Sharon Lee - Steve Miller - Liaden 1394 - Lord of the Dance

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It was snowing, of course.

The gentleman looked out the window as the groundcar moved quietly through the dark streets.

His streets.

And really, he said to himself irritably, you ought to be able to hit upon some affordable way

of lighting them.

"What are you thinking, Pat Pin?" His lady's voice was soft as the snow, her hand light on his

knee. And he was a boor, to ignore her most welcome presence in wor-ries over street lamps.

He leaned back in the seat, placed his hand over hers, and looked into her dark eyes.

"I was thinking how pretty the snow is," he murmured.

She laughed and he smiled as the car turned the cor-ner — and abruptly there was light, spilling

rich and yellow from all of the doors and windows of Audrey's whorehouse, warming the dark sidewalks

and spinning the snowflakes into gold.

"Boss. Ms. Natesa." Villy bowed with grace, if without nuance, and pulled the door wide. "You

honor our house."

Great gods. Pat Rin carefully did not look at his lady as he inclined his head.

"We are of course pleased to accept Ms. Audrey's in-vitation," he murmured. "It has been an age

since I have danced."

The boy smiled brilliantly. "We hoped you'd be pleased, sir." He pointed to the left, blessedly

returning to a more Terran mode. "You can leave your coats in the room, there, then join everybody in

the big parlor."

"'Thank you," Pat Rin said, and moved off as the bell chimed again, Natesa on his arm.

"Who," he murmured, for her ear alone, "do you suppose has been tutoring Villy in the Liaden

mode?" "Why shouldn't he be teaching himself?" she coun-tered, slanting a quick, subtle look into his

face. "He admires you greatly, master."

"Most assuredly he does," Pat Rin replied, with irony, and paused before the small room which

served as a public closet for the clients of Ms. Audrey's house. Natesa removed her hand from his arm

and turned, allowing him to slip the long fleece coat from her shoulders. The remains of snowflakes

glittered on the dark green fabric like a span-gle of tiny jewels. He shook it out and stepped into the

closet. The hooks and hangers were crowded with a variety of garments: oiled sweaters, thick woolen

shirts, scarred spaceleather jackets, and two or three evening cloaks in the Liaden style.

Pat Rin removed his own cloak and hung it carefully over Natesa's coat. Shaking out his lace, he

stepped back into the hallway, where his lady waited in her sun-yellow gown.

He paused, his heart suddenly constricted in his chest. Natesa's black eyebrows rose, just

slightly, and he moved a hand in response to the question she did not voice.

"You overwhelm me with your beauty," he said. She laughed softly and stepped forward to take

his arm again.

"And you overwhelm me with yours," she answered in her lightly accented High Liaden. "Come,

let us see if to-gether we may not overwhelm the world."

The doors between the public parlor and the visitors' lounge had been opened and tied back; the

furniture moved out of the public parlor and the serviceable beige rug rolled up, revealing a surprisingly

wide expanse of plas-tic tile in a deep, mostly unscarred brown. A refreshment table was placed along

the back wall, directly beneath--

Pat Rin blinked.

When not pressed into duty as a dance hall, the pub-lic parlor of Ms. Audrey's bordello

displayed certain ...works of art... as might perhaps serve to beguile the mind away from the cares of the

day and toward the mutual enjoyment of pleasure.

This evening, the walls had been--transformed.

The artwork was gone, or mayhap only hidden behind objects, which, had anyone dared

challenge Pat Rin to describe twelve items belonging to Korval that he least expected to find on public

display, he would certainly have placed within the top six.

Nursery rugs, they were--the design based upon a star map. Three rugs together formed the

whole of the map, the original of which he had himself seen, preserved in Korval's log books.

One rug had lain on the floor of the nursery at Jelaza Kazone. The second, in the schoolroom at

Trealla Fantrol. The third--the third had covered the floor in the small private parlor the boy Pat Rin had

shared with his foster-father, Luken bel'Tarda.

And yet on the wall directly across from him--the rug, the very rug, from Trealla Fantrol. And on

the wall to his right, the rug from Jelaza Kazone.

Carefully, Pat Rin turned his head, and--yes, there on the wall behind them was the rug from his

childhood, looking just as it always had, close-looped and unworn, its colors as bright as--

"Pat Rin?" Natesa murmured. "Is something amiss?" l

He shook himself, and turned his head to smile at her.

"Merely--unexpected, let us say.” He waved a lan-guorous hand. "What a crush, to be sure!"

This was not strictly the case. Still, the big parlor was comfortably crowded, the conversation

level somewhat louder than one might perhaps have expected at a similar gathering in Solcintra. Bosses

of several of the nearer terri-tories were present, including Penn Calhoon, as well as the Portmaster, and

a good mix of local merchants.

Across the room, white hair gleaming in the abun-dant light, his cousin Shan stood in deep

conversation with Narly Jempkins, chairman of the nascent Surebleak Mercan-tile Union.

"We arrive among the last, as suits our station," Natesa said softly, which bait he ignored in favor

of inclin-ing his head to their hostess, who was approaching in a rus-tle of synthsilk, her pale hair

intricately dressed, and an easy smile on her face.

"Boss. Natesa. I'm real glad you could come."

"Audrey." Natesa smiled and extended a hand, which the older woman clasped between both of

hers. "Winter has been too long," Natesa said. "How clever of you to think of a dance!"

Audrey laughed. "Wish I could say it was all my idea! Miri was the one put the seed in my head,

if you want the truth. Said she had too much energy and no place to spend it, which I'll say between the

three of us ain't the usual com-plaint of new-birthed mothers."

"Miri is an example to us all," Pat Rin murmured, which pleasantry Audrey greeted with another

laugh. "Ain't she just--and your brother's another one! When I invite a man to a dance and I don't

expect him to bring his keyboard and set up with the band. That's just what he's done, though--take a

look!" She pointed down the room, where was collected a fiddle, a guitar, a drum set, a portable

omnichora — and several musicians wearing what passed for stage finery on Surebleak, clustered about

a slender man in a ruffled white shirt and formal slacks that would have been unexceptional at any evening

gather in Solcintra.

It had been ...disconcerting... to find that Audrey, with the rest of Pat Rin's acquaintance on

Surebleak, as-sumed that Val Con, his cousin and his Delm, was in fact his younger brother, brought in

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Sharon Lee - Steve Miller - Liaden 1394 - Lord of the Dance

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