Changeling Read Free Page A

table and made his bow.
    "Ma'am."
    "Ren Zel." She held out a hand, beckoning,
and he stepped to her side. Chane smiled, then, and kissed his
cheek. "Welcome home."
    * * *
    AUNT CHANE SAT ON the short side of the table
across which Ren Zel and Obrelt Himself faced each other, in the
Advocate's Chair. The wine was poured and the ritual sip taken;
then the glasses were set aside and Obrelt laid the thing out.
    "The name of the lady we propose for your
wife is Elsu Meriandra, Clan Jabun," he said, in his usual bluff
way.
    Ren Zel blinked, for Jabun was a Clan old in
piloting. Certainly, it was not Korval, but for outworld Casia it
was very well indeed--and entirely above Obrelt's touch.
    The Delm held up a hand. "Yes, they are
beyond us absolutely--pilots to shopkeepers. But Obrelt has a pilot
of its own to bring to the contract suite and Jabun was not
uninterested."
    But surely, Ren Zel thought, surely, the only
way in which Obrelt might afford such a contract was to cede the
child to Jabun--and that made no sense at all. Jabun was a Clan of
pilots, allied with other of the piloting Houses. What use had they
for the seed of a child of Obrelt, bred of shopkeepers, the sole
pilot produced by the House in all its history? He was a fluke, a
changeling; no true-breeding piloting stock such as they might wish
to align with themselves.
    "The child of the contract," his Delm
continued, "will come to Obrelt."
    Well, yes, and that made sense, if
Obrelt found pilot wages to its taste and wished to diversify its
children. But, gods, the expense! And no guarantee that his child
would be any more pilot than Eba!
    "No," Aunt Chane said dryly, "we have not run
mad. Recruit yourself, child."
    Ren Zel took a deep breath. "One wishes not
to put the Clan into shadow," he said softly.
    "We have been made to understand this,"
Obrelt said, of equal dryness with his sister. "Imagine my
astonishment when I learned that a debt contracted by the House for
the good of the House had been reassigned to one Ren Zel dea'Judan
Clan Obrelt. At his request, of course."
    "My contracts are profitable," Ren Zel
murmured. "There was no need for the House to bear the burden."
    "The Clan receives a tithe of your wages,"
Aunt Chane pointed out.
    He inclined his head. "Of course."
    He looked up in time to see his Aunt and his
Delm exchange a look undecipherable to him. The Delm cleared his
throat.
    "Very well. For the matter at hand--Jabun and
I have reached an equitable understanding. Jabun desires his
daughter to meet you before the lines are signed. That meeting is
arranged for tomorrow evening, at the house of Jabun. The lines
will be signed on the day after, here in our own house. The
contract suite stands ready to receive you."
    The day after tomorrow? Ren Zel thought,
feeling his stomach clench as it did when he faced an especially
tricksy bit of piloting. Precisely as if he were sitting board, he
took a breath and forced himself to relax. Of course, he would do
as his Delm instructed him--obedience to the Delm, subservience to
the greater good of the Clan, was bred deep in his bones. To defy
the Delm was to endanger the Clan, and without the Clan there was
no life. It was only--the matter came about so quickly...
    "There was a need for haste," Aunt Chane
said, for the second time apparently reading his mind. "Pilot
Meriandra's ship is come into dock for rebuilding and she is at
liberty to marry. It amuses Jabun to expand his alliances--and it
profits Obrelt to gain for itself the child of two pilots." She
paused. "Put yourself at ease: the price is not beyond us."
    "Yes, Aunt," he said, for there was nothing
else to say. Two days hence, he would be wed; his child to come
into Clan, to be sheltered and shaped by those who held his
interests next to their hearts. The Code taught that this was well,
and fitting, and just. He had no complaint and ought, indeed, feel
honored, that the Clan lavished so much care on him.
    But his stomach was still uncertain when