The Agent Gambit (50 page)

"Pretty," Cory said, grinning at her.

Meri blinked incomprehension. "Pretty?"

He took the basket and put it on the counter, conducted her with ceremony to the table, and gestured to the flowers with a flourish. "Flowers are pretty," he said solemnly.

Meri bowed slightly to the sweelims. "Pretty flowers."

Hand under her elbow, Cory guided her back to the sink, where he held up the pink-and-cream cup. "The cup is
very
pretty."

She lifted a slender finger and ran it lightly down the glazed surface.
"Very
pretty."

Setting the cup down, he slid his arm around her waist and turned her to face the dog, which was curled up and yawning on the rug.

"Borril," he said, affecting to speak into her ear but talking loudly enough for Zhena Trelu to hear, "is
not
pretty."

Meri laughed.

Cory hugged her, then looked over her head at Zhena Trelu, who thought she knew what was coming.

"Miri is pretty."

Meri returned the hug and stepped back, raising a hand to his scarred cheek.
"Very
pretty, you," she said, and then she was at the pantry, tucking eggs away as Cory drifted back to the stove and poured tea.

Meri brought the cups to the table, but paused at the cupboard and glanced over her shoulder. "Zhena Trelu? You eat? Good eggs."

Zhena Trelu stopped on the edge of refusal. They might have a point, at that. Shopping was pretty tiring; it might be best to start off with a little something in the stomach.

"I'll have just a bit," she said, managing a sour smile. "Thank you very much."

Three plates were delivered to Cory at the stove. Meri pulled bread, jam, and butter from various keepsafes, brought them to the table, and returned flicker-quick-or so it seemed to the woman watching-with silverware and napkins. Pulling the bread to her, she cut off three quick, even slices and handed one to Zhena Trelu.

Cory and the plates arrived. He gave Zhena Trelu hers, put Meri's down at her place, and slid into his own seat. Accepting a piece of bread, he began to eat.

In a moment Meri had joined him, eating with every evidence of enjoyment.

Zhena Trelu picked up her fork and considered her plate. The eggs did not look like proper eggs at all-all scrambled up and smelling of cheese and spices. Gingerly, she took a smidgen and tasted it.

Odd, but not awful. She had another smidgen, and then a larger one-and suddenly discovered that her plate was empty.

A deep sigh brought her attention to Meri, who was sitting back in her chair, grinning, teacup cradled in her hands.

"Thank you," she said to Cory. "
Very
good eggs."

Zhena Trelu added her approval. "Yes, thank you, Cory. You're a good cook." A thought struck her. "Is that what you used to do to make money at home?"

There was a pause during which Cory leisurely finished his bread and butter and washed it down with a swallow of tea. Zhena Trelu had begun to despair of an answer when he tipped his head.

"I eat. I cook."

That was almost as bad as no answer, when she thought about it. But it did raise another point that had better get firmly settled before Athna Brigsbee started bullying and terrifying them with her questions. "Cory, where are you from?"

He rested his eyes on hers. "Home."

Zhena Trelu sighed. "Yes, Cory. But where
is
home?"

He gestured, waving a slender hand toward the east and little upward-the direction of Fornem's Gap.

Zhena Trelu sighed again. "All right, Cory, we'll do it this way. If someone asks you where you're from, you tell them 'Porlint.' We don't get many refugees up this way, but stranger things have happened, especially if you got yourselves turned around somehow and came through the gap."

Cory finished his tea and glanced at his wife. "Home is Porlint," he told her, and pointed a severe forefinger. "Where are you from?"

Meri blinked. "Porlint," she said meekly, then grinned.
"Cory."

"Bad-tempered brat," he responded, but she only laughed and got up to clear the table.

The truck started up at the first hint from starter switch and key. Zhena Trelu nodded to herself in satisfaction and leaned across to open the passenger's door. Thin as the two of them were, she figured that they would all three be able to fit on the single bench seat.

The door swung wide, and Cory pulled himself into the cab. The girl followed immediately, standing poised on the ledge, gray eyes wary.

