However, It Is A Public Courtesy To Do So And Leave None Confused
The opportunity for that lay not far before them, once certain guests left off from their time-wasting antics. Density described the overarching theme of Koshat Dreivis's layout, and consequently the palace of the oligarch required no long journey to reach from the ocean-ward gate. The Bodan-Tin residence respected that same compact philosophy, to a degree. It loomed over its neighbors on account of its second story, smaller than the ground level so that the edifice resembled a puffy Redrin pastry with cream poured in a lowered center. In other words, appealing. Still, compared to memories of the high piles of Dubwasef or the sprawling estates of Vigit Pikilif, whether including or excluding the tennis courts, as well as to Redrin's pastries, it looked suitable to have some Yean Defiafi tourist drop by and call it quaint.
Inside, the furnishings included all the polished wood and marble of a GE lawyer's drawing room, except lighter woods had been chosen and colors other than brown had been allowed for the rugs, the tapestries, and the portraits of venerable family members. The house therefore avoided the usual jibe back home about how brown-on-brown interiors are chosen to prevent visitors from making out the faults in the woodwork and the dirt in the carpet. Poiskops Bodan-Tin's foyer had no flaws anywhere so far as those visitors were able to tell, though a professional might have had something to say about it. A request for employment, for example, because that was unquestionably the home of a wealthy man.
The guide paused there. “Please, Baraises, every Eizesl, wait here while I try to find out if my friend is not buried under correspondence. That's happened before, but we didn't realize until we heard his stomach growling.”
“There they must be! Which among you fine men is Sajaitin Rikelta?”
At the sound of that voice which sounded as if once it boomed but had worn itself out by too much of that behavior, their guide spun toward its source, not in the manner of a legal consultant for an embassy caught exchanging money for pharmaceuticals destined for illicit use, but like someone delighted to see a brother after years spent apart. The reminder Onerid gave about the authentic foundations of the relationships between armiger families and the people they sheltered from the world's storms had support there.
Poiskops Bodan-Tin did not look to be the sort of person to resent the characterization his sycophant had just assigned him. Rather, the idea his responsibilities prevented him from indulging in simple pleasures floated somewhere between flattery and plain truth. His chubby cheeks prepared the viewer for more girth than he actually possessed, the former showing his inclination and the latter the effect of circumstances. Aside from all that, he stood a bit below average but not enough to cause unkind comment, wore the usual fuzzy brown beard and a deep purple cummerbund, and bore the years about as well as any man might whose grandchildren already could complain about the presents they received.
“This is the one you want, Stanops!” The guide put his hand on Dirant's left shoulder, both to identify the Ritualist and to brace him against the powerful Bodan-Tin charge. The passing of years had slowed it a bit, but at the end, Poiskops still shook Dirant's hand nearly hard enough to jostle loose the sack held under his other arm. The other introductions involved an equivalent amount of enthusiasm or, in the case of the ladies, respect.
Especially in Onerid's case. “Deuani Paspaklest long ago left us ungrateful Drastlifars whom even the captains above captains must at times despair of fixing, but instead of waiting 'patiently tapping his foot,' as they say, for amnesiac Drastlif to continue the exchange of honors, he sent us a jewel of his own. I met him a couple times.”
Adaban advisors in social niceties might have advised against that last part, and the earlier part too, and really everything Drastlifars did. According to local ideas, however, he had done everything correctly by alerting Onerid he was speaking in an overall way and did not expect any special message to be sent from her father through her. So Onerid said later at any rate. At the same time she explained “deuani” referred to the quality of being sacrosanct. It applied to ambassadors as an honorific, a fact her foreign audience had guessed but liked to hear confirmed for fear of an embarrassing incident.
After that, the gracious head of the Bodan-Tin family invited them all to dine with him, as it was too late in the day for business. Dirant looked through a window at the town increasingly covered by elongating shadows, calculated he could complete the project before sunset, and made no objection. The client's schedule was Stadeskosken's schedule, after all.
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The inner courtyard of the mansion functioned as a dining room that day. Though the house held one or two actual rooms for the purpose at other times, an array of round tables complete with a marble strip across the center of each waited there for Poiskops when he decided the weather deserved better than a roof. Poles around them held up shield-shaped canvas covers, their undersides converted into a confusion of colors and shapes which must have been the Bodan-Tin coat of arms. A Drastlifan mourning mask and a ship's steering wheel, both red, as well as a green dolphin, were split up by stripes and stars, and under all of that, white and purple diamonds repeated till they made eyes water. Of course the silver symmetreel on a red square assured everyone that an oligarch looked down on them and always would.
