“I will see it done, your lordship.”
“Thank you, Mr. dea'Gauss,” Daav murmured. “Aelliana?”
“The price of a nadelm,” she murmured. “It's blood money. For Ran Eld.”
There was a startled silence. Mr. dea'Gauss spoke first.
“Are you certain, my lady? It was told to me that Mizel named you as nadelm.”
“She did not,” Aelliana said, daring to take her hands away from Daav's and approaching the table.
Daav slipped a hand under her elbow and helped her regain her seat before taking his own. He and the accountant shared a troubled glance.
“If—that is a dangerous precedent,” Mr. dea'Gauss said slowly. “It imperils the future negotiations of all, and muddles the lines between restitution made in Balance of a death, and the price paid to adopt a member of one clan into the ranks of another. As a Master of the Accountants Guild, I—forgive me, your lordship—I cannot allow that precedent to be set.”
“I understand entirely, Mr. dea'Gauss, and I would not ask it of you.” Daav sighed.
“Thank you, your lordship.” He sighed, and leaned back in his chair, pushing the notepad aside.
“Mizel's qe'andra allows me to know that Mizel will deal in earnest when Korval's good intentions are shown.”
Aelliana swallowed. “I must remove from our house before Mizel will begin to talk?”
“That is the essence, my lady.”
Aelliana closed her eyes.
“What do they have to gain?” she whispered.
Mr. dea'Gauss cleared his throat.
“If I may venture a guess . . . I believe that it may be that news of the attachment between yourself and his lordship has come to Mizel's ears.”
“They hope that separation will disorder us,” Daav said. “Thus we will not negotiate as well or as carefully as we should, and Mizel will achieve an advantage.”
Mr. dea'Gauss inclined his head. “That is my belief, yes.”
“Well, then.” Daav put his hand over hers on the table. “We depend upon you to keep us careful, Mr. dea'Gauss, and to guard us from all harm.”
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Contents
Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The guest is sacrosanct. The welfare and comfort of the guest will be first among the priorities of the House, for so long as the guest shall bide.
—Excerpted from the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct
Of course, Mizel had chosen the Healers. Aelliana supposed she ought to be relieved, that they had chosen at all.
She flew The Luck to Chonselta solo, and even on so short a lift bitterly felt the lack of his calm, solid presence in the other chair. But it would not have done, Mizel's further condition being that she should have no congress with Daav yos'Phelium. If they were chance met, as say, at Kareen yos'Phelium's formal gather, some weeks from now, they were to bow with appropriate courtesy and separate themselves as quickly as possible.
And it would not have been any easier, Aelliana thought, sealing The Luck and walking down the gantry with her bag over one shoulder, to leave him at Chonselta Port than it had been to leave him—at home.
“Three days, at most,” he had murmured into her hair, as they embraced for what she would not think of as the last time. “Now that this is begun, it should end quickly. I'll wager you'll be back home well before Kareen's gather, and will not have the occasion to impose upon Lady yo'Lanna after all.”
Aelliana smiled slightly as she came to the ground and walked on in the direction of the main thoroughfare. Lady yo'Lanna had immediately fallen in with the suggestion that Aelliana's dress be delivered to Glavda Empri, with Eyla dea'Lorn, too. Aelliana would then take herself there for dressing. “For,” Daav had said, with great common sense, “you would not want to crush your skirts in the pilot's chair.”
She came out of the yard into a side street. Ahead, the sign for a taxi stand glowed gently against the afternoon light.
Scarcely had she touched the call switch than a car pulled up, back door open.
“Service, Pilot?”
“Yes, thank you.” She tossed her bag inside and slid in after it.
“Healer Hall, if you please.”
She was shown into a side parlor, with assurances that the guide to her quarters would be with her very soon, and left alone. Aelliana sighed, put her bag on the seat of the nearest chair and wandered over to the table. There were several decanters and glasses set ready, but she did not wish for wine. Continuing her prowl, she came to a bookshelf scantily filled with old novels and out-of-date periodicals. She flipped through them, and had just decided that she ought to choose one of the garden magazines to while her time when the door opened and a woman whose face was immediately familiar to her entered the room and bowed.
“Kestra, Master Healer,” she said briskly, and straightened with a smile. “Pilot Caylon, how good it is to see you looking so well . . . ” Grey brows pulled sharply together.
It seemed to Aelliana that the Healer looked past her face, indeed, that her gaze was fixed slightly above her head.
“Yes,” Kestra said, considerably less brisk, “it is wonderful to see you looking so exceptionally well. This is beyond anything we had dared to hope for. How does your lifemate go on, if an old woman might inquire?”
Aelliana tipped her head. “He fares very well by my accounting. However, my eyesight is not so sharp as your own. It may interest you to know that it has not been given him to . . . experience me fully.”
“No? But surely—” The Healer sighed sharply and moved her hands in a gesture vaguely akin to forgive in hand-talk. “I am but seeing half the pattern. With the wholeness before me, I might see the flaw and the flow, but even then—perhaps not. There is a great deal of flash and brangle about your partner, which makes it difficult—but there! You are not here to satisfy my vulgar curiosities, though you must permit me to say again that it is gratifying to behold you thus. I had hoped that our work would give you some ease. That you have been able to take what we began and unfurl your wings so far . . . ” She bowed again, gently, as one who has beheld a wonder.
“Thank you, Pilot.”
“Surely, it is I who should thank you. Had you not made a beginning, I should—I should not have been able to build upon your work.” And, she added silently, she would not have been made privy to the complex, tricksy creature who was Daav yos'Phelium, without whom—
“We are both in debt to the other,” Master Kestra said.
“And so the debts cancel,” Aelliana said, and inclined her head. “When this current business is done, if you like, you may come to us at Jelaza Kazone, to view the whole of the pattern.”
“That at least would satisfy an old woman's curiosity. However, you remind me, most gently, of our current business. Allow me to show you to your lodging.” She turned with a sweep of her hand and crossed the room to the door. Aelliana stretched her legs, snatched up her bag, and followed.
“The Hall Master felt that you and those of our order would find more comfort if you were at some remove from the house. We hope that you will find it worthy. It has its own entrance onto the street, so that your visitors may come to you without recourse to our doorkeeper; and you may come and go about your business as it may be necessary. It is, admittedly, not convenient to the dining facilities in the main house, but there is a small and well-stocked kitchen. We can of course provide companionship. The guest need only ask.”
Master Kestra produced a key from her sleeve and used her chin to point at the stone cottage nestled in the far corner of the Hall's inner garden. Flowers surrounded it, and a small tree with long trailing branches covered with pale pink flowers half-concealed the doorway.