Fringe, to her own amazement, became quite comfortable with them, more than she was with most people. When in company, she usually felt herself to be the anomaly. Compared to Bertran and Nela, she was ordinary. By the second day, she was becoming confidential with them, almost voluble.
“She belongs in a sideshow,” Nela remarked to her twin. “Just as we did. You see how easy she is getting to be with us? Yet, see how she behaves with others, all flushes and starts, or silent as a rock. Gauche, Aunt Sizzy would have said. No poise, except when she is being professional.”
“I don’t understand,” said Bertran, who had been thinking of something else.
“She thinks she’s a freak,” explained Nela softly. “Don’t you see? No matter what person she is being, she feels others will judge it to be inadequate. So, she’s constantly on the defensive. And so are we, in a way, all of which makes us colleagues, friends. Now that she is used to me, when she sees something amusing, she gives me a girlish glance, making me her coconspirator. She’s never had any friends, but she’s becoming our … my friend.”
“Why would she not have friends?” he asked, amazed. “She’s a beautiful woman!”
Nela nodded thoughtfully. “The beauty has come upon her recently, I think, and she doesn’t acknowledge it. And who knows exactly why? Something to do with the way she was reared, perhaps. Rejected by this one or that one, perhaps. For whatever reason, she thinks she’s a freak.” She shook her head. Something about Fringe troubled her, some mystery hiding behind those stone-green eyes.
“Well, so does Danivon think he’s a freak,” her twin said. “That’s obvious.”
“Oh, no, not Danivon,” said Nela. “Though he really is an oddity, he takes himself for the paradigm of Adam-the-man with bells on. Danivon was reared in an atmosphere of general approbation. Like a pet puppy. He is very pleased with himself. You can tell. Danivon is the very opposite of Fringe Owldark.”
“If he really is odd, Fringe ought to get along with him at least as well as she does with us,” Bertran persevered.
“No. I think she will not,” Nela said soberly. “But it won’t be for lack of collegiality, love. I’d wager that’ll be sex.”
Fringe took the oath as Council Enforcer in the Grand Master’s private office, without ceremony, accepting with reasonable grace the purple coat they gave her to replace her Enarae Post blue one. They also attached a jeweled fatal-hands dangle on the bottom of her Enforcer’s badge, the one Zasper had had made for her with the warrior and the gylph on it. Enforcers could have any device they liked on their badges, but the dangles were all alike and so were the words around the edge: I Attend the Situation.
She was headed back to her room after the ceremony when a Frickian flunky came to say the Provost wanted to see her.
The Provost! That would be Boarmus. Well, she thought, as she followed the Frickian up endless stairs and down lengthy corridors, this was the last bit of business in Tolerance she had to get through. She cast a sidelong look at herself in a long series of mirrors and was satisfied to find herself quite correct. Leather belt and boots polished. Purple coat swinging absolutely straight from shoulder to ankle. Purple bonnet tilted to one side, hiding the helm beneath, plumes bushed up like a cock’s tail on the other side. Red silk shirt and trousers flowing and snapping, full everywhere except neck and wrists, and there tight as her skin. She faced dead ahead and clamped her teeth together, being resolute.
Boarmus was a jowly man with fuzzy eyebrows and an unhealthy pouchiness around his eyes, like a man who has not slept well in some time. The corners of his mouth lost themselves in pinch wrinkles, as though he clamped his lips tight often, to shut in words, perhaps.
“I’m Boarmus,” he told her, giving her a long, measuring look. She was impeccable, leather gleaming, coat falling in immaculate folds. Her Enforcer’s badge shone on her shoulder, the two gold fatal-hands dangles attesting to her years of experience, the gemmed one to her new status. He continued, “I am Provost, thus head of the Council.”
“Sir!” she said, standing easy. Bridling at his look would only gratify him. Besides, it would do no good. The best defense against that look, so Zasper had always said, was not to notice it. She stared straight ahead.
“You took an oath tonight,” he reminded her.
She had scarcely had time to forget. She lowered her eyes to meet his and found them veiled, unreadable.
“It was an oath of loyalty to the Council,” he said.
“Sir!” Did he think she hadn’t noticed what she was swearing to?
“And, therefore, to me, as head of the Council,” he went on.
She wasn’t at all certain of that. She had an idea that loyalty to the Council meant to the whole body of it, not just to one person, even if that one was Provost. She waited to hear what he would say next.
“You are going into an unknown territory. We need to learn everything we can about it.” He put out his hand, and she took the small cube he gave her. “You will carry this transmitter with you, and you will let me know if anything unusual happens.”
“Sir! I was told Danivon Luze was head of this expedition.” Without expression.
Boarmus smiled a lizard smile. “All Council Enforcers are under my command. You will be loyal, as you swore to be, or you will be forsworn.” His tone threatened she would not survive long in that event. “You will not even mention this matter to Danivon
