With Stars Underfoot (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®) Read Online Free PDF

able.
      "Lady Kareen," Audrey said clearly. "Be welcome in my house."
      It was the proper sentiment, properly expressed, thought Pat Rin, working his way forward. Though what—and from whom—his mother might exact as Balance for being made welcome at a whorehouse—
      "Well met, cousin!" Val Con murmured, astonishingly slipping his arm through Pat Rin's. "Where to in such a rush?"
      "If you would not see a murder done—or worse—" Pat Rin hissed into the frigid silence that followed Audrey's greeting—"let me tend to this!"
      "Nay, I think you wrong both our host and your lady mother," Val Con said tranquilly, his grip on Pat Rin's arm tightening. "Besides, the hand is dealt."
      "You know what my mother is capable—"
      "Peace," his cousin interrupted. "My aunt is about to play her first card."
      "Who speaks?" Lady Kareen's Terran was heavily accented, but perfectly intelligible; her tone as frigid as the wind in high winter.
      It was of course quite mad to even consider that he might extricate himself from the brotherly embrace of one who was both a pilot and a Scout. Nonetheless, Pat Rin took a careful breath to camouflage his shift of weight—and felt warm fingers around his unencumbered hand. He looked down, equally dismayed and unsurprised to see Miri grinning up at him, grey eyes glinting.
      "Take it easy, Boss," she whispered. "Audrey's good for this."
      He began to answer, then closed his mouth tightly. The fact that this had been planned—that Audrey had been coached on form and manner...
      "That's right," their host was saying equitably to his mother. "You won't know that. I'm Audrey Breckstone, boss of this house. I'm happy to see you."
      Not for nothing did Lady Kareen stand foremost among the scholars of the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct. She not only knew her Code, but she practiced it, meticulously. Rather too meticulously, as some might think. But there was perhaps, Pat Rin thought now, an advantage—to Audrey, to the house, and to Kareen herself—in an extremely nice reading of Code in regard to this particular circumstance.
      It was not for a mere son to say what weights and measures were called into consideration as his mother stood there, head tipped politely to one side, face smooth and emotionless, but surely the unworthy scholar who had studied Code at her feet might make certain shrewd and informed guesses.
      Whether Audrey possessed the native genius to have added that guileless, "I'm happy to see you," to her introduction, or whether she had been coached in what she was to say mattered not at all. That she had uttered the phrase in apparent sincerity placed her melant'i somewhat in regard to the melant'i of Kareen yos'Phelium. Here was, in fact, a delm—at most—or a head of Line—at least—so secure in her own worth and the worth of her house that she not only welcomed, but was happy to receive , the burden of a visit from high stickler who might ruin her and hers with a word.
      Or, to phrase the matter in the parlance of Surebleak, Audrey had in essence said to Kareen: I see that you're armed, and I'm your equal .
      "I am pleased to accept the greeting of the house," Lady Kareen stated, and bowed—Expert to Expert—which allowed a certain limited equality between herself and her host, and placed a finer measuring into the future, after more data had been gathered and weighed.
      To her credit—or that of her tutor—Audrey did not attempt to answer the bow. Instead, she smiled, and offered her arm.
      "There's going to be music and dancing for the youngers in just a bit, now," she said. "But I'm betting that a woman of good sense would like to have a glass of wine in her hand."
      There was a slight hesitation as Kareen performed the mental gymnastics necessary to untangle this, then she