"So very well-trained," Korval murmured, rising from her chair. "It's nothing short of marvelous."

FROWNING, DAAV CONSIDERED the gun.

It was not a pretty gun, in the way meant by those who admired jeweled grips and platinum-chased cylinders. It was a functional gun, made to his own specifications and tuned by Master Marksman Tey Dor himself. It was also small, and could be hidden with equal ease in Daav's sleeve or his palm.

Etgora's evening-gather, now. It might please his mother to dismiss this evening's affair as tedious, but the papers forwarded by dea'Gauss had shown that it was not so long ago that Clan Etgora and Clan Korval had come at odds-and when Balance was done, it was Korval who showed the profit.

Etgora had pretensions. A clan with its profit solidly in the star-trade, they had strained after High House status, and fell but a hand's breadth short before the loss to Korval set them a dozen Standard years further back from the goal. There was bitterness in the House on that count, Daav did not doubt.

However, if Etgora wished to secure its teetering position as a high-tier Mid House, they must show asmooth face to adversity. Of course they would place Korval upon the most-honored guest list. They could not do otherwise and survive.

By the same logic of survival, Etgora would take utmost care that no slight or insult befell Korval while she was in their care.

Which meant that Daav, chancy tempered as he knew himself to be, might safely leave his hideaway in its custom-fitted box.

And yet ....

"Might," he murmured, slipping the little gun into his sleeve, "is not ought."

He glanced to the mirror, smoothed the sleeve, twitched the lace at his throat, touched the sapphire in his right ear and made an ironic bow. His reflection-black-browed, lean and over-long-returned the salutation gracefully.

"Do try not to kill anyone tonight, Daav," he told himself. "Murder would only make the evening more tedious."

THEY WERE ADMITTED to Etgora's townhouse and relieved of their cloaks by a supernaturally efficient servant, who then bowed them into the care of a child of the House.

She had perhaps twelve standards, hovering between child and halfling, and holding herself just a bit stiffly in her fine doorkeeper's silks.

"Kesa del'Fordan Clan Etgora," she sand, bowing prettily in the mode of Child of the House to Honored Guests. She straightened, brown eyes solemn with duty, and wanted for them to respond, according to Code and custom.

"Chi yos'Phelium," his mother murmured, bowing as Guest to House Child, "Korval."

The brown eyes widened slightly, but give her grace, Daav thought; she did not make the error of looking down to see Korval's ring of rank for herself. Instead, she inclined her head, with composure commendable in one of twice her years, and looked to Daav.

He likewise bowed, Guest to House Child, and straightened without flourish.

"Daav yos'Phelium Clan Korval."

Kesa inclined her head once more and completed the form.

"Ma'am and sir, be welcome in our house." She paused, perhaps a heartbeat too long, then bowed. "If you would care to walk with me, I will bring you to my father."

"Of your kindness," his mother murmured and followed the child out of the welcoming parlor, Daav walking at the rear, as befit one of lesser rank who was likewise his Delm's sole protection in a House not their own.

Kesa led them down a short, left-tending hallway, through an open gateway of carved sweetstone and out into an enclosed garden, and the full force of the evening gather.

Etgora, Daav observed, as he followed his mother and their guide down cunning, crowded walkways,was a Clan which addressed its projects with energy. Challenged to display a clean face to the world, it did not hesitate to bring the world together immediately for the purpose.

A more conservative Clan, Daav thought, his quick, Scout-trained eyes catching glimpses of an astonishing number of High Houselings among the crowd, would have invited Korval, of course, to this first gather since its failure, and perhaps one or two others of the High Houses, at most. Not so Etgora, who seemed to have formed the guest list almost entirely from the Fifty, with a few taken from the ranks of the higher Mid-Level Houses, for the purpose, Daav supposed, of filling out odd numbers.

Progress along the pathways was slow, what with so many acquaintances who must be acknowledged with a bow. Both Daav and his mother several times had to duck under gay strings of rainbow-colored streamers and the imported oddity of Terran-made balloons.

At long last, they achieved the center of the garden, where a man slightly younger and a good deal less elegant than his mother was speaking with apparent ease to no other than Lady yo'Lanna. Daav owned himself impressed. Lady yo'Lanna was his mother's oldest friend among her peers in the High Houses, and he held her in quite as much awe now as he had at six.

"Father," Kesa bent deeply, the full bow of clanmember to Delm, and straightened self-consciously, shoulders stiff beneath her finery.

"Your pardon, good ma'am," the gentleman murmured, and, receiving Lady yo'Lanna's half-bow of permission, turned to face them.

"Kesa, my child, who have you brought me?"

