Every Last One Of These Must Be Avoided By The Modern Gentleman Or Lady
As soon as the playing field was marked out and filled in, the observers jerked up as if freed from a thousand-year enchantment. Dirant failed to notice, busy as he was retreating from the field for fear of the almighty arm of a Battler who listed Sling (Peerless) in her status. Takki accepted the tacit invitation, squared up, and loosed a stone with no less intensity than if she had sighted a fire wolf with a particularly nice coat. She managed to hit a base triangle and the follow-up, but not a third. “Very tricky. I think it would be fun to commission something like this in a sturdier material and have meets.”
“There's no material strong enough,” Onerid objected. “That's excellent, since it's important in your line of work to crack the uncrackable and so, but be mindful, my girl.”
“Oh, I know, but we'll pad the projectiles to reduce the impacts. Hng!” That one landed in the center of the back-left circle. “Now the right one.”
“I think not,” Ibir interrupted, and not because she despised the sport. Far from that, she had been gathering stones herself, and while doing so she looked up and saw the long-desired boat approach over the rolling ocean turned into froth by furious oars. Soon they heard the drum testify that once again the capricious waves had chosen mercy, that the crew was right to trust its vessel. The beat had a power to hypnotize nearly equal to that of a young man drawing a beach picture. Perhaps if the drummer raised his Panache a bit.
The boat had not transformed or been traded in for an Akard-Velgsin masterpiece since it carried the Stadeskosken crew there, and so nothing about it startled Dirant. Neither did the presence of Keiminops Bodan-Tin on board; he had expected that. What did stir him a little was that in his surreptitious examinations of Onerid Paspaklest for any reaction, he detected none. Pretending to remove a pebble from his shoe, a necessary contrivance to get close to Takki's ear, he whispered, “As to the rumors . . .”
“Who would tell her?”
“Ah.”
That elucidating exchange completed, Dirant examined the other passenger. Seated next to Keiminops, a gentleman of a much different cast looked about with the condescending smile of someone who trusted he comprehended everything the moment he saw it. He may not have been mistaken. Adabans often credited Riks with understanding both deep and wide even while mocking them for turning it to no account but increasing their own anxiety, a fault which that particular Rik-looking fellow appeared not to possess.
His hair, still black despite the experience it had accumulated over fifty-ish years, had withdrawn gracefully from the field to retire at the top. Between his lofty hairline and his sharp Rik nose were eyes equally as black, undiminished by time in their quick motions and their intensity. His coat and the vest under it belonged to the generation before, with none of that nonsense about buttoning on alternating sides. For all that Dirant understood it was the obligation of anyone his own age to deride the style as unfashionable, the sight forced him to contemplate whether wearing the latest thing was nothing but a ploy to avoid being compared with a truly well-dressed man. He hoped his efforts to straighten his clothes before the guests arrived were not noticed, although perhaps they would take it as a compliment.
When the boat came in, the crew moved to assist the older man up. The Rik scorned any such aid and the very ladder as well. He jumped instead, grabbed the pier's edge, and swung himself around fully vertical for one glorious instant before he rolled forward and straightened himself. He planted his cane and stood as if waiting for a lunch companion who was running a tad late. So convincing was his nonchalant pose that those waiting on the shore doubted what they had seen.
Keiminops followed in a less dramatic fashion, and then another Drastlifar whom Dirant had taken as part of the crew with a letter stuffed in his cummerbund and a packet in his hand no doubt sent by Mr. Hadolt Herafoken. The actual crew set about all the making fast and such sailors did while the disembarking three advanced to meet the waiting four.
Keiminops Bodan-Tin, as befit the rank implied by the second and third parts of his name, began the introductions. He clasped his hands first as he turned to Ibir, then Onerid, then Takki, likely in order of age as best he could determine, and then seized Dirant's hand in the customary manner.
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“Keiminops Bodan-Tin is my name, and you?” Though he spoke with a higher voice than Dirant expected from someone of his height and build, it had a texture that implied the speaker had character, regardless of the true situation.
“Dirant Rikelta. This opportunity is a blessing for me. Istarank Faolst's wife Ibir Doteniksta is here, and Delaosant Paspaklest's daughter Onerid, and Rasto Takki Upki's daughter Millim Takki Atsa.” He opted to exclude honorifics as was the custom in Greater Enloffenkir when he realized he had forgotten the one he had heard used for Delaosant Paspaklest. Further, he placed Onerid second just as Keiminops had despite her being an arms-bearing lady, conceding to the Bodan-Tin the greater knowledge of local etiquette. For his third choice made for reasons of politeness, he ignored his certain knowledge those two had already met. To hint he knew had an air of the indiscreet about it, and the occasion back then may have been considered private and therefore did not qualify.
