Adventures in the Liaden Universe Part 42

In a few moments more, the transaction was made; she paid a fairly low price for the emerald ring-the one suggested by the seller-and agreed to look at earrings that might be a match.

The two women gone. Bell looked at her carefully.

"You're tired-and you've been angry."

Exasperated by his grasp of the obvious, Cyra waved her hands in the air in a wild gesture, and snapped, "How else?"

"You might be pleased, after all. The emeralds were got at a decent price."

"Yes, a decent price. But if I'm going to afford you, my friend, we'll need to do better."

He looked at her with the same air of frankness he'd used when talking about the disaster that had cost him a painting, and shook his head.

"Yes, I know; I am hardly convenient for myself, much less for anyone else."

"That's not what I meant!" she protested. "I mean that-I mean that it is difficult to find a larger place to live hereabouts, and nearer to my apartment there are those who will not rent to someone who-"

"Someone who might bring a Terran home of a night," Bell finished, as she faltered. "Inconvenient I said, and I meant!" he insisted with heat. "I don't mind sleeping here in the store, after all, though the light is not always good. Perhaps you can offer to rent the corner place the next street over."They had been over that before, too. Bell's situation was so changeable that neither knew how long they might find each other's company pleasant, useful, or convenient. He could hardly sign a lease, with his "transient alien" status in the port computers a.s.suring that any who looked would laugh at his request.

Even getting a room beyond the s.p.a.ceport was difficult for him, except here in the Low Port area.

Mid-port was too dear for his budget in any case.

He could hardly co-sign with her, either. The conditions her Delm had set were strict and might well bear on that-if she wished to ever return to the House, she would, during her time of exile, refrain from forming formal alliances; she must not buy real estate; she was forbidden to marry, or to have children....

There could be no co-signing; she could speak for none other than herself. But to add a place where some of his paintings could be shown-this close to the port, they might gain a better clientele with such a gallery.

Truth told, though, Bell's sometime presence permitted Cyra to cut her dependence on Ortega's chancy employ; in fact, twice recently they'd been there as patrons.

He looked at her, s.n.a.t.c.hed the ring to his hand and began tossing it furiously into the air. This, after three previous ragged forty-day cycles, she recognized. Any day, perhaps any moment, he would drag out the rough sketches and ideas, choose one, and then hardly see her, even should she stand naked before him, while he took plasboard and tegg-paint and the secret odds and ends from his duit box and transformed them by touch of skilled hand and concentration and willpower unmatched to art as fine as ever she'd seen. Days, he would be one with the art.

And then he would crash; folding into a hollow and dispirited being barely willing to feed himself, with a near-fear of sunlight and a monotone voice and no plans to speak of ... until the cycle came full and from the gray, desperate being emerged Bell, fresh and whole and new. Again.

He shook the ring, tossed it, glanced anxiously to his art kit where it was stashed near the door to the back room.

"I know," he said. "I know! It's almost time. I think we should close early, perhaps, and go someplace fine to eat-I'll pay!-and plan on a bottle of good wine and snacks-I've chosen them already-and a night, a glorious night, my beauty. And then, we can talk at breakfast, if the art's not here yet, and if it is, we'll talk in a few days."

In front of her then, the choice-and she knew already she'd take it, or most of it. Had she a clan to call on she would pledge her quartershare-to make this work, she'd-but what she would do if was no matter, now. Her quartershare would go-till the twelfth year, at least-into the account of a dead child, just as her invitations-large and small-would go to her Delm, and be returned with the information that she was in mourning and not permitted.

She recalled the discreet caress a few moments earlier, her blood warming...

Tonight she would forget that she was poor and outcast. Bell would take them somewhere with his stash of cash and they would spend as if he were a visiting amba.s.sador instead of an itinerant artist, and then he would- "Bell," she said gently, "perhaps we should stay until nearer closing. My friend. I followed your instructions last time, you know-there are three prepared boards waiting-and I have already an extra canister of s.p.a.cer's tea and you gave me enough for two tins of Genwin Kaffe last time, so we have that.

That is, if you are certain that you won't talk to the Healers this time."He looked at her then and his eyes were hungry; she doubted that hers were not.

"I'll check the boards, Cyra, and make sure that you have room to work this time, too."

