The Dragon Variation

by Sharon Lee

  "Sinit." Aelliana thought it best to stem this impassioned explanation before Voni's sensibilities moved her to banish their younger sister from the dining hall altogether. "You were going to eat quickly—were you not?—and go into the parlor to finish reading."

  "Oh." Recalled to the plan, she picked up a muffin-half and coated it liberally with jam. "I think it would be very interesting to be married," she said, which for Sinit passed as a change of topic.

  "Well, I hardly think you shall find out soon," Voni said, with a return of her usual asperity. "Especially if you persist in discussing such—perverse—subjects at table."

  "Oh, pooh," Sinit replied elegantly, cramming jam-smeared muffin into her mouth. "It's only that you've been married an hundred times, and so find the whole matter a dead bore."

  Voni's eyes glittered dangerously. "Not—quite—an hundred, dear sister. I flatter myself that the profit the clan has made from my contract-marriages is not despicable."

  Nor was it, Aelliana acknowledged, worrying her muffin into shreds. At thirty-one, Voni had been married five times—each to Mizel's clear benefit. She was pretty, nice-mannered in company and knew her Code to a full-stop—a valuable daughter of the clan. Just yesterday, she had let drop that there was a sixth marriage in the delm's eye, to young Lord pel'Rula—and that would be a coup, indeed, and send Voni's quarter-share to dizzying height.

  "Aelliana's been married," Sinit announced somewhat stickily. "Was it interesting and delightful?"

  Aelliana stared fixedly at her plate, grateful for the shielding curtain of her hair. "No," she whispered.

  Voni laughed. "Aelliana," she said, reaching into the High Tongue for the Mode of Instruction, "was pleased to allow the delm to know that she would never again accept contract."

  Round-eyed, Sinit turned to Aelliana, sitting still and stricken over her shredded breakfast. "But the—the parties, and all the new clothes, and—"

  "Good-morning, daughters!" Birin Caylon, Delm Mizel, swept into the dining room on the regal arm of her son Ran Eld, the nadelm. She allowed him to seat her and fetch her a cup of tea as she surveyed the table.

  "Sinit, you have jam on your face. Aelliana, I wish you will either eat or not, and in anywise leave over torturing your food. Voni, my dear, Lady pel'Rula calls tomorrow midday. I shall wish to have you by me."

  Voni simpered. "Yes, Mother."

  Mizel turned to her son, who had taken his accustomed place beside her. "You and I are to meet in an hour, are we not? Be on your mettle, sir: I expect to be shown the benefits of keeping the bulk of our capital in Yerlind Shares."

  "There are none," Aelliana told her plate, very quietly.

  Alas, not quietly enough. Ran Eld paused with a glass of morning-wine half-way to his lips, eyebrows high in disbelief.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  I've gone mad, Aelliana thought, staring at the crumbled ruin of her untasted breakfast. Only a madwoman would call Ran Eld's judgment thus into question, the nadelm being—disinclined—to support insolence from any of the long list of his inferiors. Woe for Aelliana that her name was written at the top of that list.

  Beg his pardon, she told herself urgently, cold hands fisted on her lap. Bend the neck, take the jibe, be meek, be too poor a thing to provoke attack.

  It was a strategy that had served a thousand times in the past. Yet this morning her head remained in its usual half-bowed attitude, face hidden by the silken shield of her hair, eyes fixed to her plate as if she intended to memorize the detail of each painted flower fading into the yellowing china.

  "Aelliana." Ran Eld's voice was a purr of pure malice. Too late for begging pardons now, she thought, and clenched her hands the tighter.

  "I believe you had an—opinion," Ran Eld murmured, "in the matter of the clan's investments. Come, I beg you not be backward in hinting us toward the proper mode. The good of the clan must carry all before it."

  Yes, certainly. Excepting only that the good of the clan had long ago come to mean the enlargement of Ran Eld Caylon's hoard of power. Aelliana touched her tongue to her lips, unsurprised to find that she was trembling.

