“Speak up, woman, and show some wit. This is an audio recording. Your nods don’t register. And please don’t look so frightened of me. Now, you’re a lassari?”
“Yes, sirrah.” (The voice trembles a bit; contralto, a bit rough.)
“And you live . . . ?”
“In Brentwood. My true-father has a place there, sirrah. He doesn’t mind my staying.”
“Do you work?”
“How’ya mean, sirrah? I do what I have to do, certainly.”
“You needn’t take offense. I’m interested purely as a scholar. What do you charge for your, ahh, services?”
“Are’ya interested, sirrah? For you, I could—”
“Have you looked at yourself? No, this is simply for my notes. If I need comfort, I can find the Courtesan’s Guild.”
(She laughs, then stops quickly as if afraid of offending Cranmer.) “The guild-women are far too expensive for the likes of what I get, sirrah. I’m not skilled or pretty enough to join ’em. And I’m cheap.”
“But that allows you to survive.”
“Like the rest of lassari. You do what you can, as long as you want. After, there’s always the Dead. You can find ’em if you need.”
“You don’t sound as if you enjoy your life.”
“Neweden’s fine for the guilded kin, sirrah. If you ain’t kin, then maybe next time Dame Fate’ll be kinder—I went to a seeress once, and she told me that I’d been kin in earlier lives, that I’d be kin again. It feels right. So you accept it—if you kick back now, then maybe the Dame’ll kick
you
when She steals you from the Hag again, send you back lassari again. Or maybe She’ll just leave you there as one of the Hag’s handservants.”
“Don’t you ever get angry? You people act like complacent cows.”
“When you’re jussar, you’re angry. You forget to get angry when you become lassari, when no guild wants you. You live better and longer that way.”
“A complacent attitude.”
“Hmm?”
“Damn . . . ahh, never mind.”
“I’d like to see someone pull the lassari together, demand something better for us and make it stick. If that person ever comes along, maybe I’ll join ’im. Until that happens, I’ll stay quiet.”
• • •
Gyll tried to strike a balance between unabashed staring and nonchalance. He didn’t succeed.
Kaethe Oldin reclined on a grassy hillock in her chambers between four metal pillars that radiated a golden light. It made every centimeter of exposed flesh glisten; being nude, she glistened quite a bit. Ulthane Gyll, on whose cool and strict world casual nudity was uncommon, felt rather provincial and uncomfortable. He didn’t know where to put his gaze. Beside and below him, Helgin—who had ushered him into Kaethe’s rooms—chuckled.
Kaethe sat up on one elbow. A gilt eyebrow winked light at him; she smiled. “Ulthane Gyll. I’m glad to see you again. A moment—let me get rid of the Battier.” She reached out, languid, to touch one of the posts. The glow dimmed, the Battier receded into the floor. All the light in the room now came from the panels on the walls and Neweden, floating beyond the viewport.
“Kaethe thinks that an angelic glow can be achieved from the outside, rather than requiring a saintly interior,” Helgin commented. Grunting, he seated himself on the carpet, crossing his stubby legs underneath himself.
Gyll nodded, not knowing how else to reply. Helgin disconcerted him. Gyll knew that he wouldn’t tolerate such casual insult from guilded kin. On Neweden, the Motsognir would either prove himself to be an excellent foilsman or die. But, as she had the last time, Oldin reacted as if she’d expected his sourness. She nodded sweetly to the dwarf.
“If saintliness were required, you wouldn’t light the darkness either.” She stopped, laughing suddenly. Her laugh was crystalline; Gyll found himself smiling in response. “I’ve embarrassed you, haven’t I?” she said, looking at Gyll. “I’m sorry, I just forgot where”—she tapped at a wall. It opened, revealing a closet, and she plucked a robe from its fasteners, slipping it about her shoulders—“I was for a moment. I hope I haven’t . . .”
“You haven’t.” Gyll paused, searching for something else to say. “The view was . . . interesting.”
A smile rewarded his effort.
“And if you think the exposure wasn’t deliberate—despite the fact that Kaethe could use some exercise—you’re a fool, Ulthane.” Helgin; gruff, scowling. He plucked at the grass-carpet.
Gyll started involuntarily, smile evaporating into frown. His eyes narrowed, folding the crow’s-feet at their corners deeper. “I think what I please, Motsognir, and I’m
not
a fool.”
