“Most correct,” Docent Faiza said. “Landbride?”
Esmay slipped the small knife from the tooled leather sheath. She remembered seeing it on her great-grandmother’s desk; she’d always thought it was just a letter opener. She pricked her left ring finger with the sharp tip and squeezed a drop of blood onto the parchment. Then she took the pen the docent offered her and signed her name. Her father handed her the Landbride’s Seal, and she stamped it in blood . . . the most solemn of all seals. Then her father signed, and Brun, and Kate—the oddest collection of witnesses, Esmay thought, which could ever have witnessed a Landbride’s renunciation.
“In the old days,” the docent said, “a Landbride renouncing her position would cut off all her hair, that it might go into the Wind’s Offering. But since you’re going to have to live here, in the Familias . . .”
“They’ve seen bald women before,” Esmay said. “Besides, I can get a wig. If you think it’s best . . .”
“If you’re willing, it would certainly please the older members of the Landsmen’s Guild.”
What Barin would think of a bald wife, if she saw him again before her hair grew out, she didn’t know. But the ache below her breastbone told her this was the right thing to do.
“According to my researches,” the docent said, “they did not shave their heads—merely cut their hair as short as they could. Then they went into exile from their former lands until it grew long enough to touch the shoulders.” A very practical way, Esmay thought, to ensure that the new Landbride had time to gain control without interference from the former Landbride.
“I expect I’ll be away longer than that,” Esmay said.
“It’ll be easier if we braid it,” Brun said. “Here, sit down.”
“Good grief, it’s fluffy,” she said, as she tried to coax the first strands into a braid.
“I just washed it,” Esmay said. “You know that.”
“Well, we’ll have to wet it again, or we’ll have wisps instead of braids. Kate, bring me a bowl of water.”
Docent Faiza was disposed to be solemn about it, but even his solemnity was no match for the cheerfully irreverent banter of Brun and Kate as they struggled with Esmay’s recalcitrant hair. “I know I told you to get a layered cut next time,” Brun said, “but this is ridiculous. Nothing’s the same length as anything else . . .”
When they were done, Esmay had little tufts standing up where the braids had been, and even her father and the docent couldn’t keep a straight face.
“You should be glad we’re your friends, Esmay,” Brun said. “If we wanted to blackmail you—”
“I’ve been teased about my hair all my life,” Esmay said. “You can’t embarrass me that way. And now that I know what a good hairdresser can do—”
“Now,” the docent said, getting formal again, “I wish you the best of luck in your military career, Esmay Suiza. You have brought honor to Altiplano, and I’m sure you will bring more.” He rolled up the document, tied a black ribbon around it, and handed it to Esmay’s father.
“You’ll join us for some refreshment?” General Suiza said.
“Forgive me, General, but I cannot at this time. Later perhaps?”
“Of course. I expect to be here several days.”
The planetside headquarters of the Regular Space Service comprised a warren of buildings that radiated from the back of the Ministry of Defense, tunneling under and bridging over streets and tramways and throwing out subsidiary departments into odd corners of other governmental offices. Esmay, her father, Brun, and the docent of Altiplano began at the front end, at the Ministry of Defense, where a harrassed staff immediately announced they were in the wrong place. “Try recruiting,” one receptionist said. “It’s in the Michet Building.”
“It’s a personnel matter, not a recruiting matter,” General Suiza said.
“Oh—that would be the Corvey Building, but you have to go through security first. That way—” She pointed.
“That way” led down a long hall that wound to the right, then back to the left, and finally led them up a ramp to an elevated walkway along one side of a courtyard; down below, two people were talking, leaning on some kind of ornamental column. At the far end of the walkway, they came to the first set of guards.
“We’re looking for the Corvey Building,” General Suiza said. “They said it was this way.”
“You don’t have any ID tags,” the guard said.
“Do we need ID tags?”
“Visitors are supposed to get ID tags at the kiosk by the entrance.”
“There wasn’t one,” Brun said.
“Right by the State Street entrance—”
“We didn’t come in the State Street entrance; we came in the Lowe Street entrance.”
The guard frowned. “You’re supposed to have ID tags to come in that entrance at all. Wait here.” He stepped back and spoke into his comunit; they couldn’t hear what he said; his eyes never left them. Then he stepped forward again. “Which sept are you?”
“Barraclough,” Brun said without hesitation. “Why?”
The guard changed expression. “You’re—you’re the old speaker’s daughter . . . .you’re Brun Meager!”
“Yes,” Brun said. She sounded slightly truculent.
He beamed at her as if she’d just handed him a fortune. “I never thought I’d get to meet you. You look different in that suit; I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you right away. And these are friends of yours?”
“Yes,” Brun said.
“Oh, well, then, I’m sure it’s all right. If I could just see your ID, to have it on the records . . .”
Brun handed it over; Esmay was appalled. If they called this security—! She was glad Kate had decided not to come with them.
“That’s fine, sera . . . milady?”
“Thank you,” Brun said, without clarifying her status. “Are you sure it’s all right? We don’t want to get you in any trouble.”
“No, sera, that’s quite all right. It’s an honor to be of service. If your friends don’t mind, I’d like to put their names on the roster . . . will they need independent access? If so, we should get them some tags made up.”
“Certainly,” Brun said. “This is General Suiza, from Altiplano—his daughter Esmay Suiza—you may remember that she saved my life—”
The guard’s gaze rested briefly on Esmay, then slid quickly back to Brun. “Yes—of course—the hero of Xavier.”
“And the Docent of Altiplano, Ser Faiza.”
“Docent?”
“Diplomatic status,” Brun said, as if she’d always known it.
“Ah . . . yes, thank you, sers and seras. Sera Meager, I know it’s an imposition, but if you wouldn’t mind—my wife’s a big fan—” He fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a crumpled shopping list. “Would you sign it?”
“Of course,” Brun said, and scrawled her name with the stylus he offered.
The man said, clearly as an afterthought, “And you, Sera Suiza? My wife bought a cube of Sera Meager’s rescue—”
Esmay fitted in her signature under Brun’s—she couldn’t think of a gracious way to refuse—and wondered if the 2 p. crts. on the list under her name was crates, carrots, or something illegal.
The guard waved them through double doors into another corridor—a bridge over a street—and at the far end another guard opened the matching doors for them. “Sera Meager? It’s an honor—I’m calling ahead so you shouldn’t be stopped again, just go down this ramp, turn left, take the first corridor to the right and keep going . . .”
Brun, in what Esmay considered an excess of honesty, said, “But weren’t we supposed to go through security?”
“Oh, you don’t want to bother with them,” the man said. “They’re backed up at least three hours processing recruit clearances from that new intake that came in overnight. My wife works in catalog over there; she called to tell me she had to work overtime tonight. You’d be sitting on a bench until dark, most likely, and besides—they’re just not very helpful.”