The Valet Of Anize: Chapter Two
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originalsam_backupCHAPTER TWO
One of the Government House guards brought my bag up from the Temple shortly before dinner that night, and in our brief conversation at my door gave me the impression that she'd sorted things out with the Temple residents, who sent their good wishes for my new career. I was about to inquire after the state of Stick and Bart, my erstwhile highwaymen, when the dinner whistle rang and she disappeared as if she thought she might melt.
I soon discovered why; outside my door, there was an ungodly clatter as cart after cart of covered dishes rolled out of the kitchen and into a service elevator, packing in so tightly that only one server could fit in after them. People began to stream across the courtyard, shouting greetings to each other, and the chefs began pushing more carts into the hallway to be loaded when the elevator returned. I decided it was best not to wait, and took the stairs. At the bottom, I had to stand on the steps until the crowd had passed.
Dinner service was chaotic; the carts were simply shoved out into one end of the vast Senate dining hall, and people scrambled into lines for food before any of the dishes had been uncovered. The line for bread rolls looked remarkably long, while a huge vat of beef stew sat cooling slowly with almost nobody around it. The plates and cutlery had already vanished by the time I entered the hall.
"Excuse me," I asked a young man, one of the fruit-pickers from earlier. "Where do I get a plate?"
"Good luck," he answered without looking up. "There should be another tray of them arriv -- " He broke off when he finally saw who was speaking to him, and blinked.
"Do you want mine?" he offered, holding it out, fork and knife tucked against the top with his thumb.
"No, thank you, I'll wait," I answered.
"Are you sure?"
I noticed, trying not to look around too zealously, that there was a ripple spreading out from where he and I stood; heads were raising, people shuffling aside, a path forming between me and the food. Either they were trying to make a good impression or they were humouring someone marked for death.
Before I could react, however, the elevator opened again and another row of carts were shoved out. This, at least, I could handle; I stepped up smartly to the doors and blocked the exit.
"Plates," I ordered, and the startled server jammed a cart into my hands. "Is there salad?"
"Not at this time of year," he replied.
"Soup or stew?"
Three more carts emerged. People began to fall into line.
"Fish or meats, please."
Another cart.
"Dessert?"
"S'brought out last." He gave me a sullen look.
"Very well. Bread, then, and anything else?"
"Fruit," he responded, a little more quickly. I accepted the last of the carts and lined it up next to the others. This set, at least, would feed people properly and in order. The line was already moving faster than the other.
"Is there more on the way?" I asked, stopping the doors from closing.
"Not till dessert," he said smartly.
"Good man. Send the elevator down for the empty carts before the dessert service, please."
"Yessi -- " he paused, " -- r?"
"Yes Valet will do," I told him. "And send my compliments to the kitchen, this all smells wonderful."
A group of guards had joined the mass of clerks and servants in line, and I saw Stick and Bart at the back, standing painfully and shuffling forward like old men. From my privileged place behind the carts, I snatched two plates. I covered one in thick stew and the other in fruit and bread, cut a generous slice of butter while balancing both plates in one hand, and made a discreet exit to the side. I caught Stick's eye as I passed and jerked my head at the long rows of tables where only the quick and nimble were already eating. They slipped away from the line.
"Here you are," I said, setting out the plates and producing cutlery from my sleeve. "Is there tea to be had?"
Bart shook his head. "Juice in these parts," he said, as Stick joined us with three large glasses filled with cloudy tan liquid.
"Apple?" I asked hopefully.
"And whatever else is available," Stick grunted, seating himself with exaggerated care. I plucked a roll from one of the plates and broke it open.
"Well, tuck in," I said, gesturing at the plates. They both paused.
"Listen, no hard feelings, right?" Bart said.
"None at all," I assured him. "Shouldn't I be the one offering that?"
"Well, we were just following orders," Bart said, eyeing the stew like it might bite him. I picked out some potato and mashed it onto my roll.
"Honestly, you're the one who got kicked," I replied. "Eat up, before it gets cold."
Stick gave me one last scrutinising look, then scooped up a roll and ripped the middle out of it, filling it with meat and stew-gravy. I sampled the juice, winced at the sweet-acid bite of it, and nibbled on some potato to kill the tang.
"It's only we thought you might be a little resentful," Bart continued around a mouthful of fruit.
"Meat first," I told him. "The fruit clears the palate."
He studied the pear he was holding, set it down, and began eating directly from the stew-plate.
"I don't hold a grudge against you," I said. "You didn't know any better, after all. And only the governor should have."
"She got a telling-off from you," Bart grinned. "I'm Bart, this is Stick, by the way."
"Yes, so I've been told. I'm Valet for now."
"Pleasure," Stick said. "Made your decision about staying on yet?"
"You should," said a new voice, and I looked up to see a small cluster of what I took to be clerks standing nearby. "Can we sit?" their apparent spokesman asked.
"Fine with me," I told them. The other side of the table was filling up with guards. Stick gestured broadly for them to sit down. In the middle of the clattering plates and bustle of chairs being pulled out, Pendleton appeared with a glass of juice in one hand.
"Well, you've certainly made yourself at home," he said, mopping his forehead with a napkin and sighing as he sat down. "I've been after Chef for months to get the food service into some kind of order. We never have this problem when Senate's in session and they open the big kitchen but it's like he just can't be bothered in the off-season."
"There's your mistake," I said, helping myself to more stew. The food was good, if a little plain, but nobody can fault a big household for not serving gourmet meals to its staff. "I'm sure he doesn't have time to worry about that kind of thing. You want to talk to the servers. Get in on the ground floor."
"Do I," he asked, with a slightly annoyed look, while Bart snorted and muttered "Ground floor!"
"I don't mean to tell you how to run the household," I said, backing off a little. "It's just instinct. Sorry."
"That's good, because it's not your household to run," Pendleton replied.
"So the Governor has made perfectly clear," I answered. Stick cleared his throat anxiously.
"There's a show about your folk on the UTube," he said, an awkward but effective method of changing the subject. "Valets, I mean. It's called Explorers. Have you seen it?"
"It's not about Valets," Bart put in. "There's just a valet in it."
"Yeah, but she's a character on it, they do stories about her. Is it like that really?" Stick asked earnestly.
"The UTube isn't real," one of the clerks said scornfully.
"I know that!" Stick answered, indignant.
"It's not entirely accurate," I said, and the others turned to look at me. I cleared my throat. "I've seen it a few times."
"Is it true most valets are men?" another clerk asked.
"I couldn't say," I replied. "We don't inquire after our colleagues' genders. Statistics from retiring valets seem to suggest the break's about equal. Hardly matters though; that's the worst thing about that show. A valet would never uncollar in front of their employer. It just isn't done."
"Got the ratings though," Bart said.
"Well, it would, wouldn't it? Everyone wants to know," I answered. "They made sure to keep stirring up the mystery, too, so people would stay interested. In real life, people look at you funny for about a day and then nobody cares. That's how it's supposed to be. But put it on the UTube, make it into a story, and you get record viewing stats for the episode where Ari takes the tunic off and you find out she's a woman."
"But the rest of it," Stick persisted. "About how she's sworn to service and willing to die for Benjamin."
"I suppose. It's less dramatic than all that. Valets don't fall in love with their employers, or if they do they have better manners than to let it show."
"It's romantic," Bart murmured.
"It's a breach of duty. Very unprofessional. But it's the UTube, what else do you expect?" I asked. "In real life nobody goes around jumping off cliffs onto the backs of horses, either. They'd break their own pelvis, not to mention the horse's back. And Singularists don't have any kind of stupid rule against premarital sex. So that's Benjamin out too. And," I added, as people began to pile their plates on the now-empty carts, "that's my cue. Pendleton, I don't mean to intrude, but if I can take this off your hands for you..."
"No, by all means, one less thing for me to fret about," he said, but his jollity was a little more forced than it had been earlier. "Go on with you."
I began pulling the carts into a neat line next to the service elevator. When it opened again there was a new clutter of them inside, but the server was beaming proudly.
"All in order, Valet," he said smartly, pushing the first few out neatly.
"Very clever, thank you," I replied, lifting the lids as I went. They were more or less identical, fruit compotes and cobblers, but it was the thought that counted. I pushed the empty carts back into the elevator. "Tomorrow, for service, have someone down here to arrange them. If you can't spare anyone, get one of the guards to do it, all right?"
"Right you are," he answered. "I'll let the morning service know. Back in a minute for the rest."
With the empties out of the way and the dessert carts arranged in a neat line, the rest of the meal went so quickly that by the time I was done arranging things, people were leaving the hall. One of the clerks we'd been eating with sidled up to me, a little nervous without his entourage.
"I meant what I said earlier," he said. "About you staying. You really should. Dr. Anizin's work is very important, and -- well, so is dinner."
I laughed. "We'll see. It seems like this place -- "
I was going to say that the household could use a valet, but at that moment Pendleton walked past.
" -- is in fine form already," I finished. If Pendleton heard, he gave no sign. The clerk looked knowingly at me and bolted. Stick and Bart gave me a nod as they left.
When all the carts were cleared away and the last diner had left the hall, I stepped out into the courtyard to get a closer look at the fruit trees. Apples, pears, peaches, a blackberry bramble growing across one corner, a patch of strawberries in another. Wide paths cut across the courtyard, four regular lines forming a square and several irregular ones at random. A leisure garden, and one that apparently helped support the sweet tooth of the staff and Senate. It was warm, and the garden was pretty in the dim afterdusk. I could smell the sea. A few degrees colder and this could have been one of the old converted castles of New Breton.
What little history remains of the early days of my island says that the castles built on the coasts were leisure complexes, commissioned by eccentrics and historians as summer homes. Arrival was a prime tourist destination, once; the castles of New Breton implied a kind of luxury that the wealthy wanted to flaunt on their vacations.
Only two or three of the castles are still standing now. The revolution after the Silence fell "repurposed" the rest. Not that I have any right to look down on my ancestors -- with no offworld supplies, with all of Arrival cut off from the rest of the galaxy, they did what they could. And the castles were false relics anyway, not truly representative of offworld history.
The Government House of Anize was a historical relic in its own right, a record of the history of Anize prefecture since the Silence. The elegance and grace of a rich governing body had made it a beautiful structure, and then some ancestor of Governor Anizin had protected it after Arrival lost contact with the other human worlds. It had been a production plant and a refuge, and now was the seat of power once again. And here I was, little Valet, standing in its courtyard and considering whether I could even remain here.
I turned and went smartly back inside, taking the steps two at a time up to the hallway that led to my room. The clatter and hiss of the dishes being washed in the kitchen faded as I closed and locked the door with the little metal key.
I decided would sit vigil for a while, considering my situation, and then sleep early. It was bound to be a busy morning, no matter what the outcome was.
***
A Valet's requirements are few. The respect due to a servant, from their employer; a room of their own, with a lock; and decent sufficient food and clothing. The rest -- salary, authority, autonomy -- is negotiable. Much of the time that negotiation is unspoken, a sort of subtle arrangement we reach with our employers in those first few weeks, when neither party is entirely certain of the other anyway. Most employers come to understand quickly that we expect to be woken at all hours, to perform unusual tasks, and to take awkward situations firmly in hand. Indeed, anyone can serve tea and balance the house accounts. It takes a valet to locate an expert in exotic game tracking when one's pet Chulut has gone missing at four in the morning, and to convince said expert to actually come and provide assistance.
