“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.”
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Contents
Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Six
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.