  "Yerlind Shares," she said, quite calmly, and in the mode of Instruction, as if he were a recalcitrant student she was bound to put right, "pay two percent, which must be acknowledged a paltry return, when the other funds offer from three to four-point-one. Neither is its liquidity superior, since Yerlind requires three full days to forward cantra equal to shares. Several of the other, higher-yield options require as little as twenty-eight hours for conversion."

  There was a small pause, then her mother's voice, shockingly matter-of-fact: "I wish you will raise your head when you speak, Aelliana, and show attention to the person with whom you are conversing. One would suppose you to have less melant'i than a Terran, the way you are forever hiding your face. I can't think how you came to be so rag-mannered."

  Voni tittered, which was expectable. From Ran Eld came only stony silence, in which Aelliana heard her ruin. Nothing would save her now—neither meekness nor apology would buy Ran Eld's mercy when she had shamed him before his delm and his juniors.

  Aelliana brought her head up with a smooth toss that cast her hair behind her shoulders and met her brother's eyes.

  Brilliantly blue, bright as first-water sapphires, they considered her blandly from beneath arched golden brows. Ran Eld Caylon was a pretty man. Alas, he was also vain, and dressed more splendidly than his station, using a heavy hand in the matter of jewels.

  Now, he set his wine glass aside and took a moment to adjust one of his many finger-rings.

  "Naturally," he murmured to the room at large, "Aelliana's discourse holds me fascinated. I am astonished to find her so diligent a scholar of economics."

  "And yet," Mizel Herself countered unexpectedly, "she makes a valid point. Why should we keep our capital at two percent when we might place it at four?"

  "The Yerlind Shares are tested by time and found to be sound," Ran Eld replied. "These—other options—my honored sister displays have been less rigorously tested."

  "Ormit is the youngest of the funds I consider," Aelliana heard herself state, still in the mode of Instruction. "Surely fifty years is time enough to prove a flaw, should it exist?"

  "And what do I know of the Ormit Fund?" Ran Eld actually frowned and there was a look at the back of his eyes that boded not so well for one Aelliana, once the delm was out of hearing.

  She met his glare with a little thrill of terror, but answered calmly, nonetheless.

  "A study of the Exchange for as little as a twelve-day will show you Ormit's mettle upon the trading floor," she replied, "Information on their investments and holdings can be had anytime through the data-net."

  The frown deepened, but his voice remained dulcet, as ever. "Enlighten me, sister—do you aspire to become the clan's financial advisor?"

  "She might do better," Mizel commented, sipping her tea, "than the present one."

  Ran Eld turned his head so sharply his earrings jangled. "Mother—"

  She held up a hand. "Peace. It seems Aelliana has given the subject thought. A test of her consideration against your own may be in order." She looked across the table.

  "What say you, daughter, to taking charge of your own quarter-share and seeing what you can make of it?"

  Take charge of her own quarter-share? Four entire cantra to invest as she would? Aelliana clenched her fists until the nails scored her palms.

  "Turn Aelliana loose upon the world with four cantra in her hand?" Ran Eld lifted an elegant shoulder. "And when the quarter is done and she has lost it?"

  "I scarcely think she will be so inept as to lose her seed," Mizel said with some asperity. "The worst that may happen, in my view, is that she will return us four cantra—at the end of a year."

  "A year?" That was Voni, as ever Ran Eld's confederate. "To allow Aelliana such liberty for an entire year may not be to the best good, ma'am."

  "Oh?" Mizel put her cup down with a clatter, ey
es seeking the face of her middle daughter. "Well, girl? Have you an opinion regarding the length of time the experiment shall encompass?"

  "A quarter is too short," Aelliana said composedly. "Two quarters might begin to show a significant deviation. However, it is my understanding that the delm desires proof of a trend to set against facts established and in-house. A year is not too long for such a proof."

  "A year it is then," the delm announced and flicked a glance to her heir. "You will advance your sister her quarter-share no later than this evening. We shall see this tested on the floor of the exchange itself."

  Sinit laughed at that, and Ran Eld looked black. Voni poured herself a fresh cup of tea.

  Aelliana pushed carefully back from the table, rose and bowed to the delm.

