“I’d rather have him sane, if that’s what you mean, but I suppose that’s too much to ask! Between Thea’s gallivanting and Papa’s idiocy, we’re the laughing stock of the city.”
“Don’t worry, Sister dear. The people may snigger but, with you scooping up the money of the Lords of Thillia, they do so behind their hands. Besides, if the guvnor was sane he’d be back in the business.”
“Humpf,” snorted Calandra. “And don’t use that slang talk. You know I can’t abide it: It’s what comes of hanging around with that crowd of yours. Idle, time-wasting bunch of-”
“Wrong!” informed the abacus. “It’s supposed to be-”
“I’ll do it!” Calandra frowned over her latest entry and irritably went back to add up her figures again.
“Let that. . . that thing there do the work,” suggested Paithan, motioning to the abacus.
“I don’t trust machines. Hush up!” Calandra snarled when her brother would have spoken.
Paithan sat quietly for several moments, fanning himself and wondering if he had the energy to call for the servant to bring him a fresh glass of vindrech-one that didn’t have plaster in it. But it was against the young elf’s nature to be silent for long.
“Speaking of Thea, where is she?” he asked, peering about as if he expected to see her emerge from under one of the antimacassars.
“In bed, of course. It’s not winetime yet,” returned his sister, referring to that period late in the cycle [2] known as “storm” when all elves cease their work and relax over a glass of spiced wine.
Paithan rocked. He was getting bored. Lord Durndrun was having a group over for sailing on his treepond and a picnic supper after, and if Paithan was planning to attend it was high time he set about getting dressed and on his way. Although not of noble birth, the young elf was rich enough, handsome enough, and charming enough to make his way into the society of the gently bred. He lacked the education of the nobility but was smart enough to admit it and not try to pretend he was anything other than what he was-the son of a middle-class businessman. The fact that his middle-class businessman father happened to be the wealthiest man in all of Equilan, wealthier even (so it was rumored) than the queen herself, more than made up for Paithan’s occasional lapses into vulgarity.
The young elf was a good-hearted companion who spent his money freely and, as one of the lords said, “He is an interesting devil-can tell the wildest tales …”
Paithan’s education came from the world, not from books. After his mother’s death, some eight years previous, and his father’s subsequent descent into madness and ill-health, Paithan and his elder sister had taken over the family business. Calandra stayed at home and handled the monetary side of the prosperous weapons company. Although the elves hadn’t gone to war in more than a hundred years, the humans were still fond of the practice and even fonder of the magical elven weapons created to wage it. It was Paithan’s job to go out into the world, negotiate the deals, make certain that shipments were delivered, and keep the customers happy.
Consequently, he had traveled over all the lands of Thillia and had once ventured as far as the realm of the SeaKings to the norinth. Noble elves, on the other hand, rarely left their estates high in the treetops. Many had never been to the lower parts of Equilan, their own queendom. Paithan was, therefore, looked upon as a marvelous oddity and was courted as such.
Paithan knew the lords and ladies kept him around much as they kept their pet monkeys-to amuse them. He was not truly accepted into higher elven society. He and his family were invited to the royal palace once a year-the queen’s concession to those who kept her coffers full-but that was all. None of which bothered Paithan in the least.
The knowledge that elves who weren’t half as smart or one-fourth as rich looked down on the Quindiniars because they couldn’t trace their family back to the Plague rankled like an arrow wound in Calandra’s breast. She had no use for the “peerage” and made her disdain plain, at least to her younger brother. And she was extremely put out that Paithan didn’t share her feelings.