(The Chulut was found up a tree next to the hotel we had lodged in for the night. Sometimes, game tracking is an overrated skill.)
Therefore, when I woke at midnight to a quiet knock on my door, I dressed quickly and efficiently. Bart, startled by my speed, jerked back in surprise when I opened the door.
"They just don't give you a day off, do they?" I asked.
"I'm here on my own," he said.
"Well, that's sweet." I leaned against the door frame. "Bart, have you come to woo me?"
He grinned. "What would you say if I said yes?"
"I'd say I'm not that kind of escort. Besides, we both know I can take you."
"Yeah, when you've got a box of muffins, maybe. Barehanded? I'd snap you in half."
I poked the bandage on his nose. He yelped.
"Not right now, you wouldn't," I said. "All this flirting is fun, but did you come by for a reason? I was already asleep."
"Yeah, I wanna show you something."
I arched an eyebrow.
"Come on," he said, jerking his head for me to follow. I pulled on my boots and closed the door behind me, following him down the corridor. We turned a sharp corner and descended a wide stairway to another wing of the building. If he was plotting revenge he was going about it in a very obtuse fashion.
The stairs led away from the kitchen and my room, terminating not far below. There was a faint whiff of ozone in the air, and we were faced with a long straight hallway filled with doors. Bart listened at the first one, nodded almost to himself, and eased it open.
The room inside was as dark as the hallway had been, but there were hints and dapples of light against the one wall that was visible. On the right, the light was mostly obscured by a couple of enormous machines, all gears and chains and cables.
Bart held a finger to his lips and gestured me forward, to where a large block of light shone through an open space between two machines. I ducked my head slightly to peer through it.
The large open space beyond had obviously once been several rooms in a row, though all the walls had been knocked down and only load-bearing columns remained here and there. It was brightly lit and filled with electronics -- a couple of consoles against the back wall, a large screen on the one opposite us at the other end of the room, and what looked like several half-finished airplanes, all sleek brushed steel and gorgeous aerodynamic fins.
In the center of the room there had been built an enormous sturdy four-post frame of welded metal, with cables running down from each post and crossbeam. They supported a complicated-looking engine, much more advanced than anything I'd ever personally seen. As I watched, a figure circled it, flipped up some casing or other, and studied the innards carefully.
"What is all this?" I whispered to Bart, though I had a fair idea already.
"Dr. Anizin's workshop," he whispered back. "That's Dr. Anizin."
I looked with renewed interest at the woman working on the engine, rather than the engine itself. She was young, which I had expected; her short dark hair curled in tight waves where it wasn't held back with clips from a broad, high-cheekboned face. She didn't have much likeness to the Governor in her, except for a certain set of her jaw; even her nose was snub where the Governor's was angular. She wore a mechanic's jumpsuit, stained all over with grease, but that wasn't what caught my attention.
It was her hands: broad in themselves but with long, dextrious fingers, neat and clean despite the grease on her clothing. She had tidily trimmed nails, and a few clean bandages on the knuckles of her right hand. They were confident hands, moving with a quick efficiency as she worked. Skilled, sure, and well cared-for; hands, in short, I could respect.
On second look her face betrayed a similar clear self-certainty, an intelligence that I had not foreseen in the child of a wealthy woman who thought she could purchase me as a gift. But then Governor Anizin was not stupid, and it was a mistake to assume Dr. Anizin would be.
She closed the hatch on whatever she'd been working on and walked to one of the consoles against the wall. I didn't expect the roar of the engine or the bright flare of live flame from one end; when the engine burst to life I jerked back, into Bart, and our legs tangled up together as he fell sideways. I landed on my elbows, still in shadow, but Bart tumbled out into a gap between machines, blinking in the sudden light.
Dr. Anizin didn't hesitate. She turned sharply, fetching up a ferocious looking piece of machinery as she moved, and held it out in front of her.
"Who's there?" she asked sharply, and then I did see the similarity to her mother in the command in her voice. "Come out!"
Bart, who had to have been in considerable pain after that fall, heaved a groan and sat up.
"This minute, or I'll call the house guard!" she snapped.
"It's just me, Dr. Anizin," Bart managed, pushing himself to his feet and pulling off something remarkably close to military attention. She lowered the makeshift weapon in one hand.
"Is that you, Bart Carson?" she called.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," he answered, as I got to my own feet and dusted myself off.
"There's someone else," she said, and I could hear amusement creeping into her voice. "Bart, did you bring someone down here with you?"
"No, it's not -- " Bart was fumbling and a little dazed. I could have let him cover for me, and slipped away, but that would have been a cruel thing to do. I stepped out from behind him, into the harsh overhead lighting of the workshop. She cocked her head at me, then set the weapon down on the table.
"Dr. Anizin," I said.
"I don't know you," she replied. "Do I? Are you new?"
"This is the valet the Governor sent for," Bart managed.
"Oh for god's sake sit down, Bart," Dr. Anizin said, rolling her eyes. Bart gratefully collapsed on top of a nearby crate. She put her hands on her hips and stared at me with an almost unnerving attention. "So, you're the valet."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I said.
"Lord, nobody's ever going to respect me now," she sighed. "Well, come here, let me see you."
I came forward a little warily. This was not how I had envisioned meeting someone I might serve for ten or twenty years. Still, there was no help for it. She studied me from the tips of my boots to the top of my head, a single sweeping look, before lighting on my face.
"My mother has this...habit of caring too much about my comfort," she said finally.
"A parent's prerogative, perhaps," I answered.
"Perhaps. Still, I think buying me a servant is going a little overboard, don't you? Don't answer that. She wanted someone from the tradition. Were your parents valets?"
"My father was," I said. "He's retiring now."
"Do you know anything about machines?"
I glanced at the engine suspended from the frame nearby. "Not as much as you do, Dr. Anizin."
She broke a small smile at that. "Well, I assume you're intelligent enough to be taught if I have to. Can you cook?"
"Yes."
"Can you keep a secret?"
"That depends on whose."
She arched an eyebrow. "Mine."
"Yes."
"Good. I understand you can fight and you seem to have good taste in the company you keep. You don't have a name yet, do you?" she asked abruptly.
I admit the questioning had taken me by surprise, but until this one I thought I was managing. Now, I admit, I may have seemed startled.
"Well, do you?" she asked.
"No, Dr. Anizin."
"I suppose it'll be my job to name you?"
I hesitated. I could spill the entire story to her: warn her that I hadn't agreed to serve yet, explain the breach of trust her mother had committed, declare that the contract would have to be rewritten. But I looked at her hands and at her face, and I made my decision.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I said. "That's generally one of the first acts of employment."
"What if I give you a stupid name? This seems an inefficient way to run a business," she said.
"I'll answer to it," I replied.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Even if it's humiliating?"
"It will, after all, be my name," I replied, worrying a little now that I'd made my decision. "We none of us get to choose them."
"What if I asked you to? Choose one, I mean. To name yourself."
I hesitated, and she noticed it.
"No, that's -- not proper, is it?" she asked. "That's crossing a boundary. You're big on boundaries, valets, aren't you? Not that I think you shouldn't be. It's a sign of disrespect, not to...what, cement a bond between us?"
"Something like that," I agreed. It was, in fact, exactly like that.
"Well, maybe I should wait until morning -- god, it's morning, isn't it," she moaned suddenly, casting around for a clock.
"Only for the last fifteen minutes, Dr. Anizin," I answered.
"And I have a presentation to the planning commission at eight -- okay. First rule. If I'm awake past eleven at night, feel free to do anything within your power to make sure I'm not still awake at midnight," she said.
"Understood."
"Which means I should be in bed now...fine. Okay. Bart, go pass out, you look like death. Off you go too, I'll shut this down -- rule number two, you never come in here without my permission again. Oh, and Valet," she said, as I unobtrusively gave Bart my shoulder to lean on and helped him towards an exit. I turned at the door.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Your name is Carry," she announced.
"Very good, Dr. Anizin. R-r-i-e or r-y?" I asked.
"R-r-y," she answered, without skipping a beat. "Like the verb, but prettier. Goodnight, Carry."
"Goodnight, Dr. Anizin," I said under my breath, once we were in the hallway. Bart beamed and punched my shoulder, an interesting feat considering he was also leaning on it.
"She's great," he said. "I knew you'd like her."
"Eminently acceptable," I agreed.
"Do you like your name?"
"Yes; moreover, she showed a great presence of mind in coming up with it on the spot. If she ever acquires a second servant she can name that one Fetch," I remarked. "Which way to the barracks?"
"Just get me up the stairs and I'll be fine," he said.
"You're a hard 'un, Bart," I grunted, as we made our way up the stairs.
"Well, they don't hire weaklings for the Government House."
"I'll try to bear that in mind," I said.
"I was including you in that."
"Thank you," I said, as we reached the top and he eased himself off my shoulder. "Sure you're all right?"
"Fine," he assured me. "It's not far to the barracks."
I let him stagger off towards another exit, but once I was certain he wouldn't fall down I went back to my own room and carefully undressed, crawling back under the rumpled blankets. I set the alarm on my All-In-One, closed my eyes, and slept with a much lighter heart.
The decision had been made, and I had a name.
***
I rose at six the next morning, and by six-thirty was washed, dressed in a reasonably clean uniform, and assembling a breakfast tray in the kitchen, where the morning shift paid me little mind. I asked one of the pastry chefs for directions to Dr. Anizin's quarters, and at seven sharp I knocked on the door of my new employer's suite, with a tray carrying gava coffee, juice, toast, sausages (apparently an Anisi specialty) and some kind of boiled-grain cereal, balanced on my other hand. When there was no answer I tried the door and found it unlocked.
Dr. Anizin's suite was, naturally, much larger than mine, with a sitting room on entry and what seemed to be a small workroom to the right. To the left and up half a flight of steps was the bedroom, with tightly drawn drapes over the windows. I set the tray on a low dresser near the bed and opened the drapes, flooding the room with sunlight. Excellent; Dr. Anizin's larger workshop caught the afternoon light, and her bedroom and smaller workroom the morning sun.
"What the hell," came a sleepy voice from the bed, and I turned to the task of pouring the gava and taking the lids off the various dishes. "Who's there?"
"Just me, Dr. Anizin," I said, as she sat up and brushed hair out of her eyes.
"Who the -- oh, god," she mumbled. "Is that gava?"
"Do you take cream or sugar?"
"Sugar," she said, eyeing me suspiciously. "What time do you call this?"
"Seven in the morning," I answered, presenting the gava to her. I watched as she sipped; I'd perhaps added not quite enough sugar. She savoured it, however, while I waited patiently to serve her the rest.
"I understand you have a presentation at eight," I said, when she had finally set the gava on the nightstand. "Sausage, toast, or cereal?"
She studied me. "How long have you been awake?"
I smiled. "Long enough to assemble a healthful breakfast, and hopefully bring you to your meeting in a timely fashion. Perhaps you'd prefer to wash, first?"
"I should get dressed, I have the presentation to assemble -- "
"Perhaps I can be of assistance, while you eat," I suggested. She gave me a dry look.
"Was that a hint?"
"Of course not, Dr. Anizin. I wouldn't presume."
