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to Edelfaule, but that would have to be done slowly and carefully by Toshtai
himself.
No; he was his father's heir in name only until and un-
less that could be changed. At the moment, and for the foreseeable future,
Toshtai was not
expendable.
Edelfaule had no softness toward the filthy peasants or the middle class and
bourgeois, all of them stinking of business and money. He didn't care for his
mother or his half-brothers, and while he enjoyed his essences and his
concubines, he didn't care for them. No weakness there.
The only weakness was here. In all the world, there were two things that
Edelfaule cared for: himself, and Den Oroshtai. The buildings, sturdy and
homey; the south wall, where the land spread out below him like a quilt; the
gar-den, where night whispered its pledge of troth to him in the dark.
"Father," he said. "It seems I made an error."
Toshtai's head seemed to nod. "That appears to be so."
It was all that Kami Dan'Shir's fault. Nobody except for the widow and her
daughter would have ever known that Edelfaule had made an error, and they
wouldn't speak from the grave. The affair would have stood as yet another
lesson to the lower classes that they must not try to cheat their nobility;
that would have done no harm.
But one thing had done harm. By exposing their inno-cence, Kami Dan'Shir had
lowered Edelfaule in his fa-ther's eyes. Unforgivable, unpardonable. He would
have to be dealt with.
"Not in your computation," Toshtai went on, "but in your calculation. You were
too precipitous, Edelfaule. Where would she flee? She was no traveling
perfumer, here today, gone tomorrow, leaving nothing behind but a scent. No
need to take action until you were sure. It's ev-ery grain as important that
the lower classes understand that good conduct will be rewarded as it is that
they fear our swords and hands when they behave badly."
"Yes, Father."
"I have no objection to punishing bad service, or theft, or insolence, as I
trust I've demonstrated today, but it is bad practice to punish the innocent,
eh?"
Edelfaule lowered his head modestly. "Yes, Father. I am sorry."
Toshtai's lips pursed once. "Very well. Let's not men-tion it again. We have
more serious matters to discuss. We leave for Glen Derenai in two days for
your brother's wed-ding."
That was one of Father's cleverer strategems. Edelfaule was the oldest living
son and therefore the presumed heir to Den Oroshtai. He had to be, what with
Arefai being such a fool. So bind Den Oroshtai and Glen Derenai closer
together with a marriage between Arefai and ViKay, but not so threateningly
close as one between Edelfaule and ViKay would be. Always tentative, like a
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musician idly plucking the strings of his zivver while he thought of something
else. Toshtai was patient, slowly knitting to-gether a skein of alliances that
would, someday, become a garrote around Demick's neck.
Patience was a virtue, and Edelfaule would be patient. He would even things
with Kami Dan'Shir, but not now. Kami Dan'Shir was too clearly under Toshtai's
protec-tion. For the time being. But that could change.
Timing was everything.
He would wait.
5
Dinner, TaNai, a Puzzle, and Other ftixed Pleasures
It's by no means unknown for a bourgeois to dine in the Great Hall, but it's
not ordinary, either. Dining customs differ from one end of D'Shai to the
other, but in no part of the country does convention regularly require our
be-loved ruling class to put up with the noisome presence of us lesser beings.
The trouble, of course, was where to put me.
The seats of greatest honor are the ones next to Lord Toshtai, and while other
positions are in theory all also of honor, the ones next to a bourgeois would
be the least so.
The solution was elegant: I was put in the group at the foot of the right arm
of the staple-shaped arrangement of tables, with Arefai on one side and Lady
Estrer on the other. That made the right arm a perfectly acceptable place to
be, nervous as it made me.
The slow playing of the musicians kept us audibly iso-lated, although I'd
heard better than this six-person group. The silverhorn was good, although he
really should have had a backup player; the zivver was acceptable if too eager
to show off his fast fingerwork; and the watercrystal player was very good,
with a nice, direct way of hitting her crystals without keeping her
fingernails on them for a moment more than necessary. The drummer, though, was
a disappointment; he kept hitting at just the end of the beat, not the
beginning, following the tempo, being dragged by it instead of driving it. I
hate when that hap-pens. The trompon was inoffensive if uninspired, and the
bassskin player must have had an ingrown thumbnail, to judge from the way he
kept declining to dig in and really bring out the notes.
At least the music kept me from worrying about some-body else misinterpreting
something I might say and tak-ing offense.
The three of us were physically isolated from the next group by a huge silver
soup tureen in the shape of an in-verted turtle shell. It had been raised high
above the table on skinny but sturdy silver legs, staying slowly simmering
over a dozen sputtering candles.
There was no particular slight in that; the forty-some people spread out on
the wall side of the table were bro-ken up into smaller groups by food
vessels: one serving tray heavily laden with crispy pork loins that had been
stuffed with spicy Shalough sausage; a tureen of murky brown soup with bits of
carrots bobbing gently at its roiling, oily surface; a huge onyx vat of
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