The dwarf snorted laughter and slapped the carpet with his hand. “You Newedeners antagonize too easily. It’s no fun baiting you. I tell you, Hoorka—I’m good with any weapon you can name, even better with my hands, and I’m a damned small target to hit.”
The wizened, beard-hidden face was comically furious.
Despite himself, Gyll found his irritation gone. He shook his head into the dwarf’s red-veined stare. Helgin’s lips drew back from teeth: he leered. “Try me sometime, Ulthane.”
“Keep talking like you do, and I probably will.”
Oldin had lain back down on the hillock again, upper body supported on elbows behind her, legs crossed at ankles. “The two of you complement each other. The Family Oldin could use both Motsognir and Hoorka.” She glanced questioningly at Gyll. “The reason I asked to see you again, Ulthane, was to find out whether you had talked with Thane Valdisa.”
A shrug. The port view shifted as
Peregrine
made an orbital adjustment. Ocean-blue light swept across the floor toward Gyll, moving with his shrug. “I’ve talked with Thane Valdisa, and I’m sorry I haven’t responded before now—much has been happening.” He thought of Valdisa; when he’d left Underasgard, she’d been making arrangements for the construction of Aldhelm’s pyre. “She doesn’t appear interested.”
“But
you
are?”
Gyll wondered if he were that easy to read, but decided not to deny his interest—if it was a game she played, he’d go along for now. “To an extent, I am.”
“Good. The Family Oldin can offer Hoorka far more than the Alliance. The Oldins are quite strong among the Trading Families, and we could use your skills to enhance that—the exact manner in which the Hoorka might operate would of course be up to you.” She sat up, smiling. “My offer, then, is this. Come with me when I return to OldinHome—as soon as my business is done here. Spend time among the Family societies, see what you need to see, and determine how you can devise a code to allow you to work with and for us. I think you could fashion the code to work within our context.”
“Trader Oldin—”
She shook her head. “I won’t try to correct you this time, Ulthane. But ‘Kaethe’ would be preferable to ‘Trader Oldin.’ This is hardly a formal meeting, neh?”
Gyll hesitated, began a “Kaethe” and ended elsewhere. “I once used a vibro on a kin-brother who insisted that I change the code to fit a situation. I feel that strongly about it—if you think that the Hoorka-code must be changed to work within your society, then perhaps I should leave now and waste no more of our time.” The remembrance of Aldhelm conjured by his words brought back the dull ache of his death. Gyll choked down the ghost, forcing his mind to stay on the subject.
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything distasteful to you,” Kaethe said. “I know you created the code, managed to bring order out of chaos, and the code fits Neweden’s society ingeniously. I expect that you could devise a Hoorka-guild under another similar culture. I compliment you by saying that you could change the code, believe me. In any case, your coming with me to OldinHome binds you to nothing. I’d pay you as an adviser—ten thousand, in Alliance currency if that’s what you want, for a third-standard of your time. No restrictions beyond that. Just come and see the Families’ society, perhaps give a suggestion or two to our fighting masters to enhance their training, and make your decision later.”
“Your words still say the same, even under the sugarcoating. The code works, m’Dame,” he said, stubbornly.
“On
Neweden
it works, Ulthane,” she answered, lifting her hands as if in supplication. “You’ve never been offworld, never seen the varieties of structures I have. No one code can work for them all. I know about Heritage, about the killing of your kin—it’s part of the same problem, Ulthane. You’re a Neweden native, born here. What works for Neweden
might not”
—he could see her watching his face carefully for reaction—“work elsewhere. I can understand your reluctance to abandon what’s taken you so far, but I’d be silly not to warn you about inflexibility. It’s not a survival trait, Ulthane. Not even in a society as static as that here. And I think you’re a survivor.”
“You talk a lot like Aldhelm.”
“Aldhelm?”
“He is . . .” Gyll’s lips tightened, his brow furrowed. The pain and anger and sorrow nagged at him again.
Down. Stay down.
“He was one of my advisers. A good friend at one time. He told me much the same thing once—we never could agree on it, and it drove us apart.”
“Did you reconcile yourselves?”
Down.
“No. I followed the code and insisted that he do the same.” For a moment he thought of telling her everything, of the struggle that ended with Aldhelm feeling the bite of Gyll’s vibro as Gunnar fled before them. But something held him back, as if by saying nothing he apologized to Aldhelm. “He did as I said, and it worked.”