"Hmmm," she said, and climbed out of bed. She was wearing thin pyjamas, rather old from the look of them and not well-suited to the slight chill in the air. I plucked up a robe from the back of a chair and helped her into it. While it wasn't my first priority, I did notice that her rooms could certainly benefit from the tidy hand of a valet.
"I'll have sausage and toast in the sitting room," she decided. "Thanks, Carry."
An odd warmth hit me in the stomach. My name. A real name, something I hadn't had since I was ten.
"My pleasure," I answered, scooping up her mug and the tray and following her. "Should I run a bath while you eat?"
"A bath!" she laughed. "I don't have time for that. I'll duck under a shower -- oh, this is good," she added, around a mouthful of toast. "Shit, I left my gava in the -- "
I held it out to her. She blinked at it, took it, and downed half the cup in a single go. I busied myself with tidying the sitting room, picking up various pieces of clothing as she ate. When she'd finished with the toast she turned to find me sorting through the pockets of a pair of trousers, studying the two odd little tools I'd found there.
"Those can go in the bowl by the door," she said. "I'm going to shower. You -- uh."
"Yes?" I asked.
"You're not going to follow me and try to wash me or something, are you?"
"No, Dr. Anizin. I can if you wish, but we find in service -- "
She held up a hand. "Say no more. I don't want to be late. Keep yourself busy!" she called over her shoulder, as she ran up the stairs again.
I looked around at the sitting-room and the remains of breakfast. "Not a problem," I said to myself.
While the room gave an impression of having been hit by a very mild version of the hurricane that had decimated Pendleton's office, I found as I went that there was a sort of order to the chaos. The tools and equipment were often piled together by what seemed to be similar function, and the clothing cleared away quickly once someone bothered to gather it up. I set it by the door, making a note to find out how the household handled its laundry, and went up to her room to set out clean clothing for her day.
A presentation, of course, demanded some formality, but the day promised to be warm and she didn't seem too concerned with the need to impress. As much of her wardrobe seemed to consist of workmen's trousers and simple shirts, I selected a clean, dark-coloured pair of trousers, a light shirt, an olive overshirt, and appropriate underthings. I was just locating a pair of appropriate shoes from the random jumble under the nightstand when she emerged in the same thick robe, with a towel over her head.
"Wow," she said, when she saw the clothing waiting for her on the bed. "Thanks."
"Shall I dress you, Dr. Anizin?" I asked. She froze.
"Dress me?" she repeated. "Uh. No. No thanks. You can...you may go?"
I nodded and left her to it. It didn't take long. When she came down the stairs her shoes did not match her outfit, but there would be time for that some other day.
"All-in-One," she muttered to herself, hunting among the cushions of the couch in the sitting room.
"In one of your shirt pockets," I said, offering it to her.
"Great -- hey, I might be on time for once," she said, checking it quickly and turning to go. I went to follow, and she stopped at the door.
"Are you coming along?" she asked.
"It's my job to attend you," I replied.
"What, everywhere?"
"Unless you'd prefer I remain here, Dr. Anizin," I said. Like her mother, she didn't immediately decide; she stopped, considered it, and then shook her head.
"No, let's make an entrance," she said wickedly, and opened the door. "Come along, Carry."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I replied, following a step behind and a little to her right. "Will we need transport?"
"Nope, the meeting's in the Senate chamber. I'm presenting on the new plan for Izza this morning. I'm thinking of opening with a joke," she said, working on her All-In-One as we walked. "Izza Plan Needed?"
"Very droll," I remarked, following her down the upper half of the main staircase.
"Not too unprofessional?"
"I suspect anyone who would think that isn't going to get the joke in the first place," I said.
"Good."
We turned the corner to the lower half of the main staircase and I darted back to the guards standing at the door to the Governor's office.
"Please tell Governor Anizin that I've accepted my position, and will discuss any renegotiations at a later date," I said. The guard frowned, shrugged, and nodded. I ran to catch up with Dr. Anizin, who was already halfway to the door.
"Keep up, Carry," she called.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I answered, chastened. Well, really, the message could have waited, or I could have sent it electronically.
We passed through the lobby connecting the private residence to Government House, and soon found ourselves outside the Senate chamber. Dr. Anizin pushed open the large swinging door and walked down the centre aisle of the chamber just as my All-In-One buzzed the hour in my pocket.
A couple of young men and women were lounging at the front of the room, sitting on Senate desks or leaning against the stage. One of the men, surprised, jumped off the desk he was sitting on, as we entered.
"Leigh!" he called with a laugh. "You're on time! Is the sky falling?"
"No, that'd have to wait until you managed to make deadline," Dr. Anizin replied. He scowled. "Where is everyone?"
"Nobody expected you to be here yet," a woman said. Dr. Anizin rolled her eyes. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Carry," Dr. Anizin said, pushing past them and hoisting herself up onto the stage. As I didn't expect she wanted me standing at her elbow throughout the presentation, I stayed where I was in the aisle. "Mom hired hir."
"You're a valet!" another woman said.
"Yes," I answered politely.
"You're Leigh's valet," the man who'd teased Dr. Anizin about her tardiness added.
"I serve Dr. Anizin, yes," I said. Another man, behind the first, gave me a brief half-nod and turned to speak to Dr. Anizin; probably he had a valet in his family, or knew one. It's odd, but after a few years of service one grows to immediately know when someone has encountered a valet before. There's an...ease, with them, that one doesn't find much elsewhere.
"When did you get him?" the first man asked, turning to Dr. Anizin. I opened my mouth to correct him, but Dr. Anizin shocked me by beating me to it.
"Carry's not a him," she said, without looking up from where she was hooking her All-In-One into a console.
"Her, then."
"Not a her neither," she replied. "You don't gender valets, Brighton, were you raised in the wilderness?"
"Sorry," Brighton drawled.
"Don't apologise to me."
"Fine then, I won't. When did you get..." he petered out.
"Hir," I suggested. "Or use my name. The latter is preferable."
"That's awkward," he said.
I smiled just slightly. "One gets used to it."
"And, not that it's any of your business, but this is Carry's first day," Dr. Anizin put in from the stage. She pressed a button on the All-In-One and an image appeared on the screen at the back of the stage:
IZZA PLAN NEEDED?
About half of the assembled people laughed. Dr. Anizin gave me a quick, sardonic look, and began playing with the overhead lights. I sidled quietly down a row of desks, just far enough that I wouldn't stand out too much to someone entering the room, still close enough to get to the aisle quickly if necessary.
When the doors opened again, a new crowd of people entered -- older than the others, and more formally-dressed. Senior engineers, perhaps. One of them confirmed my suspicions by clapping his hands.
"Dr. Anizin! You're unusually prompt this morning," he said, as the younger engineers settled down and took seats in the first few rows of desks. The others hung back a little, sitting behind them.
"Thank you, Dr. Perch," my employer replied calmly, and I felt a little proprietary pride. "I thought we'd get the painful part over quickly."
"Are we all here?" Dr. Perch glanced around, apparently doing a head-count, and his eye fell on me, well back of everyone and off to the side. "These meetings are closed to the public."
"That's Carry," Dr. Anizin said, a hint of blush in her cheeks. "Carry's with me."
Dr. Perch raised an eyebrow at me. I didn't move; only Dr. Anizin had the right to dismiss me.
"Carry's perfectly discreet," Dr. Anizin said, and dimmed the lights to forestall further argument.
Over the next few minutes I learned more about Izza than I had ever expected I would need to know. One of a thousand small towns in our hemisphere, with the good fortune to fall to Anize when the prefectures were marked out, it had remained mostly unimproved since the Silence. Unfathomable why they had chosen to stay, since without the interplanetary tourist trade to their beautiful lakes and unspoiled wilderness their main source of revenue must have dried up fairly quickly.
Once, people had come from across the settled worlds to visit Arrival. Now, for all anyone knew, it was the last settled world in the universe.
But Izza had bucked up in the best spirit of Arrival post-Silence and turned to farming, providing a small supply of grain and meat that obviously kept them alive, if somewhat hardscrabble. It was the fortune of many towns.
Now, some industrious adventurer had found ore in Izza: precious iron and chromium for steel, gold and silicon for digital components. A mining camp had gone up overnight, and the riches of Izza were now beginning to benefit its population, who in turn were demanding luxuries from the capitol: a redesign of the town, new equipment, improved trains for transport, better processing plants for refining the metals they'd found. And my Dr. Anizin was apparently in charge of the groundwork for a proposal to the Senate to send engineers and builders northward.
As bids and building costs began to wash over me, my All-In-One buzzed. I took it out, shielding the screen so as not to disturb Dr. Anizin's presentation, and checked it. There was a one-line message from Pendleton -- "Employ is confirmed via the Governor" -- and a list of links to files stored on the server. Excellent; schedules, contact sheets, and a very nice map of the private residence. There was no personal schedule for Dr. Anizin -- or rather, there was, but it was empty of entries, when clearly her schedule was not thus. I wondered if she kept it all in her head.
There was also what appeared to be some kind of quartermaster's log, detailing a variety of purchases in the past six months. Engine parts, by the look of things, several of them from a company which, when I searched it out, proved to be a custom-fittings provider, mainly for industrial machinery. General purchases through the largest book broker in Kempville, as well -- the city, not the prefecture, though most of the books in that case would probably come from the surrounding area. Antique books? She hadn't seemed the sort; there weren't even many bookshelves in her private residence. Not that I disapproved.
I looked up from my study of the purchase log and the schedules to find the lights rising in the chamber, and the tone of the meeting changing from Dr. Anizin's presentation to one of discussion. Dr. Anizin looked hopeful and a little trepidatious, the first time I'd seen her uncertain of herself.
"I'm prepared to take questions on the preliminaries," she said, popping the All-In-One out of its dock. The other engineers leaned forward slowly.
"These bids," one of the older engineers, a woman with curly grey hair, remarked. "Are these estimates or have you solicited contractors?"
"Estimates based on recent improvements in Anize, with adjustments for transport and working conditions. I ran them past Brigton and Tamara, and checked on the adjustments with one of our regular bidders."
"And the material measurements -- are those concordant with Anize building practices, or Izza?" Dr. Perch inquired.
"Well, it's hard to measure Izza's building practices," Dr. Anizin said, a tart note in her voice, "since they haven't built much in the last century and a half. I've calculated for the differentials in soil composition and weathering."
I thought we were in for another hour of engineering talk, and was about to return to my studies, when one of the other senior engineers raised her hand.
"Yes, Dr. Monroe?" Dr. Anizin said, but I saw the young engineers exchange knowing looks. So, apparently, did Dr. Monroe.
"I think we've had a lot of technical specs, and I'm sure they're as close to accurate as can be at this point," Dr. Monroe said. "If I could ask, though, I'd like to know more about your interest in Izza."
"Well, from a personal standpoint, I have none," Dr. Anizin said. "I'm not an investor, I hold no land in the area. Naturally, the Governor is interested..."
"Naturally," Dr. Monroe repeated. She had a sharp, intelligent face that didn't betray much emotion. "But your diligence in this case is a little unusual."
"I'm always diligent in my proposals, Dr. Monroe."
"Yes, but why Izza?" Dr. Monroe asked.
