but sensible, and he was readying himself to expound on his resolution when Ellin and Bao came along the walk, full of questions.
Mouche and Ornery bowed. Mouche had been working himself up to politeness, but Ornery acknowledged the visitors only in a cursory fashion. Ornery was, if possible, more annoyed than Mouche was. She liked Mouche a good deal as a friend, but Ornery did not like men except as friends. On the ship she had come to know a good many of them rather intimately. Some she enjoyed being with, as she did Mouche, and some she would as soon not be around, but her strongest feelings were reserved for other women. She had no desire to be any more than friendly with Mouche, but she strongly wanted to be friendly! If she was friendly with him, he might desire her, and then it would all be a tangle!
And now, adding irritation to aggravation, here were these two outlanders, asking questions!
“Have you worked here long?” Ellin asked.
“Too long,” snarled Ornery.
“Yes, Madam,” said Mouche, with an admonitory glance at Ornery. They were under instructions to be polite, word having filtered down just what the stakes were in this particular game. It had been intimated that some great penalty might be exacted by the Council of Worlds, a penalty that would affect each and every one of them. Discretion, urged the powers that be. No matter who you are, discretion.
Bao, who was still in his women’s garb, said, “I am seeing gardens with much work invested. What numbers of persons are working to keep them so?”
“A lot,” snarled Ornery from behind his veil.
“More sometimes than others,” said Mouche, leaving himself a way out.
“How many right now?” asked Ellin, with a hint of asperity.
Mouche laid down his shears and tucked in his veils as he said slowly and pleadingly, “Mistress, we don’t know. We are very lowly persons. We are not told things by those who hire us, except to go here or there, to do this or that. Sometimes there are a good many gardeners at meals in the servants’ quarters. Other times, there are fewer. Some who work the gardens may also labor in the stables or the fields. To find out precisely how many, you would need to ask the head gardener or the steward.”
This was the longest speech Ellin had managed to provoke from a veiled man as yet, and she noted the way in which it was delivered. Humbly, but eloquently, with a slight catch in the pronunciation that spoke of a minor speech impediment. Also, the man who spoke stood like a … well, a dancer. Or perhaps an actor. Reason told her he should have been a little stooped and gnarled if he had, in fact, worked a long time in the gardens. Reason told her, also, that the voice should not have sounded so very well trained. It was, in all respects, an attractive voice.
She turned to the other veiled figure and asked, “Is that so? Are you truly told so little?”
“It’s true,” grunted the other. “It’s hardbread and tea, work until noon, soup and hardbread and work until sundown. That’s life on Newholme.”
“It sounds hard,” said Gandro Bao.
“But satisfying,” said Mouche with a grim look at Ornery. “We are content with our lot.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Ornery.
Mouche took a deep breath and spoke directly to Bao. “You ladies are not veiled. Sometimes we who are veiled find working in such conditions troublesome and itchy. Sometimes we get irritable, as my friend is now. He is a good friend, however. I do not want to lose him as my friend. Please, do not say to anyone that my friend was anything less than accommodating to your needs.”
The four stood staring at one another, open interest on the one side and veiled frustration on the other. With some vague idea of clarifying things, Ellin asked, “Will you take down your veils for us? Just for a moment.”
Ornery and Mouche looked at one another, surprised, Mouche more shocked than Ornery, who had gone long times without veils on the ship.
“Please,” begged Ellin. “We will not mention it to anyone, but we need to discover things about this world, and so much of it is hidden behind … veils.”
“You are not getting into trouble over it,” said Bao. “We are discovering all kinds of things, as Ellin says.”
Well, they had been told to be polite! Though Mouche would have preferred not to display his battered countenance, he