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  Guilt-Edged Ivory by Doris Egan

  Chapter 1

  Assassinations are so inconvenient.

  It wasn't as though there weren't plenty of other things to occupy my attention at the time. Another summer in the capital, and I was supervising a good cleaning out of the house there, wishing we could spring for importing a Tellys dustcatcher (just an idle wish—the hole it would put in the House budget would never be worth it). My tinaje healing skills were rusty, so I'd signed on to an apprenticeship with a big-name tinaje artist who had offices in the Imperial Dance Academy. And I was taking some trouble to make a clandestine appointment at a Tellys medical clinic (we'll get back to this one later).

  And to top it all off, my sister-in-law Kylla was behaving very strangely.

  She swept in one afternoon when we were rolling up the carpets from the second floor and taking them down to the courtyard to be beaten. There were no clients in the house, of course, since the place was a mess; and my dear husband had taken himself as far away from manual labor as he could, remembering a sudden appointment in Braece. Danger means nothing to Ran when weighed against duty, but the prospect of actual physical work sends him scuttling like a rabbit caught on a landing pad.

  Kylla invaded this prosaic scene like some exotic bird of paradise, all bangles and gold facepaint. Her black hair was caught back in a velvet band rimmed with tiny metal dangles that made a sound like distant bells; her dark eyes were rimmed with midnight blue, clear as the borders of a new map. Since her marriage she'd taken full advantage of the relaxed dress code for respectably wedded women, relaxing it to the point where her grandmother probably would have had a heart attack if she'd seen her grandchild wandering around in public this way. People as gorgeous as Kylla can get away with a lot, though.

  "Where's Ran?" she said to me, without preamble. Her robes swished over the head of the stairs.

  "Braece," I said.

  She looked around at the servants carrying down the huge carpet from the upper office, the tables pushed against the walls, the clouds of dustmotes, and nodded as though she understood. The sleeves of my worst robe were tied back, and I wiped the sweat from my brow with a bare arm, aware that I looked every bit as messy as my surroundings. "The pillows are all outside," I said apologetically.

  "I'll stand," she replied. There was a jingling sound behind her, and her four-year-old daughter Shez peeked around, the bracelets on her arms slipping.

  "I want to sit," said Shez.

  Kylla sighed, lifted her, and deposited her atop the carved blackwood table against the wall. Shez sat regally and surveyed her domain from this new height.

  "What's wrong?" I said. Kylla was not usually this preoccupied, or this morose-looking.

  She started to pace. "Has Lysander called here?"

  "Lysander? Why would he call here? I mean, he's always welcome—" Ran and I got along well enough with Kylla's husband, but we only tended to see him when they were together. Ran was still close to his sister, but I suspected that Lysander was accepted mostly on the grounds that he'd married Kylla.

  "He might have called Ran on the Net," she said.

  "If he did, Ran hasn't mentioned it. What's going on?"

  Just then Shez started to chant, "I want to see them beat the rugs! I want to see them beat the rugs! I want—"

  Kylla said, "Please, darling, mother has a headache."

  Mother has a headache? Kylla had the constitution of a workhorse, and nothing in the universe fazed her.

  "Good gods, Kylla."

  "Why? What did I say?" She looked distracted.

  "What is it, what's the matter?"

  "Why?" She was suddenly alarmed. "Do I look bad?"

  "Do you look b— You are a glorious vision of sunrise, as always, but you are driving me crazy. You look worried, is what you look. Do you want to tell me what the problem is, or do you want me to harass you with calls every hour until you crack?"

  She smiled suddenly and patted my hand, still encrusted with dirt. "I'm so glad you married Ran."

  It was out of left field but warming, typically Kylla; not every barbarian who marries into a good Ivoran family can expect the kind of sweetness she's shown me from the beginning. You see why nobody can stay mad at her? However— "You're off the point, Kylla."

  She nodded but didn't seem disposed to go any further.