Dr. Anizin looked troubled. "Izza is a great opportunity. We'll take far more benefit from the ore mining to be done there than we ever did from its lacklustre farm production -- "
"Still, the fact that you submitted a proposal -- given that many of the junior engineers did, and some very prestigious non-government engineers...you've never shown any interest in development outside of the capital."
"Then it's time I started, don't you think?"
"This is fascinating," Dr. Perch drawled, "but not entirely on-track. Dr. Anizin's motives aren't up for debate; we all have our little axes to grind. The board of development has made its choice and unless anyone can point out any major flaws in Dr. Anizin's work, I suggest we approve her preliminary plan and leave her to it. She's made a persuasive argument that Anise's not inconsiderable resources are well-invested in improving Izza. And she made a very deft pun," he added. Dr. Anizin grinned. So did I. "Off you go, all of you, and if you have suggestions please speak with Leigh personally. I'll see you in the workroom."
The senior engineers seemed to see no reason to hurry off, and stayed behind to talk in a group, while the juniors were already making for the exits by the time Dr. Anizin dropped down from the stage. She made her way up the centre aisle, flanked by two others, Brigton and a woman whose name I hadn't yet heard. She also seemed to have forgotten me.
Well, all to the good; a valet's job is to make an employer's life easier without being overly obtrusive, and I'd taken up quite a lot of her morning as it was. I followed a little behind them, quietly, until we were all passing out of the entry hall and down the sunlit steps of Government House. Only at the bottom of the steps did she seem to recall me, and turned around with the sort of speed one generally reserves for forgotten All-In-Ones and children.
"Oh!" she said, when she saw me standing a few steps above. "Carry, I was wondering where you were."
"I thought I might see about lunch preparations," I suggested, accepting the slight lie without a blink. "Once you're settled, of course."
Brighton suppressed a laugh, badly. She rolled her eyes -- at him, not at me -- and walked on, so I followed.
I wanted to fix the image of my employer's colleagues in my mind, so that I'd know them on sight, and following them gave me an excellent if incomplete view. Brighton was taller than Dr. Anizin, with brown hair a shade darker than hers and much straighter. Next to nearly anyone else on the street, he looked a little like a draft horse, thick-built and solid. Her other companion was tall as well, though not quite so tall as Brighton. A dark-skinned woman with stylish, expensive-looking glasses, she wore workman's clothing like the other two and had the longest hair of the three, neatly pulled back into a tight knot at her neck. She seemed more friendly, less overtly inclined to taunt than Brighton, and did most of the talking.
It was a pretty day, and as my attention drifted I noticed plenty of people on the street, many more than when I'd arrived in the early morning. Now, less concerned with navigation or a potential arrest record, I began to notice the fashions and faces of Anize: light clothing, especially for summer, sandals on nearly everyone's feet, short hair as a norm. One man, as I passed, reached across a baby carriage to hand something to his companion, and I noticed the pale skin under his shirt in stark contrast to the tan of his throat. A woman across the street was selling cups of cold water from an insulated box, cleverly mounted on wheels and clattering inside with ice.
There were fruit trees here, too, seemingly in every garden and alleyway, and not a few tall tomato plants against the fences. I was used to seeing wealth -- naturally enough, given my position -- but unused to seeing bounty so openly displayed on a public street, especially in the middle of town. In Gallia, the nearest city to my academy in New Breton, such things were still kept behind high fences or in the backs of houses even decades after the famines had eased. The other Prefectures I'd visited had either been industrial, with all their food purchased from elsewhere, or the sort of luxury vacation retreat that would never stoop to visible vegetable gardens.
The walk from Government House to the city planning offices wasn't an especially long one. Soon we were climbing a narrow, dusty staircase to the second floor of a plaster-and-brick building. The front facade had few windows, but when we reached the top it became evident that almost the entire second level was made of glass. Enormous windows filled the open floor with light, and dust danced down from the rafters as the engineers dumped bags at their desks, fiddled with their consoles, and threw themselves into chairs.
"Well, what do you think?" Dr. Anizin asked, standing next to me while I took in the room.
"Very...egalitarian," I answered, then turned to her. "Rather warm, though. Shall I open some of the windows?"
She nodded past me to where Brighton was already unlatching them, using a long pole with a hook on one end to lift the top lock and ease the panes down. "Let him, it makes him feel important."
"I heard that," Brighton called, as another group of junior engineers pushed past us and into the room. The woman who had been walking with Dr. Anizin wandered up and smiled.
"So, formal introduction," she said. "You're Carry."
"Carry, this is Dr. Tamara Dutta," Dr. Anizin said. "And that's Dr. Orsi, Dr. Mell, Dr. Guild..."
I tried to put a name to each face, but she rattled them off fairly quickly, and most of them didn't even look up as they were introduced. Dr. Orsi I did remember; he was the man who had let his eyes slip over me and turned away unconcerned, the one I was sure was already familiar with valets.
"Thank you, Dr. Anizin," I said, when the introductions were finished. "If I'm not needed..."
"Not right now, unless you're familiar with the load-bearing capacity of quarter-inch steel," she said. I made a note to look it up. "I suppose you should...go do whatever it is you do."
"Of course," I answered smartly. "I'll return at noon. If you need me, I took the liberty of programming my code into your All-In-One."
She cocked an eyebrow. "Confident, aren't you?"
"Part of the service, Dr. Anizin," I replied, and she laughed.
"Fine. I have work to do."
She was, I thought, taking to my presence pretty well, for someone whose first reaction to me had been rueful resignation.
I passed the senior engineers as I descended the stairs, and they gave me curt but not unfriendly nods of greeting as I stepped aside to give them right-of-way. When they were gone, their voices echoing in the big second-floor room, I noticed a door opposite me, set right into the wall, without even a landing -- so that one would have to stand on a certain step to enter without stepping up. The shallow knob had no lock on it. Curiously, I tried it, and it swung open into a dim room.
It looked like a pump-room of some sort, or perhaps the room to house the electrical switchbox where nobody had bothered to cover the exposed pipes running water up to the second floor. It was relatively large, and probably accounted in part for the low ceiling I'd seen on the ground floor. A floor between floors; intriguing, and something I felt I should know about. I stepped inside and pulled a chain to switch on the single bare bulb set in the low rafters.
There was a circuit-box, an electricity meter, and a series of levers and small wheels that probably controlled water-flow. It wasn't spacious, but it was by no means cramped, and there were marks against one wall where a table had probably once stood. It would make an excellent retreat for those days Dr. Anizin wanted me on-hand, and it's always good to know where the circuit-breakers are. I checked my All-In-One and was pleased to see the building's wireless connect effortlessly.
Just as I was about to leave, the text-tone sounded. I scrolled up to find that Bart had somehow got hold of my All-In-One code, and sent me a cheerful if typically brief message: Welcome to Government House. Dinner's on me. :P
I tapped back Then drinks are on me! and cleared the message. Time to see about getting Dr. Anizin some proper lunch.
Chapter Three
One of the Government House guards brought my bag up from the Temple shortly before dinner that night, and in our brief conversation at my door gave me the impression that she'd sorted things out with the Temple residents, who sent their good wishes for my new career. I was about to inquire after the state of Stick and Bart, my erstwhile highwaymen, when the dinner whistle rang and she disappeared as if she thought she might melt.
I soon discovered why; outside my door, there was an ungodly clatter as cart after cart of covered dishes rolled out of the kitchen and into a service elevator, packing in so tightly that only one server could fit in after them. People began to stream across the courtyard, shouting greetings to each other, and the chefs began pushing more carts into the hallway to be loaded when the elevator returned. I decided it was best not to wait, and took the stairs. At the bottom, I had to stand on the steps until the crowd had passed.
Dinner service was chaotic; the carts were simply shoved out into one end of the vast Senate dining hall, and people scrambled into lines for food before any of the dishes had been uncovered. The line for bread rolls looked remarkably long, while a huge vat of beef stew sat cooling slowly with almost nobody around it. The plates and cutlery had already vanished by the time I entered the hall.
"Excuse me," I asked a young man, one of the fruit-pickers from earlier. "Where do I get a plate?"
"Good luck," he answered without looking up. "There should be another tray of them arriv -- " He broke off when he finally saw who was speaking to him, and blinked.
"Do you want mine?" he offered, holding it out, fork and knife tucked against the top with his thumb.
"No, thank you, I'll wait," I answered.
"Are you sure?"
I noticed, trying not to look around too zealously, that there was a ripple spreading out from where he and I stood; heads were raising, people shuffling aside, a path forming between me and the food. Either they were trying to make a good impression or they were humouring someone marked for death.
Before I could react, however, the elevator opened again and another row of carts were shoved out. This, at least, I could handle; I stepped up smartly to the doors and blocked the exit.
"Plates," I ordered, and the startled server jammed a cart into my hands. "Is there salad?"
"Not at this time of year," he replied.
"Soup or stew?"
Three more carts emerged. People began to fall into line.
"Fish or meats, please."
Another cart.
"Dessert?"
"S'brought out last." He gave me a sullen look.
"Very well. Bread, then, and anything else?"
"Fruit," he responded, a little more quickly. I accepted the last of the carts and lined it up next to the others. This set, at least, would feed people properly and in order. The line was already moving faster than the other.
"Is there more on the way?" I asked, stopping the doors from closing.
"Not till dessert," he said smartly.
"Good man. Send the elevator down for the empty carts before the dessert service, please."
"Yessi -- " he paused, " -- r?"
"Yes Valet will do," I told him. "And send my compliments to the kitchen, this all smells wonderful."
A group of guards had joined the mass of clerks and servants in line, and I saw Stick and Bart at the back, standing painfully and shuffling forward like old men. From my privileged place behind the carts, I snatched two plates. I covered one in thick stew and the other in fruit and bread, cut a generous slice of butter while balancing both plates in one hand, and made a discreet exit to the side. I caught Stick's eye as I passed and jerked my head at the long rows of tables where only the quick and nimble were already eating. They slipped away from the line.
"Here you are," I said, setting out the plates and producing cutlery from my sleeve. "Is there tea to be had?"
Bart shook his head. "Juice in these parts," he said, as Stick joined us with three large glasses filled with cloudy tan liquid.
"Apple?" I asked hopefully.
"And whatever else is available," Stick grunted, seating himself with exaggerated care. I plucked a roll from one of the plates and broke it open.
"Well, tuck in," I said, gesturing at the plates. They both paused.
"Listen, no hard feelings, right?" Bart said.
"None at all," I assured him. "Shouldn't I be the one offering that?"
"Well, we were just following orders," Bart said, eyeing the stew like it might bite him. I picked out some potato and mashed it onto my roll.
"Honestly, you're the one who got kicked," I replied. "Eat up, before it gets cold."
Stick gave me one last scrutinising look, then scooped up a roll and ripped the middle out of it, filling it with meat and stew-gravy. I sampled the juice, winced at the sweet-acid bite of it, and nibbled on some potato to kill the tang.
"It's only we thought you might be a little resentful," Bart continued around a mouthful of fruit.
"Meat first," I told him. "The fruit clears the palate."
He studied the pear he was holding, set it down, and began eating directly from the stew-plate.
"I don't hold a grudge against you," I said. "You didn't know any better, after all. And only the governor should have."
"She got a telling-off from you," Bart grinned. "I'm Bart, this is Stick, by the way."
"Yes, so I've been told. I'm Valet for now."