"Father, here is Chi yos'Phelium, Korval, and Daav yos'Phelium Clan Korval," the child said in the very proper mode of Introduction. She turned and bowed, House-Child to Guests. "Honoreds, here is my father, Hin Ber del'Fordan, Etgora."

So Kesa's father was Etgora Himself. It explained much, Daav thought, from the unexpected youth of the door guardian to her stiff determination to observe every mode precisely.

"Korval, you do me honor!" Etgora swept the bow between equals-theoretically true, between Delms, Daav thought wryly-and augmented it with the trader's hand-sign for "master," a nice touch, drawing on the common trading background of both Houses while publicly acknowledging Korval's superiority.

His mother, Daav saw, was inclined to be amused by their host's little audacity. She bowed just short of full Equal, accepting the master status Etgora acknowledged.

"To be welcome in the house of an ally is joy," she said clearly into the sudden nearby silence. She straightened and extended a hand to touch Daav's sleeve.

"One's son, Etgora."

"Lord yos'Phelium." The bow this time was Delm to child of an Ally's House: High Mode, indeed, but carried well, and necessitating, alas, the rather tricksy Child of a Delm to an Ally as the most precise response. He straightened in time to see his mother incline her head to Lady yo'Lanna.

"Ilthiria, I find you well?"

"As well as one can be in this crush. Etgora is proud of his achievement-and justly so!-but you and I know how to value an empty garden."Had he been less well-trained, Daav would have winced in sympathy for Kesa's father. Lady yo'Lanna, it seemed, was not entirely at one with her host.

The pale eyes moved, pinning him. "Young Daav, newly at leave from the Scouts."

He bowed, lightly. "I have no secrets from you, ma'am."

"Do you not?" Her eyebrows rose. "Then come to me tomorrow and whisper in my ear the tale of how a certain mutual acquaintance came to break his arm in mid-Port evening before last."

d.a.m.n. He bowed again, aware of his mother's gaze on the side of his suddenly warm face.

"If that is your wish, then how can I deny you?"

"Very properly said," Etgora interjected. "And who better to know Port gossip than a Scout, who are said to have ears in every cranny?" He turned, spied his daughter, yet standing stiffly to one side.

"Kesa, my jewel. Lord yos'Phelium will wish to reacquaint himself with his age-mates, as he is just returned from the Scouts. Pray show him to the Sunset Garden-and then you may refresh yourself."

He turned to Daav.

"Card tables have been set out, sir, and other light amus.e.m.e.nts. Please, be easy in our House."

He flicked a glance at his mother, who inclined her head.

"Amuse yourself, Daav, do. Etgora will wish to walk Ilthiria and myself through his garden. I will require your arm in two hours."

"Ma'am." He bowed obedience to the Delm, then a general leave-taking to Lady yo'Lanna and Etgora.

This done, he bowed once more, very gently, and offered his arm to Kesa del'Fordan, "Lady Kesa, will you walk with me?"

She hesitated fractionally, brown eyes lifting to his face in a child's straight look of a.s.sessment. Whatever she saw convinced her that he was not having fun at her expense, for she stepped forward and put her hand lightly on his sleeve.

"Certainly, I will walk with you," she said, unselfconsciously. "How else may I show you to the Sunset Garden?"

"Very true," Daav replied gravely. From the edge of his eye, he saw Etgora offer an arm and his mother take it. "In which direction shall we walk, then, Lady?"

"This," she said, moving a hand to the west, belatedly adding, "Of your goodness."

The pathways toward sunset were somewhat less crowded than those they had followed from the house.

That was not to say, Daav thought, that the paths were empty or that the garden reposed in tranquility.

He bowed briefly to Lady pel'Nyan and moved on, Kesa del'Fordan silent on his arm. Etgora, he considered, had come a fair way to making a recover. Lady yo'Lanna's attendance had of course a.s.sured the attendance of several other Houses of rank. And if she were inclined to smile upon Etgora ...

Or, Daav thought suddenly, if Ilthiria yo'Lanna attended at the request of her old friend Chi yos'Phelium, Delm of the ancient ally of her House? Oh, yes, that fit well. Especially when one heard one's mother declaring herself comforted in the presence of an ally. Korval had never taken allies easily, to the benefit,mostwise, of the more conservative Clans.

Daav made a mental note to review the Summary of Balance dea'Gauss had sent more closely. He had missed the reason that Etgora was thought necessary to the interests of Korval. Presumption had, of course, been answered, but it seemed that the upstart clan could not be allowed entirely to sink. Thus, this gather, with its theme of courteous and charming commonsense, and everyone of consequence in attendance.

In consideration of which, Daav said to himself, you are in arrears of your duty.

