Liaden Universe [19] - Alliance of Equals - eARC (28 page)

There was silence, while the
Admiral
waited what he might consider to be human-long for Tolly’s answer on the Matter of Haz.

“Very well,” he said eventually. “I shall proceed. Perhaps, when you hear the question, you will understand that it is a separate issue from our shared
melant’is
of prisoner and jailor, though it concerns us nearly through another shared
melant’i
.”

Boy’d been studying, credit where it was due. Tolly waited, head bent over the reader.

“Pilot Hazenthull sent you a message of reassurance, to which you responded with a message of anger and rejection. I ask an explanation of this interaction. I do not understand it, and I believe you will have made the pilot angry. My experience of you is that you are a careful thinker, and in control of your emotions. The probable effect of your response upon the pilot must have been obvious to you. Therefore, you must wish Pilot Hazenthull to be angry with you. Why?”

Well, well.

Good question. Good observation.

Too bad he wasn’t going to answer it, though it was kinda warming to know that he and the
Admiral
shared an admiration for big, dour women. Or
a
big, dour woman, anyway. He’d said no more mentoring for him, and he meant—

No, wait, he
was
going to answer it. The
Admiral
was right; he owed it
to Haz
to answer the
Admiral
’s question. Haz was a cord that tied him and
Admiral Bunter
together, but the
Admiral
also had a tie to Hazenthull. And he wished her no harm. That might come in handy for her, sometime in the future.

He raised his head, and glanced up at the ceiling.

“Haz was getting ready to do something stupid,” he said, his voice sounding hard in his own ears. “She was getting ready to chase you and me right down the throat of the Lyre Institute, and that isn’t a proposition she can survive. I deliberately made her mad at me, so she’d cut her loss, go home and live a long, long time, safe and free.”

He took a breath, forcing it past the lump in his throat.

“I don’t wanna talk about Haz anymore. I’m reading here, if you don’t mind, and it’s kind of tough going.”

There was no answer, and after a moment, he bent his head again over his book.

—•—

The child was positively radiant this morning, Shan thought, pouring himself a third cup of coffee; so some good had come from yesterday’s episode of frank discovery.

He…was slightly less than radiant. There was grit in the air, or so it seemed to him, and he was…just a little, and despite two cups of very robust coffee…lethargic. Nothing worrisome; he often slept less well on port than he did aboard the
Passage
, and lethargy was easily treated with a relaxation exercise.

Which he had best tend to, now. Perhaps, if he was clever, he wouldn’t need to drink all of the third cup.

He set the pot down on the buffet, and closed his eyes, clearing his mind of all distraction, calling up the image of the pond at the center of Trealla Fantrol’s formal garden: a perfect round circle, absolutely calm, reflecting the green of the sky and just one, very fluffy, white cloud.

Behind him, he heard Padi speaking into the comm. He concentrated on the pond, and her voice faded, leaving him alone in the perfect moment of solitude. One slow deep breath, energy rising into him, as bright and serene as the water.

His lungs were full; for a moment he stood, not breathing, balanced between trance state and the everyday, before, slowly, deliberately, he let the air leave him. The rich aroma of coffee grew gradually more definite; he could feel his feet, comfortable in a favorite pair of boots. The pond faded from his awareness, and he heard Padi speaking.

“Thank you, ma’am. Master Trader yos’Galan and I look forward to meeting with you today.”

He opened his eyes, smiling and refreshed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Langlastport

Broker Plishet met them at the door of the textile display room, belt pouches swinging with the briskness of his stride, his smile wide and toothy.

“Trader yos’Galan, welcome! And welcome as well to the master trader! You’re both busy, I know, and too short a time to find all our port has on offer. If you’ll just come right along behind me, I promised the trader a rare treat, and I’m determined that she has it! Looked it out on the overnight, to be sure it was still in the bin—my luck it was sold while I was enjoying your hospitality yesternoon! But, noo, we have it safe, still. This way, then…”

He strode toward the door. It opened before him. Padi looked at Father, who gestured her ahead of him.

“This is, after all, your contact, Trader,” he murmured. “Pretend that I am not present.”

She nodded and followed the broker, though she couldn’t help a glance over her shoulder at Father, who was walking with Mr. Higgs. At least, she thought with relief, he hadn’t utterly disappeared, as he had done on Andiree. That had been a little…
too much
not present for comfort.

“Right down here, Trader—a specialty; I thought of it when we were speaking and I knew it for yours. It might’ve been wove just for you, and that’s the truth of the thing. Right this way, a little bit of a walk, but you won’t mind that…”

The broker was hurrying in truth, his legs rather longer than Padi’s, though Korval was a tall clan, and she not the shortest of her kin. It might almost seem as if he was trying to force her into a run, but—no. There was nothing for him to gain by straining her dignity. Very likely, he had simply not considered the disparity in their height, and was making what haste he could because he was busy himself.

Well, then, she would compromise. She walked briskly, in order to show respect for the broker’s necessity, but not so briskly that she moved into a run. It would have been more to her taste to walk slowly, so that she might inspect the bins they sped past, but that was apparently not to be, and that was…rather more than a pity. She would have liked to view the textiles, and especially, the rugs on display more closely. She quite
liked
rugs, and would have welcomed an opportunity to add something new to her inventory.

