“Thank you, that would be most considerate. Lady Arbrith, Mister Arbrith.”
“Mister” was a title of nobility in the Empire, the lowest rank, one step above “cyr.” Hyram looked like a mister.
Tal left the little shaded balcony, considering that he’d come in well below Adrian’s estimated figures. Good, he thought, and then he put the matter out of his mind permanently. There were more important things to think about than the “Young Girl Reading a Letter.”
The Visitor’s Residence was a large whitewashed building in the shadow of the Duke’s Hill. Right where state security could keep an eye on everyone, thought Tal, as Elizabeth Mard’s driver pulled up to the front steps. He wondered if he should tip the driver, but he wasn’t certain of custom in this case, and in moments of doubt he always preferred to retain money.
He got out in silence and went up the steps. Keylinn had been training him to expand his use of the phrase “thank you,” but surely that wasn’t necessary if he was never going to see the man again. Tal entered and climbed more steps, and then more steps. The Residence was six stories high, with two wings, five sets of stairs, and no lifts at all. It was one of the first buildings constructed in Everun. It was also full of human servants, no doubt all in the pay of state security.
He opened the door of his room on the top floor and found Spider and Keylinn sitting on the bed playing cards.
“Hard day?” said Spider.
Tal grunted. “I see you both made it down. Let’s go for a walk.”
He turned and went out again, and they followed. On the stairs he said to Keylinn, “I was afraid they wouldn’t let you come. Adrian and his friends have odd ideas about women, and a planetary leave has to have his seal.”
“I think Outsider techs come under another mental category.”
“But now he knows you. I’ve heard him refer to you as a ‘lady.’ ”
She grinned. “A desire to have all the fun is nine-tenths of the law of chivalry.”
She’d spoken it like someone else’s words. “Who said that?”
“I don’t know, but we quote it at home when the men give us trouble.”
They had reached the outside by now and Tal took them down the front road toward the turn that led out of the administrative quarter. He said, “We may as well talk here. I suppose it’s marginally safer than the Residence.”
“Adrian said you might want assistance off-the-record.”
“I do, but probably not for the reasons he thinks. I’ve been asking about Belleraphon.”
Spider and Keylinn exchanged glanced.
They met later that night in a Lankio bar. It was a place on the slopes, where the neighborhood was full of wooden houses with bedrooms on top and gambling parlors, noodle shops, and dancehalls on bottom. Establishments rarely mixed their pleasures; when Barets gambled, they were serious, and resented distraction. When they ate, even the lowest of rank turned into finicky gourmets. Their dancing was barely dancing at all from a Graykey point of view—no jumping or twirling, just a slow and steady arm-in-arm to the accompaniment of atonal music. But they seemed oblivious to the world when they did it.
Their drinking was serious, too, Keylinn decided, looking around the bar. The patrons of Fortune River House had gone through enough liquor per capita to put an off- duty Graykey to shame.
“I don’t know,” said Spider, looking into his tiko glass. “It’s not beer, it’s not exactly wine, and it’s not whiskey. What is it?”
‘They claim it’s wine.”
“Well, they did something to it after the grape let it go. Here, taste.”
She sipped Spider’s drink. “I dunno, acushla. You think there’s a market for the recipe on the Diamond?”
He looked surprised. “It didn’t occur to me.”
“A never-sleeping entrepreneur like you, and it didn’t occur?”
“Hmmm. Maybe with reason. A man likes something familiar when he drinks. I don’t know if—”
Tal appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and sat down at the third chair. “All right, report in.”
Keylinn looked at Spider, who said, “Ladies first.” She said, “One possible, a fortune-teller on the Avenue of Willow. Claims to have had dealings with a man named Belleraphon about six years ago. Says he set her up in business, and that’s as far as she wants to talk on three hundred yen.”
“A fortune-teller?” said Tal.
She shrugged. “A very fashionable fortune-teller about six years ago; Elizabeth Mard Arbrith used to go to her. Make of that what you will.”
Tal considered, then said, “Spider.”
“Not a nibble, not a bite, not a dinnerpail in sight. And I went up and down these damned hills all day.”
“Well, there’s always tomorrow.”
“Oh, hell, Tal. This is my first time off the Diamond. Practically. Can’t I look around for awhile?”
“No.” A woman with a long dark ponytail and short blue skirt came over and asked Tal what he wanted to drink. She bent over to take Spider’s empty glass and Keylinn realized belatedly that the blue skirt must be shocking to Baret eyes. Or more particularly, the long brown legs ringed with gold chains must be shocking.
“I’ll have another pummet-juice,” she said. The woman nodded, then paused.
“Any of your party require company? We have males, females, any size, any combination.”
Well, apparently there was one pleasure they didn’t mind mixing. Maybe they didn’t take sex seriously. “Not me,” said Keylinn. She looked at her comDanions. “Boys?”
Spider flushed, and Tal said, “I don’t think it will be necessary.” Since Keylinn was present, he added, “Thank you.”
When the woman had left, Keylinn fixed him with the uncomfortably alert gaze of a tarethi-din. “You don’t seem to have trouble adjusting to Empire mores. Why don’t you stay on Empire territory? You’d be an illegal person, but the penalty for … your problem … isn’t death, here. I’ll bet they’d be pleased to see you, in fact, especially closer to Imperial Center. Your birth mix has a reputation for brains, and they’re afraid of a Republic drain.”
“Under house arrest, with
