Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [338]
It slid aside, and a slim Eurasian boy of about ten regarded him gravely. "What do you want?" The boy frowned.
"I want to see your . . . grandmother."
"Bring him in, Robin," a soft voice called.
The boy ducked his head and motioned him inside. His sock feet trod noiselessly across a deep carpet. The windows were polarized against the dark gray afternoon, and pools of warmer, yellower lamplight fought the gloom. Beyond the window, the force field revealed itself with tiny scintillations, as water droplets or particulate matter were detected and repelled or annihilated.
A shrunken woman sat in a wide chair, and watched him approach her through dark eyes set in a face of old ivory. She wore a high-necked black silk tunic and loose trousers. Her hair was pure white, and very long; a slim girl, most literally twin to the boy, was brushing it over the back of the chair, in long, long strokes. The room was very warm. Regarding her regarding him, he wondered how he could ever have thought that worried old woman with the cane might be Lilly. Hundred-year-old eyes looked at you differently.
"Ma'am," he said. His mouth felt suddenly dry.
"Sit down." She nodded to a short sofa set around the corner of the low table in front of her. "Violet, dear," a thin hand, all white wrinkles and blue ropy veins, touched the girl's hand which had paused protectively on her black silk shoulder. "Bring tea now. Three cups. Robin, please go downstairs and get Rowan."
The girl arranged the hair in a falling fan around the woman's upright torso, and the two children vanished in un-childlike silence. Clearly, the Durona Group did not employ outsiders. No chance of a mole ever penetrating their organization. With equal obedience, he sank into the seat she'd indicated.
Her vowels had a vibrato of age, but her diction, containing them, was perfect. "Have you come to yourself, sir?" she inquired.
"No, ma'am," he said sadly. "Only to you." He thought carefully about how to phrase his question. Lilly would not be any less medically careful than Rowan about yielding him clues. "Why can't you identify me?"
Her white brows rose. "Well-put. You are ready for an answer, I think. Ah."
The lift tube hummed, and Rowan's alarmed face appeared. She hurried out. "Lilly, I'm sorry. I thought he was asleep—"
"It's all right, child. Sit down. Pour the tea," for Violet reappeared around the corner bearing a large tray. Lilly whispered to the girl behind a faintly trembling hand, and she nodded and scampered off. Rowan knelt in what appeared to be a precise old ritual—had she once held Violet's place? he rather thought so—and poured green tea into thin white cups, and handed it round. She sat at Lilly's knees, stealing a brief, reassuring touch of the white hair coiled there.
The tea was very hot. Since he'd lately taken a deep dislike to cold, this pleased him, and he sipped carefully. "Answers, ma'am?" he reminded her cautiously.
Rowan's lips parted in a negative, alarmed breath; Lilly crooked up one finger, and quelled her.
"Background," said the old woman. "I believe the time has come to tell you a story."
He nodded, and settled back with his tea.
"Once upon a time," she smiled briefly, "there were three brothers. A proper fairy tale, ai? The eldest and original, and two young clones. The eldest—as happens in these tales—was born to a magnificent patrimony. Title—wealth—comfort—his father, if not exactly a king, commanded more power than any king in pre-jump history. And thus he became the target of many enemies. Since he was known to dote upon his son, it occurred to more than one of his enemies to try and strike at him through his only child. Hence this peculiar multiplication." She nodded at him. It made his belly shiver. He sipped more tea, to cover his confusion.