Upon hearing Poiskops Bodan-Tin's shield described as lozengy argent and purpure, on a bend azure between a mourning mask in chief gules and a dolphin in base naiant to sinister vert five mullets pierced sable, a scarp cortised or, a wheel in dexter as mask, on a canton gules a symmetreel urinant argent, Dirant remembered with a sigh the days of two cows and some corn. Back then, he thought he might come to understand heraldry.
Aside from all that, netting hung from the edges of the canvas all the way to the ground to discourage insects who wished to attend. The host populated the tables with the Stadeskosken employees and Millim Takki Atsa, some sycophants, toadies, a few parasites, and assorted townsfolk. Even an oligarch could not get every guest he wanted, however. “Eizesl Dogai-Brein takes his hobbies too seriously, though anyone would say he's earned it with how much their fortunes have improved under him,” Poiskops remarked to the men who shared the central table with him. “When does he even eat, or what? The dew of knowledge and the flesh of truth protected by overlapping slimy scales that are illusion, only to be won by effort wearying to mast-thick limbs wetted by the rain of the pores and to the mind ever-revolving within it schemes of leisure and gain both till at last mortal man, near the end of his three seasons of life, loses strength most vital? He's not a poet, so he doesn't have to pretend to asceticism.” Neither did Poiskops, to judge by his assault on the soup of clams and garlic before him.
“Whatever it is he's eating,” one of the guests responded, “he has his bodyguards to feed it to him. Can we say such food is four times as nourishing?” The laughs that received sounded other than pure.
“Maybe so, maybe not. I suppose he's finding something to do out there on the marshes. I have a plan, though. We'll see if he won't show himself in town when the latest is ready.”
“Yes, the addition spoken of in fantastical tales and never by practical men who dig and pluck and never look up, is what again?” asked the man with the fullest beard there, which no doubt was a point of pride for him.
“Oh, that? It's that, you know. It can't be anything else but what it is.” Poiskops winked theatrically at Dirant. From that he guessed the general topic. The conversation, being conducted entirely in Drastlimez, insisted on running away from him, stopping, looking back to tell him to hurry up, and dashing forward while laughing. Unsure what sort of response was indicated, he leaned back and tried to look smug, something he had been told an unfortunate number of times he did supremely well. The murmurs around the table suggested his goal and his methods met.
The ordinary recourse of waiting for Onerid or Stansolt to speak instead was not available to him. The former sat with assorted wives and daughters and the latter with the bodyguards. The servant overseeing the placements understood that much simply from looking at him. As for Takki and Ibir, both had been placed among the bodyguards also, one of them correctly.
The Stadeskosken visitors were later shown not to their rooms but to their houses. “Such is a normal method of providing hospitality on the part of the great in this country,” Onerid explained. “Their own domiciles rarely have guest rooms, and so they maintain a variety of residences for the use of guests. All guests, not merely their own. Suppose there is to be a wedding between an artisan of vases and his old master's daughter. The veteran potter is invited to a meal at some point, for the town's prominent men get their chance regularly, and while everyone congratulates him, he mentions how many relatives are coming and how busy he is finding accommodations in this season. That gives the big man a chance to display his generosity. These houses therefore see regular use and are not at all a waste.”
“Oh, I'm really glad to hear that. If we were being treated like a smut writer or a pedant the Stanops didn't want in the main house, I'd probably get to Intermediate in the language with everything I'd want to say about that.” Takki flicked her ponytail, a gesture perhaps considered truculent in Pavvu Omme Os. “I do think it's a little unexpected though. Adabans only care about privacy and then go around inviting people into their homes, but Drastlifars are the opposite.”
“We do not,” three Adabans insisted.
“Privacy and money, then. Oh! Do you let people into your homes so you can go through their possessions? That would explain it, but I would think less of you.” Takki's curiosity had led her for a time to attempt the even comedic delivery the typical young Adaban strove to master, but since meeting Onerid she had reverted to her habit of almost or actually hopping as she chirped out jokes like a bird who overheard a good one in the park while decorating the statue and wanted everyone to know.