Plan B (4 page)

"It's a fine day," she said to Riaska ter'Meulen, in the mode of equals, "and we've been long aboard. A walk will be welcome."

The woman bowed again, willing equality. "As you say. Allow me to point you on your way."

They stopped just short of the three low stairs leading to a sort of black stone dais and a front door that was all pieces of high-glaze tile forming a field of indigo, across which a crimson bird stooped toward a gold-limned mountain, far below. Miri felt the hairs lift at the back of her neck and her free hand touched her pouch, where a miniature of that very design rode, perfect in every detail.

She shook her head sharply and frowned, slanting a glance at her partner's face; saw him gazing with sharp interest to the left.

"You gonna ring the bell or not?" she demanded.

"In a moment." He set off across that soft, resilient lawn purposefully; fingers still firm and warm around hers.

And stopped in front of a tree.

It was a largish tree, Miri thought, with a pleasingly tree-like trunk and nice, broad, four-fingered leaves a shade greener and a shade less blue than the grass. Nuts or seedpods hung in clusters here and there and the whole thing smelled good, in a kind of olfactory tree-ness.

Val Con loosed her hand, took another step toward the tree and bowed. Deeply. With the stylized hand-sign that offered instant, willing, and unquestioning service.

"I bring thee greeting, child of Jela's hope," he said in the High Tongue, but in a dialect beyond any of those Miri had studied in her crash-course sleep-learning. She thought it might be related to the mode used by the most junior servant to the ultimate authority—and then thought that was crazy.

"When last this one visited the homeworld," Val Con was telling the tree, "thy elder kin yet flourished, grew, and nurtured. The charge is kept and the guard continues. When next this one is upon the homeworld, thy name shall be whispered to the elder's leaves."

He stood for a moment or two then, head bowed, maybe listening to the little rustling sounds the breeze made against the leaves. Then he bowed again, like he was going to ask a favor.

"This one has not had grace of Jela's children in some years, and this one's lady has yet to know the elder. In need, this one asks the boon of two fruit, and one leaf."

He stepped forward then, reaching high; and pulled two nuts free from the lowest cluster. He plucked a leaf from the same branch and stepped back, bowing thanks.

Grinning, then, he cracked a nut and handed it to her; cracked open the second and pulled the shell apart, revealing a plump pink kernel.

"These are good," he said, back in Terran. "I ate quite a number of them when I was a child, to the gardener's dismay."

Miri pulled her own nut apart, blinking in surprise at the aroma. She paused in the act of fishing the meat out and looked at her partner.

"It's a nice tree, boss. Does it talk back?"

"Eh?" He blinked, then laughed. "Ah, I had forgotten . . . There is a very old Tree on Liad that my clan is—involved with. A long story. The name of that Tree is Jelaza Kazone. This tree here is a seedling of that, so it behooves me to pay courtesy, wouldn't you say?"

"Um." Miri nibbled the kernel, finding it delicious. "How do you know this one's related to yours?"

"There is only one Jelaza Kazone," Val Con murmured. "And Korval does occasionally seal—certain—contracts with the gift of a seedling."

"Right." The nut was gone. Miri sighed in real regret and looked up as Val Con handed her the leaf.

"Wear this in your belt, cha'trez. Are you done? Good. Let us ring the bell."

The doorkeeper was young, narrow-shouldered and too thin; the fragile bones almost showing through the translucent golden skin. His hair was pale red, shading toward blond, and tumbling over a high forehead, not quite hiding the bruises at both temples, where the combat helmet had been too tight. The blue eyes were wary, with a darker shadow, lurking far back.

"Delm Erob?" he repeated, looking from Val Con to her and back again. And seeing, Miri knew from the slight change of expression, two soldiers, coming where they shouldn't be, asking for somebody they had no business to see.

"The delm is quite busy," he said now, speaking the High Tongue in the mid-mode reserved for strangers whose melant'i was yet unclear. "If you will acquaint me with your difficulty, sir—ma'am—perhaps I may direct you to the proper person."

"It is essential," Val Con said, his own mode shifting subtly, so that he spoke from senior to junior, "that we speak to Delm Erob with all speed, young sir."