"Pleasure," Stick said. "Made your decision about staying on yet?"
"You should," said a new voice, and I looked up to see a small cluster of what I took to be clerks standing nearby. "Can we sit?" their apparent spokesman asked.
"Fine with me," I told them. The other side of the table was filling up with guards. Stick gestured broadly for them to sit down. In the middle of the clattering plates and bustle of chairs being pulled out, Pendleton appeared with a glass of juice in one hand.
"Well, you've certainly made yourself at home," he said, mopping his forehead with a napkin and sighing as he sat down. "I've been after Chef for months to get the food service into some kind of order. We never have this problem when Senate's in session and they open the big kitchen but it's like he just can't be bothered in the off-season."
"There's your mistake," I said, helping myself to more stew. The food was good, if a little plain, but nobody can fault a big household for not serving gourmet meals to its staff. "I'm sure he doesn't have time to worry about that kind of thing. You want to talk to the servers. Get in on the ground floor."
"Do I," he asked, with a slightly annoyed look, while Bart snorted and muttered "Ground floor!"
"I don't mean to tell you how to run the household," I said, backing off a little. "It's just instinct. Sorry."
"That's good, because it's not your household to run," Pendleton replied.
"So the Governor has made perfectly clear," I answered. Stick cleared his throat anxiously.
"There's a show about your folk on the UTube," he said, an awkward but effective method of changing the subject. "Valets, I mean. It's called Explorers. Have you seen it?"
"It's not about Valets," Bart put in. "There's just a valet in it."
"Yeah, but she's a character on it, they do stories about her. Is it like that really?" Stick asked earnestly.
"The UTube isn't real," one of the clerks said scornfully.
"I know that!" Stick answered, indignant.
"It's not entirely accurate," I said, and the others turned to look at me. I cleared my throat. "I've seen it a few times."
"Is it true most valets are men?" another clerk asked.
"I couldn't say," I replied. "We don't inquire after our colleagues' genders. Statistics from retiring valets seem to suggest the break's about equal. Hardly matters though; that's the worst thing about that show. A valet would never uncollar in front of their employer. It just isn't done."
"Got the ratings though," Bart said.
"Well, it would, wouldn't it? Everyone wants to know," I answered. "They made sure to keep stirring up the mystery, too, so people would stay interested. In real life, people look at you funny for about a day and then nobody cares. That's how it's supposed to be. But put it on the UTube, make it into a story, and you get record viewing stats for the episode where Ari takes the tunic off and you find out she's a woman."
"But the rest of it," Stick persisted. "About how she's sworn to service and willing to die for Benjamin."
"I suppose. It's less dramatic than all that. Valets don't fall in love with their employers, or if they do they have better manners than to let it show."
"It's romantic," Bart murmured.
"It's a breach of duty. Very unprofessional. But it's the UTube, what else do you expect?" I asked. "In real life nobody goes around jumping off cliffs onto the backs of horses, either. They'd break their own pelvis, not to mention the horse's back. And Singularists don't have any kind of stupid rule against premarital sex. So that's Benjamin out too. And," I added, as people began to pile their plates on the now-empty carts, "that's my cue. Pendleton, I don't mean to intrude, but if I can take this off your hands for you..."
"No, by all means, one less thing for me to fret about," he said, but his jollity was a little more forced than it had been earlier. "Go on with you."
I began pulling the carts into a neat line next to the service elevator. When it opened again there was a new clutter of them inside, but the server was beaming proudly.
"All in order, Valet," he said smartly, pushing the first few out neatly.
"Very clever, thank you," I replied, lifting the lids as I went. They were more or less identical, fruit compotes and cobblers, but it was the thought that counted. I pushed the empty carts back into the elevator. "Tomorrow, for service, have someone down here to arrange them. If you can't spare anyone, get one of the guards to do it, all right?"
"Right you are," he answered. "I'll let the morning service know. Back in a minute for the rest."
With the empties out of the way and the dessert carts arranged in a neat line, the rest of the meal went so quickly that by the time I was done arranging things, people were leaving the hall. One of the clerks we'd been eating with sidled up to me, a little nervous without his entourage.
"I meant what I said earlier," he said. "About you staying. You really should. Dr. Anizin's work is very important, and -- well, so is dinner."
I laughed. "We'll see. It seems like this place -- "
I was going to say that the household could use a valet, but at that moment Pendleton walked past.
" -- is in fine form already," I finished. If Pendleton heard, he gave no sign. The clerk looked knowingly at me and bolted. Stick and Bart gave me a nod as they left.
When all the carts were cleared away and the last diner had left the hall, I stepped out into the courtyard to get a closer look at the fruit trees. Apples, pears, peaches, a blackberry bramble growing across one corner, a patch of strawberries in another. Wide paths cut across the courtyard, four regular lines forming a square and several irregular ones at random. A leisure garden, and one that apparently helped support the sweet tooth of the staff and Senate. It was warm, and the garden was pretty in the dim afterdusk. I could smell the sea. A few degrees colder and this could have been one of the old converted castles of New Breton.
What little history remains of the early days of my island says that the castles built on the coasts were leisure complexes, commissioned by eccentrics and historians as summer homes. Arrival was a prime tourist destination, once; the castles of New Breton implied a kind of luxury that the wealthy wanted to flaunt on their vacations.
Only two or three of the castles are still standing now. The revolution after the Silence fell "repurposed" the rest. Not that I have any right to look down on my ancestors -- with no offworld supplies, with all of Arrival cut off from the rest of the galaxy, they did what they could. And the castles were false relics anyway, not truly representative of offworld history.
The Government House of Anize was a historical relic in its own right, a record of the history of Anize prefecture since the Silence. The elegance and grace of a rich governing body had made it a beautiful structure, and then some ancestor of Governor Anizin had protected it after Arrival lost contact with the other human worlds. It had been a production plant and a refuge, and now was the seat of power once again. And here I was, little Valet, standing in its courtyard and considering whether I could even remain here.
I turned and went smartly back inside, taking the steps two at a time up to the hallway that led to my room. The clatter and hiss of the dishes being washed in the kitchen faded as I closed and locked the door with the little metal key.
I decided would sit vigil for a while, considering my situation, and then sleep early. It was bound to be a busy morning, no matter what the outcome was.
***
A Valet's requirements are few. The respect due to a servant, from their employer; a room of their own, with a lock; and decent sufficient food and clothing. The rest -- salary, authority, autonomy -- is negotiable. Much of the time that negotiation is unspoken, a sort of subtle arrangement we reach with our employers in those first few weeks, when neither party is entirely certain of the other anyway. Most employers come to understand quickly that we expect to be woken at all hours, to perform unusual tasks, and to take awkward situations firmly in hand. Indeed, anyone can serve tea and balance the house accounts. It takes a valet to locate an expert in exotic game tracking when one's pet Chulut has gone missing at four in the morning, and to convince said expert to actually come and provide assistance.
(The Chulut was found up a tree next to the hotel we had lodged in for the night. Sometimes, game tracking is an overrated skill.)
Therefore, when I woke at midnight to a quiet knock on my door, I dressed quickly and efficiently. Bart, startled by my speed, jerked back in surprise when I opened the door.
"They just don't give you a day off, do they?" I asked.
"I'm here on my own," he said.
"Well, that's sweet." I leaned against the door frame. "Bart, have you come to woo me?"
He grinned. "What would you say if I said yes?"
"I'd say I'm not that kind of escort. Besides, we both know I can take you."
"Yeah, when you've got a box of muffins, maybe. Barehanded? I'd snap you in half."
I poked the bandage on his nose. He yelped.
"Not right now, you wouldn't," I said. "All this flirting is fun, but did you come by for a reason? I was already asleep."
"Yeah, I wanna show you something."
I arched an eyebrow.
"Come on," he said, jerking his head for me to follow. I pulled on my boots and closed the door behind me, following him down the corridor. We turned a sharp corner and descended a wide stairway to another wing of the building. If he was plotting revenge he was going about it in a very obtuse fashion.
The stairs led away from the kitchen and my room, terminating not far below. There was a faint whiff of ozone in the air, and we were faced with a long straight hallway filled with doors. Bart listened at the first one, nodded almost to himself, and eased it open.
The room inside was as dark as the hallway had been, but there were hints and dapples of light against the one wall that was visible. On the right, the light was mostly obscured by a couple of enormous machines, all gears and chains and cables.
Bart held a finger to his lips and gestured me forward, to where a large block of light shone through an open space between two machines. I ducked my head slightly to peer through it.
The large open space beyond had obviously once been several rooms in a row, though all the walls had been knocked down and only load-bearing columns remained here and there. It was brightly lit and filled with electronics -- a couple of consoles against the back wall, a large screen on the one opposite us at the other end of the room, and what looked like several half-finished airplanes, all sleek brushed steel and gorgeous aerodynamic fins.
In the center of the room there had been built an enormous sturdy four-post frame of welded metal, with cables running down from each post and crossbeam. They supported a complicated-looking engine, much more advanced than anything I'd ever personally seen. As I watched, a figure circled it, flipped up some casing or other, and studied the innards carefully.
"What is all this?" I whispered to Bart, though I had a fair idea already.
"Dr. Anizin's workshop," he whispered back. "That's Dr. Anizin."
I looked with renewed interest at the woman working on the engine, rather than the engine itself. She was young, which I had expected; her short dark hair curled in tight waves where it wasn't held back with clips from a broad, high-cheekboned face. She didn't have much likeness to the Governor in her, except for a certain set of her jaw; even her nose was snub where the Governor's was angular. She wore a mechanic's jumpsuit, stained all over with grease, but that wasn't what caught my attention.
It was her hands: broad in themselves but with long, dextrious fingers, neat and clean despite the grease on her clothing. She had tidily trimmed nails, and a few clean bandages on the knuckles of her right hand. They were confident hands, moving with a quick efficiency as she worked. Skilled, sure, and well cared-for; hands, in short, I could respect.
On second look her face betrayed a similar clear self-certainty, an intelligence that I had not foreseen in the child of a wealthy woman who thought she could purchase me as a gift. But then Governor Anizin was not stupid, and it was a mistake to assume Dr. Anizin would be.
She closed the hatch on whatever she'd been working on and walked to one of the consoles against the wall. I didn't expect the roar of the engine or the bright flare of live flame from one end; when the engine burst to life I jerked back, into Bart, and our legs tangled up together as he fell sideways. I landed on my elbows, still in shadow, but Bart tumbled out into a gap between machines, blinking in the sudden light.
Dr. Anizin didn't hesitate. She turned sharply, fetching up a ferocious looking piece of machinery as she moved, and held it out in front of her.
"Who's there?" she asked sharply, and then I did see the similarity to her mother in the command in her voice. "Come out!"
Bart, who had to have been in considerable pain after that fall, heaved a groan and sat up.
"This minute, or I'll call the house guard!" she snapped.
"It's just me, Dr. Anizin," Bart managed, pushing himself to his feet and pulling off something remarkably close to military attention. She lowered the makeshift weapon in one hand.
"Is that you, Bart Carson?" she called.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," he answered, as I got to my own feet and dusted myself off.
"There's someone else," she said, and I could hear amusement creeping into her voice. "Bart, did you bring someone down here with you?"
