Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (17 page)

“Thank you,” she said, and extended a hand to pluck up something that gleamed bright brass in the room’s lights.

His bracelet.

Syl Vor swallowed and looked to Mike Golden.

“Is Peter—” he began . . .

“Sold it,” Mike interrupted, giving him a serious look. “Took it right down to Vin’s Pawn Shop. Didn’t even bother to get off Boss Conrad’s turf.”

“An overconfident young man,” his mother added.

Mike shrugged. “Hard to tell if that’s not-smart or too-smart,” he said.

“Not-smart,” Syl Vor said decisively. “He knew I would recognize his voice.”

“Now, see, that could still be too-smart,” Mike said earnestly. “Boy—Pete, was it? Pete Day?”

Syl Vor nodded.

“Right. Pete could be trying to provoke something. You know who took the bracelet, now what’re you gonna do about it, see? He wants to find out what you’re made of.”

Syl Vor blinked at him. “Blood and bone and microbes,” he said, which he had learned very decisively from his tutor. “The same as Peter is.”

Mike Golden shook his head.

“Blood and bone and microbes ain’t what’s bothering Pete Day. What he wants to know is, are you gonna fight, or if knockin’ you down once was all it took for him to be boss.”

“Boss? He’s a boy.”

“Boss of you, is what I mean. The one who stands ahead in line is the one who gets to tell the next one down what to do.” Mike nodded toward Mother, sitting with the bracelet in her hand, watching him with unreadable violet eyes. “Your ma, there, she stands first in line in this house. I stand second, so she tells me what needs doin’, and I pass it down the line to the one who’s gonna do it.”

Syl Vor looked at his mother. His mother met his gaze, and said nothing.

“Boss’s brat,” he said, remembering.

She raised an elegant eyebrow.

“Was this also Peter Day?”

“No, that was Rudy.” Syl Vor looked to Mike. “What is a
brat
?”

“Well, that’s like
kid
, ’cept not so nice.
Boss’s brat
—that kinda carries the meaning that you got everything soft ’n’ easy and always have it zackly like you want.”

Syl Vor stared, and bit his lip against a sudden impulse to laugh. This was not, he was fairly certain, the correct time to laugh.

Mike Golden gave him a nod.

“This Rudy,” his mother said. “He was also in the alley?”

Syl Vor shook his head. “No, ma’am. There was only Peter in the alley. Rudy . . . disliked a thing that I said at lunch.”

He took a breath, not wanting to ask, and yet—

“Am I to be sent—back—back under Tree?”

“Is that your choice?”

“No, Mother,” he said carefully. “I would prefer to stay in our house here, and to go to school.”

“
Our house here
, is it? You grow facile, my son.”

He shook his head. “Grandaunt would not allow it. If one can remark the doing, then it was clumsily done, she would say.”

His mother’s eyebrows lifted. “Would she. Myself, I allow it to be a good effort by one still new to his boards.”

“Thank you,” Syl Vor said politely, and took a deep breath, before adding, as calmly as he could manage, “I would prefer not to wear the bracelet, when I go to school.”

She tipped her head, blond hair tumbling across her shoulders. “I believe that may no longer be an option. Mr. Golden, do I have that correctly?”

“I think so, ma’am. Look, Silver, I know it’s the root of the trouble, but the thing is, if you stop wearin’ it now, Pete thinks he got away with somethin’. He sees that ’round your wrist tomorrow, an’ he’ll maybe start thinkin’ a mistake was made. That’ll get him worried, see? He won’t know what else you might do, or if he’s gotta watch his back.”

This sounded somewhat familiar. Syl Vor chewed his lip, remembering the Rock, and overhearing Grandfather Luken and Grandaunt talking over the moves available to Korval’s enemies, and what sort of
melant’i
games they might undertake in order to blacken Korval’s honor among those who were not completely informed of facts.

“I understand,” he said, and then, more abruptly than he had intended, “Are you staying in-House, Mike Golden?”

The man’s brows pulled together briefly, then his face relaxed as he went down on one knee, which put him more or less level with Syl Vor.

“I ain’t fired yet,” he said. “’Less you think I oughta be.”

“No!” Syl Vor said forcefully.

