Necessity's Child (Liaden Universe®) (30 page)

All right, that was reasonable; many people had come to Surebleak from elsewhere, since the Boss Conrad had arisen. It was even said, she remembered, that Boss Conrad had come from elsewhere. She pushed a coin to him.

“What is Bedel?” asked Syl Vor.

“A
kompani
,” she answered, and pointed at his collar before he had taken his finger from his coin.

“What purpose is the clan sign?”

“To let others know what clan one belongs to,” he said.

She glared at him and didn’t pass a coin.

Syl Vor grinned.

“My clan—now yours—is Korval. Our sign is the Tree-and-Dragon.”

The coin had already left her finger, but she stared at him.

“Dragon?” she repeated, remembering Rys’ fear, and what Silain had taught her to say to him, immediately he awoke.

There are no dragons here.

“Are you,” she asked carefully, “a dragon?”

He laughed.

“Well, I’m not a tree!”

“But . . . there
are
the People of the Tree,” she protested, “who took contract with the Boss Conrad, to build the road!”

“Yes, some people here call us that—the People of the Tree. At ho— on Liad, we were called dragons. Other clans were called by their signs, too. It is . . . it is a Liaden cultural marker.”

That last sounded as if it were dream-learned. Kezzi nodded and gave him another coin.

“What is a
kompani
?”

“A
kompani
is—Bedel on
chafurma
.”

Syl Vor tipped his head, the blue token gleaming between his fingers.

Kezzi sighed.

“
Chafurma
is the gathering time.”

Two coins came across to her side of the table, rolling lazily on their edges. She flattened them with her palm.

“What’s a
delm
?”

“The
delm
is the head of the clan, who makes decisions and settles disputes,” he said. “The
delm
is the face and the voice of the clan.” He wrinkled his nose. “That’s what the Code says.”

“What—” she began, but he shook his head.

“It’s my turn.”

“Oh, all right.”

“Why were you . . . afraid to find that I’m a dragon?”

“I was
not
afraid,” she said. “I was . . . surprised. A person I know doesn’t like dragons.”

He frowned. “Which person?”

Kezzi folded her hands on the table. Rys had been
afraid
. Information might save lives, but it was like some of the medicines in the
luthia
’s box, that could both cure and kill.

“That isn’t mine to sell.”

Syl Vor’s eyebrows rose, he bowed his head—and two coins came across the line to her.

“Why did you make me your sister?”

He sighed.

“Because I didn’t want to make another enemy.”

She blinked at him, pushed a coin, another, and—thinking of Rys—a third.

Syl Vor stared at them for a long moment, his mouth pressed into a thin line, then looked up at her.

“What is your dog’s name?”

“Malda,” she answered, and gave him a sharp stare. “But that is
not
for the street. For the street, he is Rascal.”

“I understand,” he said.

She took a breath, already fingering a coin.

“What,” she began—and stopped as a shadow came across the tabletop, and a slim finger slid one blue coin and one red coin into the center of the table.

“Who,” Syl Vor’s mother said in her cool, calm voice, “would like to come downstairs for dinner?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The “rough” was a blackened cage of metal that Rafin bent ’round his leg with a pair of large pinchers. Recalling that the acquisition of his glove had not been without cost, Rys braced himself to endure, but his leg was scarcely touched. Calipers were brought into play, certainly, and the aforesaid pinchers; a variety of hinges and fasteners were matched against the seam, and set down, some in this pile, others in that. His part was only to stand tall upon his crutch, and to repose himself to stillness.

After this had been going on for some time, Udari, who had been standing to one side as an observer, suddenly straightened and caught Rys’ eye.

“I am wanted Above,” he said, “on business of the
luthia
. Brothers, I will return.”

Bent over the brace, Rafin grunted. Rys smiled.

“Go carefully, Brother,” he said.

“Always,” replied Udari, and left them.

* * *

“Mother?”

Kezzi could have wished her voice had sounded stronger, more certain.
Droi
wouldn’t have let the word quaver, or trend upward at the end.

No matter, Syl Vor’s mother did not seem to notice, only pausing with her hand on the back of a chair and inclining her head gently.

“Kezzi. How may I serve you, my child?”

“My grandmother asked me to give her letter to you into your hand,” she said, repeating Silain’s very words.

