“Just be thankful I do, lady. And no Lahal between us.”
She colored again at this, fully aware of the sarcasm.
“Be very careful how you address me. I am the Kovneva of Aduimbrev, Marta Renberg, and your head lies most shakily upon your shoulders.”
“Then Llahal, Kovneva. I did not know Marto Renberg; but I once met old Vektor—”
She tried to hit me with her thraxter, and I laughed and ducked away and hauled the nikvove on. Oh, yes, I laughed. It was certainly no time for crying.
She was not very old, I judged, although that is always a tricky business on Kregen where a person changes but little and slowly over two hundred or so years. She had the brown Vallian hair and eyes, a trim figure, a high color, and she was most decidedly a very important person in her own eyes.
Some quality I