  "I want to see them beat the rugs! I want to see them beat the—"

  I hauled Shez down from her perch, took her to the head of the stairs, and gave her to the housekeeper who'd come out from Cormallon to help us. "She wants to see them beat the rugs," I explained.

  The housekeeper took her hand and led her away. I returned to Kylla. "Speak," I said.

  "I thought Lysander might have called Ran for advice."

  "What sort of advice?" Lord, this was like pulling nails from stone.

  She took a deep breath. "The council wants him to get married again."

  I blinked. "Whoa! The Shikron family council?" She nodded. "Wants him to divorce you?" She shook her head. "Wants him to take a junior wife?"

  She burst into tears. "They, want, him… to take a new senior wife, and make me a junior!"

  Good heavens. I put my arms around her, not easy considering I only come up to her shoulder. "Sweetheart, that can't be. You were married first, you'll always have seniority rights."

  "Not if… not if she outranks me."

  "How can she outrank you if you were married first?"

  "They want him to marry Eliana Porath!"

  The Poraths were one of the six noble families. They outranked everybody.

  I said, "I thought it wasn't customary to take any extra wives until middle age. Lysander's still in his twenties."

  "But the council wants the connection, and the Poraths want the money."

  "Oh." Lysander's family was rolling in it, from every-

  thing I'd heard. I guessed the Poraths weren't doing so well. My mouth hardened. And for this they were going to screw up three people's lives.

  I said, "They can't force Lysander to marry, can they? He's First of Shikron."

  "Lysander says they can make his life a living hell. But he also says that Eliana Porath has a face like a mud pudding, which I know isn't true. I went to school with her cousin."

  "Oh, come on now. I'm sure he doesn't want this marriage any more than you do. He worships the ground you walk on, Kylla, everybody knows it." This last part at least was true.

  Teartracks ran through the gold swirl on her cheeks. "I'm getting old," she said. "I'm losing my looks."

  For the love of— "For heaven's sake, Kylla, you're twenty-five standard. You're a year younger than me! If there's a wrinkle anyplace on your body, point it out to me. I'll give you a hundred in gold for it."

  She sniffed. "I think my fanny's falling."

  "My fanny fell when I was twelve. At this point we'd need a hoist to— I fail to see why that's amusing, gracious lady Kylla." She'd smiled behind the tears. "Say, Ky, why don't we see what Ran's got stored in the way of Ducort wine?"

  "It's the middle of the day."

  I made a rude noise with my tongue that I'd learned from a bunch of outlaws in the Northwest Sector. "Better yet—let's go to the Lantern Gardens and see what they've got on their list of new drinks. We'll stay for the matinee and watch the naked fioorshow."

  She laughed. "Do you know something? I've never had the nerve to actually stay for the show."

  "You amaze me. Wait, I'll check on Shez." I went into the other room and looked down through the back window to the courtyard. Lines were strung from one side of the house to the other, cri
sscrossing among the leaves of the coyu tree. A fortune in Andulsine carpets hung in a thousand brightly colored threads. Six men and women stood there beating (carefully) and Shez stood on the cobbles beside them, whacking away with enthusiasm. "Wham!" I heard her voice float up from below. "Wham! Zam! Ham! Tarn!" Her face glowed.

  "She's busy," I assured Kylla, returning. "I think we can safely get away for an hour."

  "She won't be a problem to anybody?"

  "Oh, they'll find things for her to do. There's still the floor cleaning, and the unrolling of the clean rugs, and hauling down the tapestries…" I grinned wickedly. "All that domestic stuff she probably never sees at home."

  Kylla laughed. I was glad to see it. If you've never met her before, let me assure you that Kylla is a tower of strength as a rule. / usually go to her for comfort. This junior wife stuff must really have gotten to her, I thought.

  But she must have been pulling herself together, because as we descended the stairs she said, "So how are things going in the offspring department for you and Ran?"

  I groaned. "Gods, Kylla, you've only just stopped bugging me about the wedding."

  "That was a full year ago. —So how is it going?"

