"She is also to be given ivory marking sticks," Ibi remarked significantly, "and knows how to make proper use of them, too. You're looking at a lady of station. We're having them carved now."
"It's your show," Mearch shrugged. "I can give her no ivory, but we can definitely take care of the horse. If that will be all—"
Ibi paused, looking up at Mearch with a serious expression.
"No, that will not be all. I've seen your negligent attitude toward outfitting junior officers of the court in the past, and it was entirely too careless for my liking."
Ibi rose up off his seat suddenly and leaned forward, propping both bony arms firmly and authoritatively on the workbench as he regarded the other intently eye to eye, with a look of menace.
"Mearch, listen well. I was given an ill-mannered, ill-treated ruffian-girl straight from the slave fields, when she came to me. She was as fresh as the clay on the banks, and it was my job to train her up in all ways needful until she was found fit to present in court as a royal officer. I worked hard on polishing her coarse ways, and she has repaid my efforts beyond all expectation, which pleases me greatly as I do not relish the prospect of being made a public spectacle by having fools for underlings.
"Furthermore," Ibi went on, "she is still of tender years, and has taken a vow of silence for life, and I will not stand for her being given the customary business-as-usual rough handling at the coarsened hands of your cocky young studs. If she cannot speak, she cannot protest, but it would be a fatal mistake to think she is as easily intimidated as all that. The Emperor himself failed to get a word out of her, in spite of Borla's ready sword held close under her pretty little nose. I saw it myself, and it was most impressive."
Whether it was Si'Wren's beauty or her fearlessness that he found so impressive, Ibi did not elaborate, although a fondly doting Mearch seemed to have his own ideas already.
"She has since found favor in his Majesty's eyes," Ibi went on dryly, with an acid look for Mearch's wayward eyes, "and gives better reports in fresh clay than others seem to manage out of so much bad breath! Am I getting through to you?"
Ibi held Mearch's eyes for a long, hard moment of utter silence, while Si'Wren stood self-consciously with eyes downcast, trying to appear as if the last thing on her mind was to get in anybody's way.