MASTER TEL'ONDOR BOWED, low and extravagant, Honor to a Lord Not One's Own, or so it read to Jethri, who was in no mood to be tweaked, tutor or no. His head ached from a long day on the floor, the spanking new shirt with its lacy cuffs foretold disasters involving sauces and jellies across its brilliant white field. And now he was here to learn the way to go on at an intimate dinner for two hundred of Master ven'Deelin's closest friends—all in the next twelve minutes.
Curtly, he answered the Protocol Officer's bow—nothing more than the sharpest and starkest of bows, straightening to glare straight into the man's eyes.
Master tel'Ondor outright laughed.
"Precisely!" he crowed, and held his hand out, fingers smoothing the air in the gesture that roughly meant "peace."
"Truly, young Jethri, I am all admiration. Thus shall impertinence be answered—and yes, I was impertinent. Some you may meet—at this gather this evening, or at other times—some may wish to dazzle you, some may wish to take advantage. You would do well to answer them all so—a ven'Deelin born would do no less."
Jethri considered him. "And what about those who merely wish to establish a proper mode?"
"Ah, excellent." Master tel'Ondor's eyes gleamed. "It will perhaps be done thus—" The bow between equals, that was. "Or this—" Child of the House of an Ally. "Or even—" Senior Trader to Junior.
"Anything more . . . elaborate, we shall say, may be viewed with the sharpest suspicion. I leave to you to decide—as I see your intuition is sound—the scope of your answers there."
Jethri closed his eyes. "Master tel'Ondor. . . "
"Yes, yes! You are to learn the entire mode of High House fosterling in the next eight heartbeats, eh? I will be plain with you, young Jethri—neither your skills nor mine are sufficient to meet this challenge. Demonstrate, if you please, your bow of introduction—yes. And of farewell? . . . adequate. Once more—yes. Now—of obedience?"
Jethri complied and heard the protocol officer sigh.
But: "It will suffice," Master tel'Ondor said, and moved his hands, shooing Jethri toward the door. "Go. Contrive not to shame me."
Jethri grinned and inclined his head. "Good evening, sir."
"Bah," said Master tel'Ondor.
HE NEEDN'T HAVE WORRIED about ruining his pretty new shirt with sauce stains or soup spots. It soon became clear that, while Master ven'Deelin expected her guests to eat—and eat well—from the buffet spread along three of four walls of the so-called Little Hall, she herself—with him a shadow attached to her left elbow—prowled the room, with the apparent intent of speaking with everyone present.
She did supply herself with a glass of wine, and insisted that he do the same, with instructions to sip when she did, then slipped into the crowd, where her headway went down to a step or two at a time, in between bows and conversation.
Jethri found the conversation singularly frustrating; spoken wholly in modes other than the mercantile, and much more rapidly than his half-trained ear could accommodate.
The exception to this was the beginning of every exchange, in which he was brought a step forward by a soft hand on his arm. "One's foster child, Jethri," Master ven'Deelin would say, and he would make his plain bow of greeting. Then she would make him known to the person she was speaking with, who, almost without exception bowed as to the child of an ally.
He would then repeat their name, with a polite dip of the head, and the talk would jet over his head in a poetry of alien syllables.
A word or two here and there—he did catch those. Sometimes, a whole phrase unrolled inside his ears. Rarely enough to help him piece together the full sense of the conversation. He did find time to be glad that the default mode for facial expression was bland; at least he didn't have to pretend to be interested in what he couldn't understand. And he used his idle time to consider the scale and scope of the 'dinner party,' trying to figure what the point of it might be.
A gathering less like a common spacer's shivary would be hard to find, he thought. Where there'd be music and singing and boozing and smooching at a shivary, here there was the music of many different and low-key conversations. While everyone he could see had a wine glass in one hand, nobody seemed drunk, or even boisterous. And if there was any smooching going on. . . Well, frankly, he'd come to wonder how it was that any new Liadens got made.
"Good evening," a soft voice purred in his ear. Trade had never sounded so pretty, and Jethri jerked around and looked down, meeting a melting pair of gray eyes set at a slight angle in a heart-shaped golden face, framed by wispy gilt hair.
"Good . . . evening," he managed and bowed the bow of introduction. "Jethri Gobelyn. In what way may I serve you, ma'am?"
Her lips curved in a tightly controlled smile. "Parvet sig'Flava. I had in mind a way in which we might each serve the other, if you are of like mind. The evening grows tedious and I would welcome a . . . diversion. . . such as yourself." She swayed half a step forward, her melting gray gaze never leaving his face.
Jethri jumped back, ears burning. He'd just been propositioned for bed duty, or all Dyk's tales and teasing was for naught. That everything he knew on the subject was from tales and health tapes was due again to being juniormost. None of his cousins had wanted to bed the baby. . .
"Come," Parvet sig'Flava murmured—and he thought her voice was a little slurred, like maybe this wasn't her first, or even her third, glass of wine on the evening. "My ship departs within the two-day, and shall, regrettably, miss Tilene's Festival. So," she leaned toward him, her pretty face upturned to him like one of the flowers that Gaenor so missed from her home.
"So," she said again, "since we will be denied the opportunity to meet in the park, perhaps we may embrace Festival a few days early. Perhaps we might rent us an hour-room and have joy of each other before dawn calls us each to our duty."
"Ma'am, I—that is—"
"That is," Norn ven'Deelin's voice cut in over his stammer, and very firmly, too, "that this my son is needed at his station this evening, though he thanks you most sincerely for your offer."
"Indeed," Jethri grabbed at his lagging wits and inclined his head, very respectful. "I am flattered, ma'am, but duty calls."
She looked at him, gray eyes unreadable, then bowed, senior to junior, which was right enough, Jethri thought bitterly, though making him even more aware of the potential gifts she'd had on offer.
"I understand. Fair profit." She bowed then to Norn ven'Deelin, trader to master.
"Master Trader," she murmured and faded away into the crowd.
Ears on fire, and uneasily aware of the blood pounding in his veins. Jethri turned to face Norn ven'Deelin.
"Truly, young Jethri," she said softly, "you have a knack. No one less than the sig'Flava wishes to attach you. Indeed, you are a paragon." She moved her hand, inviting him to walk with her.
"Attend me, now. Later, we will speak of Festival and. . . those other. . . lessons which you may require."
"Yes, Master Trader," he murmured, feeling four kinds of fool, and not quite able to make up his mind whether he was more grateful to her for the rescue or aggravated with himself for needing one.
She patted his arm. "Softly, child," she said, and then used her chin to point out a certain black-haired gentleman in the crowd. "Look, there is del'Fordan's heir. We must make you known to him."