The concession pleased Smonny not at all. She set up a howl of complaint: "How can I cover five years of material in a month?"
"You must do your best," snapped Spanchetta.
"I suspect that the examination will only be a formality; Fratano hinted as much. Still, you can't get by with nothing! So, you must start studying immediately."
Smonny made only a perfunctory attempt to encompass the material she had so long ignored. To her consternation, the examination was of the usual sort, and not just a pretext for granting her a passing grade. Her score was even worse than before, and now there was no help for it: Smonny was out.
Her eviction from Clattuc House was a long and contentious process, which climaxed at the House Supper, when Smonny delivered her farewell remarks, which escalated from sarcastic jibes, through a revelation of disgraceful secrets, into a shrieking hysterical fit.
Fratano at last ordered the footmen to remove her by force;
Smonny jumped up on the table and ran back and forth, followed by four bemused footmen, who finally seized her and dragged her away.
Smonny took herself off-world to Soum, where she worked briefly in a pilchard cannery; then, according to Spanchetta, joined an ascetic religious group, and subsequently vanished no one knows where.
In due course Marya gave birth to Glawen. Three years later, Marya drowned in the lagoon, while two Yips stood on the shore it no great distance. When asked why they had not gone to her rescue one said:
"We were not watching." The other said: "It was none of oar affair." Both, puzzled and uncomprehending, were immediately sent back to Yipton.
Scharde never spoke of the event and Glawen never asked questions. Scharde showed no inclination to remarry, even though the ladies considered him eminently personable. He was quiet and soft-spoken, of medium stature, spare and strong, with coarse short prematurely gray hair and narrow sky-blue eyes gleaming from a bony weathered face.
On the morning of Glawen's birthday, the two had barely finished breakfast before Scharde was called away to Bureau B on special business. Glawen, with nothing better to do, lingered at the table, while the two Yip footmen who had served the breakfast now cleared away the dishes and set the room to rights. Glawen watched them, wondering what went on behind the half-smiling faces. The quick sidelong glances:
what did they signify? Mockery and contempt? Simple placid curiosity? Or nothing whatever? Glawen could not decide, and Yip behaviour gave no clue. It would be interesting, thought Glawen, to understand the quick sibilant Yip idiom.
Glawen finally rose from the table. He departed Clattuc House and wandered down to the lagoon: a series of brimming ponds fed by the River Wan, with trees along the shore both native and imported: black bamboo, weeping willow, poplar, purple-green verges." The morning was fresh and sunny;
autumn was in the air; in a few weeks Glawen would be entering the lyceum.
Glawen came to the Clattuc boathouse: a rectangular structure with an arched roof of green and blue glass supported on pillars of black iron, built to outdo in elegance the other five boat houses
The Clattucs of this particular time, save perhaps for Scharde and Glawen, were not keen yachtsmen. The boathouse sheltered only a pair of punts, a beamy little sloop twenty-five feet long and a fifty-foot ketch for more extended blue-water cruising.2
' A large number of Earth-native plants and trees had been introduced to enhance the already rich flora ofCadwal. In every instance the biologists had adapted die plant to the environment, imposing ingenious genetic safeguards to prevail ecological disaster.
The boathouse was one of Glawen's favorite resorts, where he could almost always find solitude, which today he wanted above all else so that he might compose himself for the ordeal of the House Supper and his birthday celebration.
Such affairs were little more than formalities, so Scharde had assured him. Giawen would not be required to deliver a speech or embarrass himself in any other manner.
"You are merely going to dine with your kin. For the most part they are a tiresome group, as you are well aware. After a moment or two they will ignore you, and become busy with their gossip and little intrigues. At the end Fratano will declare you a provisional, and announce your SI, which I should guess to be a fairly safe 24, or at worst a 25, which is still not too bad, considering the creaking joints and gray hairs around the table."
"And that is all?"
"More or less. If someone troubles to talk to you, answer politely, but otherwise you can dine in silence and no one will be the wiser."
Giawen sat on a bench where he could look across the lagoon and watch the play of sunlight and shadow on the water. He told himself:
"Perhaps it will not go so badly, after all. Still, I'd be relieved ;c my SI turned out to be a point or two lower than what I fear it will be."
The scrape of footsteps broke into his thoughts. A bulky shape appeared at the end of the dock. Giawen sighed. Here vas the person he least wanted to see: Aries, two years older than himself, taller by a head and heavier by fifty pounds. His face was large and flat, with a snub nose and a ripe heavy mouth. A smart cap with a stylish slantwise visor today confined his black curls.
At the age of eighteen and anSI of 16, by reason of his direct lineage, through Spanchetta and Valart, her father, to Past Master Damian, who was father to the current Master, Fratano,1 only serious malfeasance or failure at the lyceum could cause Aries difficulties.
Coming into the cool dimness from the sunlight, Aries stood blinking. Giawen quickly picked up an abrasive block and, jumping aboard the sloop, busied himself at the tai frail He crouched low; perhaps Aries would not see him.
Aries strolled slowly along the dock, hands in pockets, peering right and left. At last he took note of Giawen. He stopped and stared, puzzled by Glawen's activity. He sauntered close.
"What are you up to?"
' Genealogical details and SIs need not be remembered. They will be cited as sparingly as possible.
Glawen said evenly: "I am sanding the boat, to prepare it for varnish."
"That's what I thought you were doing," said Aries coldly.
"After all, my eyes are in very good condition."
"Don't just stand there; get busy. You'll find another sanding block in the locker."
Aries gave a snort of derisive laughter.
"Are you serious?
That's work for the Yips!"
"Why haven't they done it, then?"
Aries shrugged.
"Complain to Namour; he'll put them right.
But don't involve me; I have better things to do."
Glawen continued to work, with a sober concentration that at last caused Aries exasperation.
"Sometimes, Glawen, I find you absolutely unpredictable.
Haven't you forgotten something?"
Glawen paused and gazed dreamily out over the water.
"I
can't think of anything. Of course, if I'd forgotten it, that's what one would expect."
"Bah! More of your larky talk! Today is your birthday! You should be up in your chambers, making preparations--that is, if you want to cut any kind of a figure. Do you have white shoes? If not, you should get some in double-quick time! I tell you this out of kindness; no more."
Glawen darted a side glance at Aries, then continued his work.