CYRA TASTED THE SALT on her lips, and nearly wept as she relaxed against him. He was so inexhaustible and inventive a lover, she thought, that perhaps she should have invited the office manager to help out-and she laughed at the silliness, and he heard her, Bell with his hands still willing and eager, and his quirky Terran words dragged out of him in the midsts.

"Now I'm funny. Oh, woe, oh woe ..."

She could see him in the half-light he preferred for lovemaking; just bright enough that the mirrors on the wall might tell an interesting tale to a glancing eye. She remembered that he'd brought beeswax candles, along with wine, flowers, that first evening after his very first return, when he'd somehow parlayed her concern-She laughed again, this time finding his hair and beard wooly near her face, and she gently moved to brush them orderly. He had something more on his mind though, as her hands came in contact with his cheek; but she held him a moment and he was willing to be calmed.

Of course, she should not stroke his beard and his cheek; she should not kiss his nose, nor lay her palm on his face, this Terran who never knew the taboo of it....

"Let's trade," he said, very gently. "A story for a story, a touch for a touch." Then he laid his hand on her cheek, spreading his wide hand so that his thumb and his forefinger spanned her face.

It was late in the night, very nearly morning; the sounds from the road were not yet impinging on their lair.

His breathing, and hers, and his touch.

"I," he said after a moment. "I cannot go to the Healers, because when someone in my family is cured, we lose the art. My father, my grandfather, my uncle-myself. I tried, there once-"

He paused, brushed her hair away from her eyes, kissed her on her nose, covered the marks on her face as if he would wipe them away. "After that painting was stolen from me I could have been locked up forever there, but for the good luck of a scout's intercession. So, I thought I should get over the crash. I spoke to a doctor and he seemed to make sense, and they gave me a therapy and drugs and an implant....

"Here!"

He guided her hand and held it against that long scraggly scar on his leg. She'd found that scar before, but never dared question-there were things lovers were not to ask, after all; the Code was clear on that.

"Three months," he said very quietly. "Let me say about two of my usual cycles, though they change sometimes-be warned!-and I had not even the slightest twinge of being able to paint, and what I drew was stick figures and bad circles and patterns, and I spoke politely to people and one night I went home and picked up a cooking knife and thought that I would cut my throat."

He took her hand and placed it under his beard, where it was just above his throat, and let her feel the pulse of him, and the smaller, more ragged scar.

"I'd made a start, actually, when I realized that what I wanted was not my throat cut, but my art back.

And so I took the knife and opened my leg and took the thirty-four months' worth of implant that was left out of me, and I washed it down the drain."She stared at him, at once fascinated and horrified, not knowing what to say.

"My cousin," he went on, after a moment. "My cousin Darby. He took the cure and has stayed on it.

He's married, he goes to work, comes home, goes to work, comes home-and I have the last piece of sculpture he did before the implant. He was brilliant. He made me look like a b.u.mbling student. But it is gone. Five years and he can't draw a face much less model one; he can't see the images in the clouds!"

He brushed his lips over the mark under her left eye, then kissed the one under her right eye.

"You know," he said quietly, "you are beautiful. I have known beautiful ladies, my friend, and you are very beautiful."

The realization hit her-what he would ask, in exchange for this tale from his soul. Very nearly, she panicked, but he caught her mouth with his, and in a few moments she relaxed against him.

"My friend," she said, "you can be as cruel as you are wonderful. To cut yourself so-the pain! But I am not so brave as you. I took the cuts from my Delm, in punishment-cut with the blade my family keeps from the early days. Then I wept and cried, and was cast from the house..."

"Does this person yet live?" Not in his deepest despair had she heard his voice so cold.

Cyra looked into his face and saw he meant it-that he contemplated Balance or revenge or- "No, Bell, you cannot. My Delm was doing duty. I was cut to remind me and to warn others."

He said nothing, but kissed her face again, gently, waiting.

"We are not as rich a house as some others, Clan Nosko; and my Delm, my uncle, is not so easy a spender as you or I. As I was youngest of the daughters of the house-and lived at the clan seat, it being close to my shop-it fell my duty sometimes to spend an afternoon and a night, or sometimes two, doing things needful. And so ..."

Here she paused a moment, gently ma.s.saging Bell's neck under the beard, imagining all too well ....