Padi felt her temper flicker, drew a hard breath to cool it, and throttled down the sudden desire to simply turn around and walk back the way she had come, at precisely the same pace, and remove herself from this situation.

Grandfather Luken would never treat a visitor to his display room thus!
she thought hotly. Broker Pilshet was some distance ahead of her now, very nearly at the back of the room. Without even a glance behind him, to be sure that she still followed, he turned a corner between two bins.

Padi’s temper went from hot to cold. She deliberately slowed her pace as she approached the corner where the broker had disappeared. Her hideaway was within reach, of course, but would it not be better—
more prudent
—to indeed turn and walk away from what had gone from mere rudeness to the possibility of an ambush?

She heard a quiet step behind her, and a moment later, Father slipped his hand under her elbow.

“Gently, Trader,” he said, voice so soft that his words sounded like her own thought. “I detect no maliciousness in the man, though he is clearly anticipatory regarding something. He may mean to frighten you, or it might be something else, but he does not mean to harm you.”

An advantage of being one of the
cha’dramliz
, Padi thought; to be able to see around corners, and taste the tenor of a trading partner’s emotions as negotiation proceeded…those abilities might be valuable. If she came
cha’dramliza
, or full
dramliza
, and was not made silly by the weight of her power, like Aunt Anthora…

And there really was
no
good to be had from thinking about Aunt Anthora at this precise moment.

Padi sighed, and slowed her pace a bit more.

“Very proper,” Father said. “There’s no need to exhaust yourself at the beginning of a busy day. You called ahead. If he knew his schedule was too full to accommodate you, he might have refused the appointment then, or asked you to come to him at a more convenient hour.” He paused, then spoke again, very seriously.

“I do not think it is at all necessary, but I will mention that you have the option of asking Vanner to proceed you around the corner.”

As if she couldn’t take care of herself! she thought with a flare of temper. Then she thought again and her temper cooled.

It was a simple
melant’i
frame; Mr. Higgs
was
ship security; it was, therefore, his duty to proceed people around dangerous corners. She was not here as Quin’s copilot; there were no babies to shield from heartless enemies. At Langlastport, her
melant’i
was
trader
. A peaceable enough thing, or so she wished it to be.

The corner was scarcely six of her slower steps ahead. The broker anticipated something, did he? Perhaps he anticipated her overreaction, or her scream when he leapt out from the corner and cried
Boo
!

Well, perhaps she might spoil his game for him, in Balance for his rudeness.

“I think that I will not impose upon Mr. Higgs,” she said. Father nodded and dropped a step behind her.

Padi rounded the corner.

—•—

Shan considered the broker’s pattern: anticipation, yes. Some mischief, perhaps; some determination, perhaps to prove a point? Very occasionally, he wished that he were a true telepath, rather than a mere empath. Deciphering emotions was rather a nebulous business, never entirely accurate, and often raising more questions than were answered.

On the other hand, one imagined a true telepath would need to go heavily shielded at all times. Also, it was likely true that making sense of thought and the processes thereof, might
not
be quite so simple as running one’s eye down a printed page.

Linked to Padi as he was, he felt her very clearly indeed. Now that her little burst of temper had burned away, she was admirably cool. That was good. A cool head was a useful commodity in trade, as it was in life.

He walked around the corner in her wake, Vanner behind him—alert, but not alarmed.

The space between the two bins was a short cul-de-sac, with a single bin at the far end, sealed, rather than open, with wares on display. It seemed an odd state and an odder location for a specialty bin, but, then, Broker Plishet himself seemed to be rather odd. The brokerage did well, according to its publicly available financials, but, then, Plishet would surely not be the only broker. Perhaps he was kin, or some other person who required oversight and occupation, while being kept out of harm’s way.

“Trader yos’Galan, there you are!” the man said as Padi approached. “It was on me that you’d decided the walk was too far and had given up on me and my goods.”

“I am curious to see what you have on offer,” Padi said. “However, I am not so long-legged as you, sir.”

Her voice, Shan noted with approval, was calm. It also carried a chill edge, which he approved of less. A bit of humor might play better here, but…the child would learn. And calmness was most important.

“That’s right; a slim slip of a girl is what you are,” the broker said, and something sharp flicked against Shan’s Healer senses.

Ah, was this it? Had Padi’s “sass” at yesterday’s reception not amused him so very much, after all?

“But, here, now that we’re all together, let’s take a look at what I have for you, Trader. Tell me you can resist this!”

He flung the bin’s cover wide and stepped back, both arms sweeping toward the goods on display, which were—

Oh, dear
, Shan thought, holding himself very still.

One would need to do a hand-inspection to be positive, but upon first glance the rugs hanging limply on the display rods were the rankest imitation Visrathans he had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. He could only thank the gods that Luken was not present; he might have gone blind on the spot.

Padi…

When she was younger, Padi had trained with Luken, at his shop on Solcintra Port, as had Quin; as he, himself, had done, and all of his generation of Korval, too.

