Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (24 page)

“Yes, Mother.” Syl Vor bowed, which he did prettily, Kezzi thought, but if he were the son of a
luthia
, then he would have learned many things—as she had.

He hesitated now, however.

“Mother?”

“Yes, my son?”

“Is Kezzi my sister?”

“That is as yet undecided,” his mother said, and included Kezzi in her glance. “While you see our guest refreshed, I shall be thinking. When both of these activities have reached their natural conclusion, we will all of us speak again. I promise a decision by the end of the hour, and beg the gift of your patience, my son.”

“Yes, Mother,” Syl Vor said again, and turned, raising a hand to beckon Kezzi to follow him.

“This way, Kezzi. Beck will be very glad to see you.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“Because I never eat enough. I expect you to do better.”

Her stomach rumbled, as she turned to follow him—and turned back, remembering her manners.

Solemnly, she bowed to the woman behind the desk.

“I take leave,” she said, “with thanks to you.” It wasn’t at all what she would have said to a
luthia
who was not also a
gadje
, but it was polite.

A cool smile told her that the
luthia
was pleased.

“It is well. Go now, child, and refresh yourself.”

She nodded, and followed Syl Vor down the room. Mike Golden stepped aside to let them through the door. He winked at her as she went past.

She pretended not to see.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“No, go! I will follow.” Rys collapsed—he hoped it looked as if he leaned—against the rough wall. “In a moment, I will follow.”

Udari had kept pace with the dog, so it was to Rafin these things were said, and sharply.

The other man hesitated and cast a glance over his shoulder at Udari and Malda, who were crossing the Port Road and entering the long shadows thrown by the empty tollbooths.

“Go!” he snapped again. “The child . . .”

Rafin made his decision with a sharp nod.

“Stay here. We will come back for you.”

Then he turned, loping away on two good, long legs, a swift shadow passing through the shadows—and vanished.

Rys closed his eyes, shaking, his shattered leg on fire, his muscles gone to water. He remained upright only because he was caught between the tension of crutch and wall. If either moved, he would fall, and become prey, to those who would beat him . . .

. . . hard laughter while they stamped on his hand, and kicked him, time and again, and he screamed at last, unable to rise, to fight, to move, one arm over his head, broken with a kick, and another . . .

“Well met, Rys Lin pen’Chala.”

A woman’s voice shattered the . . . memory. He gasped, eyes snapping open, straightening against the wall so that the crutch might be brought in, if—

The woman standing before him smiled, her attitude gentle and without threat. She extended a hand and gently cupped his cheek, as if it were her right. Her fingers were cold.

“Well met,” she said again, in the blessed language of home. “I might have guessed that
you
would elude the Dragon.”

* * *

“Mr. Golden.” Nova fixed her henchman in her eye. “Would you care to explain your part in this tangle?”

“My part?” He came into the room and dropped into the chair beside her desk. “My part’s simple enough, ma’am, and just like the boy said. I saw a child-on-the-street and since I’m a duly appointed law enforcement officer, accordin’ to the way things are standin’ right now, I saw that there was some law to be enforced.” He gave her a grin. “Just doin’ my duty, ma’am.”

Nova sighed. “The tangle I refer to is Kezzi’s arrival in this office on Syl Vor’s . . . arm. I wonder that you failed to use your considerable address, Mr. Golden, to intervene.”

He sighed. “Well, see, I didn’t get to use any of that address, and if I’d’ve tried, ain’t neither one of ’em woulda heard me, they were that hot under the hair. What I piece together is that the girl might’ve taken Silver’s pen—there was a bit of byplay about did she
need
it, which she didn’t say she did or didn’t, precisely. What I figured was that he was bringin’ her to have you put the fear o’winter into her, very insistent that she see his ma—your pardon, ma’am—that his ma see her.”

Nova resisted the urge to rub her forehead.

“Thank you, Mr. Golden,” she said instead. “That is an important distinction.”

“Yes’m, the boy seemed to think so, too. Made her say it out in the right order before we got on.”

“With my son dragging her by the wrist down a public street, with your apparent approval.”

