“Where even the dead sleep two in a bed . . . ,” sang the clowns. The masked “ancestors” followed them out of the courtyard in pairs, moving at a stately walk while the clowns capered and mugged for the spectators lining both sides of the street to the crematorium. A funeral of this size was not only entertainment for the poor, it was news for all Xenos.
The Bergens were an old but not particularly distinguished house; Stacey, who had retired from the RCN as a commander, was typical of his family. Today his lineage had been improved by leading military and political figures of the past. The families involved would never have lent the death masks without pressure that could only have come from Corder Leary.
Adele’d never met Daniel’s father and hoped never to meet him; that would save her the decision as to whether or not to shoot the man responsible for her parents’ death. But no one had ever accused Speaker Leary of doing things halfway.
” . . . and the babies masturbate!” sang the clowns.
“Mistress Mundy?” murmured a voice in her ear; one of the undertaker’s functionaries. “Come, please. The living family is next.”
Adele followed the little man through the crowd gathered inside the courtyard gate. He was polite as befit anyone dealing with people of the rank of those waiting, but he squeezed a passage for her with the authority of a much bigger fellow indeed.
“You and Mistress Leary will follow Lieutenant Leary with the widow,” the fellow said, depositing Adele, frowning in doubt, beside Deirdre Leary. Daniel’s elder sister wore a tailored black suit of natural fabrics. The rosette on her beret was cream-and-rose, the Bergen colors.
“Ah, Deirdre,” Adele said. “Yes, of course you’d be here.”
Deirdre Leary had requested when she met Adele that they deal with one another by first names. Referring to their relationship as informal would’ve been stretching the word beyond its proper meaning, though. Adele respected the other woman, but she felt the two of them had as little in common as they did with the chlorine-breathing race of Charax IV. She presumed that Deirdre reciprocated her feelings.
Adele was irritated with herself for not having expected Daniel’s sister to be at the funeral. Speaker Leary’s two children were, after all, the deceased’s closest relatives by blood. And for that matter, Adele had almost nothing in common with Daniel either—on paper.
The last of the actors passed through the gate. The undertaker spoke to Daniel, making shooing motions with rather less ceremony than Adele thought was due the man who was paying for this affair. Supporting the widow, a countrywoman who’d cooked and kept house for the retired commander and who had never said a word in Adele’s hearing, Daniel stepped into the street.
Adele’s eyes narrowed. How much was this costing, anyway? She had a scholar’s disregard for money, but Daniel’s attitude was more that of a drunken spacer . . . which of course he was, often enough. Lieutenant Leary’d been a lucky commander, but even the captain’s share of prize money didn’t overwhelm the needs of a 23-year-old officer who demonstrated the same enthusiasm for living as he did for taking his command into the heart of the enemy’s fire.
The undertaker turned to Adele and her companion. His mouth, open to snap a brusque order, closed abruptly. He bowed low to Deirdre.
Adele started forward, matching her pace to Daniel and the widow. It struck her for the first time that the bill—or at least the whole bill, knowing both that Daniel was stiff-necked and that he had very little conception of what things really cost—might not be going to the nephew after all. She looked at Deirdre but said nothing; there was really nothing to say, after all.
The crowd in the street had a carnival atmosphere quite beyond the traditional life-affirming bawdy of the clowns in the lead. Adele heard spectators identifying members of the procession, herself included, to their children and companions. She couldn’t imagine how they were able to do that until she heard a hawker in the near distance call, “Get your programs! Every famous personage, living or departed, listed here with their biographies!”