The boy's cheeks flushed darker gold, but he let no hint of that spurt of temper enter his voice. "I must insist you acquaint me more particularly with your mission, sir. If you are separated from your unit—if you have not received proper pay—if you have missed your transport—none of these difficulties will be addressed by Delm Erob, though Clan Erob is able to solve any or all for you. I merely require adequate information."

Not too bad, Miri thought, for a kid who was obviously out on his feet and at the tail end of seeing and doing a bunch of stuff he'd probably rather never have known about. The blue eyes shifted to her and she gave him a grin of encouragement before the sleep-learning kicked in and let her know that was a mistake. The kid frowned, eyes suddenly hard.

"Have you been in our garden?" He demanded, mode shifting fast toward belligerence, courtesy forgotten in outrage. "Have you defaced our tree?"

Miri came to full attention, eyes tight on his. "We have certainly not defaced your tree!" she snapped, in a mode very close to the voice she used to chew out a soldier who'd been particularly stupid. "We asked grace for the leaf and it was freely given."

The boy's face altered amazingly, shifting from outrage to shock to a sudden dawning dread. He touched his tongue to his lips and brought his eyes back to Val Con.

"We do," Val Con said, gently, and still only in the mode of senior to junior, though he could have done much worse to the kid than that, "very much desire to speak with Delm Erob. Now, if possible. You may say that the Second Speaker of Clan Korval is calling, regarding a daughter of your House."

The kid had gone to get his boss, leaving the two of them to kick their heels in what sleep-learning suggested was a formal reception parlor.

Miri pictured him running down the long hallway the minute the door was shut and grinned as she glanced around, wondering what this room had over the one at the front of the house they'd almost stopped in. The kid had actually crossed the threshold of that room, and Miri got a glimpse of white paneled walls and uncomfortable looking furniture before he apparently thought better of it and stepped back with a slight bow and a murmured, "Follow me, please."

So now, the Yellow Salon, and another kid, a little younger than the first, bringing wine and glasses and a porcelain tray of cakes. She kept her eyes averted, after one disconcertingly bright blue glance that seemed more interested in Val Con than in her, and bowed real pretty, asking if anything else was required in a voice that said she hoped not.

"Thank you," Val Con said gravely. "The solicitude of the House gives gladness."

"Sir." The kid bowed again and escaped, forgetting to wait for the door to fully close before she ran.

Miri grinned again, slid her hands in her belt and wandered over to look out the window, squinting a little against the sun.

"There's your tree, boss."

"So?" He came over, shoulder companionably touching hers as he took in the view. "But that is not my Tree, Miri. That is Erob's tree. Mine is much older—and taller."

"Sounds like a quibble to me," she said. "If this one's a seedling off yours and yours is the only one there is, besides its own seedlings. . ." She stopped, cheeks heating in an unaccustomed blush.

Val Con laughed.

"Ah. Clan becomes discovered."

"Real funny. . ." she began, and then cut off as the door clicked.

Val Con went silently toward the center of the room, Miri half-a-pace behind his right shoulder.

The woman who entered the salon had not run full-tilt down the hallway, but she hadn't dallied, either. She was gray-haired, gray-eyed and golden skinned, wire-thin and charged with energy. Two heavy lines were grooved horizontally across her high forehead; more lines ran starkly from nose to mouth. Still more lines radiated from the corners of her eyes, puckered now as she stared against the sun. She was dressed simply, in what sleep-learning told Miri was house-tunic, and tight trousers tucked neatly into a pair of buff-colored short-boots.

All business, she marched across the buttery carpet, stopped a precise four paces before Val Con and bowed crisply, hand over heart.

"Emrith Tiazan," she said in a low, clear voice, "Delm Erob."

Val Con made his own bow, more fluid than hers, though as deep. "Val Con yos'Phelium, Clan Korval."

Miri tensed—but the old eyes stayed on Val Con.

"Yes," she said. "You have your father's look."

Val Con bowed again, slightly—and with irony, Miri thought.

Emrith Tiazan might have thought so, too; she lifted a sharp-bladed shoulder, and let it fall. Miri again tensed to make her own bow, but the old woman seemed intent on ignoring her.