"No, it's not -- " Bart was fumbling and a little dazed. I could have let him cover for me, and slipped away, but that would have been a cruel thing to do. I stepped out from behind him, into the harsh overhead lighting of the workshop. She cocked her head at me, then set the weapon down on the table.
"Dr. Anizin," I said.
"I don't know you," she replied. "Do I? Are you new?"
"This is the valet the Governor sent for," Bart managed.
"Oh for god's sake sit down, Bart," Dr. Anizin said, rolling her eyes. Bart gratefully collapsed on top of a nearby crate. She put her hands on her hips and stared at me with an almost unnerving attention. "So, you're the valet."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I said.
"Lord, nobody's ever going to respect me now," she sighed. "Well, come here, let me see you."
I came forward a little warily. This was not how I had envisioned meeting someone I might serve for ten or twenty years. Still, there was no help for it. She studied me from the tips of my boots to the top of my head, a single sweeping look, before lighting on my face.
"My mother has this...habit of caring too much about my comfort," she said finally.
"A parent's prerogative, perhaps," I answered.
"Perhaps. Still, I think buying me a servant is going a little overboard, don't you? Don't answer that. She wanted someone from the tradition. Were your parents valets?"
"My father was," I said. "He's retiring now."
"Do you know anything about machines?"
I glanced at the engine suspended from the frame nearby. "Not as much as you do, Dr. Anizin."
She broke a small smile at that. "Well, I assume you're intelligent enough to be taught if I have to. Can you cook?"
"Yes."
"Can you keep a secret?"
"That depends on whose."
She arched an eyebrow. "Mine."
"Yes."
"Good. I understand you can fight and you seem to have good taste in the company you keep. You don't have a name yet, do you?" she asked abruptly.
I admit the questioning had taken me by surprise, but until this one I thought I was managing. Now, I admit, I may have seemed startled.
"Well, do you?" she asked.
"No, Dr. Anizin."
"I suppose it'll be my job to name you?"
I hesitated. I could spill the entire story to her: warn her that I hadn't agreed to serve yet, explain the breach of trust her mother had committed, declare that the contract would have to be rewritten. But I looked at her hands and at her face, and I made my decision.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I said. "That's generally one of the first acts of employment."
"What if I give you a stupid name? This seems an inefficient way to run a business," she said.
"I'll answer to it," I replied.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Even if it's humiliating?"
"It will, after all, be my name," I replied, worrying a little now that I'd made my decision. "We none of us get to choose them."
"What if I asked you to? Choose one, I mean. To name yourself."
I hesitated, and she noticed it.
"No, that's -- not proper, is it?" she asked. "That's crossing a boundary. You're big on boundaries, valets, aren't you? Not that I think you shouldn't be. It's a sign of disrespect, not to...what, cement a bond between us?"
"Something like that," I agreed. It was, in fact, exactly like that.
"Well, maybe I should wait until morning -- god, it's morning, isn't it," she moaned suddenly, casting around for a clock.
"Only for the last fifteen minutes, Dr. Anizin," I answered.
"And I have a presentation to the planning commission at eight -- okay. First rule. If I'm awake past eleven at night, feel free to do anything within your power to make sure I'm not still awake at midnight," she said.
"Understood."
"Which means I should be in bed now...fine. Okay. Bart, go pass out, you look like death. Off you go too, I'll shut this down -- rule number two, you never come in here without my permission again. Oh, and Valet," she said, as I unobtrusively gave Bart my shoulder to lean on and helped him towards an exit. I turned at the door.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Your name is Carry," she announced.
"Very good, Dr. Anizin. R-r-i-e or r-y?" I asked.
"R-r-y," she answered, without skipping a beat. "Like the verb, but prettier. Goodnight, Carry."
"Goodnight, Dr. Anizin," I said under my breath, once we were in the hallway. Bart beamed and punched my shoulder, an interesting feat considering he was also leaning on it.
"She's great," he said. "I knew you'd like her."
"Eminently acceptable," I agreed.
"Do you like your name?"
"Yes; moreover, she showed a great presence of mind in coming up with it on the spot. If she ever acquires a second servant she can name that one Fetch," I remarked. "Which way to the barracks?"
"Just get me up the stairs and I'll be fine," he said.
"You're a hard 'un, Bart," I grunted, as we made our way up the stairs.
"Well, they don't hire weaklings for the Government House."
"I'll try to bear that in mind," I said.
"I was including you in that."
"Thank you," I said, as we reached the top and he eased himself off my shoulder. "Sure you're all right?"
"Fine," he assured me. "It's not far to the barracks."
I let him stagger off towards another exit, but once I was certain he wouldn't fall down I went back to my own room and carefully undressed, crawling back under the rumpled blankets. I set the alarm on my All-In-One, closed my eyes, and slept with a much lighter heart.
The decision had been made, and I had a name.
***
I rose at six the next morning, and by six-thirty was washed, dressed in a reasonably clean uniform, and assembling a breakfast tray in the kitchen, where the morning shift paid me little mind. I asked one of the pastry chefs for directions to Dr. Anizin's quarters, and at seven sharp I knocked on the door of my new employer's suite, with a tray carrying gava coffee, juice, toast, sausages (apparently an Anisi specialty) and some kind of boiled-grain cereal, balanced on my other hand. When there was no answer I tried the door and found it unlocked.
Dr. Anizin's suite was, naturally, much larger than mine, with a sitting room on entry and what seemed to be a small workroom to the right. To the left and up half a flight of steps was the bedroom, with tightly drawn drapes over the windows. I set the tray on a low dresser near the bed and opened the drapes, flooding the room with sunlight. Excellent; Dr. Anizin's larger workshop caught the afternoon light, and her bedroom and smaller workroom the morning sun.
"What the hell," came a sleepy voice from the bed, and I turned to the task of pouring the gava and taking the lids off the various dishes. "Who's there?"
"Just me, Dr. Anizin," I said, as she sat up and brushed hair out of her eyes.
"Who the -- oh, god," she mumbled. "Is that gava?"
"Do you take cream or sugar?"
"Sugar," she said, eyeing me suspiciously. "What time do you call this?"
"Seven in the morning," I answered, presenting the gava to her. I watched as she sipped; I'd perhaps added not quite enough sugar. She savoured it, however, while I waited patiently to serve her the rest.
"I understand you have a presentation at eight," I said, when she had finally set the gava on the nightstand. "Sausage, toast, or cereal?"
She studied me. "How long have you been awake?"
I smiled. "Long enough to assemble a healthful breakfast, and hopefully bring you to your meeting in a timely fashion. Perhaps you'd prefer to wash, first?"
"I should get dressed, I have the presentation to assemble -- "
"Perhaps I can be of assistance, while you eat," I suggested. She gave me a dry look.
"Was that a hint?"
"Of course not, Dr. Anizin. I wouldn't presume."
"Hmmm," she said, and climbed out of bed. She was wearing thin pyjamas, rather old from the look of them and not well-suited to the slight chill in the air. I plucked up a robe from the back of a chair and helped her into it. While it wasn't my first priority, I did notice that her rooms could certainly benefit from the tidy hand of a valet.
"I'll have sausage and toast in the sitting room," she decided. "Thanks, Carry."
An odd warmth hit me in the stomach. My name. A real name, something I hadn't had since I was ten.
"My pleasure," I answered, scooping up her mug and the tray and following her. "Should I run a bath while you eat?"
"A bath!" she laughed. "I don't have time for that. I'll duck under a shower -- oh, this is good," she added, around a mouthful of toast. "Shit, I left my gava in the -- "
I held it out to her. She blinked at it, took it, and downed half the cup in a single go. I busied myself with tidying the sitting room, picking up various pieces of clothing as she ate. When she'd finished with the toast she turned to find me sorting through the pockets of a pair of trousers, studying the two odd little tools I'd found there.
"Those can go in the bowl by the door," she said. "I'm going to shower. You -- uh."
"Yes?" I asked.
"You're not going to follow me and try to wash me or something, are you?"
"No, Dr. Anizin. I can if you wish, but we find in service -- "
She held up a hand. "Say no more. I don't want to be late. Keep yourself busy!" she called over her shoulder, as she ran up the stairs again.
I looked around at the sitting-room and the remains of breakfast. "Not a problem," I said to myself.
While the room gave an impression of having been hit by a very mild version of the hurricane that had decimated Pendleton's office, I found as I went that there was a sort of order to the chaos. The tools and equipment were often piled together by what seemed to be similar function, and the clothing cleared away quickly once someone bothered to gather it up. I set it by the door, making a note to find out how the household handled its laundry, and went up to her room to set out clean clothing for her day.
A presentation, of course, demanded some formality, but the day promised to be warm and she didn't seem too concerned with the need to impress. As much of her wardrobe seemed to consist of workmen's trousers and simple shirts, I selected a clean, dark-coloured pair of trousers, a light shirt, an olive overshirt, and appropriate underthings. I was just locating a pair of appropriate shoes from the random jumble under the nightstand when she emerged in the same thick robe, with a towel over her head.
"Wow," she said, when she saw the clothing waiting for her on the bed. "Thanks."
"Shall I dress you, Dr. Anizin?" I asked. She froze.
"Dress me?" she repeated. "Uh. No. No thanks. You can...you may go?"
I nodded and left her to it. It didn't take long. When she came down the stairs her shoes did not match her outfit, but there would be time for that some other day.
"All-in-One," she muttered to herself, hunting among the cushions of the couch in the sitting room.
"In one of your shirt pockets," I said, offering it to her.
"Great -- hey, I might be on time for once," she said, checking it quickly and turning to go. I went to follow, and she stopped at the door.
"Are you coming along?" she asked.
"It's my job to attend you," I replied.
"What, everywhere?"
"Unless you'd prefer I remain here, Dr. Anizin," I said. Like her mother, she didn't immediately decide; she stopped, considered it, and then shook her head.
"No, let's make an entrance," she said wickedly, and opened the door. "Come along, Carry."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I replied, following a step behind and a little to her right. "Will we need transport?"
"Nope, the meeting's in the Senate chamber. I'm presenting on the new plan for Izza this morning. I'm thinking of opening with a joke," she said, working on her All-In-One as we walked. "Izza Plan Needed?"
"Very droll," I remarked, following her down the upper half of the main staircase.
"Not too unprofessional?"
"I suspect anyone who would think that isn't going to get the joke in the first place," I said.
"Good."
We turned the corner to the lower half of the main staircase and I darted back to the guards standing at the door to the Governor's office.
"Please tell Governor Anizin that I've accepted my position, and will discuss any renegotiations at a later date," I said. The guard frowned, shrugged, and nodded. I ran to catch up with Dr. Anizin, who was already halfway to the door.
"Keep up, Carry," she called.
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I answered, chastened. Well, really, the message could have waited, or I could have sent it electronically.
We passed through the lobby connecting the private residence to Government House, and soon found ourselves outside the Senate chamber. Dr. Anizin pushed open the large swinging door and walked down the centre aisle of the chamber just as my All-In-One buzzed the hour in my pocket.
A couple of young men and women were lounging at the front of the room, sitting on Senate desks or leaning against the stage. One of the men, surprised, jumped off the desk he was sitting on, as we entered.
"Leigh!" he called with a laugh. "You're on time! Is the sky falling?"
"No, that'd have to wait until you managed to make deadline," Dr. Anizin replied. He scowled. "Where is everyone?"
