" 'Her Thumbleness?' "
"That is how you will address her," Heetoorieef said, a bit tartly. "You will not be here long at any rate; but addressing any of the Brummgas wrongly will make that stay extremely unpleasant."
He half turned and looked Jack up and down. "I don't believe she's ever chosen a
human before. What exactly are you good for?"
"I was doing a magic show when she spotted me," Jack told him, deciding not to take offense at the question. Heetoorieef was trying to be civil, he knew. He just didn't do it very well. Probably all that time spent with Brummgas. "I can juggle some, too."
"I see," Heetoorieef said. His tone was still polite, but Jack could tell he really didn't much care one way or the other.
Which wasn't surprising. Heetoorieef's job was to keep the household running smoothly, to make sure the slaves didn't make some mistake that would get them—and him—in trouble with the slavemasters. Having to take time out to teach Her Thumbleness's latest toy how to behave was just one more headache for him to deal with.
"You'll need to take a bath," Heetoorieef went on. "Unless you really would prefer being hosed down?" Jack grinned. "A bath will do fine," he assured the other. "Can you find me a change of clothes, too?"
"That was next on the list," Heetoorieef said stiffly, as if offended that Jack would think a proper slave overseer would need to be reminded about that. "A
magic performer and juggler. Yes, I believe I have just the outfit. I will bring it to your room while you bathe."
"Thank you," Jack said. "What do I do then?"
"When you are dressed report to me in my office," Heetoorieef said. "It is a small room beside the kitchen. You will entertain Her Thumbleness while she eats her dinner."
Jack's room was Nui Trach—Number Eight in the Brummgan numbering system—in the second basement down from the kitchen floor. It contained a wide bed, a two-drawer dresser, a wooden chair, a clock-intercom, and a single overhead light.
The bed's mattress was stiff, the chair was hard, and there was barely enough room for him to turn around without bumping into something else. But after a week and a half in the slave colony sleeping hut, the place felt like the luxury corridor on the Star of Wonder.
The slaves' bathroom was at the end of the hall. It was smaller than the wash area back in the slave colony, and not a lot fancier. But it was clean, it had a
real bathtub, and it had lots of hot water.
He soaked in the tub as long as he dared—about five minutes—then washed himself thoroughly and returned to his room. Heetoorieef had been there in his absence, and had left him the most ridiculous outfit he'd ever seen. It consisted of a loose tunic, tights, and a floppy hat with bells on it. Everything was done up in the same pattern of huge purple-and-green diamonds.
"An interesting design," Draycos commented as Jack shook out the tunic and held it up. "Is that what is called a harlequin outfit?"
"You got me," Jack said, sitting down on the bed and starting to pull on the tights. They felt prickly and itchy, he noticed. Maybe they would feel better once they were all the way on. "I've never even heard the word before."
"A harlequin was a clown or buffoon in an Old Earth French theater style,"
Draycos explained. "He typically wore a mask and diamond-patterned clothing."
"Um," Jack grunted, standing up and smoothing out the tights along his legs.
Nope; they didn't feel any better this way. He would just have to hope he would get used to the prickling. "Been reading through the Essenay's dictionary, have we?"
"At your suggestion," Draycos said. "That shirt appears too large for you."
"Sure does," Jack agreed, slipping the tunic over his head. Too large, nothing—he could swim a couple laps of backstroke in here. He wondered what sort of alien the outfit had been designed for. "Maybe I can tuck it in somehow."
"If you like, I can help hold it," the dragon offered. "Like this."
Jack felt some weight at the small of his back as Draycos lifted his forepaws out into three-dimensional mode. There was a twitch as the dragon's claws caught the material and pulled it close in against Jack's back.
"Not bad," Jack said, twisting his torso and waving his arms experimentally. "Feels pretty good. On second thought, though, we'd better not. We don't want someone checking out the outfit later and wondering how I was holding it together."
"I understand." Draycos released his claws, and the tunic material billowed out again like a ship's sail looking for a nice westerly breeze. "You expect them to study you more closely, then?"
"They will if we give them enough time," Jack said. "That's why I gave Heetoorieef Noy's name instead of mine."
"You think Gazen will see the list of which slaves are currently in the house."
"I would if I were in charge of slaves around here," Jack said, trying to tuck the tunic into the back of the tights. Without a mirror he couldn't see what it looked like, but it felt like it looked stupid. "I figure if he sees my name on Heetoorieef's list, I'll be back on the wrong side of the hedge in nothing flat."
"He may be at dinner tonight."
"In which case, we're probably in trouble," Jack said, giving up and pulling the back of the tunic free again. "Let's hope the Chookoock family doesn't let non-Brummgas eat with them. If we can get through this one meal, we should be in."
"You plan to hit the computers tonight?"
"I'm sure going to give it a try," Jack said. No special shoes had come with the outfit; slipping on his own, he secured them and looked himself up and down.
"At least I'm not going out in public in this thing," he said with a sigh. "Let's go entertain Her Thumbleness."
"Yes," Draycos said. "Is 'break a leg' the proper response?"
"That's the one," Jack confirmed.
"Thank you," Draycos said. "Break a leg."
CHAPTER 14
From the information Uncle Virge had pulled up, Jack had known the Chookoocks were a big family, spanning at least six generations and including over a hundred Brummgas.
What he hadn't expected was to find the whole ugly crowd of them dropping in for dinner on this same night.
Maybe they weren't all there, gathered around the long tables beneath the hanging flags in the huge banquet hall. Jack never had a chance to actually count them. But if they were missing any of them, they weren't missing very many.
The scene rather reminded Jack of one of those old Medieval costume dramas, the kind Uncle Virgil had always loved. The sort of drama where Robin Hood or someone charged in just before dessert and dropped a deer on the table in front of the king.
Here, of course, the tables were made of long slabs of dark green stone instead of rough-cut wood, and the light came from modern glow domes instead of flaming torches. And given the number of armed guards stationed at the various doors, no one was likely to be showing up with a deer unless it was properly cooked.
But aside from that, the effect was much the same.
One of the serving slaves led Jack over to a table off to one side, where a couple dozen Brummgan children were already seated. Their table, unlike the others, was covered with a brightly colored patchwork tablecloth that hung all the way to the floor. Some of the children were coloring or drawing on it, while others were busy carving slits into it with their table knives.
It wasn't until Jack came closer that a familiar section of the cloth caught his eye: one of the battle flags of the Whinyard's Edge mercenaries.
And then he understood. The tablecloth was composed of mercenary banners and military flags, all sewn together and given to the children to amuse themselves.
And of course, what the children wanted to do most was scribble on or otherwise insult them. Typical Brummgan behavior.