"So it was," she went on very quietly, with the blood pounding in her ears, "that I was briefly in charge of the nursery, the nurse having been given a discharge for cost or cause, I know not. I had put the child Brendar to bed; a likely boy come to the clan through my sister's second marriage. I changed him once, but he was otherwise biddable. I was trying for my Master Jeweler's license, so I was at study with several books. I read, and read more, hearing no fuss. Then my sister came home, and the child was not asleep, but had died sometime in the night."

There was quiet then.

Finally, he kissed her again, each scar, very carefully.

"I'd thought there must be more, but I see the story now, and I am near speechless. The child died of an accident- "My incompetence and negligence ..."

He pressed a finger to her lips so hard it nearly hurt.

"I am a fool, Cyra, my beautiful friend. I thought it was your own anger, or your own desire, that placed those marks on your face; that you had rebelled against the rules of this world and even now wore them as badges. That they were inflicted by your family to humiliate and destroy you never came to mind..."He brushed the hair out of her face again.

"I will paint your picture one day, I promise. Your face will be known as among the most beautiful of this world. And they will see that they have lost you, for I'll not let them have you back!"

She had no quick answer for this, and then he said, "Here!" and placed her hand again on the long leg scar.

She felt the welt there-he laughed, nibbled on her earlobe, and moved her hand a bit, murmuring, "Now, lady, here if you wish to be pleased!"

She did, and she was.

THREE DAYS LATER Cyra was not so very pleased.

To begin, Bell had become inspired sometime in the night of their pillow talk and when she awoke alone in the dawn she found him sketching like a madman on her couch, barely willing to drag himself away from his work long enough to share a breakfast with her.

He packed his sketches and walked with her to the shop, his eyes as elsewhere as his mind. Twice she had to repeat herself while she spoke with him, and then he disappeared into the back room to work as soon as they reached the store.

In the afternoon he had rushed out of the back room, complaining that she'd not told him the time, and stormed out, on his way to a lecture he particularly wanted to see. Worse, he stormed back, having left his sketchbook and wallet, and dashed off with nary a backward glance. When he didn't return by closing-he sometimes went to discussion groups after the lectures-she'd not expected him to come by her apartment, and he didn't, which grated mightily.

In the morning he wandered in very late, hung over and exhausted, explaining that he'd met a pack of Scouts at the lecture and talked with them until the barkeep announced shift-change at dawn. He was animated, nearly wildly so, explaining that he might "have a line on" the Scout who had helped him at Djymbolay; that his conversations of the evening had revealed that he owed Balance to that Scout; that he might have an idea for yet another painting; and that when he had more money there was a world he'd have to travel to and- "I have an appointment, Bell," Cyra said abruptly. "Tell me later!"

She rushed out the door, barely confident-and barely caring-that he'd heed the advent of a customer.

Her appointment was with her tongue-had she stayed and heard more she surely would have said hurtful words.

So she walked, nearly oblivious to the sounds of transports-more this day than others since a portion of the port would be closed late in the afternoon for some final tricksy bit of work for the expansion-and found herself several blocks from her usual streets, in a very old section, where the buildings and the people were barely above tumbledown.

Surprisingly, she saw Debbie-the-pastry-girl hurrying from one of the least kept brick-fronts; Number 83 it was, a regrettable four-story affair sporting ungainly large windows and peeling paint. The peaked, slate roof suggested that the building was several hundred Standards old, and it looked like it had no repair since the day it was built.Heart falling, she reached into her card case, and removed the slip of paper she had from Bell the day he'd agreed to share his direction with her: Number 83 Corner Four Ave, Room 15.

A shuttle's long rumble began then; she could feel the sidewalk atremble as she watched the pastry girl's blue-and-green hair disappear in the distance. Also on the paper was the pad combination, and with the whine of the shuttle rising behind her, and then over, she stood, and for a moment was tempted to enter Number 83 and find Room 15, open the door, and see if-if ...

She turned and walked all the way home for lunch, grasping the paper tightly in her fist.

When she got back to the store, calmer, but heartsore, there was Bell's back vaguely visible in the back room. He heard her enter and yelled out over his shoulder "Any luck?"

"No," she said, quietly. "No luck, Bell."

She slept badly alone, and the rumble of the transports, joined with the not entirely foreign sounds of proctor-jitneys blaring horns as they answered a nighttime summons hadn't helped.

And now, on her store step across the road in the dawn light?

Debbie, cuddling Bell's good jacket in her arms.

