“Why?” she gasped.
Her delm glared. “Because there is no one else, if you will have it,” she said coldly.
Aelliana inclined her head. “No, ma'am, forgive me. I am well aware of the logic that would have you heap duty upon me. My question is: Why did Mizel send no one to me at Healer Hall? Sinit knew where I was, and yet—it was not kin who sent clothes to replace mine that were torn, or to offer companionship on the way home. It was Daav who came, not you.”
Mizel drew herself up. “This is a House in mourning,” she said. “Surely, the Healers would have called a taxi for you.”
Yes, even in death, Ran Eld came first in their mother's heart—it was no surprise; but the chains of duty were made lighter for the confirmation.
“Aelliana?”
“I—” She took a hard breath. Even lightened, duty was no inconsiderable weight. Nor would it do to offend Mizel—any more than was necessary. “The clan has done without my input, my intelligence, and my resources for many years. I cannot remain here. Forgive me.”
Mizel frowned. “Aelliana, have you not been attending me? Your brother is made clanless by reason of his attack upon your person. I have sworn that you are safe here. Do you question your delm?”
Aelliana shook her head, her hair snapping with the force of the gesture, and raised a hand, fingers splayed, in the sign for stop.
“I cannot calculate a point in the future when I will feel safe here, ma'am. There may be a time when I will be able to abide these walls for more than an hour. That, I cannot know, until—until I have gone away from here, taken thought, and allowed what the Healers have begun to . . . bear what fruit it may.”
“You can think here!”
“No, ma'am, I cannot. Doubtless, this is my own deficiency.” She bowed, forcing herself to the courtesy: clan-member-to-delm. “I have abused my copilot's patience long enough. Good-day to you, Mother.”
“Aelliana.”
There was cold anger in Mizel's voice, but that could not be allowed to matter, not now. Now, what mattered was Daav, and gaining the untainted air of the day on the far side of Mizel's front door. She forced herself to turn, and to walk on legs shamefully unsteady—across the room, and out the door.
* * *
“More tea, Delm Korval?” The elder sister leaned forward with what she had doubtless been taught was grace, and placed a soft hand on the teapot.
“Thank you,” he said gravely, “my cup is but half-empty.”
And not likely, he thought, to become full-empty. The quarter-glass that Aelliana had specified was almost done. While he did not doubt his ability to extricate her from her delm's office if it became necessary, he was at a loss as to how to perform such an outrage with even a modicum of subtlety. It would be better—far better—if Aelliana found a way to end the interview and return to him. Then, they might continue the airy fantasy of pilot and dutiful copilot that she had spun for them, and with a fair semblance of courtesy, slip away.
“Do you make a long stay in Chonselta?” Voni Caylon asked him.
He sighed to himself and inclined his head. “Only so long as is necessary, ma'am,” he answered, and thought he heard the winsome Sinit sneeze softly.
“Perhaps your plans might extend to an informal dinner,” she persisted. “Mizel would be pleased to—”
From down the hall came the sound of a door opening, and light uneven steps, moving not quite at a run.
Daav put his cup aside and rose, turning to face the parlor door.
Aelliana hesitated on the threshold, eyes wide and shoulders stiff, distress informing every muscle.
“Pilot?” he asked, voice deliberately soft; all of his attention on her.
“We—leave now,” she said. Her voice was firmer than he had supposed it would be, from her countenance.
“Aelliana!” the elder sister exclaimed from her seat across the tea-table. “Leave? When the clan needs every adult? How can this be?”
“Necessity,” Aelliana whispered, and he saw that the resolve she clung to was barely more than a thread. Now, was her copilot needed, and truly.
“Necessity,” he affirmed, giving the word what weight he might, in Comrade. “Is there anything you require from this house, before we go? Books, clothes—” Your daughter, he added silently, but that would surely cross the line into kin-stealing. Yet, ought she not at least give her child farewell?
She shook her head. “No. I—it is time for us to leave. Please.”
“At once,” he said.
Turning to the younger sister, he bowed as one acknowledging a debt-partner. “Sinit Caylon, it has been a pleasure to renew our acquaintance. You have my particulars.”
Her face flushed, and he turned to the elder sister, awarding her a bow for the courtesy of the House.
“Ma'am.” He did not stop to see what her response might be, but stepped to Aelliana's side, and offered her his arm.
“Pilot.”
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Contents
Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Six
The number of High Houses is precisely fifty. And then there is Korval.
—From the Annual Census of Clans
“I had become accustomed to keeping such things as—as mattered, in my office at the Technical College,” Aelliana said, as he guided the ground car through Chonselta's thin afternoon traffic.
Almost, he asked if she wished to go there—to her office—but it seemed to him that she had something more to say on her topic, and held his tongue.
“My brother,” she continued, after a moment. “Ran Eld had used to . . . find pleasure . . . in coming into my room after the house was asleep, and, and emptying my drawers and shelves. Of course, fragile things broke, and books were sometimes . . . damaged. Those things that remain are clothes, and—easily replaced,” she finished resolutely.
Anger tightened his fingers on the stick, and a sad pity it was that Ran Eld Caylon's throat did not rest beneath his hand. He took a breath, calming himself, and glanced aside, seeing wide green eyes watching his face carefully.
“If a copilot may be so bold,” he said, keeping his tone cool in consideration of her concern, “your brother was a monster.”
There was a pause, as if she weighed this judgment. He waited, wondering what the outcome of her thought would be.
“Yes,” she said eventually, turning her head to study the passenger's viewscreen. “Yes, I fear that he was.”
“Do you wish to go to your office?” Daav asked, eying the readout on the driver's screens. The deciding turn was two blocks distant—right for Chonselta Technical College, left for the spaceport.
“Not today, I thank you; it is the long break, and what is there is safe enough for now.”
He nodded. “We to the spaceport, then, Pilot.”
“That sounds—excellent,” she replied and fell silent once more.
Daav did not press her, having thoughts of his own to pursue. The more he heard of Aelliana's life, clan-bound, the more he wondered that she had managed to survive at all. All very well for Master Kestra to praise her strength, but the horrors under which she had struggled to thrive—surely, he thought, she might have been given some small comfort?
Instead, she had been given a kinsman bent on doing her what damage he might, and who reveled in her pain. She could count on no moment of privacy; hold in fondness no fragile geegaw; be certain that a walk down the main hallway of her very clanhouse would not result in bruises—or worse.
His anger was building again. Grimly, he brought his heartbeat down, smoothed his breathing.
Small wonder she had spoken so distantly of her daughter, he thought, remembering how cold she had seemed, entirely unlike the woman he knew. With her brother on the lookout always to harm her, how could she regard her child? The best she might do for the girl was disdain her, and hope that Ran Eld Caylon never looked in her direction.