The Complete Ivory

by Doris Egan

  I really did not feel up to discussing the complications of my marriage at that moment. I thought, if only I were a follower of na' telleth philosophy, and could rise above this kind of thing, concentrate on something else. Ivoran nursery rhymes? My mind was a blank. Out of nowhere I remembered my first class on Athena, a new-made scholar fresh off the ship, and started to chant mentally from Socrates on doctors and lawyers: "Is it not disgraceful, and a great sign of want of good breeding, that a man must go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and put himself in the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him?" A message from the past straight to me, not that I had sense enough to take its advice. It did give me heart to go on, as Sel-Hara showed every sign of covering old and tender ground again.

  I must have been muttering.

  "You are distracting me," said Sel-Hara, in tones of annoyance.

  " 'Of all things,' " I finished—not aloud—" 'the most disgraceful.' "

  He glanced thoughtfully at his instruments. "I will use the smallest," he announced, as though it were his own idea.

  So I shut up and endured, figuring that questions about pregnancy were probably pointless anyway. After an exam like this, I wouldn't want anyone to touch my body for the rest of my life.

  At the Selian Clinic, you take the doctor you're assigned. That's the way the Selians are.

  Have I mentioned I don't like them?

  Four hours later I was at the Poraths' house party. My body still felt as though someone had tried to ram an interstellar liner through it earlier that day, but I ignored it.

  Ran and I had hired a carriage so we could arrive in appropriate style with Lysander and Kylla, both of whom were uncomfortably silent during the ride over. When we stopped at the gate, Lysander reached out a hand to help Kylla down and she gestured it impatiently away. Ran and I pretended not to notice.

  A security guard in white and slate gray bowed, and inquired whether it was our gracious party's pleasure to have our carriage driver directed to a proper location for the evening. He spoke the words by rote, clearly not impressed in the slightest by our matched pair of fashionably designed six-legged drivebeasts, decked out in crimson and bells. Looking down the road toward the parking area, I could see why. I considered the Cormallons wealthy, and we were, but tonight we were poor relations. There was even—

  "Ran, look! The seal of the Athenan embassy on that carriage!"

  He looked politely where I was pointing, then turned back toward the gate.

  I said, "Why are the Poraths inviting outplanet visitors?"

  He shrugged, his mind obviously on other things. It had gotten my attention, though. I still retained a dual citizenship from Athena; who was here tonight? Anyone I knew? Anyone I'd heard of? If it was one of the eighth-floor peo-

  pie from the embassy, would they ask why I hadn't been around to report over the last year?

  Ran touched my arm, and we followed the security guide through the gate in the outer wall.

  The Poraths lived in the old section, north of the canal, in a huge, rambling U-shaped villa that was badly in need of repair. The gate we entered led to the middle of the U, the Poraths' garden, a place of night-blooming roses and blue pools lined with white stones; around the garden, bordering the house itself, were three low, covered porches with wooden pillars of red and green lacquer. The lacquer paint was suspiciously fresh looking. The livery of the security staff was suspiciously fresh and neat, as well, and there were at least a dozen. No doubt hired for the evening from a bonded firm here in the capital, though they were discreet enough to wear Porath House colors.

  A shadow flowed out of the evening shadows on the porch wing nearest us, and something glittered jewellike in its midst. A scaled snout emerged, small, bandy legs… a lizard the size of a small child dragged itself to the edge of the porch. The body was dark green, but the flash from its eyes was emerald bright. A long tongue showed itself briefly, then retracted, as it tried to leave the porch and go exploring. A leash circled its neck, I was glad to see. The leash was garlanded with flowers, but seemed to be doing its job, for in its restlessness the lizard had pulled it fully taut.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked.

  "It's an emerald lizard," said Ran, in an uninterested voice.

  "Is it Ivoran?"

  "Of course. You don't see them much around here, they have to be imported from the western islands. It's been a fad of the families to have them as pets."

  "What's wrong with a nice puppy?"

  He smiled. "Emerald lizards are fairly tame. And they don't spray poison unless they're provoked. Supposedly."