“There again, I’m not exactly sure I caught the undertalk. The girl saw he was serious about havin’ his way, is what I got, and she offered as a bargain that after she’d got seen, she’d go home to her gran. Silver agreed, quick and easy, but he still kept hold of her.”

“Perhaps because the bargain did not include a promise not to take to her heels the instant he freed her.”

“Well, there, see? I’m too trusting.”

Nova laughed.

“Very well, Mr. Golden, advise me. How shall we handle this for the child’s best safety? I fear I did harm, in pulling her true-name. If she is not to share such information with those beyond her house, then she may be punished—even severely.”

Michael Golden frowned. “What’s the rule when somebody’s kin to two houses?”

Nova blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You said yourself that there’s some things that happen in this house that ain’t the bidness of those outside the house. So, if somebody belongs to two houses, with the same rule . . .”

“You counsel a preemptive course. It may serve, though custom in such matters varies considerably.” She paused, considering. “She was to return home to her grandmother?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Is that likely to be true?”

It was actually comforting, that Michael Golden paused for a long moment of thought before making a slow reply.

“I think that’s straight. The gran only come into it when the bargain was made, and I think that was a solid offer”—he glanced at her sideways—“even if it wasn’t all-inclusive. Early in the day, there was a mother in the works, but she was talkin’ street.”

Which was to say, offering whatever fantasy might serve her. Nova nodded.

“The grandmother, then, is the person Kezzi looks to for comfort and for justice. I will write a note.” She opened the desk drawer and removed a sheet of paper—the formal paper, thick and eager for ink, with Korval’s Tree-and-Dragon in the top right corner and her name below.

“I will see the children here in ten minutes, Mr. Golden, if you would be so kind as to fetch them.”

* * *

“Do you . . . know me?” Rys stared at the woman who smiled upon him with such kindness. She had touched his cheek as if they were kin—but they were
not
kin, that he knew without doubt. She bespoke him in the mode between comrades. Were they shipmates, then? Lovers?

He stared at her.

She was Liaden, yes; her eyes light blue, her stance that of one who had no doubt of her ability to defend herself. Her face . . . her face was not familiar. Not in any wise familiar.

He pushed himself to recall her, strained until a sullen flare of headache warned him to tax himself no further. So, she belonged, perhaps, to the time that was lost to him. And yet, his heart . . .

He felt no spark of affection—no thrill of joy. He was, he noted distantly, shivering, but that was surely only the cooling breeze.

“I know you,” the woman said, with no alteration in her gentle attitude. “Perhaps the question ought to be—do
you
know
me
?”

“Forgive me,” he said carefully. “I . . . sustained injuries . . .”

“Indeed, indeed! You need not exhaust yourself in explanations—I had learned . . . elsewhere of your misfortune. You must allow me to express my delight in beholding you! It had been my very great fear that you had not survived such rough handling.”

She touched his face again, her fingers lingering. His shivering increased, and he pressed his back against the wall, wishing with everything in him that the brick might open and swallow him up.

“You are very well situated for now, I think,” she murmured. “Though we will surely wish to speak again.”

She looked closely into his eyes. “You will come to me, Rys Lin, when I desire it.”

It was not a question. He felt the words strike something . . . something in that hidden place, each syllable waking a flare of agony.

“I . . .”

Her fingers pressed his lips, silencing him. She bent her head until her cheek rested against his, her breath warm in his ear.

“
Son eber donz Rys Lin pen’Chala
.”

Pain flared in his head; his vision shook with violent light; his stomach heaved, and he closed his eyes . . .

* * *

Beck had laid down a plate of cookies
and
a plate of cheese and crackers, with a pot of tea, at the little table in the corner.

“’Less you want milk, there, missy?”

“No,” Kezzi answered. “Tea!”

“’Nother one just like the first one,” Beck said with a sigh. “Tea all around then—and not a cookie nor a drop for you, girl, until you wash those mitts. Show her where, Silver.”

He took her to the wash-up room in the hall behind the kitchen, and washed his hands first, so she could see how everything worked.

When it came her turn, she set to with a will, until her hands were white with lather.

“What is your name?” she asked, abruptly.

“Syl Vor yos’Galan Clan Korval.”

