As the party continued and mulled wine and ale flowed freely, faces grew flushed and less guarded, voices became a trifle louder, and conversations more animated. At that point, Lavan figured it was safe for him to leave.
Just to be certain no one would stop him, he picked up an almost-empty platter of pastry-wrapped sausages and took it with him, heading in the direction of the kitchen. If anyone who knew him saw him, they'd assume he was being helpful.
The kitchen was overly full with all the extra servers that his parents had hired for the occasion. They barely had room to move about, edging past each other with loaded platters held high overhead, and he simply slipped a long arm just inside the door, left the platter on a bit of empty counter space, and made a quick exit up the servants' stair just off the hall that led to the kitchen. This was quite a 'modern' house, unlike their home in the country, one that wasted space on hallways rather than having rooms that led into one another. There was one between the kitchen, the pantries, the closets, and the rest of the first-floor rooms. The hallway delineated the boundaries of 'masters' territory' and 'servants' territory' and for some reason that fact brought a tiny smile of satisfaction to his mother's face every time she looked at the hall.
Lavan was grateful for the hall; it allowed him to get into the upper stories without anyone at the party spotting him. He didn't go to his room on the second floor, though—he'd be far too easy to find there. Instead, he headed for the attics up above the servants' third-floor rooms.
It wasn't likely that anyone would look for him here. The previous occupant of this town manor had taken all of his rubbish with him (or sold it off to rag pickers), and the current occupants didn't have much to encumber the space. Lan's mother had seen to it that the attics had been scrubbed out as thoroughly as the rest of the house before the family moved in, so dust was at a minimum. All that was up here was the stuff that had been too good to leave behind, but wasn't immediately useful. Here were the few articles of valuable furniture—as opposed to the country-built stuff they'd left behind—that didn't (yet) fit anywhere in the house or which needed repairs that hadn't been done. The rest was bales and boxes; the heavy woolen blankets, featherbeds, furs, coats, and clothing packed in lavender and cedar chips awaiting the cold of winter, and the oddments that had been given to the family by important friends or relatives that were too hideous to display on a daily basis but no one dared get rid of.
Lan opened the attic door and stepped softly in; it was very dark, and he took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. At last, he had come to a place where the air was comfortably cool, and the sweat quickly dried on his forehead and the back of his neck. The scent of strong soap mixed with herbs still lingered in the air, and the gable windows glowed with the light from the party lanterns in the rear and the streetlamp in the front. The sound of the party was a dull drone up here, but the hired musicians in the garden were actually easier to hear than they'd been in the drawing room.
Avoiding the dim bulk of the stored furnishings, Lan reached the nearest window without mishap. Once he opened the window and flung himself down on a pile of featherbeds and comforters, it was rather pleasant up in the attic. Or, at least, it wasn't as bad as it was downstairs.
He could hide out here for as long as it took for the party to end. Although once the noise began to ebb, he knew he'd better sneak back downstairs again, and pretend he'd been there all night.
He closed his eyes and listened to the music. It wasn't what he would have chosen himself, of course; it was rather old-fashioned and played in a manner that suggested the musicians themselves were well aware that they were only there to provide a kind of pleasant background to conversation. Innocuous, that was the best word for it. Lan didn't much care for innocuous music, but he wasn't the one paying the minstrels' fee.
As his father so often repeated, the one who paid the musician had the right to call the rune. However, that old saw was repeated with a sidelong, meaningful glance at his middle son.
Lan's stomach knotted up again.
NO one noticed his defection, or he would have heard about it over breakfast. He kept quiet as Sam bolted his food and headed off to his work with Master Iresh, and as his younger sibs chattered excitedly about the important people who'd taken notice of them. Lavan muttered something about the Guildmaster in response to a direct question, but let Macy and Feodor take center stage. They chattered with animation about all the important people who had spoken with them, and Nelda nodded approvingly.
Lan's food was as tasteless as bark and loam. He ate without speaking and left the table almost as quickly as Sam had, retreating to a window seat just off the lesser sitting room where he hoped he would be sufficiently out of the way to be ignored or forgotten. In a few moments after he had settled in, the door to the street opened and closed—that would be Feo, going to join their father. Macy's footsteps faded off in the direction of the workroom, where she would toil diligently and happily on embroidery or lacemaking for the rest of the morning. Though she was only fourteen, her work was good enough that she won praise from everyone who saw it.
No such luck. He heard his mother's, footsteps, but didn't turn to look at her, hoping she still might ignore him. 'Lan?' she said, and when he didn't respond to her call, she repeated '
Lavan looked away from the window toward his mother, a dull apprehension making him clench his jaw—not that he'd been really looking outside. There wasn't that much to look at; just the tiny little kitchen garden of their town house, surrounded by a high, stuccoed wall to separate their minuscule yard from the neighbor's equally minuscule yard. But it was better than staring out the window in his room, which opened out to a charming view of the blank wall of the neighbor's town house. And anyway, the servants would be in his room cleaning for another candlemark. He couldn't take refuge up there until they'd gone because they'd just chase him out again with their dusting and sweeping.
'Shouldn't you be doing something?' Lavan's mother asked, her brows knitted with irritation. Her frown deepened when he shrugged, unable to think of an acceptable answer.
Nelda had kept the splendid figure of her youth, and either through luck or artifice her auburn hair showed not a strand of gray. She was dressed for a meeting of the Needleworkers' Guild, in her fine, russet-brown lambswool gown trimmed with intricate bobbin lace of her own making and design, the sash of her office as Guild Representative of five counties so covered with embroidery that there was not a single thread of the original fabric showing. Lavan had taken very little care with his own clothing, in no small part as a kind of act of defiance. Trews and tunic claimed from his older and taller brother had once been black, but had faded to a washed-out gray, and he wouldn't let his mother redye them. He was afraid if she got her hands on them, or any of his clothing, she'd make them... cheerful. And cheerful was very far from the way he felt since the move to Haven.