Mike nodded seriously. “I ’preciate that, ’specially since you gotta be pretty corked off at me, insistin’ on the bracelet in the first place. You wanna take a swing, you go ’head. I got it comin’.”

“You want me to—knock you down?”

“Well, I don’t say I
want
it, but I did earn it, and I’m not one to deny a man his rights, or grudge him fair payment.”

“I don’t want to hit you,” Syl Vor said. “I—” He glanced at his mother, who inclined her head as if she could hear his thought. “We are in Balance, Mike Golden.”

“That sounds like something I might live to regret,” the man said, voice light. He came to his feet, and looked to Mother.

“With your permission, Boss.”

“Yes, Mr. Golden,” she said. “Thank you.”

He bowed, just a stiff little incline from the waist, which wasn’t really a proper bow, but Mother accepted it calmly, and Mike Golden left the room, his footsteps firm in the hallway.

Syl Vor sighed and looked at his mother, who was toying with the bracelet, turning it this way and that so that the brass caught the light.

“Your tutor is waiting for you,” she said. “Do you feel able to attend your lessons?”

“Yes,” he said decisively, and saw the small curve of her smile.

“It pleases me to hear you say so. When you are done, pray do me the favor of returning to me here. We might share a cup of tea before dinner, while you tell me about the rest of your school day.”

Syl Vor bowed. “I would like that extremely, ma’am,” he said properly.

“Excellent. Go, now, and study well.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Day Above was bright and still. Kezzi, walking at Droi’s elbow down the busy morning street, regretted the shawl her elder sister had draped over her shoulders, though, if the wind blew up, she would be grateful for its added warmth. Annoyances are blessings whose time has not come. That was what Pulka said. And then he would ask, “And when will
your
time come, small sister?”

It was Kezzi’s belief that her time would come well before Pulka’s, but, there! She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Pulka. She was supposed to be standing in Droi’s shadow, absorbing her skill at interpreting the meaning of the cards. Kezzi hoped that skill was all she would absorb from her elder sister. She didn’t think she would like to see the things that Droi did, that lived around corners, and under rocks, and in the lightless place of the World That Might Be.

Though the day was fine and the street was busy, they had so far very little fortune, themselves. It was in Kezzi’s mind that the street was
too
busy, that its very fullness worked against a single
gadje
stepping out of the bustling crowd to offer a coin, and draw a card to learn what the day would bring.

She was a shadow; it was not her place to suggest, or to do anything, other than watch, and learn. Still, it was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that they find a cup of ’toot and a place to sit in the sunshine for a little time, until the crowds of
gadje
gave over their rushing and took the time to look about them.

Even as she began to speak, however, a
gadje
did step out of the crowd, a small, thin woman who walked as if she were a tall, broad man. Her face was round and soft, her mouth straight and hard, and her eyes were like rat eyes, bright and merciless. Inside the warm shawl, Kezzi shivered, and missed Malda who had been left with Silain, since dogs, said Droi, had no place in lessons.

“Good morning,” the
gadje
said, dipping two fingers into her belt. When she drew them out, a coin shone bright between them.

“Will my day be fair or foul?” she asked, extending the coin to Droi while her gaze rested on Kezzi.

Droi whisked the coin away into a hidden pocket, fanned the cards between both hands.

“Draw a card and learn the answer,” she crooned, and slid one step to the side, intercepting the
gadje
’s gaze. “Pull one—
only
one—the card that speaks to you. Draw it, show it, and I will tell you what it means.”

The
gadje
snorted, extended a hand and without looking plucked a card from among its fellows in the fan.

Carelessly, she flipped it up, showing Droi, and Kezzi, the Lantern.

Droi dipped her head, and contrived to seem to be looking up into the
gadje
’s cruel face.

“Today, you seek,” she said, whispering, as if it were a secret, just between herself and the
gadje
.

“Will I find what I seek?” the
gadje
demanded.

Droi smiled, and caught the card back, folding it into the deck with a snap.

“That depends on you, O seeker,” she answered, and drew her scarf closer about her face. Two steps she retreated, and Kezzi also, neither of them, it seemed, willing to turn their backs on the
gadje
, who watched them with chilly interest, then abruptly spun and swaggered down the street, in the direction she had come from.

