, and withdrew a sheet of paper that felt unpleasantly smooth against her fingers, and unfolded it.

It was not, after all, a letter from her mother.

It was a command from Mizel.

It is the judgment of the Delm that Aelliana Caylon has been too long separate from Clan and Kin. Her duties have languished for lack of another to carry them out, and any further absence is to Mizel's disadvantage.

Aelliana Caylon is therefore commanded to return to her Clanhouse no later than Zeldra Seventhday of this present
relumma
, bringing with her such items as legitimately belong to her, and nothing else. She will herefore consider the House of Mizel her natural and permanent residence, and Mizel's care and protection her natural right.

It has further come to the attention of Mizel that Aelliana Caylon owns, in her name alone, a spacegoing vessel and a viable courier business. These things will pass properly into the care of the Clan, and any profit realized from them will be divided by Mizel equally among the members of the Clan.

"No!" The word burst from her. She raised a hand and pressed her fingers hard against her lips, lest there be more, and stronger, to dismay the garden's peace.

Mizel's patience had run out, and she was summoned home, all her goods forfeit to the clan, as was proper and according to custom. Well, and she had known that it might happen—that it
would
happen. She had hoped for more time for circumstances to further resolve themselves, but she saw now what her choice must be. Really, there had never been a choice at all.

She glanced down again to the letter.