"Nobody expected you to be here yet," a woman said. Dr. Anizin rolled her eyes. "Who's your friend?"
"This is Carry," Dr. Anizin said, pushing past them and hoisting herself up onto the stage. As I didn't expect she wanted me standing at her elbow throughout the presentation, I stayed where I was in the aisle. "Mom hired hir."
"You're a valet!" another woman said.
"Yes," I answered politely.
"You're Leigh's valet," the man who'd teased Dr. Anizin about her tardiness added.
"I serve Dr. Anizin, yes," I said. Another man, behind the first, gave me a brief half-nod and turned to speak to Dr. Anizin; probably he had a valet in his family, or knew one. It's odd, but after a few years of service one grows to immediately know when someone has encountered a valet before. There's an...ease, with them, that one doesn't find much elsewhere.
"When did you get him?" the first man asked, turning to Dr. Anizin. I opened my mouth to correct him, but Dr. Anizin shocked me by beating me to it.
"Carry's not a him," she said, without looking up from where she was hooking her All-In-One into a console.
"Her, then."
"Not a her neither," she replied. "You don't gender valets, Brighton, were you raised in the wilderness?"
"Sorry," Brighton drawled.
"Don't apologise to me."
"Fine then, I won't. When did you get..." he petered out.
"Hir," I suggested. "Or use my name. The latter is preferable."
"That's awkward," he said.
I smiled just slightly. "One gets used to it."
"And, not that it's any of your business, but this is Carry's first day," Dr. Anizin put in from the stage. She pressed a button on the All-In-One and an image appeared on the screen at the back of the stage:
IZZA PLAN NEEDED?
About half of the assembled people laughed. Dr. Anizin gave me a quick, sardonic look, and began playing with the overhead lights. I sidled quietly down a row of desks, just far enough that I wouldn't stand out too much to someone entering the room, still close enough to get to the aisle quickly if necessary.
When the doors opened again, a new crowd of people entered -- older than the others, and more formally-dressed. Senior engineers, perhaps. One of them confirmed my suspicions by clapping his hands.
"Dr. Anizin! You're unusually prompt this morning," he said, as the younger engineers settled down and took seats in the first few rows of desks. The others hung back a little, sitting behind them.
"Thank you, Dr. Perch," my employer replied calmly, and I felt a little proprietary pride. "I thought we'd get the painful part over quickly."
"Are we all here?" Dr. Perch glanced around, apparently doing a head-count, and his eye fell on me, well back of everyone and off to the side. "These meetings are closed to the public."
"That's Carry," Dr. Anizin said, a hint of blush in her cheeks. "Carry's with me."
Dr. Perch raised an eyebrow at me. I didn't move; only Dr. Anizin had the right to dismiss me.
"Carry's perfectly discreet," Dr. Anizin said, and dimmed the lights to forestall further argument.
Over the next few minutes I learned more about Izza than I had ever expected I would need to know. One of a thousand small towns in our hemisphere, with the good fortune to fall to Anize when the prefectures were marked out, it had remained mostly unimproved since the Silence. Unfathomable why they had chosen to stay, since without the interplanetary tourist trade to their beautiful lakes and unspoiled wilderness their main source of revenue must have dried up fairly quickly.
Once, people had come from across the settled worlds to visit Arrival. Now, for all anyone knew, it was the last settled world in the universe.
But Izza had bucked up in the best spirit of Arrival post-Silence and turned to farming, providing a small supply of grain and meat that obviously kept them alive, if somewhat hardscrabble. It was the fortune of many towns.
Now, some industrious adventurer had found ore in Izza: precious iron and chromium for steel, gold and silicon for digital components. A mining camp had gone up overnight, and the riches of Izza were now beginning to benefit its population, who in turn were demanding luxuries from the capitol: a redesign of the town, new equipment, improved trains for transport, better processing plants for refining the metals they'd found. And my Dr. Anizin was apparently in charge of the groundwork for a proposal to the Senate to send engineers and builders northward.
As bids and building costs began to wash over me, my All-In-One buzzed. I took it out, shielding the screen so as not to disturb Dr. Anizin's presentation, and checked it. There was a one-line message from Pendleton -- "Employ is confirmed via the Governor" -- and a list of links to files stored on the server. Excellent; schedules, contact sheets, and a very nice map of the private residence. There was no personal schedule for Dr. Anizin -- or rather, there was, but it was empty of entries, when clearly her schedule was not thus. I wondered if she kept it all in her head.
There was also what appeared to be some kind of quartermaster's log, detailing a variety of purchases in the past six months. Engine parts, by the look of things, several of them from a company which, when I searched it out, proved to be a custom-fittings provider, mainly for industrial machinery. General purchases through the largest book broker in Kempville, as well -- the city, not the prefecture, though most of the books in that case would probably come from the surrounding area. Antique books? She hadn't seemed the sort; there weren't even many bookshelves in her private residence. Not that I disapproved.
I looked up from my study of the purchase log and the schedules to find the lights rising in the chamber, and the tone of the meeting changing from Dr. Anizin's presentation to one of discussion. Dr. Anizin looked hopeful and a little trepidatious, the first time I'd seen her uncertain of herself.
"I'm prepared to take questions on the preliminaries," she said, popping the All-In-One out of its dock. The other engineers leaned forward slowly.
"These bids," one of the older engineers, a woman with curly grey hair, remarked. "Are these estimates or have you solicited contractors?"
"Estimates based on recent improvements in Anize, with adjustments for transport and working conditions. I ran them past Brigton and Tamara, and checked on the adjustments with one of our regular bidders."
"And the material measurements -- are those concordant with Anize building practices, or Izza?" Dr. Perch inquired.
"Well, it's hard to measure Izza's building practices," Dr. Anizin said, a tart note in her voice, "since they haven't built much in the last century and a half. I've calculated for the differentials in soil composition and weathering."
I thought we were in for another hour of engineering talk, and was about to return to my studies, when one of the other senior engineers raised her hand.
"Yes, Dr. Monroe?" Dr. Anizin said, but I saw the young engineers exchange knowing looks. So, apparently, did Dr. Monroe.
"I think we've had a lot of technical specs, and I'm sure they're as close to accurate as can be at this point," Dr. Monroe said. "If I could ask, though, I'd like to know more about your interest in Izza."
"Well, from a personal standpoint, I have none," Dr. Anizin said. "I'm not an investor, I hold no land in the area. Naturally, the Governor is interested..."
"Naturally," Dr. Monroe repeated. She had a sharp, intelligent face that didn't betray much emotion. "But your diligence in this case is a little unusual."
"I'm always diligent in my proposals, Dr. Monroe."
"Yes, but why Izza?" Dr. Monroe asked.
Dr. Anizin looked troubled. "Izza is a great opportunity. We'll take far more benefit from the ore mining to be done there than we ever did from its lacklustre farm production -- "
"Still, the fact that you submitted a proposal -- given that many of the junior engineers did, and some very prestigious non-government engineers...you've never shown any interest in development outside of the capital."
"Then it's time I started, don't you think?"
"This is fascinating," Dr. Perch drawled, "but not entirely on-track. Dr. Anizin's motives aren't up for debate; we all have our little axes to grind. The board of development has made its choice and unless anyone can point out any major flaws in Dr. Anizin's work, I suggest we approve her preliminary plan and leave her to it. She's made a persuasive argument that Anise's not inconsiderable resources are well-invested in improving Izza. And she made a very deft pun," he added. Dr. Anizin grinned. So did I. "Off you go, all of you, and if you have suggestions please speak with Leigh personally. I'll see you in the workroom."
The senior engineers seemed to see no reason to hurry off, and stayed behind to talk in a group, while the juniors were already making for the exits by the time Dr. Anizin dropped down from the stage. She made her way up the centre aisle, flanked by two others, Brigton and a woman whose name I hadn't yet heard. She also seemed to have forgotten me.
Well, all to the good; a valet's job is to make an employer's life easier without being overly obtrusive, and I'd taken up quite a lot of her morning as it was. I followed a little behind them, quietly, until we were all passing out of the entry hall and down the sunlit steps of Government House. Only at the bottom of the steps did she seem to recall me, and turned around with the sort of speed one generally reserves for forgotten All-In-Ones and children.
"Oh!" she said, when she saw me standing a few steps above. "Carry, I was wondering where you were."
"I thought I might see about lunch preparations," I suggested, accepting the slight lie without a blink. "Once you're settled, of course."
Brighton suppressed a laugh, badly. She rolled her eyes -- at him, not at me -- and walked on, so I followed.
I wanted to fix the image of my employer's colleagues in my mind, so that I'd know them on sight, and following them gave me an excellent if incomplete view. Brighton was taller than Dr. Anizin, with brown hair a shade darker than hers and much straighter. Next to nearly anyone else on the street, he looked a little like a draft horse, thick-built and solid. Her other companion was tall as well, though not quite so tall as Brighton. A dark-skinned woman with stylish, expensive-looking glasses, she wore workman's clothing like the other two and had the longest hair of the three, neatly pulled back into a tight knot at her neck. She seemed more friendly, less overtly inclined to taunt than Brighton, and did most of the talking.
It was a pretty day, and as my attention drifted I noticed plenty of people on the street, many more than when I'd arrived in the early morning. Now, less concerned with navigation or a potential arrest record, I began to notice the fashions and faces of Anize: light clothing, especially for summer, sandals on nearly everyone's feet, short hair as a norm. One man, as I passed, reached across a baby carriage to hand something to his companion, and I noticed the pale skin under his shirt in stark contrast to the tan of his throat. A woman across the street was selling cups of cold water from an insulated box, cleverly mounted on wheels and clattering inside with ice.
There were fruit trees here, too, seemingly in every garden and alleyway, and not a few tall tomato plants against the fences. I was used to seeing wealth -- naturally enough, given my position -- but unused to seeing bounty so openly displayed on a public street, especially in the middle of town. In Gallia, the nearest city to my academy in New Breton, such things were still kept behind high fences or in the backs of houses even decades after the famines had eased. The other Prefectures I'd visited had either been industrial, with all their food purchased from elsewhere, or the sort of luxury vacation retreat that would never stoop to visible vegetable gardens.
The walk from Government House to the city planning offices wasn't an especially long one. Soon we were climbing a narrow, dusty staircase to the second floor of a plaster-and-brick building. The front facade had few windows, but when we reached the top it became evident that almost the entire second level was made of glass. Enormous windows filled the open floor with light, and dust danced down from the rafters as the engineers dumped bags at their desks, fiddled with their consoles, and threw themselves into chairs.
"Well, what do you think?" Dr. Anizin asked, standing next to me while I took in the room.
"Very...egalitarian," I answered, then turned to her. "Rather warm, though. Shall I open some of the windows?"
She nodded past me to where Brighton was already unlatching them, using a long pole with a hook on one end to lift the top lock and ease the panes down. "Let him, it makes him feel important."
"I heard that," Brighton called, as another group of junior engineers pushed past us and into the room. The woman who had been walking with Dr. Anizin wandered up and smiled.
"So, formal introduction," she said. "You're Carry."
"Carry, this is Dr. Tamara Dutta," Dr. Anizin said. "And that's Dr. Orsi, Dr. Mell, Dr. Guild..."
