CHAPTER TWO
Audrey’s House of Joy
Blair Road
Surebleak
“This hallway!” the gentleman declared. “This hallway cries out for Queterian carpet!”
It was a handsome hallway, at the moment made more handsome by the rich, rare sunlight flowing in from the mid-hall window. The highly-polished plastic floor positively glowed under the suasions of the sun; the pale pink walls were as rosy as love’s first blush.
The gentleman’s companion, some Standard years past her first, and even her fifth, love, laughed fondly down at him, and shook her bright head.
“You think I didn’t look at them catalogs you brought me?”
“Of course, you looked at them. Given your final order, I would go so far as to say that you had studied them thoroughly.”
The gentleman smiled. The sunlight was less kind to him than to the floor and walls; it struck true silver from his hair and wantonly traced the fine lines about his eyes and mouth. The lady dyed her hair, so the sun got nothing but false gold there, and had its revenge among the lines of her face.
It was an interesting face, round-cheeked and pale; the shrewd eyes a pure blue, the chin truculent, and the mouth a little hard. The gentleman’s eyes were kinder, and grey; his chin decided; his mouth firm and sweet. Together, they made a pleasant picture, there in the sunlight: she the taller; he the slighter, obviously very much at their ease with each other.
“I studied them all right, back and forward, and back again. So, I’ll take leave to tell you that I know how much Queterian carpet costs.”
“But do you know,” the gentleman mused, his eyes dreaming on the wide, gleaming hall, “how much it costs, wholesale?”
“Strange to say it, I do. And it’s still outta range. Even if I hadn’t just bought a whole house full of new carpet and furniture—which I have done, and you well know!”
“The upgrades to the house are good for business,” the gentleman pointed out.
“Agreed! Queterian carpet, though—that’s what we here on Surebleak call ice on top the snow. It’s nice to dream on, but—”
“But you are in the business of dreams!” the gentleman said, tucking the lady’s arm through his. They proceeded amiably down the hall toward the stairs.
She laughed. “Luken, I thought you knew what my business is!”
“I do,” he said promptly. “You are in the business of comfort, and joy, and dreams. Ephemeral goods, and all the more precious for being so. Such things must be offered and received in an environment of beauty and grace. Thus, the new furniture, the new paint, the new rugs. Your house may now stand with any other house of delight on any port I have visited. Indeed, you already enjoy custom from Surebleak Port—from persons of wide experience.”
“That’s so; we had to upgrade for those folks, but here’s the thing we can’t lose sight of: the local folks—those fancy dreams and comforts you’ll have me selling—the local folk need those things, maybe more’n the port custom. I gotta be careful not to price myself outta their paychecks.”
“You must, of course, continue to care for your core clients, but there may be . . .”
They had reached the head of the stairs, and he paused, bringing her to rest beside him. He gestured, as if strewing flower petals across the treads, inviting her to enjoy the modest and graceful descent to the floor below.
“This, too,” he murmured, “in Queterian.”
She sighed, for a moment seeing it in her mind’s eye, the distinctive pattern of browns, oranges, and reds swirling down her staircase, like a dance of autumn . . .
With a half-gasp, she shook her head, stepping away from the pretty illusion.
“We’re a couple of dreamers, right here,” she said. “What we need is breakfast to hold us down to ground.”
“Doubtless, you are correct,” Luken said, beginning his descent, his free hand lightly gripping the rail. “You are a wise woman, Audrey.”
She laughed, and hugged the gentleman’s arm.
“Now, there’s a thing that’s rarely said! I’ll tell you what, Mr. bel’Tarda; I think you’re a flirt.”
“Nonsense, I’m an honest businessman,” he said, and smiled when she laughed again.
As the house told time, it was early; Audrey and Luken had the breakfast room to themselves. They chose from the breads and fruit, cereals and juices on the sideboard, and settled companionably into what had become their preferred table in the back corner.
Audrey sighed as she settled into her chair, and sent a considering glance around the pleasant room.
“Is there some trouble?” Luken asked, and she almost sighed again. Such a sweet man; he couldn’t be any more attentive to her if she was paying him. The fact that she wasn’t paying him had the power to surprise her, as did the notion that she held of him, as a friend.
But, there, she’d left the man without his answer, and she’d already seen what he was capable of, when he decided something needed to be fixed.
So, she smiled at him, and shook her head. “No trouble. More like I haven’t had enough breakfast to weigh me down to ground, yet.” She broke a roll onto her plate, and reached for the jam pot.
