Aries gave a knowing laugh.
"Mark my words! Your number is close to the 30s. I won't tell you exactly, but shall we hint at somewhere between 29 and 31?"
At last Glawen's composure was breached.
"I don't believe it!" He jumped to the dock.
"Where did you hear such nonsense? From your mother?"
Aries suddenly sensed that he had spoken far too loosely. He tried to bluster.
"Are you suggesting that my mother talks nonsense?"
"Neither you nor your mother are supposed to know anything about my
SI."
"Why should we not? We can count and the lineage is a matter of record--or, more accurately, is not a matter of record."
An odd remark, thought Glawen.
"What do you mean by that?"
Aries saw that once again he had spoken indiscreetly.
"Nothing much. Nothing, really, at all."
"You seem oddly full of information."
"The Bold Lions know everything that's worth knowing. I'm familiar with scandals you can't even imagine! For instance, what old lady tried to pull Vogel Laverty into bed last week, almost by sheer force?"
"I have no idea. How far did he let himself get pulled?"
"Not at all! He's not even my age! Another situation: I could point out right now someone who will shortly have a baby and the father is very much in doubt."
Glawen turned away.
"I had nothing to do with it, if that is what you came to find out."
Aries gave a hoot of laughter.
"That is a fine joke! Quite the wittiest remark you have made today." He rose to his feet.
"Time is getting on. Instead of varnishing the boat, you should be up in your chambers, cleaning your fingernails and rehearsing your deportment."
Glawen looked at Aries' plump white hands.
"My fingernails are cleaner than yours are right now."
Aries scowled and thrust his hands in his pocket.
"Conditions are different; keep that in mind! If I should speak to you, answer: "Yes, sir' or "No, sir." That's proper conduct. If you have doubts about your table manners, just watch me."
"Thank you, but I will probably be able to muddle through the meal."
"As you wish." Aries turned on his heel and stalked from the dock.
Glawen stood looking after him, seething with irritation.
Aries passed between the pair of heroic statues which flanked the entrance to the Clattuc formal garden, and was lost to view. Glawen pondered. Between 29 and 31? After five years as a provisional, his SI might have declined to 25.
That meant collateral status and out of Clattuc House:
away from his father, away from all the niceties of life, away from the prestige and perquisites of full Agency!
Glawen looked off across the water. Just such a grim event had altered the lives of thousands before him, but the full tragedy of the situation had never touched him before.
And what of the girls, whose good opinion he valued? There was Eriin Offaw, already embarked on what promised to be a long career of breaking hearts, and Ticia Wook, blond, fragile, fragrant and graceful as a gillyflower, but, like all Wooks, remote and proud." Then there was Sessily Veder, who had been conspicuously amiable the last few times he had encountered her. If he were ranked with anSI of 30, his future was blasted and none of them would look twice at him
' Had each house rated the other five in order of perceived prestige, and had the six estimates been combined, the consensus would have placed the Wooks and the Offaws at the top of the list, with the Veders and the Clattucs just below, then the Diffins and the Lavertys, though even in the most unkind estimation, the difference between top and bottom was not great.
Glawen left the boathouse and followed Aries back up the slope to Clattuc House: a thin, somber dark-haired figure inconsequential in the scope of the landscape, though highly important to himself and to his father, Scharde.
Entering the house, Glawen went up to his chambers at the eastern end of the second-floor gallery. To his great relief, he found Scharde at home.
Scharde instantly sensed Glawen's perturbation.
"You're getting the shakes early."