  We barged out the front door, into the summer sunlight, and I signaled for a wagon-cab.

  It was midway through the evening, just edging into darkness, the trees outside blending into shadows and the heat finally lifting a notch, when Ran entered the house. He entered tentatively, glancing around the downstairs parlor.

  I said, "The floors are all clean and the rugs are back in place. It's safe to come in."

  He nearly jumped a foot. I put down my book, and stood up from the divan behind the shelves where I'd been reading.

  "Uh, Theodora. I thought you might have gone out." Imagine a male version of Kylla, with shorter hair and without the facepaint. When I got next to him, I could smell the expensive perfume that he bought in an exclusive shop three streets away. When I got next to him, he kissed me. He put some extra effort into it, as well he might under the circumstances. Ran is no fool.

  Once I could breathe normally, I said, "How was Braece?"

  "Oh, much the same. Any new client appointments while I was gone?" he asked, changing the subject instantly.

  Well, if I'd wanted a furniture mover I would have married one. I let it go. "As a matter of fact, there were. Two Net messages left while I was out with Kylla today."

  "Kylla was here?"

  "Wait, you'll like this. One of the messages was from the gracious sir Kempler Taydo. He'd like an interview tomorrow, with a, quote, 'view to possible employment of your services,' unquote."

  Ran looked amused. "Taydo of the Department of Sanitation? Is this the same Taydo we were asked to assassinate three days ago?"

  "The very." I put my arms around his waist."Summer silliness."

  "I'll say. Three groups of vultures circling over the same piece of budget. And with the Imperial Auditor looking on, the first one to move will be the first one executed, once the dust settles."

  "I swear, Ran, I don't know how anything official ever gets done on this planet." We walked back to the divan. "Are you hungry? I saved a bowl of grapes and some seed cake."

  "That's very nice of you, considering I—considering how busy I was in Braece."

  I started toward the larder, then turned. "What is it about this summer, anyway? This is the fourth assassination we've been offered."

  "And every single one of them too hot to touch. Never mind, we'll get a good commission soon."

  "That's not what I mean. Don't people come to you for anything else any more?"

  "Sweetheart, people rarely ask a sorcerer to do nice things. They rarely ask trial lawyers to do nice things. They rarely ask soldiers to do nice th—"

  "I know what you're saying. Hazards of the profession. But whatever happened to love potions and luck spells? Why don't we get a nice newly wed couple asking for the blessing of random chance on their first year?"

  Ran lay back on the divan and put his hands behind his head. "Is it nice to confuse someone into thinking they're in love with you? As for the newly wedded couple, it's a well-known law of magic that luck can only be bunched in one place by taking it away from someplace else. Practically all sorcery is at somebody else's expense."

  "Then why do it?"

  He said simply, "I was brought up to do it." Then he added, "And I'm very good at it." He was, too, the top of his profession. Ran doesn't make idle statements.

  I sighed and went down the hall to the larder. His voice called after me. "And it brings in money for our House."

  "All right, all right."

  He said something else while I was cutting the seed cake, but I missed it. I went back inside with the plate and handed him a large glass of water, which he drained at once. It's a long ride from Braece. "What did you say?"

  He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his robe. "I said, how's Kylla? I didn't know she was coming over today."

  I sat down beside him. "Oh, Ran, I think you should talk to her. She's upset."

  He put down the bowl of grapes. "What's the matter?"

  I told him about Lysander's wedding options.

  "No sister of mine—nobody from the first branch of Cormallon—is going to be anybody's junior wife."

  I nodded, unsurprised. "Kylla said you would say that."

  "I'm going to call Lysander right now—" He got up, took a few steps, then stopped, as rationality took over from the sting of what he would consider an insult. "No. No, I'd better find out what kind of pressure he's under, and all the details. Yelling at him won't get us anywhere."

  "You want to run an investigation?"

  "I hate to take the time. If they're really pressing him— I'll call him, courteously, and ask him, courteously, if he'd like to discuss the matter. How do I look? Do I look upset?"