“What were you dreaming, then?” he asked, spoon arrested over his cereal bowl, his gaze on her face.
“A window,” she said promptly, and waved her hand toward the far wall. “No sense to it, really, the room being where it is, but it just came to me, seeing the sun in the hall upstairs, that we got so used to the possibility of a shoot-out in the streets that we built without windows mostly, and, for extra protection, made all the gathering rooms interiors.”
Luken smiled at her. “You were wishing for a window onto the street?”
“That’s it,” she said, well pleased with him. “A fancy, you’d call it, and not anything like trouble.”
He looked about the room, as if weighing its merits, and returned his attention to her. “I think you are very right to think that a window would improve the appeal of an already pleasant room. Why not indulge your fancy?”
He meant it for a tease, maybe, and not a serious question at all, but it caught her that way, so that she took her time spooning jam onto another piece of bread, frowning as she felt along her thoughts and memories.
“I’ve been on Surebleak all my life, here on Blair Road ’most all it,” she said, slowly, keeping her eyes on her spoon. “I’ve seen Bosses come, and I’ve seen Bosses go, and—fond as I am of our current Boss—this boy Pat Rin of yours!—and as much as he’s done already here . . . I can’t quite shake the feeling that . . . this is another one of those dreams I been having lately, and I’ll wake up one morning to find out . . .”
Words failed her—and a good thing, too! she scolded herself. What kind of talk is that for a man at his breakfast?
“You fear that you will wake up one morning to find that my boy has failed,” Luken said, merely matter-of-fact. She looked up and met his eyes. He inclined his head, seriously.
“We must all fear the same thing; and those of us who esteem and support my boy must fear it most of all. And yet, I think, Audrey, that you may have overlooked an important difference between our Boss Conrad and those other Bosses you have known.”
She eyed him. “What’s that?”
“Pat Rin is not working alone; he is not merely working with one or two other like-minded Bosses. He has brought all of the allied Bosses of Surebleak to his side, and committed them to his projects. In addition, he has the whole of Clan Korval—what is called here the Road Boss’s family—at his back. Even in its present circumstances, Korval is formidable . . . and will grow more so, as we settle in to our new home and customs, and the delm mends our alliances.” He paused, as if struck by some other thought or consideration, then moved his shoulders in that fluid not-shrug that meant something, Audrey thought, though sleet knew what.
“Setting aside even his allies and his kin, Pat Rin has done something . . . extraordinary. Something that no other past Boss even attempted. He has opened the port and made Surebleak an acceptable destination, an up-and-coming planet where trade is growing. He has brought the galaxy to Surebleak, and while Surebleak may change because of it, it will not, I think, return to those days that you recall.”
Luken leaned forward and touched her hand lightly.
“You must of course please yourself, in the matter of the window.”
She gasped a laugh.
“We’ll just put it on the back burner for right now,” she said, and they returned to their breakfasts in companionable silence.
What thoughts occupied Luken were for him to know; Audrey, however, continued along the lines he had set down for her.
True enough that Boss Conrad, who had apparently been born to the name Pat Rin yos’Phelium Clan Korval, on the high-rent planet of Liad—true enough that the Boss had let the galaxy know Surebleak existed; and the galaxy had seen opportunity.
There were a lot of folks coming on-world, through that new-opened, and expanding port. Surebleak being by population a Terran world, it was maybe a little odd that most of the new immigrants were Liaden, riding in on the Road Boss’s coattails. Oh, there were Terrans coming in, too, but not in near the same numbers.
The incoming Liadens, they brought their own culture with them, naturally enough, and it wasn’t anything near Surebleak culture. Still, it wasn’t as much of a mess as it could be—not yet, anyway—because most of them who had followed the Road Boss were a subset of Liaden called Scouts, a corps of galactic explorers and general busybodies, as Audrey caught the signal, who specialized in studying, and getting along in, other cultures.
Things were really going to get stirred up, Audrey thought, when more of the regular folks looking for a better place to be came in. They’d expect that all civilized people acted the same, and that’s where things would start to rub. There’d already been some of that, but the Scout-to-regular-citizen ratio had so far kept upset to a minimum.