"I'll tell you plain, Korval, before we sit to tea and cake and behaving as though we're civilized—it's no joy to see you at this time, tree-kin though we be. We're just through with a matter that will heal in a generation or two—if all goes well and no one breeds another hothead like Kel Bar Rentava. I am aware that Erob owes a contract-wife this term, but while plain speaking's in force I'll tell you that the one we'd settled on went the soulroad in the war." The old face shifted then, all the lines tightening, but her voice stayed smooth.

"They shot her down—Clan Kenso. She was the very best we had, and they shot her down. Her ship crashed in the rock plain, east of here. I expect we have all the pieces, by now."

She closed her eyes briefly; lifted her shoulder again. "I'll have nothing of such excellence to offer Korval until Alys comes to her growth—nine years, perhaps. Alys should do very well—but she'll be no Kea Tiazan."

There was a silence.

Miri's mind raced, but nothing from her own experience or from the sleep-learned stuff helped her make sense of this one. The old lady was clearly at the end of her rope, worn to skin, bone, and character. Her mind might even be wandering, though Miri doubted that. It might have been that Val Con's clan and Clan Erob had sealed an alliance with a marriage, when this lady had been a young delm. . .

"Forgive me," Emrith Tiazan was saying to Val Con, "if my frankness offends. I've no time for wasteful courtesies and it is certainly not necessary for Erob to stand upon ceremony with our old ally, Korval. We have always understood each other very well."

"In this instance, however," Val Con said neutrally, "understanding may have fallen short. I assign no blame, nor does frankness offend." He reached out to capture Miri around the wrist and drew her lightly forward to stand at his side. "I present my lifemate, Miri Robertson Tiazan, Lady yos'Phelium."

The gray eyes in their golden net of wrinkles went wide, then narrowed as they swept Miri from face to feet. The glance scathed, lingering longest on the leaf before whipping back to Val Con.

"So! You discover a houseless favorite and you
dare
bring her to
me
? I shall acknowledge her, shall I, and give her place among the clans? Korval presumes—and presumes too far. I will remind you that you
guest
with Erob. Your whim is not law here!"

That was enough. Miri moved, deliberately turning her flank on the old lady and her rage.

"I tell you what, boss," she said, in her flattest, ugliest Terran accent—one-hundred-percent Surebleak. "I ain't about to join this outfit, genes or no genes."

"Ah," said Val Con.

"
What
did you say?" demanded Emrith Tiazan, in Terran, though Terran slurred and softened and pronounced like Liaden.

"I
said
," Miri snapped, in the stiffest mode she could call to mind from the High Tongue, "that it is not the place of a high commander to reprimand another commander who is come to parlay."

For the space of two heartbeats, Emrith Tiazan stood frozen, and then she bowed, very gently.

"Forgive me—madam," she said, the High Tongue carefully conveying equality of rank. "You spoke of genes. I desire further information upon the subject as you believe it to concern yourself and—this outfit." She paused. "If you please."

Miri hesitated, more than half determined to walk out the door and down that long hallway and out into the sunshine.
Ought to be able to find the merc camp without too much trouble
, she thought;
get a hot meal and a place to bunk. . .

"Miri," Val Con said softly. "Will you show Delm Erob your heirloom?"

Damn him
, she thought; and then sighed and worked the catch on her belt-pouch. She fingered the disk free and held it out to the old lady, belatedly remembering to bow.

Emrith Tiazan glanced briefly at the shield, then turned to the obverse, frowning at the engraved genealogy. She looked back at Miri.

"How came you by this?"

"I have it from my mother," Miri said, matching the other's mild tone; "who had it from hers."

"So." The old lady looked at Val Con. "This appears genuine."

He lifted a brow. "Many clans possess—protocols—for determining authenticity."

She stared at him. "Indeed. You will excuse me for a moment." She turned and marched out of the room without waiting for their permission.

The door had barely closed when Miri swung around. "What is this? How come she thinks you came here for a contract-wife? If you're pulling one—
one
—of your damned Liaden tricks, that old lady ain't gonna have to bother taking you apart, 'cause I'll do it for her, you understand me?"

"Yes, Miri," he said meekly, but for once meekness failed to gain her smile. She stood glaring, poised on the balls of her feet, a trained fighter, more than half-ready to fight.