Yana spotted Bunny, who was looking remarkably lovely and feminine, in close conversation with Diego near the food table: Diego had already started to munch on a meatroll, and Bunny was nibbling on a hunk of something in one hand.
Sean was an excellent dancer, possibly the best she had ever been partnered with, and for once her feet seemed to know which way to go. She dreaded stepping on his toes, especially as he had discarded his heavy boots and was wearing some beautifully beaded moccasins.
Between dances, Sean kept her mug full and piloted her about the hall as he met and exchanged some of his cryptic remarks to men and women.
“Who are these folks?” she asked in his ear as he maneuvered her to yet another couple.
“The parents of the Bremport victims,” he said.
“What the frag! That’s unfair, Sean.” She tried to pull free, but his grip was implacable.
“Why? They know you’re going to sing. They’ve wanted to meet you. They have. You’re their last link with their dead.”
“Oh, frag it! That’s not fair. To me, Sean.”
“Yes, it is, because now you’ll know which faces to look for when you’re singing.”
“Is that why you’re attached to me like a limpet?” she asked bitterly. “So I can’t escape this ordeal?”
“It won’t be an ordeal for you, Yanaba, but a release,” he said softly and with such great tenderness that she felt weak-kneed. Damn Clodagh. She was blurring.
About then, she noticed that Bunny and Diego had not once parted company.
“Yes, Diego’ll sing, too. You aren’t the only one,” Scan said, observing the direction of her interest. Then he chuckled. “Will the miserable like some company?” He began to propel her in their direction.
Some quality of the look with which Bunny was favoring Diego made Yana dig her heels in. “No, Scan, we won’t interrupt them.”
“No.” Scan looked at the young pair, his mobile face thoughtful. “No, I don’t think we will. Bunny’s handling him like a trooper.”
“Handling him?” Yana bristled.
Scan shrugged, his expression bland. “Keeping him company, if you like. You know more people here than he does.”
Just then Sinead and Aisling danced up to them, Sinead leading, as always. Both wore superb leather shirts, Aisling white, Sinead buff, with elaborate decorations which were so tasteful that jewels could not have been better displayed.
“Enjoying yourselves?” Sinead asked, her expression bland, but the slightly arch tone of her voice seemed to convey some hidden message evidently intended for Sean.
“Now that you mention it, I am,” Sean said, equally archly, locking gazes with Sinead. “How about you, Yana?”
“Oh, I am, indeed I am,” she replied. Sinead nodded and kept walking.
“What’s up with your sister?” Yana asked Scan, as he whirled her in a pirouette to the other side of the room.
“Don’t let her worry you for a single minute,” he said.
She caught an odd twitch to his mouth, a twitch of minor irritation, she thought. Well, sisters had been irritants to brothers since the worlds began.
About the time she was beginning to wonder if the music makers had been trading off with others who looked identical to keep up such an amazing barrage of dance tunes and tempos, the current ones put down their instruments and left the little stage.
Somehow Scan had timed it so that he and Yana were at the seemingly bottomless punch bowl as the last note died away. He pressed yet another cup into her hand.
“I’ll be too blurred to sing,” she said, trying to put it down.
“Drink it. You’re on.”
With what seemed to her like unceremonious haste, he then guided her across the floor to the platform.
“No, no, Sean,” she protested, noticing herself to be the center of attention. In the sudden way these people had, everyone was settling into a quiet mode all around the room as Sean led her inexorably to the stage. Even the children were quiet, the babies remarkably all asleep.
“Yes, yes, Yana.”
“Why me?” she protested, but her feet seemed willing to follow Sean.
“You’re the hero.”
She tried to wrench her arm free of his grasp, but his fingers merely tightened, and then she was stumbling onto the box that was the step up to the platform. She stood there, miserably aware of being the focus of so many eyes, so much unwarranted attention, of her coming ordeal. How could anything she said, or sang, help ease their losses?