  "Poison?"

  He pointed to the translucent sac in the crook behind the lizard's neck, just above the collar of the leash. "See, it's been emptied. Perfectly safe."

  "I'm sure," I said. Just then a servant girl of about nine,

  robed in three shades of red, her hair set with jewels, stooped to pick up an empty glass from the floor of the porch. She patted the lizard on the head as she did so, then set the glass on a tray and continued on her way. The lizard tongue went in and out, in and out, and a sound not unlike purring reached me where we were standing.

  "Just the same, I don't want one in our house," I said.

  "Not likely, at the price." He took my hand and turned me back toward the main party. We made our way into the throng.

  The garden was clogged with guests. Grass was trampled right and left, food and drink servers maneuvered their way around the rim of the blue pools, and I saw a square of ripped silk outerrobe snagged on a thorn near the gate. Flute players were somewhere—somewhere high? I looked up and saw a treehouse filled with musicians. The Poraths were putting a lot on this roll of the dice. If their treasury was near empty tonight, they'd be in debt tomorrow.

  "Ky—" I turned to address my sister-in-law and saw her standing at the garden entrance, nostrils flaring, scanning east and west like a hunting falcon with only one prey on its mind: the infamous Eliana Porath.

  I said, "Do you know what she looks like?"

  "No."

  Neither did I, beyond the fact that Lysander had said she had a face like a mud pudding. "You know, Kylla, this wasn't her idea."

  "I know that." Kylla's expression did not change. Eliana Porath was about to start a new Trojan War.

  Lysander stopped and tapped Ran. "Kade," he said. "Oldest son." He was looking toward a strapping, broad-shouldered young man with hair so short he could have been in the army. His face was brown and his muscles seemed to put him out of place in this array of peacock robes. His own blue silk outerrobe was open over an un-dertunic of plain, respectable white that might have been a work outfit; an inappropriate touch. Kade was laughing at some joke made by one of a knot of well-dressed people around him. As I watched, he stopped one of the servers, snagged a drink, and offered it to one of the other men.

  Lysander said, "As soon as he spots me, he'll be over here. He's really pushing the marriage." On cue, Kade's glance passed over the crowd and Lysander twirled toward Ran, presenting the first son of Porath with a view of his back and a finely embroidered silk panel.

  "You'll have to speak with him eventually," said Kylla coldly.

  "Ran, help me," he said. "It's going to be a very long evening."

  Ran drew him away. "Show us some of the other players," he said kindly. Kylla and I followed.

  I drew a breath to say, You're a little hard on him, aren't you?—then thought the better of it and let it out again. "Do you know any of these people?" I asked her.

  She glanced around indifferently. "Edra Simmeroneth— I went to school with her. Some of the provincial Sakris."

  We passed the Athenan ambassador. He and I looked at each other. I've never been introduced to this one, but he might well have heard of me—I'd made enough of a pest of myself to his predecessor. Most likely he was only wondering what a fellow barbarian was doing in full Ivoran dress, attending a party of one of the Six Fam
ilies. Occasionally I wonder things like that myself.

  "Think anyone will get killed here tonight?" I asked Kylla. The nobility play some strange games among themselves.

  She got hold of a glass of something pink off a passing tray and took a sip. "It would be rude, at a party," she said.

  She turned then, and the contents of the glass went over the front of a young man trying to cross between her and the edge of one of the pools. "I'm so sorry! I beg your forgiveness, gracious—uh, noble sir." With a party like this one, it was better not to take any chances with your honorifics. "My clumsiness calls for a thousand years of penance—"

  Sometimes these apologies can take days. The young man—I saw now that he was no more than a boy, really, slender and light-haired for an Ivoran—bowed and raised a hand to cut her short. His mouth had quirked very slightly with irritation, more at the apology, I think, than the spill, which had only seemed to surprise him.

  "It's nothing," he said.

  "I'm afraid I've ruined your suit," said Kylla.

  "Ishin na' telleth," he said, I'm not about to care. Not with a shrug verging on rudeness, the way you hear it said every day in the streets, but a calm statement of fact. Then he bowed again, with great self-possession for one his age, I thought, and went off into the crowd.