"If she's gotta move her arms to drive this thing, maybe you better not sit so close," she said seriously to Val Con. "If you don't mind, I can sit on your lap or something-give her room to operate." She grinned. "Thing looks as unsafe as this does, I don't wanna do anything 'bout adding to the other side's odds."

"You may be right," he murmured, taking note of various levers and foot pedals. "It is never wise to crowd the pilot." He shifted closer to the door, and Miri sat on his lap, settling sweetly in.

"No!" Zhena Trelu snapped.

Startled, Miri looked down into Val Con's eyes. "Wrongo, boss.
Now
what, do you think?"

"We shall attempt to ascertain." He turned his attention to the frowning old woman. "No?" he repeated in Benish. "Bad?"

Zhena Trelu stopped herself from making the first remark that occurred to her and reminded herself that they were foreigners, with wind-knew-what notions. For that matter, there had been her own son's zhena-stormy-tempered and wild to a fault, yet biddable enough with Granic and pathetically eager to do her best for him.

She sighed. "It's
good
that you children love each other. Very pretty. It's good to touch each other. But in town some people might not understand, if they saw Meri sitting there like a-well, never mind. When you're at home, you can touch each other and hug and that's
fine.
But when you're out with people-in town-you have to be
respectable."
She paused, wondering how much of her lecture was making sense to either of them. One of Cory's eyebrows was out of alignment with the other, but his eyes were serious on her face. Meri was watching her, too, the line of a frown just visible between her brows.

"Refugees already have a bad name," Zhena Trelu continued. "You don't want people in town maybe not hiring you when you go to get a job, because they think you don't know how to behave, now do you? Especially you, Cory: a zamir as trusted and responsible as you are-well, you have to always be sure to bring honor to your zhena, and not let her do things that will make people think poorly of her.

"So, Meri, you get up now and let Cory slide over here next to me . . .All right; sit down, Meri, and close the door."

Once everyone was settled to her satisfaction, she put the truck in gear and turned her full attention to driving.

Miri sighed and leaned carefully back into the seat-and discovered Val Con's arm already there. She nestled closer to his side, and the arm curved more tightly around her waist.

"Sneak," she muttered.

"But such a
nice
sneak. Did you receive the impression that we are rude, yet not fatally so? If there is need, perhaps we could yet hold each other's hand."

Miri raised her eyebrows. "In case I get scared, you mean."

"Or I."

She snorted.

Val Con looked at her. "What an extraordinary person I am," he murmured. "Never afraid, or lonely, or in need of laughter. Or a touch. I am quite overcome by my superiority."

She winced at the bitter note underlying the smooth voice, at the trouble shadowing his bright green eyes, and she recalled the urgency of his tears. Carefully she reached down to squeeze his fingers and summoned up a disrespectful grin.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be all that impressed. First of all, you gotta remember how hard it is to get a straight story out of you. Person could die of old age before she figures out the right question. You
manage
people-quiet about it-just don't treat 'no' like an answer. And the gods help whoever's there, you ever let that temper of yours off the leash." She gave him a thoughtful look. "Kinda like to be around to take notes, though-you sure got a way with words. Be useful, I ever wanna go back into the sergeant business."

He laughed, his arm tightening around her briefly. "I am chastised."

Then the truck swung uncertainly into a wider way, rattled over metal tracks, and raggedly negotiated a curve, coming upon an amazing structure: an open house in the middle of the road!

"A wooden tunnel?" Miri demanded.

"Hush," Val Con said.

And like Scout and soldier they watched the rest of the way to town, taking careful note of distance, direction, and terrain.

VANDAR:
Gylles

Brillit's Emporium
stood two stories tall in the very center of town, directly across from the many-windowed tower and just up the street from the little blue building. It faced an oval of sere vegetation set in the middle of the road-the so-called town green.

Zhena Trelu herded her charges across the street and up the steps to Brillit's front door, muttering under her breath as she saw Mrythis Wibecker come out of the glazing shop and stare at them. In less than ten breaths it would be all over town that Estra Trelu was here with her pet refugees. If there was one gossip in Gylles worse than Athna Brigsbee . . .

Corvill and Meri hesitated on the threshold, and Zhena Trelu gave each a firm push in the small of the back, propelling them into the dim, sawdusty interior.