Droi’s hand snaked out and fastened around Kezzi’s wrist, urging her to a quick walk until they came to the mouth of an alley. They slipped into the dimness, their backs against the wall.

“Seeking,” Kezzi whispered. “Us?”

Droi shook her head. “Not by intent,” she said, and Kezzi relaxed.

“Though the path to what she does seek may lie through us,” Droi added, which made Kezzi’s stomach hurt again.

“
Garda
?” she asked.

Droi shrugged.

“When we return, I will speak with Rafin,” she said, being one of the few who might, without risking either a blow or a bellow.

“I will speak to the
luthia
,” Kezzi said.

“Yes,” Droi said, which only meant that she had heard.

They stood in silence for another few breaths, watching the
gadje
bustle by, then Droi stood away from the wall and straightened her shawl and her headscarf.

“Come,” she said. “Let us find a cup of coffeetoot and something sweet to give us strength. Then we will walk to the other side of the tollbooths and try our fortunes there.”

“Yes,” Kezzi agreed, and followed her elder out of the alley and down the street.

* * *

They took a table just inside the door at Joan’s Bakery. Droi bespoke for them a raisin cake each, and a pot of ’toot to share. She placed the coin the cold
gadje
had given in exchange for her fortune on the edge of the table, and said airily to the one who brought the tray, “That is for you; I will see no change.”

Kezzi blinked, but said nothing, recalling just in time her role as Droi’s shadow. Well she could understand that a coin received from such a
gadje
might be ill-wished. But the usual remedy for ridding oneself of an ill-wished coin was to have it made into other coins. To send the whole thing away from them, accepting no smallest tie to it—well. It was rare that one of the Bedel paid
gadje
for what they took, much less overpaid.

Still, it was Droi, with Droi’s strange sight.

And, Kezzi reminded herself, she had herself been distressed by the cold
gadje
’s air. Perhaps it was wisdom, to accept nothing from that one.

Thinking so, she turned her attention to her cake, finding it sticky enough to warrant two cups of hot ’toot.

When she was done, and Droi was, they rose and left the bakery, leaving cups, dishes, and cutlery behind.

* * *

It was not particularly easy to shell peas one-handed, but it could be done and, after some practice, done with a certain amount of dexterity.

Thus, Rys sat at Jin’s hearth and shelled peas. Jin studied his progress with narrowed eyes, then gave him an abrupt nod.

“That’s well, Rys. Keep on as you are. I’ll be back before you’re done.”

And so he was left alone, with a garden basket at his left hand, an empty bowl into which the shelled peas were given in the crook of his knee, and another basket at his right hand, to receive the shells.

Those, he understood, would go with Memit, a blade-thin woman with big hands, to the composting heap, and thence return virtue to the garden.

He had spoken a few words with Memit regarding composting, a topic of which he had some knowledge. After an initial frown she had warmed to the subject and ended with an apology that duty-work called her elsewhere, and a promise to show him the gardens, some day soon.

So, he sat, alone with his thoughts, and the work, which was . . . pleasantly dull. His thoughts were similar. Since his smoke with Udari, he had adopted a course of soft thinking, mostly concerned with those persons and matters directly before him. It was his hope that those memories he felt missing would return to him, if he did not press too hard, nor berate himself too sternly.

It was . . . difficult . . . to adopt this attitude of gentleness with himself. He wished to reach into his own head and shake loose those recollections and motives—his very history!—which had hidden themselves from his waking self. Most definitely, he wished to ransack his walkabout memories for any shred of a clue of how he might contact
Momma Liberty
. Jasin would not have left him . . . well, Jasin
might
have left him, given cause enough; he did not suppose himself the equal of the ship in her regard. But she would not have left him without resources. Without contact, or hope of rendezvous.

His fingers fumbled the pod he had been worrying, and it fell, whole, into the bowl at his knee. Rys closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing, slow and deep. His heart hammered in his ears and his brow was damp. This was what came of stepping off the path of gentleness. Such distress served him—not at all. Indeed, he might be driving those things he most wished to recall deeper into hiding.

Another breath, and he opened his eyes. He retrieved the pod he had dropped, cracked the seam and released the peas. The broken pod went into the basket with its comrades.