He tipped his head, a.s.sessing his companion from beneath his lashes. She looked pale, he thought, and her jaw was definitely clenched too tightly for fashion. Her shoulders moved like boards beneath the pretty silk tunic and the hand that rested against his sleeve put no pressure on his arm at all.

He cleared his throat gently and smiled when she looked up, startled.

"I hope you will allow me to commend your performance as House Guard," he murmured. "I am persuaded that you stand the duty often."

Kesa blushed, lashes flickering. "Not," she said, somewhat faintly, "so very often." She paused, glancing aside, then looked back to his face.

"In fact," she said, rather breathlessly, "this evening is the first time I have stood between the House and the world. It is-it has been my brother's duty, you know-he is the elder-but, this evening, he ... He asked our father for other work."

"Very proper in him," Daav murmured, noting her hesitation and drawing the conclusion that Kesa's brother's "ask" had very little of "if-you-please" about it. "So this was your first time a House Guard? I am all admiration. Well I remember my first time at the door-a mere dinner party, nothing like what we have here!-and I was wishing for nothing but my bed before even half the guests were arrived!"

She actually laughed, and Daav ducked as they pa.s.sed beneath a string of balloons and streamers.

Kesa paused, frowning up at him and the balloons just behind his head.

"I do not-you are very tall, are you not? I recall my father said that Korval is a tall Clan. He-Jen Dal was to have made certain the lines were strung well above-but I am certain," she said in a sudden rush, "that he could not have realized that, that-"

"That the pickpocket who wishes to rob Korval must bring his own stepladder," Daav said lightly, rescuing her from what could only be an unfortunate culmination of her sentence.

Kesa frowned. "I do not entirely-"

"Ah, Daav! I had heard the Scouts had released you to us!"

The voice was lovely, as was the lady. Two years ago, he had been besotted with both. He was no longer besotted, but he was indebted to her for a lesson well-delivered and equally well-learned, and so he bowed, with courtesy.

"Bobrin, good evening to you."

She returned his bow, eyes teasing his face, then straightened, one hand rising to her flower-braided hair.

Her eyes left his face, and found Kesa."It is Etgora's daughter, is it not?"

Kesa bowed low-Child of the House to Honored Guest. "Kesa del'Fordan, Lady del'Pemridj."

"Just so." Bobrin inclined her beflowered head, then shot Daav a glance of pure mischief. "Take advice and walk carefully with this one, House-daughter. Daav-" she paused, likely on the edge of more specific mischief. Daav met her eye squarely, and had the satisfaction of seeing her look aside.

"Daav," she said, "Good evening."

She swept down the path and Daav became aware that he was gritting his teeth. Deliberately, he relaxed his jaw and looked down at his companion.

Kesa was staring after Bobrin, brown eyes wide. After a moment, she sighed and glanced up at Daav.

"She is a very beautiful lady. I-do you think when I am grown I might wear flowers in my hair?"

When you are grown, Daav thought, my hope is that you will care more for other matters-even for what I deduce is your scapegrace brother-than for the dressing of your hair.

Her look, however, was appealing-and she was, after all, a child-so he swallowed his initial answer and instead looked about with wide amaze, flinging his arm out.

"Why, here we are in the very heart of a garden! What is to prevent you from having flowers in your hair this instant, if you wish it?"

"I-" She, too, stared about, as if she just now realized their setting, then looked back to his face.

"No one, that is, I have yet to learn the-the proper manner in which to place flowers in the hair."

"Ah, there you are fortunate," Daav said gaily. "I have some training in the placement of hair-ornaments.

Perhaps you will allow me to be of service to you."

The brown eyes took fire. "Would you? I-I would be in your debt."

"Not a bit of it." Daav said stoutly. "It is a pleasure to share my skill. Now, which flowers will you have?"

She moved to the edge of the walk, staring at the orderly rows of blossom. "That, if you please," she said, pointing to a low, spike-leafed shrub. Its indigo blooms were flat and multi-petalled, noteworthy without being ostentatious, and a good match for the silk Doorkeeper's tunic.

"Excellent," Daav murmured approvingly and bent to pluck one. The stem was woody, but broke easily.

"Yes, very good. Now, my Lady, if you will step over here, so that we do not impede traffic while this very delicate operation is performed..."

Kesa stepped to his side, Daav inclined his head to Lord Andresi-another of his mother's cronies-who smiled and pa.s.sed on without comment.

"Now, then," Daav said. "I will wish you to stand very tall, but not at all stiffly. True beauty is never ill at ease. Very good. A moment, now, while I discover the perfect placement-yes, I believe so." He hesitated, flower poised. "Be easy, Lady Kesa, but as still as you may-"