  "You look courteous."

  "Good." He headed for the Net terminal in the downstairs office, and I followed. I settled myself in the stuffed chair in the corner—one of six in our house Ran had had made just for me—so that Lysander could see me when he came on. Family allies use the visual circuit as good manners, and manners required me to match them by not hiding the fact I was listening.

  The call found him in the Shikron office building, I recog-

  nized the surroundings. Why was Lysander keeping such late hours?

  "Hello, Ran. Hello, Theodora." He looked tired. "Can I help you with something?"

  He could be forgiven the phrasing; we'd never gone out of our way to call him, individually. If it were a social occasion, we would have left a message with Kylla at their house on the canal.

  "Lysander, we're sorry to disturb you, we didn't realize you were at work. Uh, Kylla came by today… Theodora says she was a little upset…"

  He nodded, like a man receiving a sentence. "It was about Eliana Porath, wasn't it?"

  "Yes," said Ran in a neutral voice. "We were hoping you could tell us more about what's going on."

  Lysander let out a long breath. "Do you know why I'm still at work? I'm avoiding my relatives. I've got a flag on for every Shikron caller, telling them I'm busy handling an import crisis." He opened a drawer, pulled out a half-empty bottle of wine, and set it firmly on the table beside him.

  "Imported Ducort," noted Ran.

  Lysander nodded.

  Ran said, still neutrally, "Do you want to talk about it?"

  Lysander ran a hand through his dark hair, cut in fashionable capital mode, and opened his blue embroidered outer robe, now full of wrinkles. I'd always thought of him as a nice fellow, but rather forgettable; Kylla, however, had been in love with him for years. She'd succeeded in marrying for love alone in a world where that was rare. Perhaps more impressive, I understood that she'd engineered an affair with him on Cormallon territory back when her grandmother was still alive, a feat of planning and sheer nerve that wartime generals would be lucky to match.

  He said, "It's politics, of course."<
br />
  "Of course."

  "Kylla won't believe that. I haven't even met Eüana Porath. I've been negotiating with her brother Kade—"

  "You've been negotiating?" Ran's voice was sharp.

  "Talking. I should have said talking. To keep them satisfied and the council off my back. Ran, I am in kanz so deep—"

  His voice cracked with stress, and he covered it with an obviously false throat clearing. Ran said, more gently, "My brother, I'll be happy to help you any way I can, but you have to make it clear to me: You really don't want this wedding to go through? You'll pass up an alliance with a noble family?"

  Lysander threw a paranoid glance around his empty office and stepped nearer to the Net. "Are you joking? If this goes through, Kylla will torture me for the rest of my life."

  Ran and I looked at each other. There was some truth to this.

  I spoke up. "Where do things stand now?" Ran was doing pretty well with this man-to-man stuff, but I wanted a practical view of what we were up against.

  Lysander said distractedly, "The Poraths are giving a house party on Greenrose Eve. Supposedly it's a holiday celebration, but considering they haven't given a party in about ten years, it's got to be so that I can get a look at Eliana without anybody's honor being officially at stake. That doesn't meant they won't take it personally when I turn her down," he added in a lifeless tone.

  I said, "They're pushing this ahead pretty quickly, aren't they? That's just four days away."

  "I understand their treasury's practically empty. —Don't hint about that to anyone, though! I'm not supposed to know it!"

  "Lysander, of course not." I allowed the tiniest note of offense to creep into my tone. He was under a lot of pressure, but there was no reason to treat me like a typical barbarian when it comes to House secrets.

  "I beg your pardon. —Wait! Ran, I can get you both invitations! You can get the lay of the land…"

  Ran was shaking his head, looking alarmed. "Ah, I don't think that's a good idea—" He hated formal House affairs with a passion, particularly where the nobility were involved. Born into the second layer of aristocracy, he nevertheless regarded the Six Families the way everyone on Ivory did who was outside them: with a mixture of respect, distrust, and a basic knowledge that they were all out of their minds.