  We watched him go. "Well!" said Kylla. Then she looked around, and her eyes narrowed. "Where's Lysander?"

  We'd lost Lysander and Ran.

  If they were anywhere near Eliana Porath, we were in big trouble. Kylla and I wandered through the garden for an hour, cadging drinks and eavesdropping, but they were nowhere to be found. I spotted another barbarian across one of the larger pools, a fair-skinned blond woman talking animatedly to two men who had "important" written all over them. One of them had to be somebody very high up in government, because although he wasn't gauche enough to wear the Blue Hat of Imperial Favor to a social occasion, he wore a large pin on his robe in the shape of a hat, just to let us know.

  They seemed to be arguing. Her hair was pulled back in a long Tellys-style braid, and underneath her open robe she wore snug-fitting Tellys pants. Although the Blue Hat held up his end of the argument, I saw that his eyes kept straying down toward those pants as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The woman was edging past middle-age, but with an undeniably trim figure. She looked away for a moment in pointed disgust with what someone was saying, and her eyes met mine.

  She frowned, put her hand on the Blue Hat's arm, and asked him something. He turned and looked across the pool toward me. He shrugged. I heard the word "Cormal-lon" drift over the water.

  Well, I suppose a lot of people had heard how Ran Cor-mallon had married a barbarian. It was nothing to get nervous about. Was it?

  "Kylla, who is that woman?"

  "What woman?"

  Just then the flute players stopped playing and three clear horn notes split the summer evening. The guests fell silent. In the center wing of the house, the door to the porch opened and six stout security guards appeared carrying a sedan chair, of ornate black wood. Atop the chair was an old woman in a shiny robe of royal purple. She looked pudgy but small, nearly as small as I am, dwarfed by the massive chair. Grandmother Porath, no doubt. The six sedan carriers, all in matched costume, carried her easily down the two porch steps into the garden. They let the chair to the grass with perfect coordination, where it sat like a throne in the clearing. In grandmother's wake came a girl of about eighteen, in a white robe with white satin slippers, her straight dark hair falling down her back. Two white puppies followed at her heels.

  I turned to see how Kylla was taking this. She was absorbed, too intent on the scene to notice me. Then I looked around the garden for Lysander's reaction, but he was still missing.

  The old woman gestured impatiently and Eliana—if that's who she was—came forward at once and handed her a blackwood cane carved at the top to match the sedan chair. Grandmother glanced down once, to make sure she would miss the puppies, then stamped the cane several times for our attention. It didn't make much noise on the ground, but she certainly did have our attention.

  "Dear friends," she said. "You give us joy by coming to share our Greenrose Eve. Our house has been quiet too long. We trust it may always be filled with the sounds of visitors, like you, who will ever be welcome." She spat in the direction of a flowerbush. Then she said, "As a token of our regard for you, further entertainment has been provided. Eliana!"

  The girl hesitated, looking genuinely uncomfortable. I supposed all hundred people jammed into the garden were staring at her.

  "Eliana!" said her grandmother again, in the voice of one who brooks no nonsense.

  Eliana stepped forward. Her cheeks were pink. It wasn't cosmetic; they'd been pale before. She raised her arms straight to the sky, her white robes falling around her. She was certainly graceful, no doubt about it.

  "I ask," she began.

  "Louder," snapped Grandmother.

  "I ask the blessing of good fortune on this gathering," she said, more loudly. "Wine for the thirsty, conversation for the wise, and entertainment for all."

  Grandmother thumped her cane again. And snowflakes started to fall from the sky! It took a moment to register with the guests, who probably, like me, thought it was confetti. Until the points of cold landed on our hands and faces and disappeared, melting. There was a stunned silence and then a roll of applause that filled the garden; snow had fallen on the capital maybe twice in the winters of the past century, and now it was high summer. Obviously the Por-aths had hired a sorcerer and promised him a fortune. You didn't see conspicuous display like this every day; it was the kind of thing the Six Families used to do forty or fifty years ago, before it went out of fashion.