“Ah, very good. I will receive it with joy. Does she expect an answer to travel with you this evening?”

“She didn’t say so,” Kezzi answered, reaching under her sweater to the inner pocket where she had placed the letter that morning. “Ma’am.”

The paper was rumpled from having been in her safe pocket all day. Kezzi ran it between her fingers, to try to straighten the worst wrinkles out, before offering it.

“Thank you,” said Syl Vor’s mother gravely. “I will read it after we eat our meal. Please sit next to Syl Vor. You remember Mr. Golden, I know. It’s our custom to share a meal in the evening to catch up with each other, after being apart all day.”

And here was another
gadje
thing that was very like a Bedel thing. Didn’t she stop at Silain’s hearth in the morning to share tea and talk over the night just past and the day to come? And in the evening, to share the day’s excitement, and plan the night’s dreaming?

She slipped into the chair next to Syl Vor, staring at the array of utensils laid on each side of a yellow plate with a design that might have been flowers or birds, or both, painted around the edge.

Bowls were passed up and down the table, from Syl Vor’s mother to Mike Golden to Syl Vor and, lastly, to her. This was fortunate, since Syl Vor made sure she knew what was in each bowl as he handed them to her—squash, chicken with sauce, and . . .

“Mess greens,” said Syl Vor, not quite wrinkling his nose. “Beck says.”

Kezzi hesitated, looking into the bowl at the tangle of wilted dark leaves. A sharp scent came out of the bowl, not particularly pleasing. Syl Vor, she noticed, had taken less from this bowl than the squash bowl.

“That’s vinegar dressin’ on the leaves,” Mike Golden said, and gave her a smile when she looked at him. “We call it
mess greens
, ’cause it looks a mess, all wilted up that way. Tastes pretty good, to me. ’Course, I grew up with ’em.” He brought up a fork twisted with greens. “Silver don’t hold the same opinion.”

“I would rather have a fresh salad, than everything all wilted,” Syl Vor said. “But these leaves are bitter until you cook them.”

Kezzi put a small amount of the
mess
on her plate, and set the bowl aside.

“Mike,” Syl Vor said, “now that there are two of us coming home from school, it won’t be necessary for Gavit to break his day for escort duty.”

The man’s eyebrows rose, but he only nodded.

“You talk to your ma about this?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of such a proposal,” Syl Vor’s mother said. “It is very good of you to concern yourself with Gavit’s schedule, my son. However, the necessity of standing your escort does not
take him
from his duty; it
is
his duty.”

Syl Vor bit his lip, and looked up to her.

“In fact, ma’am, Kezzi feels that Gavit is . . . like a Patrolman. She’s not accustomed to being escorted.”

“I’ll vouch for that,” Mike Golden said unexpectedly. “The first two times I saw her she was by herself—except for the dog, who I don’t discount.”

Pleased by this praise of Malda, Kezzi smiled, and tasted the very smallest amount of
mess
. It was, she thought, chewing grimly,
not
very good.

“I think that we must continue with Gavit as escort at least until the new school is opened. Once we see how the patterns have changed, we will revisit the topic. I depend upon you and your sister to remind me.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Syl Vor, and addressed himself to his plate.

Kezzi followed suit, finding the squash much more to her taste than the leaves, and the chicken very good.

“How did you find school today, daughter?”

She swallowed hastily, and looked up into the cool, beautiful face.

“It was . . . less strange today than yesterday,” she said. “A new boy was brought to class toward the end of the lessons.”

“Yes, and Kezzi must have a watch!” Syl Vor interpolated. “Ms. Taylor specifically said that she was not to be late tomorrow.”

Kezzi glared at him, but he was looking at Mike Golden.

“Then Kezzi must certainly have an accurate timepiece,” his mother agreed gravely. “Mr. Golden, have we a House watch?”

“Sure do. Excuse me a tick and I’ll get it now, before it slips my mind.”

He rose from the table and was gone through the door into the kitchen, returning very soon with a small watch on a chain, that he compared to the larger timepiece strapped to his wrist before placing the smaller by Kezzi’s place.

