Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe

“Thank you,” she said austerely. “A glass of wine would be most welcome.”

The two ladies moved off toward the refreshment table as the rest of the guests shook themselves and returned to interrupted conversations.

Pat Rin remembered to breathe.

“See?” Miri gave his hand a companionable squeeze before releasing him, and sending another grin up into his face. “Piece o’cake.”

“As an author of the joke you might well say so,” he replied, with feeling. “But consider how it might seem to those who had no—

“Indeed, it was ill-done of us,” Val Con murmured, slipping his arm away. “We had not taken into account that your duty would place you between the two ladies.”

Pat Rin turned to stare, and Val Con inclined his head, for all the worlds like a proper Liaden, and murmured the phrase in high Liaden—”Forgive us, cousin. We do not intend to distress you, but to attain clarity.”

Sighing, Pat Rin also inclined his head, “It is forgotten,” rising reflexively to his lips.

“Next time, we’ll send you a clue ahead of time,” Miri said.

He eyed her. “Must there be a next time?”

“Bound to be,” she answered, not without a certain amount of sympathy. Her eyes moved, tracking something beyond his shoulder.

“Band’s settin’ up,” she said to Val Con.

“Ah,” he returned, and lifted an eyebrow “Cousin, I am wanted at my ‘chora.”

“By all means, go,” Pat Rin told him. “Perhaps Ms. Audrey will induce my mother to stand up with Andy Mack.”

The band played surprisingly well, and in a rather wider range than Pat Rin had expected, fiddle and guitar at the fore, Val Con’s omnichora weaving a light, almost insubstantial, background.

At Ms. Audrey’s insistence, he and Natesa had stood up for the first dance—a lively circle dance not dissimilar to the nescolantz, which had been a staple at young people’s balls when he had been considerably younger. He spied Ms. Audrey, with Lady Kareen and Luken bel’Tarda at her side, observing the pattern of the dance from the edge of the rug. Further on, Clonak ter’Meulen was in animated conversation with Uncle Daav and Cheever McFarland.

At the end of the first dance, he relinquished Natesa to Priscilla with a bow, and started for the refreshment table. He’d scarcely gone three steps before his hand was caught.

“Come,” said his cousin Nova. “I claim you for the next dance!”

“Ah, do you?” He laughed, and allowed himself to be led back onto the floor. “Then let us hope the band pities me and produces a less spirited number!”

Alas, his wish had not reached the ears of the band leader, for the next dance was something akin to a jig, requiring intricate footwork which he learned from step to step by the simple expedient of observing Nova and reproducing her movement.

He’d done the same thing many times in the past, of course—a person of melant’i would naturally take care to acquire the movements of a variety of dances, so that he might do his proper duty as a guest; however, no one but a scholar of the form could hope to know the intricacies of all possible dances. A quick eye and a flair for mimicry were therefore skills that a young person who wished to move without offense through Solcintra’s party season would do well to acquire.

Having survived the jig unbloodied, Pat Rin bowed to his fair partner, handed her off to his Uncle Daav, and turned, setting his sights on a glass of wine and perhaps more discussion of solar arrays with Andy Mack, who he could see speaking with Clonak to the left of the refreshment table.

This time, he was claimed by a smiling Villy who led him back out onto the floor with something very like a skip in his step. At least, Pat Rin thought, the gods were at last kind: It was a square dance, with he and Villy facing off as sides one and two, with Shan and Priscilla taking up the third side and the fourth.

The slower pace was more than balanced by a complex, cumulative pattern of exchanges with one’s partner, thus: step forward, touch right hands, step back/step forward, touch right hands, then left, step back—and so on, until the tune turned on itself and one began to subtract a gesture at the exchange, and each dancer was at last back in their place, having regained all that had been given.

The music stopped the instant the second partner pair fell back into place. There was a moment of tension, as if the dancers awaited another phrase from the musicians—then laughter, and light applause. Their little square evaporated, Pat Rin moving with determination toward the refreshment table, Shan and Priscilla amiably keeping pace. He was sincerely thirsty now, and thinking in terms of a cool glass of juice.

“Do you find the party agreeable?” he asked Priscilla.

“Perfectly agreeable,” she said, with a seriousness that was belied by the glimmer of a smile in her eyes. “Ms. Audrey said that she meant to host the dance of the winter.”

“Which we thought would be no great challenge.” Shan continued. “There being so few dances held in the winter. Or the summer. Or the spring, come to belabor it.”

Pat Rin considered him. “If you find a lack, cousin, you might host a ball or two yourself.”

“Well, I might,” Shan allowed. “If it weren’t for the fact that the Delm has some foolish notion in his head about bringing Surebleak up to a midtier spaceport, with a timetable of roughly right now. Perhaps he’s spoken to you on the subject?”

“He has,” Pat Rin said, “and I must say that the Delm and I are as one on the matter.”

“Well, then, what choice have I—a mere master trader!—commanded as I am by both the Delm of Korval and the Boss of Surebleak? Duty, as always, must bow before pleasure, and so it is that tomorrow I regretfully shake the snow of Surebleak from my boots and betake myself to Terran Trade Commission headquarters, there to enlist their aid in the Delm’s necessity. There will be no dances held at yos’Galan’ shouse—had we a house, which of course, we don’t—until my task is done. Unless, Priscilla, you would care to host a ball or six while I’m gone?”

“I thought I’d go with you, instead,” his lifemate replied in her calm deep voice. “To keep you and Padi out of trouble.”

This was news. Pat Rin looked up. “Your heir accompanies you on this mission?”

Shan grinned, silver eyes glinting. “Now, pity me, truly. Bearding the Terran Guild is as nothing when measured against the prospect of introducing one’s daughter to the intricacies—not to say the politics—of trade.”

They had reached the refreshment table. Pat Rin poured wine for the two of them, and a glass of cider for himself, then inclined his head as Shan moved off to answer a hail from Portmaster Liu—and again a moment later as Priscilla was called over to join Thera Calhoon, Penn’s lady wife.

Momentarily alone, Pat Rin sighed, had another sip of cider, and closed his eyes. Now that he had extricated himself from dancing, the band was—of course!—playing smooth and undemanding strolling music, the voice of the omnichora somewhat stronger than it had been previously.

Opening his eyes, Pat Rin looked out over the crowded dance floor. Uncle Daav was dancing with Natesa, Nova with Clonak ter’Meulen, and Villy with Etienne Borden. He sipped more cider and reminded himself that it was a boon to be warm in the depths of Surebleak’s winter.

“Hey, there, Boss.” Miri’s cheerful voice interrupted his reverie. “Feeling OK?”

He considered her gravely, one eyebrow up, which only widened her grin.

“You look like Daav when you do that,” she said, reaching around him for the cider bottle.