  Grandmother looked smug. Eliana had retreated to the safety of the area behind the sedan chair. The old woman peered around and called, "Jusik! My son! Where's Jusik?"

  There was a ripple of activity among the people on the porch, and a few minutes later a man in his fifties rushed out, puffing, and presented himself to her. The First of Por-ath bowed over her hand, still out of breath.

  She said, annoyed, "Where have you been?"

  "Arranging the caterers, Mother."

  "You've been sampling the goodies while I'm out here working?"

  "I'm sorry, Mother. They had to be told where to stow the wine."

  "Hmm, I'm sure they did. Never around when I need you, Jusik. I want you to tell the musicians to play some real music. "Trampling the Moons," or "Cousins Greeting," not this silliness they play today. I want to see some dancing."

  Jusik Porath—shrewd businessman and tyrant to the rest of the family, or so I'd heard—looked around the garden uncertainly. "I don't think there's a lot of room for dancing, Mother."

  Not unless we all shrank to the size of mushrooms. Grandmother Porath said, "You told me there would be dancing!"

  Jusik's voice was lowered. "That's tomorrow, Mother. On the boat."

  Ah. Not everyone was invited on the boat, apparently. But Lysander, of course, had gotten us aboard. If he could have arranged it, I think Lysander would have had us ac-

  company him to the privy, he was that nervous about dealing with "the marriage thing," as he called it.

  "Well, have them play something anyway." At once Jusik Porath raised his arm and made a motion in the air, and the flute players started up again. If I hadn't been standing relatively nearby, I wouldn't have heard the rest. "And Eliana, I want you to mix. Let people see you. You've got nothing to be ashamed of."

  "Grandmother, I—"

  "Oh, pooh, child, I know you're nervous, but you'll get over it. You can make too big a thing of modesty, you know."

  "But you've always said—"

  "I know what I've always said, but listen to me now. See if you can find this Lysander Shikron and walk by him a few times. You're a beautiful girl, Eliana. Mind you don't approach him, now! That'd be too easy. You must never look like you want the same thing your husband wants,
girl, that's the key to success in a marriage."

  Eliana mumbled, "We're not married, yet, Grandmother."

  "No, and if we left it in the hands of your brother you might never be. Money's not enough to seal a wedding match, and he's a blockhead if he doesn't see it. For favorable terms, they've got to want what you've got. Where's Auntie Jace? She'll see you do it right." The old lady looked around, then jabbed her son with one elbow. "Get Auntie out here. She can go 'round with Eliana and keep her out of trouble."

  Jusik bowed and spoke to one of the servants, who ran inside. I turned to see if Kylla was anywhere near critical mass, but she seemed under control. As far as I could tell.

  A minute later a little, middle-aged, black-haired woman ran out. She wore a scarlet outerrobe and practically prostrated herself in the gathering snow at granny's feet. Going a touch far, I thought, but Grandmother didn't seem offended.

  The woman extended her arms straight out; she was holding something. "I've brought an umbrella for you, Grandmother," she said breathlessly.

  The old lady made a motion, and one of the sedan bearers took up the umbrella, opened it, and held it above Grandmother's head. It was a huge scarlet thing, and the man held it as though he were personally unaware of any snow.

  Fortunately it wasn't falling very heavily; but the garden was definitely colder, and what had fallen was sticking in patches on the grass. Like Eliana, I was wearing thin satin slippers, and I wondered if the Poraths had really thought through the consequences of their excursion into climate control.

  Grandmother said, "Auntie, take little Eli around to meet some of the guests, would you? I know I can count on you to see she makes the right impression."

  If Auntie bowed any further, her head would be in the snow. "Your confidence honors me," she said. Then she stood straight and added, in an entirely different voice, "Come along, Eli."

  "Auntie Jace, I—my feet are cold. Can I get a pair of boots first?"

  "What nonsense! Your feet would look enormous in boots. Is that the way you want people to remember you? Don't forget, 'It takes the endurance of a warrior on the inside—' "