She frowned slightly, nose wrinkling as she rinsed her hands clean, and reached for the towel.

“But that’s not what
they
call you,” she said, “Mike Golden and Beck. They call you Silver.”

He sighed. “It was Mike Golden’s joke,” he explained. “Now the whole household has it.”

“Hmph,” she said, and hung the towel on its bar. Syl Vor led her back to the kitchen.

They sat across from each other at the little table. Kezzi picked up her cup, sipped—and Syl Vor did the same.

“This is good, the tea,” she said.

“I am glad that it finds approval,” Syl Vor murmured, remembering Grandaunt Kareen’s instruction in how to behave at tea. “Beck’s cookies are good, too.”

She gave him a hard stare, then took a cookie from the plate and bit into it, noisily. She chewed, swallowed, sipped. And nodded.

“Yes,” she agreed, and reached for a cheese cracker.

Syl Vor ate a cookie and drank his tea, watching her. She ate with neat efficiency, very quickly, as she had at lunch. Grandaunt would say that she ate too quickly, and had no conversation.

Having conversation was important so all who attended the meal could be entertained, and the pleasures of the table increased.

As if she’d heard him—or had remembered a similar lesson in manners, Kezzi looked up.

“You need to eat more than a cookie, if you want to, to . . .”

He tipped his head, watching her cheeks darken. “To what?”

She sighed sharply, but surprisingly answered, snappish as Padi when she was caught out by surprise. “To grow tall, we say.”

“I’m not tall yet,” he told her. “But I will be. My mother and my uncles are tall, and my cousins, too.” Aunt Anthora was slightly less tall, but there was, Syl Vor thought, no sense bringing Aunt Anthora into things just yet.

“Don’t let ’im pull your leg, missy,” Beck said from the stove. “Ain’t a single one of ’em
tall
by Surebleak measure.”

“But we are by Liaden measure,” Syl Vor pointed out. “I told you.”

“You keep on telling me, hon. Meanwhile, a little bit o’cheese ain’t gonna hurtcha.”

Kezzi used a forefinger to nudge the cheese plate toward him, meaningfully. It seemed that good manners insisted.

Syl Vor took up a cracker with cheese and bit into it. It was good; the cheese sharp and the cracker spicy. He took another bite, which finished both, and sipped his tea.

Behind them, the door to the kitchen opened.

“Hey, Mike,” said Beck. “Snack?”

“Gimme a snow-check on that. Silver, your ma wants you and Kezzi.”

“Yes.” He drank the last of his tea, and stood up. Kezzi did, too, leaving half a cookie on her plate, which, he thought, showed that she held Mother in proper respect.

She took a deep breath, then, and looked around the kitchen.

“The House,” Syl Vor said quickly, and she blinked at him.

“What?”

“The House keeps you safe,” he expanded. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not
afraid
,” she told him.

“Well, good,” Mike Golden said, holding the door wide, “’cause I am.”

“You,” Kezzi told him with dignity, “are very stupid.”

“Mike is
not
stupid,” Syl Vor said sternly, and stalked through the door.

Kezzi took a deep breath and followed him.

* * *

Syl Vor led the way to his mother’s desk with Kezzi a step or two behind, which was the proper configuration for sponsor and hopeful supplicant. Whether they had adopted the mode purposefully—that was more difficult to tell.

Nova accepted her son’s bow with an inclination of her head, and hoped she wasn’t about to do something foolishly dangerous.

“My son, I have considered your request and the merits of your proposed sister. In the interests of clarity, I have one question more, if you will allow?”

He frowned, but made a courteous enough answer. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I thank you for your forbearance. It came to me, as I was turning the matter over in my mind, that you perhaps see this matter of achieving Kezzi as a sister to be . . . a solving. Do you?”

He blinked. She had surprised him, this prodigy of hers.

“I—the
delm
solves,” he said, suddenly and entirely a young boy caught unawares and offering up the bedrock of the universe for his answer.

“Just so. The
delm
solves for the clan entire, and for those of the house who ask. But we all and each of us, my son, solve sometimes for ourselves. It is part of the process by which we become ourselves.”

Syl Vor bit his lip.