"BELL'S OK," THE GIRL said quickly, shaking her absurd hair back from a remarkably grimy face.

"He wasn't bleeding all that much and the medic said he'll do. The proctor, now, he'll be OK, too, other'n his pride's pretty well hurt by getting really whomped-I mean decked, in front of all his buddies.

But there's gonna be some fines to pay, I guess, and he's gotta have a place to live and-"

Cyra stood staring, hard put to sort this tumbled message, clinging at last to the simple, "Bell's OK..."

Debbie was looking at her with desperate eyes. "Cyra, you're a lucky girl, you know? But you're gonna have to get someone down to the jail to get him out. He's not the kind of guy that'll get along there, and hey-what it'll take is 'a citizen of known melant'i, moral character, and resources.' I sure don't qualify for the resources part, the melant'i I ain't got and I'm not sure if I qualify for the character part...."

Cyra wasn't too sure about the character part either, though the fact that the girl was here with so many of Bell's belongings argued for her. Arrayed on the step was a ship bag with "Belansium" printed on a tag, four or five studies-paintings and sketches of a woman, who Cyra realized must be herself by the detail of the face-nude in different positions, some small odds and ends in boxes, a small paint kit, a picnic box ....

"Tell me again," Cyra demanded. "After we got these inside. From the beginning. I'll make tea."

DEBBIE RUSHED OFF while the tea was heating and returned with pastries, and a damp towel, which she was using on the dust and grime on her bare arms.

"I was having company over and wasn't much paying attention to other stuff when I heard one of the transports go over. Things started trembling and-well, wasn't at the stage I thought, then the next thing I know there was a big cherunk kind of noise and the front wall just fell out into the street. The whole place got shaky and we all got out. Bell come dashing out from his room carrying something big and square and rushing down the steps with it whiles bricks and roof-stuff falling all around."We was outside standing and staring-most everyone out by then, when the whole building kind of slanted over backwards and leaned into the alley. My guy, he's pretty smart, he'd grabbed a bottle of wine on the way out, and we all had a sip, and when it looked like there wasn't any more up to fall down we went in to see what we could save and to make sure no one was inside-and a bunch of snortheads showed up. One grabbed one of them sketches of you and yelled for some of the others- "That Bell picked up part of a drainpipe and started hitting and bashing at them guys, and then my guy hit one of 'em with the empty bottle, and then the proctors showed up and Bell wasn't letting no one near his stuff. Proctor kind of waved something in his direction and Bell did this neat little dance step and brought his hand out and lifted the proctor right off his feet. Right quick they was all on him ... and I had to explain-see it was my Ma's building, and all-but they still got Bell for drunk-and-disorderly, striking a proctor, and I don't know what else. And I can't speak for him!"

"Neither can I," Cyra said, admitted, staring down into her tea and trying not to think of Bell at the hottest part of his cycle, locked away from his paints and pens. "Neither can I."

"YOU HAVE ARRIVED," the receptionist told Cyra, "at a bad time. I have no one to spare to listen to your story, as interesting as it must be. The Scouts are not in the habit of interfering with the proctors on matters of Low Port drunk-and-disorderly ..."

Cyra glared. "He was not drunk-not at this time in the cycle. Disorderly-he did strike a proctor, but-" she stopped, suddenly struck by a thought, and came near to the counter again.

"Have you a Scout named Jon?" she asked.

"Only several," a female voice said from close behind her. Cyra spun, face heating. The Scout tipped her head, eyes bright and manic, as the eyes of Scout's so often were. "Would you wish us to know that it is a Scout named Jon whom the proctors discovered to be drunk and disorderly? I don't find that impossible. Why, I myself have been drunk and disorderly in Low Port. It is excellent practice for the dining situations found on several of the outworlds."

"Captain sig'Radia ..." the receptionist began, but the Scout waved a hand.

"Peace, someone has arrived with time to spare for a story about a drunk and disorderly in Low Port."

She c.o.c.ked a whimsical eyebrow in Cyra's direction, looking her full in the face, as if the disfiguring scars were invisible, or non-existent. "The acoustics of this hallway are quite amazing, but allow me to be certain-I did hear you say 'struck a proctor'?"

Cyra admitted it dejectedly. "But it is not the Scout Jon who did this," she continued, feeling an utter fool.

"I had merely thought, since my friend-Bell-was known to the Scout..."