“A hybrid introduction. The articles claiming the Adabans want to absorb us have something to them after all. We'll wake up tomorrow and our beards will be gone, but it's all right as long as we get a fee for every wig, doll, and pillow sold.” Keiminops said that as if he were contemplating the possibility seriously, which showed either a much finer control over his amusement-related muscles than certain Jalpi Peffu ever demonstrated or a willingness to ruminate about unorthodox ideas so prized in academia as a trait up to the point one publicly questioned a celebrity professor's theories. “We'll call the new country Even Greater Enloffenkir until Redrin is incorporated and Nearing True Greatness Enloffenkir after that. Then, after we conquer Noiswawau and Swadvanchdeu, we'll downgrade ourselves to Greatness Missed and tell one another stories about the old days.” So the first one, then.
“It is so, Eizesl,” Dirant allowed. “We already tell such stories however, and so we may dispense with the rest as we choose.”
There was dignity in Keiminops's understanding nod. “I worked a nasty pasture growing this much beard as it was. This opportunity is a blessing for me. Here are Onsalkan Aishtin-Zol's daughter's father Onsalkan and Helsodenk Nifkleskir's nephew's father's brother Helsodenk.”
Keiminops had evidently deduced he could get away with anything. It could not be determined whether it was the relative youth of the company barring Helsodenk Onsalkan which encouraged him, his extensive research into the likes and dislikes of his uncle's guests, the irrepressible flippancy of his social circles, or the urge to avert any unease caused by the appearance of a celebrity of such dubious reputation as what Helsodenk Nifkleskir had. Those were the favorable possibilities, but he may just have been uncouth generally or drunk specifically. Dirant had already played along before he thought of those indications of poor character; therefore he committed himself to thinking the best of Keiminops against all future evidence.
“So many blessings are about that I wonder a temple is not sprung up beneath us,” Helsodenk said, and if his expression stayed flat throughout, it was because every muscle worked to its limit to load his speech with as much derision as possible. As if he had finished making a point, Helsodenk relaxed his contempt glands and became sociable. “Blessings, yes. Does anyone know if an old associate of mine, Delaosant Paspaklest, is doing well?” He watched out of the corner of the eye for a movement of Onerid's fan which he at least believed he understood. “It relieves me to hear that. Because we are close in age, I think of him always when too many of the young are about. I yield it to you, Eizesl Aishtin-Zol, to be a bridge between generations.”
Onsalkan Aishtin-Zol did indeed look old enough to have the daughter Keiminops attributed to him, though not enough for her to leave home. Doubtless he wished to return to said home and had no wish to stand around and interpret the latest slang. “Don't say so, Eizeur Nifkleskir. My sole task, too much of an honor for me at that, is to transmit from Stadeskosken to Stadeskosken this missive.” He handed the packet to Dirant with his left hand, shook with his right, and walked off to town while dropping greetings behind him. He did stop for a moment to admire the scoring field. “What a game that must have been! Farewell again.”
Keiminops drifted over to examine that also. “I don't remember this at all. Having fun, to be clear.”
Dirant stopped himself from saying he had heard differently and merely handed the instructions over to Onerid for her perusal. When Helsodenk displayed an inclination to join the man whose guest he appeared to be, the Stadeskosken group shuffled a few yards to the side to give him, but really themselves, room.
“We're all staying,” Onerid proclaimed shortly. “Provided that the Stanops decides to accept the additional charges laid out here, which is nearly an assured thing.”
“Even Mr. Stansolt?” asked Dirant.
“He as well.”
“That is clear enough. What advice can anyone offer as to wringing information from the nephew of an important personage concerning possible intrigues?”
“Don't,” Onerid suggested, but Takki, less concerned about Stadeskosken's local reputation, disagreed.
“If you're accused of doing something wrong, aren't you eager to help in clearing it up? That's the best way I know.”
Dirant, recalling certain incidents, looked down and dug one foot into the beach like a student taken aside by the teacher to give an explanation that under no circumstances would exculpate him. “Ah, and it is too late for me to deny it works on me.”
“I really wasn't planning to point that out, Ressi.”
“There is no need for it. Now I must excuse myself to inquire whether Eizesl Bodan-Tin is aware of any promising crimes.”