I tried to put a name to each face, but she rattled them off fairly quickly, and most of them didn't even look up as they were introduced. Dr. Orsi I did remember; he was the man who had let his eyes slip over me and turned away unconcerned, the one I was sure was already familiar with valets.
"Thank you, Dr. Anizin," I said, when the introductions were finished. "If I'm not needed..."
"Not right now, unless you're familiar with the load-bearing capacity of quarter-inch steel," she said. I made a note to look it up. "I suppose you should...go do whatever it is you do."
"Of course," I answered smartly. "I'll return at noon. If you need me, I took the liberty of programming my code into your All-In-One."
She cocked an eyebrow. "Confident, aren't you?"
"Part of the service, Dr. Anizin," I replied, and she laughed.
"Fine. I have work to do."
She was, I thought, taking to my presence pretty well, for someone whose first reaction to me had been rueful resignation.
I passed the senior engineers as I descended the stairs, and they gave me curt but not unfriendly nods of greeting as I stepped aside to give them right-of-way. When they were gone, their voices echoing in the big second-floor room, I noticed a door opposite me, set right into the wall, without even a landing -- so that one would have to stand on a certain step to enter without stepping up. The shallow knob had no lock on it. Curiously, I tried it, and it swung open into a dim room.
It looked like a pump-room of some sort, or perhaps the room to house the electrical switchbox where nobody had bothered to cover the exposed pipes running water up to the second floor. It was relatively large, and probably accounted in part for the low ceiling I'd seen on the ground floor. A floor between floors; intriguing, and something I felt I should know about. I stepped inside and pulled a chain to switch on the single bare bulb set in the low rafters.
There was a circuit-box, an electricity meter, and a series of levers and small wheels that probably controlled water-flow. It wasn't spacious, but it was by no means cramped, and there were marks against one wall where a table had probably once stood. It would make an excellent retreat for those days Dr. Anizin wanted me on-hand, and it's always good to know where the circuit-breakers are. I checked my All-In-One and was pleased to see the building's wireless connect effortlessly.
Just as I was about to leave, the text-tone sounded. I scrolled up to find that Bart had somehow got hold of my All-In-One code, and sent me a cheerful if typically brief message: Welcome to Government House. Dinner's on me. :P
I tapped back Then drinks are on me! and cleared the message. Time to see about getting Dr. Anizin some proper lunch.
Chapter Three
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Date: 2009-08-14 02:41 am (UTC)One question, though. In this paragraph -- "This is Carry," Dr. Anizin said, pushing past them and hoisting herself up onto the stage. As I didn't expect she wanted me standing at her elbow throughout the presentation, I stayed where I was in the aisle. "Mom hired her." -- Dr. Anizin refers to Carry as 'her,' which is odd when just a few paragraphs later she says, "You don't gender valets, Brighton, were you raised in the wilderness?"
So is that 'her' intentional, to show that Carry is mishearing Dr. Anizin saying 'hir,' or was it a typo? If the first, it's not clear enough.
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Date: 2009-08-14 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-08-14 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-08-14 03:49 am (UTC)Seems to defeat the purpose of the immediately following conversation.
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Date: 2009-08-14 03:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 04:25 am (UTC)Very much looking forward to more of this. Also, I noticed someone in the first chapter said their instinct was to read Carry as male, which is interesting because my instinct is to read hir as female; I'm trying to stop doing so. Although I do have quite a bit of experience with the GLBTQ community, most of it has been to do with the GLB portions of it, and I still have to readjust my head sometimes when it comes to trans and genderqueer issues.
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Date: 2009-08-16 04:14 pm (UTC)I'm getting a lot of comments conflicting Carry's gender, people reading as both male and female, which I think is kind of awesome. :D Shows I'm doing my job and making people think about how they instinctually read gender, anyway.
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:51 am (UTC)One question-- is there a pronunciation difference between her and hir? Just curious.
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Date: 2009-08-14 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-08-14 07:01 am (UTC)I think you're doing great on the gender neutral aspect; Carry feels neither female nor male to me. The reactions from different people to hir are interesting to see, as is Dr. Anizin's response to them.
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Date: 2009-08-14 07:37 am (UTC)Funny, I wasn't comfy with "op-blog" and "PR", but I LOVE "UTube".
I'm still sussing out what the status of a Valet is exactly, but I like how you're tweaking with class relations.
Dr. Anizin, I think, could be my new favorite female character: Loud, pointed and honest.
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Date: 2009-08-19 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 08:06 am (UTC)I'm finding it very interesting, however, in light of your post from last week (http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/2823931.html), where you talked about the way in which your fanfic stems from the way you identify with certain characters in canon. When I read Nameless after reading that post of yours, I could definitely see shades of Remus Lupin in both Christopher and Lucas, and I am definitely seeing shades of Ianto in Valet/Carry. Which is not to say that they don't come across as unique chararcters in their own right; they most certainly do. But I can see the influences there, and that is really cool.
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Date: 2009-08-14 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-08-14 08:31 am (UTC)I'm also particularly intrigued by the valet-employer relationship. The give and take it entails, the subtle line of where the boudaries are... I've run into this sort of relationship in fiction before, but only tangentially, and not much from the valet's point of view. I'm very excited to see it explored from the inside out like this, especially since the tendency in anyone who's never done service-work is to look somewhat down on service-folk. Which is stupid; strength of character is essential in service-work. It's a much subtler strength than most, and easily overlooked, the strength of the long grasses rather than that of the oak. It takes real grace, and we're already seeing that grace in the Valet. I can't wait to see more of hir.
Valet's verbal smackdown of the governor was fabulous. A perfect illustration of the truth that just because Valet is in service does not make hir a pushover, or chattel. I cringed when she said 'I bought you'. I think Valet's barbs were dead on target. And so polite!
I didn't get the guard's comment about 'wasted in service', though. I mean, I get the slight to service-work, and that it's maybe a bit of a backhanded compliment, but what did the guard mean wasted in comparison to? Being a guard? A soldier?
Actually, I think the exchange that will end up being the basis of my understanding of Valet is this one:
"Can I help serve?"
"Do you want to?" Tomas asked.
"Of course," I said.
That exchange blew my mind just a bit, and it really clarified something of Valet's character in my mind.
The one thing that's not really clarifying for me is the gender issue. I'm working on it, but it's proving difficult for me to think of Valet as genderless. My brain keeps trying to put a gender label on hir. And it's interesting, because some points lean more towards one gender or the other, and my brain automatically goes there. I'm hoping that more time and further chapters will help me think of Valet as gender-neutral, but I can already tell it's going to be a struggle. I'm looking forward to it, though; Valet is fabulous. ^_^
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-08-14 03:59 pm (UTC)The only thing that set off beta-alarms was the 'New Breton;' Breton is an adjective that describes people from Brittany. The PLACE would be New Brittany, I think.
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:21 pm (UTC)Though it's funny - as much as I try to keep the ambiguously gendered voice for Carry in my head, hir voice always slips back to the voice I have designated for YOU. XD It's so wonderfully familiar, the quiet snark and all, if FAR more reserved (at least outwardly) than you. :P
Really, I'm excited already. I'm setting up alerts on this tag.
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Date: 2009-08-14 04:35 pm (UTC)First, your interest in writing about service from the point of view of those who serve. And your consistent attribution of considerable dignity and integrity attached to the performance of proper service -- clearly, this is a theme you've been developing in your Ianto fics and I'm glad to see it get its own full-length story with an original character. As a live-in nanny I find myself feeling a kinship with Carry and a certain validation in hir poised insistence on respect.
Second, the exploration of genderless identity. I'm intrigued by the idea of an entire caste or category of de-gendered valets, and wondering if the decision to enter service is, for some, partially influenced by a desire to disavow gendering...
And on a related note, I love your worldbuilding, and I'm looking forward to finding out more about the history of Anize and of Arrival, and particularly the Silence. I have a suspicion the idea of "silence" could become a theme in this story. We shall see, I suppose.
~ c.
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Date: 2009-08-16 04:34 pm (UTC)I'm certain there are people who enter the valet service directly because of a desire to give up gender, though Carry isn't necessarily one of them. I should think about that, though; perhaps Carry is. Interesting.
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Date: 2009-08-14 06:23 pm (UTC)And what is a Chulut? Is it like a mini-Cthulhu cat creature? A small description would be awesome.
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Date: 2009-08-14 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 06:51 pm (UTC)*Flails*
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Date: 2009-08-14 09:17 pm (UTC)And allow me to put this into context- I'm about to leave home for the first time to attend university, and in the midst of all of the packing, fretting, and adjustments, it is INCREDIBLY comforting to have your writing to look forward to when I settle down to my computer.
Oh, and to quote a previous comment:
"...but then I also see the world as being a mix between Lovecraft/Poe and Firefly."
It's absolutely fantastic!!
Thank you so much for sharing. ^^
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Date: 2009-08-14 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 10:41 pm (UTC)But I'm not yet buying that a Valet must give up his or her gender in order to effectively be a Valet. The world you've imagined is enough like ours in gender structure (or so it seems so far) that to ask or force a child to give up his or her gender identity and replace it with another is to me, cruel. Unbelievably cruel. And there's no indication yet that there is awareness in the children who will train to be Valets of the magnitude of that choice...or what happens to them if they can't. So...yeah. At this moment, I'm uncomfortable with this.
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Date: 2009-08-14 10:49 pm (UTC)Spoilers below, but if you want some backstory that may help....
As a start, nobody is forced to be a valet (except by something like parental pressure). Students enter the school young, but not everyone who leaves the academy leaves to enter service; the academy is simply considered to be one of the best educations a young person can get. Entering service, for those who qualify, is a decision that's made much later, though perhaps still discomfort-makingly young (which I'm sort of ok with; valeting isn't held up as an ideal position, despite our protagonist being one).
I've also discussed this with imaginarycircus somewhat, and another element of why I'm okay with the discomfort is that the valet system isn't supposed to be an ideal -- in some ways it's hugely repressive and illogical. Being gender neutral actually draws attention TO a person, which is contra to every believe valets hold about blending in -- however much Carry might protest that people get used to it, it's still a fact that Carry is going to stand out in a crowd. That's definitely something that I'm going to deal with, and something Carry's going to have to confront.
So -- definitely I appreciate you speaking up :) It keeps these things forefront in my mind.
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Date: 2009-08-15 12:03 am (UTC)I love this story!
Date: 2009-08-15 12:17 am (UTC)I look forward to reading more of this. Especially since I love competence in a character, and so far Carry epitomizes it!
Re: I love this story!
Date: 2009-08-16 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 02:33 am (UTC)And Carry is a perfect name for Valet (though I will probably still hir Valet in my head).
I'd been looking forward to see what non-gendered pronoun you would use. The LGBT Studies scholar in my brain approves.
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Date: 2009-08-16 04:24 pm (UTC)Ahhh, the UTube. I'm going to have a lot of fun with that -- I'm riffing off a theory I came up with for a Torchwood fic, where since the advent of youtube and streaming episodes and hulu and the like, people have begun destructuring their day around TV and restructuring TV around their day, instead.
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Date: 2009-08-15 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 04:42 am (UTC)I think it would be helpful if the terms were introduced to the reader through someone- sort of like how Torchwood was introduced to us by Gwen.
Does that make sense?
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Date: 2009-08-16 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 06:35 am (UTC)