Part 30 (1/2)

”So very well-trained,” Korval murmured, rising from her chair. ”It's nothing short of marvelous.”

FROWNING, DAAV CONSIDERED the gun.

It was not a pretty gun, in the way meant by those who admired jeweled grips and platinum-chased cylinders. It was a functional gun, made to his own specifications and tuned by Master Marksman Tey Dor himself. It was also small, and could be hidden with equal ease in Daav's sleeve or his palm.

Etgora's evening-gather, now. It might please his mother to dismiss this evening's affair as tedious, but the papers forwarded by dea'Gauss had shown that it was not so long ago that Clan Etgora and Clan Korval had come at odds-and when Balance was done, it was Korval who showed the profit.

Etgora had pretensions. A clan with its profit solidly in the star-trade, they had strained after High House status, and fell but a hand's breadth short before the loss to Korval set them a dozen Standard years further back from the goal. There was bitterness in the House on that count, Daav did not doubt.

However, if Etgora wished to secure its teetering position as a high-tier Mid House, they must show asmooth face to adversity. Of course they would place Korval upon the most-honored guest list. They could not do otherwise and survive.

By the same logic of survival, Etgora would take utmost care that no slight or insult befell Korval while she was in their care.

Which meant that Daav, chancy tempered as he knew himself to be, might safely leave his hideaway in its custom-fitted box.

And yet ....

”Might,” he murmured, slipping the little gun into his sleeve, ”is not ought.”

He glanced to the mirror, smoothed the sleeve, twitched the lace at his throat, touched the sapphire in his right ear and made an ironic bow. His reflection-black-browed, lean and over-long-returned the salutation gracefully.

”Do try not to kill anyone tonight, Daav,” he told himself. ”Murder would only make the evening more tedious.”

THEY WERE ADMITTED to Etgora's townhouse and relieved of their cloaks by a supernaturally efficient servant, who then bowed them into the care of a child of the House.

She had perhaps twelve standards, hovering between child and halfling, and holding herself just a bit stiffly in her fine doorkeeper's silks.

”Kesa del'Fordan Clan Etgora,” she sand, bowing prettily in the mode of Child of the House to Honored Guests. She straightened, brown eyes solemn with duty, and wanted for them to respond, according to Code and custom.

”Chi yos'Phelium,” his mother murmured, bowing as Guest to House Child, ”Korval.”

The brown eyes widened slightly, but give her grace, Daav thought; she did not make the error of looking down to see Korval's ring of rank for herself. Instead, she inclined her head, with composure commendable in one of twice her years, and looked to Daav.

He likewise bowed, Guest to House Child, and straightened without flourish.

”Daav yos'Phelium Clan Korval.”

Kesa inclined her head once more and completed the form.

”Ma'am and sir, be welcome in our house.” She paused, perhaps a heartbeat too long, then bowed. ”If you would care to walk with me, I will bring you to my father.”

”Of your kindness,” his mother murmured and followed the child out of the welcoming parlor, Daav walking at the rear, as befit one of lesser rank who was likewise his Delm's sole protection in a House not their own.

Kesa led them down a short, left-tending hallway, through an open gateway of carved sweetstone and out into an enclosed garden, and the full force of the evening gather.

Etgora, Daav observed, as he followed his mother and their guide down cunning, crowded walkways,was a Clan which addressed its projects with energy. Challenged to display a clean face to the world, it did not hesitate to bring the world together immediately for the purpose.

A more conservative Clan, Daav thought, his quick, Scout-trained eyes catching glimpses of an astonis.h.i.+ng number of High Houselings among the crowd, would have invited Korval, of course, to this first gather since its failure, and perhaps one or two others of the High Houses, at most. Not so Etgora, who seemed to have formed the guest list almost entirely from the Fifty, with a few taken from the ranks of the higher Mid-Level Houses, for the purpose, Daav supposed, of filling out odd numbers.

Progress along the pathways was slow, what with so many acquaintances who must be acknowledged with a bow. Both Daav and his mother several times had to duck under gay strings of rainbow-colored streamers and the imported oddity of Terran-made balloons.

At long last, they achieved the center of the garden, where a man slightly younger and a good deal less elegant than his mother was speaking with apparent ease to no other than Lady yo'Lanna. Daav owned himself impressed. Lady yo'Lanna was his mother's oldest friend among her peers in the High Houses, and he held her in quite as much awe now as he had at six.

”Father,” Kesa bent deeply, the full bow of clanmember to Delm, and straightened self-consciously, shoulders stiff beneath her finery.

”Your pardon, good ma'am,” the gentleman murmured, and, receiving Lady yo'Lanna's half-bow of permission, turned to face them.

”Kesa, my child, who have you brought me?”

”Father, here is Chi yos'Phelium, Korval, and Daav yos'Phelium Clan Korval,” the child said in the very proper mode of Introduction. She turned and bowed, House-Child to Guests. ”Honoreds, here is my father, Hin Ber del'Fordan, Etgora.”

So Kesa's father was Etgora Himself. It explained much, Daav thought, from the unexpected youth of the door guardian to her stiff determination to observe every mode precisely.

”Korval, you do me honor!” Etgora swept the bow between equals-theoretically true, between Delms, Daav thought wryly-and augmented it with the trader's hand-sign for ”master,” a nice touch, drawing on the common trading background of both Houses while publicly acknowledging Korval's superiority.

His mother, Daav saw, was inclined to be amused by their host's little audacity. She bowed just short of full Equal, accepting the master status Etgora acknowledged.

”To be welcome in the house of an ally is joy,” she said clearly into the sudden nearby silence. She straightened and extended a hand to touch Daav's sleeve.

”One's son, Etgora.”

”Lord yos'Phelium.” The bow this time was Delm to child of an Ally's House: High Mode, indeed, but carried well, and necessitating, alas, the rather tricksy Child of a Delm to an Ally as the most precise response. He straightened in time to see his mother incline her head to Lady yo'Lanna.

”Ilthiria, I find you well?”

”As well as one can be in this crush. Etgora is proud of his achievement-and justly so!-but you and I know how to value an empty garden.”Had he been less well-trained, Daav would have winced in sympathy for Kesa's father. Lady yo'Lanna, it seemed, was not entirely at one with her host.

The pale eyes moved, pinning him. ”Young Daav, newly at leave from the Scouts.”

He bowed, lightly. ”I have no secrets from you, ma'am.”

”Do you not?” Her eyebrows rose. ”Then come to me tomorrow and whisper in my ear the tale of how a certain mutual acquaintance came to break his arm in mid-Port evening before last.”

d.a.m.n. He bowed again, aware of his mother's gaze on the side of his suddenly warm face.

”If that is your wish, then how can I deny you?”

”Very properly said,” Etgora interjected. ”And who better to know Port gossip than a Scout, who are said to have ears in every cranny?” He turned, spied his daughter, yet standing stiffly to one side.

”Kesa, my jewel. Lord yos'Phelium will wish to reacquaint himself with his age-mates, as he is just returned from the Scouts. Pray show him to the Sunset Garden-and then you may refresh yourself.”

He turned to Daav.

”Card tables have been set out, sir, and other light amus.e.m.e.nts. Please, be easy in our House.”

He flicked a glance at his mother, who inclined her head.

”Amuse yourself, Daav, do. Etgora will wish to walk Ilthiria and myself through his garden. I will require your arm in two hours.”