Well. That wouldn’t be for a few years, yet. In the meantime, the Scouts were teaching classes. She’d signed up for one, herself—Introduction to Liaden Culture. It didn’t look like anybody was offering an Introduction to Surebleak Culture . . . yet. She figured she could teach one herself, if it went too far along without anybody more qualified than the proprietor of a whorehouse stepping up. Though she had a notion that she’d draw Scouts; and that Scouts would know exactly what questions to ask—and get way more out of the answers than the so-called teacher would ever know.
Still, she told herself again; they had time. Trade might be growing on Surebleak, but they were still on the various lists that mattered to those who traded planet to planet as a world in transition, and an emerging market.
She reached for her juice glass, and glanced up at her companion, surprising a pensive look on his face. There were a couple things that she knew about which could bring that expression to him, and she picked her target not quite at random.
“I’m behind on asking,” she said softly, so as not to jar him from whatever he was thinking, “if there’s been any news from your daughter.”
“Nothing, no,” he said, his expression smoothing. “But, you know, it is a delicate business and a delicate time. She doubtless has much on her mind.”
Audrey wasn’t clear on the precise nature of the delicate business that Luken’s daughter Danise was engaged on, with the support of her younger sister, but she did know that the circumstance of Clan Korval getting kicked off Liad wasn’t making her work any easier. That was, Audrey thought, the trouble with families: one branch goes off and does something like blow a hole in the homeworld and it wasn’t enough that they got thrown off-world, like the Road Boss’d been. Nope, the whole family got trouble splattered all over them, too, though they’d been miles away from the explosion.
“In any case, it is a matter in which she and her sister are much more invested than I. Whatever the outcome, I will remain on Surebleak.” His smile this time was whimsical. “It’s so very interesting here.”
Audrey laughed. “You could say so, though other words come to mind.”
“A place may be many things, as an individual may hold many melant’is,” Luken said, placidly.
Melant’i, that was one of the things that Liadens had brought with them—it was like honor, only a lot more complicated. People died of melant’i. She was hoping her Liaden culture class would cover it. In depth.
“Would you like some more juice?” he asked, rising.
“Thank you.” She handed him her glass, and stacked their used dishes to one side while he made the trip across the room and back.
When he was settled back into his chair and they had both had a sip from their glasses, Luken leaned back.
“Audrey, I wonder if you might agree to Queterian carpet in the upper hall, and the center stairway.”
She frowned at him.
“Didn’t we decide I can’t afford that?”
“We decided that it was dear, at retail and at wholesale. However, I believe I may unite house and carpet at well under wholesale.”
“Mind if I ask how that’s going to be accomplished?”
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t ask,” he assured her. “Here is the case. You are aware that I am a rug merchant?”
“You might’ve mentioned it once or twice.”
He smiled. “Well, perhaps I have. In any case, I have recently received news of my stock, which has been recovered from safe storage and will soon be with me here. Among the recovered stock is a quantity of Queterian carpet, which I have held for a certain member of the Liaden Council, for the last six Standards.”
Audrey started to ask what that had to do with her, but managed to keep the question on the back of her tongue. Give the man a chance to tell it, Audrey.
“Every relumma, this particular individual would make a payment to me, in order that I not sell the carpet to anyone else. Half of the option payments went toward purchasing the carpet; half went to warehousing and inventory costs. At the time that this individual cast his vote in Council to banish Korval from Liad, he had purchased two thirds of the carpet. The cost of one third of the carpet may, I believe, be well within the means of your house. I am willing to wait upon payment, or to work out a schedule that will not overtax your treasury.”
She saw it again, the stairs dressed in elegant autumn carpeting—and blinked her way back to sense.
“Why?” she asked. “Why not just sell it to somebody else at full price? Or—here’s an idea both of us should’ve thought about—why not put it down in your new digs? I’m gathering you’re telling me that the original arrangement fell through and you got to keep the rug and your money?”
“I am telling you that, yes.” He extended a hand and put it over hers where it lay on the table. His palm was cool and smooth.
“As to why here and not elsewhere . . . Let us say that I would find it particularly satisfying if the carpet intended to grace the formal gathering room of one of Liad’s fifty High Houses should instead ornament a house involved in the business of joy.”
She thought about that.
“It’s revenge, then?”
“It is Balance,” Luken corrected. “I grant that it is my Balance and not yours, but I hope that you will be able to indulge me.”
She wanted that carpet so bad she could taste it, and yet . . . Balance. Balance was damn near as dangerous as melant’i.
“Let me sleep on it,” she said.
Luken gave her a pretty little seated bow. “Of course. There is no need to make a hasty decision.”