After dinner was finished, and Syl Vor’s—and
Mother
had poured a final cup of tea for everyone, Mike Golden showed Kezzi how to set various alarms, quizzing her on how long it took to walk to school by the best route, how long to have the waking meal, to wash her face—none of which she could tell him.

“I haven’t had a watch,” she told him, with what patience she could muster. “The Bedel have no need.”

He frowned a little at that—not at her, but at the watch in his hand—then nodded once.

“Gotcha. Here’s what, Kezzi. I’m gonna set this for my best guess at a good wake-up time. When it beeps, you’d best get outta bed, dress, eat breakfast. It beeps a second time, that’s when you leave the house and head down to school, see? I’ll let Ms. Taylor know you might be late tomorrow, but we’ll get it all worked out soon.”

“What if she’s early?” Syl Vor asked. He was leaning over Mike Golden’s shoulder, watching the proceedings with interest.

“Then whoever’s on door’ll let her in, give her a cuppa ’toot, and prolly a donut, too. So that’s what we call win-win. Here you go.”

He draped the watch over her neck.

Mother looked up from reading the
luthia
’s letter, which had lain by her plate, unopened, during the meal. She smiled her faint, cool smile.

“Well done. And now, my child, it is time for you to return to your grandmother. Please convey to her my very best wishes for her good health, and say that I will do as she has suggested. Gavit and Syl Vor will escort you to the corner of Blair and Dudley, where your brother Nathan will meet you.”

“I’ll go, too,” Mike Golden said, with his big grin. “Nice night; likely a walk’ll blow the cobwebs outta my head. ’Less you need me, Boss.”

“Not immediately, and even if I did I would be willing to defer whatever business I had until these
cobwebs
were vanquished.”

“Back soon, then,” he said, and rose, shooing Kezzi and Syl Vor ahead of him.

* * *

Silain the
luthia
lay quiet, caught between dream and waking.

Slowly, the dream faded, emotion draining away to leave behind facts, like stones drying just beyond the long reach of the sea.

Silain had never seen a sea in her waking mind, but a long lifetime of dreaming had opened such things to her knowledge.

Such things, too, as the memories, not of those for whom
chafurma
had never ended, but of those who had felt their lack.

And of those who had made the decision not to return for them.

The sum of which, added to the knowledge well-known to both
luthia
and headman—the
why
of this particular
chafurma
, this
kompani
of Bedel, set down, of all possible planets, on this one, this Surebleak . . .

“Grandmother? Will you have tea?” The voice was soft, each word casting a dark shadow into the waking world.

Silain took a breath, and turned her head to smile into Droi’s eyes, and onto her very soul.

“Tea in a moment, daughter. First, let me sit up. You will make me seemly, then give me your arm to the hearth. Tea, then, yes, shared between us. After, you will go to headman, and ask him to attend me.”

* * *

“Nathan!” Kezzi called out, as she had the evening before, and here in fact was her brother stepping out of the shadows with her dog at his heels.

“Here,” she said, kneeling down on the walk and snapping her fingers. “Syl Vor, you ought to meet . . . Rascal.”

He went to her side, and held his hand out as directed, palm up. It was thoroughly and noisily sniffed, then licked vigorously, after which he was directed to rub the sharp ears. Rascal wriggled alarmingly, but Kezzi said it was because he was pleased to have a new friend.

“Now, Sister,” Nathan said mildly, and Kezzi rose at once.

“Remember,” Syl Vor said, “to be on time for school tomorrow.”

“I have the watch,” she said, which was no promise, but Syl Vor could hardly blame her for that.

Instead, he smiled and lifted his hand and stood with Gavit and Mike Golden, watching the man and the girl and the dog walk away.

“Well, there,” Mike said, and looked over Syl Vor’s head to Gavit.

“Tell you what; I got more cobwebs than I reckoned on. Gonna get another couple blocks under my boots, for what good it’ll do me. Let the Boss know, right?”

“Sure, Mike,” Gavit said.

“May I come with you?” Syl Vor asked.

“Nope,” said Mike Golden and walked away into Surebleak’s chilly spring dusk.

* * *

“I found something of yours in town today.” Udari spoke softly, and in the language of the Bedel. “Here.”

Kezzi felt something slip into her outside coat pocket. Something blocky, and of a good weight.

“Really?” Kezzi said eagerly. “What is it?”