  "If I may be excused," she murmured, scarcely attending what she said; "I must prepare for a class."

  Mizel waved a careless hand and Aelliana made her escape.

  "But this is precisely the manner in which Terrans handle affairs of investment!" Sinit said excitedly. "Each person is responsible for his or her own fortune. I think such a system is very exciting, don't you?"

  "I think," Voni's clear voice followed Aelliana into the hallway, "that anthropology is not at all good for you, sister."

  Chapter Two

  Each person shall provide his clan of origin with a child of his blood, who will be raised by the clan and belong to the clan, despite whatever may later occur to place the parent beyond the clan's authority. And this shall be Law for every person of every clan.

  —From the Charter of the Council of Clans

  Made in the Sixth Year After Planetfall

  City of Solcintra, Liad

  "LADY YOS'GALAN," the butler announced from the doorway.

  The man at the desk looked up from his screen, rose and came forward, hands outstretched in welcome.

  "Anne. You're up early." His Terran bore a Liaden accent, lighter than a year ago, and he smiled with genuine pleasure. "Are you well? My brother, your lifemate—and my most excellent nephew!—they enjoy their usual robust health?"

  Tall Anne Davis grinned down at him, squeezing his hands affectionately before releasing him.

  "You only saw us two days ago," she said. "What could go wrong so quickly?"

  "Any number of things!" he assured her, striking a tragic pose that won a ripple of her ready laughter. "Only see how it comes about: This morning I am a free man—this evening, I am affianced!"

  Trouble crossed her mobile face, as well it might, she being Terran and holding little patience with contract-marriage. Intellectually, she allowed the efficiency of custom; emotionally, she turned her face aside and would far rather speak of other matters.

  "Is it going to be very dreadful for you, Daav?" There was sisterly sympathy in her voice, acceptable from the lifemate of his foster-brother. And indeed, Daav thought wryly, rather more than he had received from his own sister, who, upon hearing the news of his impending contract, had allowed herself an ironic congratulation on duty embraced—at long last.

  "Ah, well. One must obey the law, after all." He moved his shoulders, dismissing the subject, and moved toward the wine table.

  "What may I give you to drink?"

  "Is there tea?"

  "As a matter of fact, there is," he said, and drew a cup for each from the silver urn. He carried both to the desk and resumed his seat, waving her to the chair at the corner.

  "Now, tell me what takes you abroad so early in the day."

  Anne sipped and set her cup aside with a tiny click, leveling a pair of very serious brown eyes.

  "I am in need of Delm's Instruction," she stated in the High Tongue, in the very proper mode of Respect to the Delm.

  Daav blinked. "Dear me."

  Anne's mouth twitched along one corner, but she otherwise preserved her countenance.

  Sighing lightly, he glanced down at his hands—long, clever hands, blunt-nailed, calloused along palms and fingertips. He did not care overmuch for ornamentation and wore but a single ring: A band that covered the third finger of his left hand from knuckle to knuckle, the lush enamel work depicting a tree in full leaf over which a dragon hovered on half-furled wings. Clan Korval's Ring, which marked him delm.

  "Daav?" Anne's voice was carefully neutral.

  He shook himself and looked back to her face, one eyebrow quirking in self-mockery.

  "Perhaps you had best make me acquainted with the details of your requirement," he said, in the blessed casualness of Terran. "The delm may not be necessary, tiresome fellow that he is."

  Once again, the mere twitch of a smile.

  "All right," she said, following him obligingly into her own tongue.

  Daav relaxed. It was not entirely clear how much this very unLiaden member of his clan understood of melant'i. He had never known her to make a blunder in society, but that might well be put to the account of her lifemate, who would certainly never allow her to place herself in a position of jeopardy. Whether now moved by understanding or intuition, she was willing to allow him to put off for the moment the burden of his delmhood, and that suited Daav very well.

  "In obedience to the Delm's Word," Anne said, after another sip of tea, "I've been studying the diaries of the past delms of Korval, as well as the log books kept by Cantra yos'Phelium, the—inceptor—of the clan."