Padi knew the difference between a good rug and a bad rug, never mind between a genuine rug and an…imitation.

Padi also knew when she had been insulted. He felt her outrage as if it were his own. Nor ought Broker Plishet be in doubt regarding the trader’s state of mind, given the tight shoulders, and the head held
just so
.

Oh, dear
, Shan thought again. Not that he blamed her in the least.

He looked to the links that bound them, with an especial care for any glimpses of stone, or violent eruption of power.

He found temper, which was expectable. He tasted grit, which was sadly not unusual in this linkage, but there seemed to be no increase, nor did he have any sense of walls atrembling.

Very well, then. The trader had the floor.

He remanded himself to silence, and awaited developments.

—•—

Oh, so
that
was the game, was it? A test, for the slim slip of a girl? For the stranger on the port, who had, perhaps, been a little too forward in pointing out the errors of his thought? She was to be exposed as a fraud—no!—
as a child
, who had apparently never seen a proper rug in all her life, much less received the tutoring of a master.

She drew in a deep breath, and deliberately relaxed, as if she were about to sit her boards.

“Sadly, sir, I can resist it easily, if this is your special offering,” she said coolly, and saw his face change, the broad, false smile becoming a little rigid. Good.
Let him
feel insulted.

She walked forward, to the bin itself. The broker stood fast at the side, watching her. Gently, because she really did fear for the weave, she took the closest rug between her hands.

The nap was gritty and unpleasant against her palms, while the underside was flat and hard—innocent of even the most rudimentary knotting. Despite what her fingers told her, she flipped the rug over. If this were a test, then let the man see she knew where to look, what to look for, and how. Let him, in fact, wonder if she believed the business to be in earnest.

She sighed at the slight shine on the flat underside of the rug—resin. Or glue.

The fringe…

The fringe as stiff as straw. Had this…dreadful farce…been a
real
Visrathan carpet, the fringe would have flowed through her fingers like water.

But, there. No one was pretending that these were real Visrathan carpets, or even very good imitations.

She licked the fingertips of her right hand, and rubbed them gently over the nap. They came away smeared purple, and she sighed. Neither the red nor the blue dyes were stable, and the gods alone knew what sort of fabric they’d used. A blend, if she was required to produce a guess: a blend of recycled plastics and waste wool. The wool would hold the dyes, but a high percentage of plastic to fabric would give the dye no purchase.

Padi dropped the rug, and turned to face Broker Plishet.

She raised her hand, showing him the stained fingertips, and shook her head.

“Surely, sir, there are local haulers who can remove this for you far more cheaply than I.”

“Do you insult my wares, Trader?” He sounded curious, not angry, and his face was calm.

She reached into her pocket for a cloth, and used it leisurely to clean her fingers.

“I think rather that the case is otherwise, Broker,” she said, tucking the cloth away, and looking him squarely in the face. “If I were inclined to be pricklish, I might assume that you were seeking to discredit me.”

His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

“However,” she continued, trying for Father’s tone of gentle idiocy, and doubtless missing, “since I am
not
pricklish, I incline toward the belief that you were testing me, to find if I was worthy of handling your…
actual goods
. May I suggest that the master trader’s schedule is very tight, and that we would all benefit from a speedy showing of those goods that you in fact
wish
to bring to my attention?”

Silence stretched so long that she thought the stupid broker would refuse the saving of face she offered him. Then, abruptly, he smiled, closed the bin, and moved his arm, indicating that she should proceed him out of the cul-de-sac.

“Please, Trader, after you. The true goods are close by.”

—•—

The “true goods” were revealed to be honest and serviceable cotton rugs hand-painted with vegetable dyes that had been fixed, and then washed, to take out the fixative and any extra dye. They were large, and light, and pleasant, with agreeable designs ranging from abstracts to quite realistic paintings of gardens and what seemed to be the very same mountains they could see from their suite.

Padi purchased a gross, which was modest enough, at a price that was not, perhaps, absolutely as low as she might have gotten, but certainly low enough to ensure a reasonable profit—unless, Shan thought wryly, the whole lot of them melted during transit.

He took careful note of Broker Plishet’s emotions. The man had apparently been certain that he would catch the upstart young trader with those terrible rugs. He seemed…not quite as irritated with the fact that he had not caught her as Shan might have expected, but perhaps he was not a naturally warm man.

The real question was why Broker Plishet had even made the attempt to discredit Trader yos’Galan. Certainly, he might have found it necessary to preserve his dignity at the reception, in the midst of his peers, many of whom had been witnesses to the exchange.

But there had been no reason at all to agree to meet with the cause of his embarrassment when she called to propose a meeting. Surely, his discomfort could just as easily be assuaged by refusing to meet with her, and therefore withholding his wares, and her profit?

Shan sighed. Well. Perhaps he had assumed that he would dine out on the story.

Padi had comported herself well throughout; managing her temper and Broker Plishet with equal skill. He owned himself pleased, as her master, and as her father, while admitting, in the privacy of his own head, that
he
might not have let the broker off quite so easily.