Kaethe sat forward, hugging legs to breasts, looking at him with her chin set on knees. “Nothing in this universe is in stasis.”
“Perhaps not, but Neweden hasn’t changed significantly in two centuries.”
She stared at him, unblinking; the intensity of her gaze made Gyll uncomfortable. The gilt eyebrows shivered with reflected planet-light. “It will. Believe me, Ulthane, Neweden will change. When it does, and it might be sooner than you believe, nothing will be the same here. The Hoorka will have to change with Neweden or your guild will die.”
Her certainty worried Gyll. He wondered at her fervor. “I was Thane for a few decades. The code has always managed to bring us through crises. It’s the only thing that allows us to work on Neweden—if the Li-Gallant thought we’d ever break our ways, he’d have us hunted down. The code is the one thing that sets us apart from lassari and jussar . . .”
“You’re not Thane anymore. And if the society on which the code is based changes, then you needn’t worry about the Li-Gallant. He’ll be facing his own problems. The code would be outmoded, a confining set of useless rules which’ll bring you death.”
Gyll scowled. “Everything brings death. Just living brings the Hag closer every day. Perhaps we needn’t talk further, m’Dame.”
Kaethe suddenly uncurled herself, standing. She tugged at her robe’s belt, stretched. “I want to show you something, Ulthane.” She turned to Helgin. He was picking at his toenails, seemingly oblivious to the conversation. “Helgin, you know what I want. Would you get it?”
The Motsognir rose to his feet slowly, joints cracking. “At your service, oh master . . .” he said with too much joviality. He glanced at Gyll. “Ulthane, in this she might be right. The Motsognir have seen many ways of life in our exile on Naglfar. Some things change very slowly. It may take centuries to see the flow, but all things do change.” He left the room.
Helgin returned a few minutes later, a large hover-tray bobbing behind him on a tether-line. On the tray, inside a nutrient tank scaled with bubbles, floated a creature the size of a wort. Eyes closed, the embryonic head large and the limbs but half-formed, it was still recognizable. Gyll had seen it in a hundred renderings.
Ippicator.
Helgin grinned enigmatically, Kaethe sank down on the carpet again as if weary of standing in the Neweden-like gravity. They both watched as Gyll went up to the hover-tray and stared. He thought for a moment that it might be a replica, but it moved, a faint quivering that had nothing of the mechanical in it. The head turned slightly, the limbs twitched. Gyll marveled at it, at the smoothness of the orangish skin (in the replicas he’d seen, they had always been slate-gray). He touched the tank—it was warm. “It’s real,” he said, and immediately felt foolish. Emotions twisted at him—ones he’d thought safely removed.
It goes deep; Neweden training, Neweden religions. Even for one who doesn’t entirely believe, it’s hard to shake off the ties. An ippicator, the gods’ pet
. . . “I thought . . .”
“That I said it was impossible. I know.” She looked at him over steepled hands. “It
is
impossible, if live tissue isn’t present. The Trading Families are
old,
Ulthane, older than the Alliance or even Huard. Our roots lie back with the First Empire. We’ve been to many places, sometimes before anyone else. I checked with Oldin Archives. They had a specimen of tissue, a frozen sample—evidently the Oldin captain who came here first found the five-legged beasts fascinating too, enough to have taken the sample against future cloning. I had it sent here.”
“It sounds like a damned expensive way to impress Hoorka.” Gyll watched the embryo turning slowly in the tides of the tank, still trying to decide what he felt.
“She’s spent more on other failures—it’s a family trait, I think,” Helgin rumbled. “Throw enough money at something, and it solves everything.”
“I bought your services, didn’t I, Motsognir?” Kaethe smiled at the dwarf, then turned back to Gyll. “The fifth leg, incidentally, is a sensing device—the beast fed on the tender roots of certain grasses that were also the favorite of a local burrowing insect. The ‘leg’ extends a small horny spike into the soil, and the ippicator can hear the grubs moving. Where there are grubs, there are roots—the poor creatures are virtually blind. You know, the Archives didn’t even know they possessed the sample. We could’ve been breeding them for the bones. It’d have to be in small quantities, of course, or we’d drive down the prices, but . . .” Again, that slow smile. “You see, it wasn’t necessarily just to impress Hoorka.”