"Ever look forward to a day," Miri murmured to Val Con, "when you won't get shoved around?"

Val Con's shoulders jerked, but he managed not to laugh.

Zhena Trelu took the lead, quick-marching them down aisles lined with gizmos and tantalizing gadgets which her charges would have liked to examine in more detail, to the foot of a wide stairway. She peered carefully in both directions before beginning the ascent, for all the worlds like a Merc expecting to see enemies bursting from the brush on either side.

Nothing of the sort happened, however, and she waved them ahead of her. Obeying the gesture, they climbed the stairs and waited while she made her more laborious way up and stood for a moment to catch her breath.

"All right, children; here we are. We'll get Cory settled first." And she marched off to the right, the pair of them trailing behind.

"She likes you best," Miri told her partner.

"Untrue," he returned. "She merely wishes to have me out of the way in order to spend more time with you."

"Estra! It's been a time, hasn't it? How are you?" The speaker was a plump, balding man a little taller than Zhena Trelu. He was wearing a gray jacket to match his gray trousers and a white shirt and a dark-blue neck-string. He was standing at the mouth of an aisle lined with racks of clothes.

Miri blinked. Clothes? And no valet in sight. How was one supposed to figure out which of all those clothes was the correct fit? Unless that was what that bald guy did. Gods, she thought. What a job.

Zhena Trelu was talking about them. "Porlum, this is Cory. Him and his zhena are doing some work around the place for me, and it looks like they'll be staying the winter. Thought it was high time for them to be having proper work clothes."

Porlum considered the man in the dark leather slacks and vest. A little under average height, but nothing to be unduly concerned with. The slenderness of his build might be more of a problem. Still, work clothes? He smiled at the smaller man, who did not return the courtesy, and nodded to Zhena Trelu. "I'm certain we'll come up with something suitable. Good, warm shirts and durable pants, of course. How many? And will you want him to have a set of-ah, dress clothes, also?"

Zhena Trelu frowned. "Three, four shirts, I think; couple of work pants-and a jacket, too, Porlum. Shoes . . ." She glanced at the high black boots on Cory's feet and sighed. "Work boots. I think we'll let the dress clothes go this time."

"As you say, Estra," the man agreed. "If zamir will come this way?"

"You go with Porlum, Cory," the old woman instructed. "He'll make sure you get the right things. Meri and I will meet you back here when we've gotten some things for her." She clamped her fingers around the girl's wrist and pulled her along.

Miri threw a glance over her shoulder in time to see Val Con disappearing down a clothes-lined aisle. As she watched, he ducked back to the end and waved, vanishing again immediately.

Grinning, Miri let herself be propelled farther into the store, to a place lined with clothes different from the clothes displayed in the area where they had left Val Con. A cadaverous woman with unlikely black hair, unlikelier red cheeks, and a thin, dissatisfied mouth looked at Miri, and her mouth turned sharply downward. She made no attempt to intercept Zhena Trelu, who peered about until Miri yanked on her sleeve and pointed.

"There you are, Salissa," Zhena Trelu said with a distinct lack of warmth. "This is Meri. She's been helping me out on the farm, and it's time she was getting some proper work clothes."

"I should think so!" Salissa sniffed. She turned to Miri. "Where did you come up with those-things-you're wearing? You look perfectly outlandish."

"Of course she looks outlandish," Zhena Trelu snapped. "She's a foreigner!
I
know she needs clothes-that's why we're here! Good, warm clothes, Salissa; the kind she can work in. And don't bother trying to talk to her much. She can't understand more than one word in ten."

She turned to Miri. "Meri, you go with Salissa, now. She'll find you some nice, warm clothes to work in. I'm going to buy some things for myself, and then I'll come back for you and we'll go find Cory."

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Miri watched the old woman walk away, then squared her shoulders and turned around to glare at Salissa.

* * *

The small man
had a mind of his own. He insisted on being shown the different grades of work shirts, subjecting each to close inspection, and finally deciding on the soft wool-and-julam blend-by far the warmest and most durable, in Porlum's opinion. Not that it was solicited.