Mouse and Dragon (6 page)

Mizel inclined her head. "He has paid the final price," she said, her voice stringently steady in the mode between delm and clan member. "Your safety and your peace is now assured in our House." She took a breath, and continued more briskly.

"Ran Eld's . . . departure leaves Mizel thin. Your resources and your intelligence are needed in the service of your clan. Your grandmother had thought highly of you, and considered that you might best stand as nadelm. We had, as you know, disagreed upon the point—where two are worthy, it is often the case, and no dishonor to any. Now it is come time for you to take up duty, and learn what must be done to husband Mizel's interests. I do not hide from you that we are in . . . unfortunate straits. I believe that we may make a recovery, if we are diligent and wise, and if all the clan accepts their duty, and, in the case of those more able, beyond their duty."

Aelliana swallowed, her stomach tight, breath short. She could feel the bars snapping in place around her, shutting her away from Daav,
The Luck
, her comrades . . . 

"To absent yourself in these times of turmoil is less than even the simplest duty to the House demands. Korval will accept this, when you tell him that your clan has need of you. As I have said, and as I do swear to you, on the honor of our clan, you are safe here among us."

Safe
. In this house where she had been tortured, while the delm preferred not to see. Where she and her
resources
—her ship!—were suddenly seen as precious. In this clan where both her delm and her mother knew her for the murderer of her brother. And neither would forgive her.

"So!" Mizel said, placing her hands flat atop the desk. "It is decided. You will inform Korval of your obligations, thank him—graciously, mind you, Aelliana!—for his many kindnesses to yourself, and release him to his own affairs. You will be able to rest easy here, and recuperate further—"

Aelliana stood. She
must
stand, she thought, her heart pounding, or the weight of Mizel's words, the weight of duty, would bind her where she sat and she would never,
never
free herself; never fully realize this new self, who was not entirely ruled by fear . . . 

"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."

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.

"Daav?" Soft as it was, Aelliana's voice jolted him.

He turned his head briefly and offered her a smile.

"Aelliana?"

She extended a hand, rested it on his arm; withdrew with a sigh.

"You—I feel that you are distressed. I regret it. If it had been possible, I would have gone alone, but—" She gave him a smile, well-intended, but wavering visibly at the edges. "Truly,
van'chela
, it was only the knowledge that you were in-house that gave me the courage to resist Mizel."

He blinked and glanced over to her, meeting eyes in which worry was plain. And yet—
she felt
? Had she informed herself of the state of his unruly emotions through that fleeting touch? Hope rose, twined with confusion, and a measure of disquiet. Perhaps Master Kestra's estimation of her results had been pessimistic? Perhaps Aelliana would, after all, know him as her lifemate? Yet, to subject her—or anyone!—to an intimate knowledge of
his
thoughts and feelings . . . 

"Daav?"

"Forgive me," he said. "I am stupid today. Notwithstanding, I think we came away from Mizel as gracefully as possible. It was well done of you to invoke Guild law."

"It was all I could think to do, though it cannot, you know, stand against kin." she said, sounding rueful. "Cat-ice, I thought it, even for Sinit."

"Thin as it was, it bore us up, and no one's
melant'i
has taken harm."

"Excepting Mizel's." Aelliana sighed. "She offered me nadelm's duty."

"You should have been nadelm all along!" he said, more sharply than he had intended.

"Yes, my grandmother thought so, as well. But you misunderstand,
van'chela
. She offered the duty; I did not hear that she offered the rank." Abruptly, she pointed at her screen.

"Daav—the turn for the ferry station!"

"Ah, but
we
have no need to depend upon public ferries."

She turned to him, lips parted. "
You
have a ship here?"

"Korval has a yard here," he said, shifting for the turn.

"It keeps slipping away from me," she said, slowly, "that you are Korval."

"Yes, but just at the moment, I am your copilot," he answered, guiding the car through the gate and gliding to a stop before the yard office. He powered the vehicle down, and pressed his thumb against the ID screen. "Master Fis Lyr was kind enough to lend me the use of the yard's car. Now, if you are game for a small walk?"

"Even a long one," she said, suddenly gay. "So long as we need not walk to Solcintra."

"Now,
that
is too long a walk," he said, popping his door.

Aelliana laughed, working the mechanism on the passenger's door. By the time he had gotten 'round the car, having paused to retrieve her box from the boot, she was looking around her with frank curiosity.

"Ought we to tell the master that his car is back?" She asked, using her chin to point at the office door.

"It will already have done so, I fear," Daav said. "Aelliana."

She looked up at him, surprise edging the pleasure in her face.

He raised a hand, reached inside the collar of his shirt and slowly drew out a silver chain. Depending from it was a set of ship's keys.

Aelliana's eyes blazed. "You brought
The Luck
!"

"Of course I did. How else?" He slipped the chain over his head and offered it to her. "How could I know my pilot's plans? It could have been that she wished to lift immediately. In which case her ship should be nearer to her hand than Solcintra."

She grasped the keys tightly, her face tilted up, but not, he considered, seeing anything other than her thoughts. He held himself as still as he might.

I will not
, he told himself,
influence her by so much as the twitch of a muscle. If she decides after all that lift is less chancy than Liad, even under Korval's wing . . . 

"It was very good of you, Daav," Aelliana said.

"Nonsense, you know that I like a lift as well as you do! And what pilot worth his leather would sit on the ferry by choice?" He leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Besides, you know, the ferry takes too long."