“Shouldn’t we be less . . . conspicuous?” Andres asked. He was eyeing her cherry-colored tunic, and the sheaf of bright flowers she carried, along with a basket of pastries.
“We can’t really be inconspicuous,” Raffa said. “What we can be is conspicuously something other than they expect. Students . . . whatever. Anything but two scared clones. If you’ll just chatter along like normal people—or eat . . .”
They trooped downstairs as casually as if they were going to a party. George started an anecdote that had nothing to do with anything; Ronnie munched a cheese pastry, and the clones looked a bit dazed.
“I don’t see why you didn’t bring a private car,” Borhes said, under cover of George’s story about the girl who had painted her brother’s feet purple.
“That would have been conspicuous,” Raffa said. “How often do hire-cars come to this neighborhood? Come on—just through the market.” The market, bustling with the lunchtime crowd, all more interested in food and drink than a girl with a bunch of flowers and her four companions. At the transit stop, a loose clump of people waited, most of them eating. Raffa had begun to relax when someone called to her.
“Raffaele Forrester-Saenz!” Raffa jumped as if she’d been poked with a pin, then tried to pretend nothing had happened. All four young men had gone rigid; the clones looked as if they might faint. “Raffaele!” came the voice, louder yet. Through the noise of her heart beating, Raffa could now tell that it was an old lady’s quavery disapproval—certainly not the king. She turned around, and found herself face-to-face with Ottala’s aunt.
“Yes?” she said, as casually as she could while impaled on that indignant gaze. Ottala’s aunt, draped in shades of mauve, with a knitted purple cap adorned with droopy knitted flowers in pink and beige . . . Raffa had to struggle not to burst out laughing.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know me,” Ottala’s aunt said. “You were at school with my niece Ottala. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Your parents will hear about this!”
“About what?” Raffa said. Beside her, Ronnie’s arm twitched, but he and the other young men were steadfastly not looking that direction.
“Running off to carouse in foreign parts with a young man! And not just one of them!” Ottala’s aunt shook a ring-covered finger under Raffa’s nose. “Everyone knows your family doesn’t want you to marry Ronald Carruthers, and here you are—” Her head shot forward, like a turtle’s from its shell, as she peered at the back of four young male heads. “You needn’t hide, young man. I saw you across the market, laughing and chatting as if you had nothing better to do. And who are the others, if you please?” Ronnie sighed and turned around; the others still pretended not to hear.
None of your business was what Raffa wanted to say to the question, but practicality as well as manners prevented her. Old ladies like this didn’t quit bothering you just because you were rude; they had dealt with more rudeness already than the average youth could think up. Raffa tried to think if anything would help, and glanced past Ottala’s aunt to the person behind her. He was pushing a barrow, and on the barrow were . . . pottery pieces of incredible ugliness. Half-melted graceless shapes in colors that made her stomach turn. Recognition and counterattack came together.
“Those pots,” she began. Ottala’s aunt turned one of the colors on them, an ugly puce.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she began. “They aren’t just pots, they’re . . .”
“I understood that you yourself were quite an artist in pottery,” Raffa said, with emphasis. “You gave some to Ottala; she had them at school. I noticed, when I was in the market the other day, how much the local wares resembled them. Perhaps—”
“Great artists derive inspiration from many sources,” Ottala’s aunt muttered. Her dark little eyes peered up at Raffa.
“And lesser artists plagiarize,” Raffa said, with no softening. “Sometimes those who aren’t artists simply—”
Ottala’s aunt held up her hand, and Raffa stopped. “All right. I—I couldn’t make enough pots on my own—my family kept asking for more, and more, and more. Finally I got someone to make a few for me—and then a few more—”
“But why such ugly ones?” Raffa said, shocking herself. Ottala’s aunt shook her head, as if she hadn’t heard right, and then smiled sadly.
“I kept hoping they’d quit asking—you know, if I made them uglier and uglier.” After a pause, she went on. “I really can’t explain how everyone in the family has such bad taste—it seems the worse the product, the more they want.”
“Why didn’t you just tell them you were tired of making pots?”
“My dear, you aren’t old enough to understand.” The old lady leaned forward, confiding. “Someday, when you’re grown, and you’re enjoying things, your relatives will start complaining. ‘You never finish anything you start,’ they’ll say. ‘You pick up one hobby after another—you’re just wasting time and money with all these enthusiasms.’ ‘You should stick to one thing and learn to do it really well.’ ” Ottala’s aunt sniffed. “It doesn’t matter what it is. I expect that Ronald’s aunt, Cecelia de Marktos, heard the same thing about her horses.”
“That’s true,” Ronnie put in. “It’s one reason Aunt Cecelia’s so angry with my parents; they kept telling her that her riding was just a hobby, and not worth all the time she put into it.”
“You see?” Ottala’s aunt looked triumphant. “I think my family wanted to make sure I stuck to pottery, and that’s why they kept asking for more. And to be honest, my dear, I did want to quit. They were right.”
“Still . . .” began Raffa, who wanted to get the conversation back to the covert negotiation she had started. “About these pots . . . and Ronnie . . .”
“Oh, all right,” Ottala’s aunt huffed. “I won’t tell on you, if you don’t tell on me. But I still think young girls have no business running around in foreign lands with four young men. One was quite enough for me, in my young days.” As the tram came in, and Raffa moved to board it with the others, Ottala’s aunt called, “And don’t think I don’t recognize young George Mahoney there, with his ears the color of ripe plums. . . .”
The rest of the trip to the Institute passed without incident.
Chapter Eleven
“We have more troubles than getting the clones to safety,” Raffa said, when they met again. Ronnie and George, fresh from showers, in clean clothes, had their usual glossy surface. “Some of the rejuvenation drugs have been adulterated, and none of the samples we brought—yours or mine—were manufactured here.”
“None?”
“None. They did an isotopic analysis, and in their database—which they admit isn’t all-inclusive—there’s a match with Patchcock.” Ronnie and George looked at each other, startled, over her head. “What?”
“Nothing,” they both said in the tone of voice that means Something.
“Tell me.” Raffa was not about to take any more nonsense.
“Ottala Morreline disappeared on Patchcock. I don’t know any more; I’m not supposed to know that much, but I always could read upside down and backwards.” George smirked. Raffa could have smacked him, but she wouldn’t let herself be distracted.
“Is that why Lord Thornbuckle sent Brun off with Captain Serrano?”
“Maybe. Probably. Just in case someone’s out to get the daughters of wealthy families.”
“And they sent me here.” Raffa was seriously annoyed with Lord Thornbuckle and her own parents, but on mutually exclusive grounds. She didn’t like being thought incompetent enough to need to be sent away, and she didn’t like being thought negligible enough to be sent from Castle Rock to the Guerni Republic alone. If anyone had wanted to harm her, she’d have been unprotected.