  Daav inclined his head. It was necessary for every member of the Line Direct to master the knowledge contained in Diaries and Log. Terran though she was, Anne stood but two lives from the Ring herself—another subject of which she held shy. Much of the Diaries had to do with politics—doubtless she had come across the record of an ancient Balancing and found herself—understandably!—fuddled.

  Daav smiled, for here was no case for Delm's Instruction, but only that teaching which elder kin might gladly offer junior.

  "There is a passage in the Diaries which is not perfectly plain?" He grinned. "You amaze me."

  She returned the grin full measure, then sobered, eyes darkening, though she did not speak.

  "So tell me," Daav invited, since it became clear that such prompting was required, "what have you found in Korval's lamentable history to disturb you?"

  "Hardly—entirely—lamentable," Anne said softly, then, firmer: "The Contract."

  "So?" He allowed both brows to rise. "You doubt the authenticity of Cantra's Contract with the Houses of Solcintra?"

  "Oh, no," she said, with the blitheness of the scholar-expert she was, "it's authentic enough. What I doubt is Korval's assumption of continuance."

  "Assumption. And it seems to me so plain-written a document! Quite refreshingly stark, in fact. But I must ask why my cha'leket has not been able to resolve this difficulty for you. We have had much the same instruction in these matters, as he stands the delm's heir."

  She looked at him solemnly. "I didn't ask him. He's got quite enough to explain about the Tree."

  "You question Jelaza Kazone? That is bold." He waved toward the windowed wall behind him, where the Tree's monumental trunk could be glimpsed through a tangle of flowers and shrubbery. "I would have been tempted to begin with something a bit less definite, I confess."

  Anne chuckled. "Pig-headed," she agreed and moved on immediately, leaving him no time to contemplate the startling picture conjured by this metaphor. "Er Thom says the Tree—talks."

  Well, and it did, Daav acknowledged, though he would not perhaps have phrased it so—or even yet—to her. However, the Tree did—communicate—to those of the Line Direct. Er Thom, that most unfanciful of men, knew this for fact and had thus informed his lifemate, against whom his heart held no secret.

  "I see that he has his work cut out for him," Daav said gravely. "Balance therefore dictates my defense of the Contract. It is fitting. I make a clean breast at once: The Contract does not speak, other than what sense the written words convey."

  "Entirely sufficient to the discussion," Anne returned. "The written words convey, in paragraph eight, that—" She pa
used, flashing him a conscious look. "Maybe you'd like to call a copy up on the screen, so you can see what I'm talking about?"

  "No need; the Contract is one of—several—documents my delm required I commit to memory during training." He sipped tea, set the cup aside and raised his eyes to hers. "I understand your trouble has root in the provision regarding the continuing duties of the Captain and her heirs. That seems the plainest-writ of all. Show me where I am wrong."

  "It's very plainly written," Anne said calmly. "Of course it would be—they were making such a desperate gamble. The Captain's responsibilities are very carefully delineated, as is the chain of command. In a situation where assumption might kill people, nothing is assumed. I have no problem with the original intent of the document. My problem stems from the assumption held by Clan Korval that the Contract is still in force."

  Oh, dear. But how delightfully Terran, after all. Daav inclined his head.

  "There is no period of expiration put forth," he pointed out calmly. "Nor has the Council of Clans yet relieved Korval of its contractual duty. The delm of Korval is, by the precise wording of that eighth paragraph, acknowledged to be Captain and sworn to act for the best benefit of the passengers." He smiled.

  "Which has come to mean all Liadens—and I do acknowledge the elasticity of that interpretation. However, one could hardly limit oneself to merely overlooking the well-being of the descendants of the original Houses of Solcintra. Entirely aside from the fact that Grandmother Cantra would never have accepted a contract that delineated a lower class of passenger and a higher, the Council of Clans has become the administering body. And the Council of Clans, so it states in the Charter, speaks for all clans." He moved his shoulders, offering another smile.

  "Thus, the Captain's duty increases."

  "Daav, that Contract is a thousand years old!"

  "Near enough," he allowed, nodding in the Terran way.