The Forbidden Tower

Chapter Five

That morning Damon came to assist Dom Esteban into the rolling chair that had been made for him. “So you can be present at the wedding sitting upright, not lying flat on a wheel-bed like an invalid!”

“It feels strange to be vertical again,” said the old man, steadying himself with both hands. “I feel as dizzy as if I were already drunk.”

“You’ve been lying flat too long,” Damon said matter-of-factly. “You’ll soon get used to it.”

“Well, better to sit up than go propped on pillows like a woman in childbed! And at least my legs are still there, even if I can’t feel them!”

“They are still there,” Damon assured him, “and with someone to push your chair, you can get around well enough on the ground floor.”

“That will be a relief,” Esteban said. “I am weary of looking at this ceiling! When spring comes, I will have workmen come here, and let them do over some rooms on the ground floor for me. You two,” he added, gesturing Andrew to join them, “can have any of the large suites upstairs, for yourselves and your wives.”

“That is generous, Father-in-law,” Damon said, but the old man shook his head.

“Not at all. No room above ground level will ever be the slightest use to me again. I suggest you go and choose rooms for yourselves now; leave my old rooms for Domenic when he takes a wife, but any others are for your own choice. If you do it now, the women can move into their own homes as soon as they are married.” He added, laughing, “And while you do that, I shall have Dezi wheel me about down here and get used to the sight of my house again. Did I thank you, Damon, for this?”

On the upper floor, Damon and Andrew sought out Leonie. Damon said, “I wanted to ask you, out of earshot. I understand enough to know Dom Esteban will never walk again. But otherwise how is he, Leonie?”

“Out of earshot?” The Keeper laughed faintly. “He has laran, Damon; he knows all, though perhaps he has wisely refused to understand what it will mean to him. The flesh wound has long healed, of course, and the kidneys are not damaged, but the brain no longer communicates with legs and feet. He retains some small control over body functions, but doubtless as time passes and the lower part of his body wastes away, that will go too. His greatest danger is pressure sores. You must be sure his body-servants turn him every few hours, because, since there is no feeling, there will be no pain either, and he will not know if a fold in his clothing, or something of that sort, puts pressure on his body. Most of those who are paralyzed die when such sores become infected. This process can be delayed, with great care, if his limbs are kept supple with massage, but sooner or later the muscles will wither and die.”

Damon shook his head in dismay. “He knows all this?”

“He knows. But his will to live is strong, and while that remains, you can keep his life good. For a while. Years, perhaps. Afterward…” A small, resigned shrug. “Perhaps he will find some new will to live if he has grandchildren about him. But he has always been an active man, and a proud one. He will not take kindly to inactivity or helplessness.”

Andrew said, “I’m going to need a hell of a lot of his help and advice running this place. I’ve been trying to get along without bothering him—”

“By your leave, that is mistaken,” said Leonie gently. “He should know that his knowledge is still needed, if not his lands and his skill. Ask him for advice as much as you can, Andrew.”

It was the first time she had addressed him directly, and the Terran glanced at the woman in surprise. He had enough rudimentary telepathy to know that Leonie was uncomfortable with him, and was troubled to feel there was something more now in her regard. When she had gone away he said to Damon, “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

“I don’t think it is that,” Damon said. “She would feel uneasy with any man to whom she must give Callista in marriage, I think.”

“Well, I can’t blame her for thinking I’m not good enough for Callista; I don’t think there’s any man who is. But as long as Callista doesn’t think so…”

Damon laughed. “I suppose no man on his wedding day feels worthy of his bride. I must keep reminding myself that Ellemir has agreed to this marriage! Come along, we must find rooms for our wives!”

“Shouldn’t it be up to them to choose?”

Damon recalled that Andrew was a stranger to their customs. “No, it is custom for the husband to provide a home for his wife. In courtesy Dom Esteban is giving us a way to find such a place and ready it before the wedding.”

“But they know the house—”

Damon replied, “So do I. I spent much of my boyhood here. Dom Esteban’s oldest son and I were bredin, sworn friends. But you, have you no kinsmen in the Terran Zone, no servants sworn to you and awaiting your return?”

“None. Servants are a memory out of our past; no man should serve another.”

“Still, we’ll have to assign you a few. If you’re going to be managing the estate for our kinsman” — Damon used the word usually translated as “uncle” — “you won’t have leisure to handle the details of ordinary life, and we can’t expect the women to do their own cleaning and mending. And we don’t have machines as you do in the Terran Zone.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not rich in metals. Anyhow, why should we make people’s lives useless because they cannot earn their porridge and meat at honest work? Or do you truly think we would all be happier building machines and selling them to one another as you do?” Damon opened a door off the hallway. “These rooms have not been used since Ellemir’s mother died and Dorian was married. They seem in good repair.”

Andrew followed him into the spacious central living room of the suite, his mind still on Damon’s question. “I’ve been taught it is degrading for one man to serve another, degrading for the servant — and for the master.”

“I’d find it more degrading to spend my life as servant to some kind of machine. And if you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it and spend your time serving it.” He thought of his own relationship to the matrix, and every psi technician’s on Darkover, to say nothing of the Keepers’.

Instead, he opened doors all around the suite. “Look, on either side of this central living room is a complete suite: each with bedroom, sitting room and bath, and small rooms behind for the women’s maids when they choose them, dressing rooms and so forth. The women will want to be close together, and yet there’s privacy too, for when we want it, and other small rooms nearby if we need them someday for our children. Does this suit you?”

It was far more space than any young couple would have been assigned in Married Personnel HQ. Andrew agreed, and Damon asked, “Will you have the left-hand or right-hand suite?”

“Makes no difference to me. Want to flip a coin?”

Damon laughed heartily. “You have that custom too? But if it makes no difference to you, let us have the left-hand suite. Ellemir, I have noticed, is always awake and about with the dawn, and Callista likes to sleep late when she can. Perhaps it would be better not to have the morning sun in your bedroom window.”

Andrew blushed with pleasant embarrassment. He had noticed this, but had not carried it far enough in his mind to think ahead to the mornings when he would be waking in the same room as Callista. Damon grinned companionably.

“The wedding’s only hours away, you know. And we’ll be brothers, you and I — that’s a good thought too. It seems sad, though, that you should not have a single kinsman or friend at your wedding.”

“I’ve no friends on this planet anyway. And no living relatives anywhere.”

Damon blinked in dismay. “You came here without family, without friends?”

Andrew shrugged. “I grew up on Terra — a horse ranch in a place called Arizona. When I was eighteen or so, my father died, and the ranch was sold for his debts. My mother didn’t live long after that, and I went into space as a civil servant, and a civil servant goes where he’s sent, more or less. I wound up here, and you know the rest.”

“I thought you had no servants among you,” Damon said, and Andrew got into a tangle of words trying to explain to the other man the difference which made a civil servant other than a servant. Damon listened skeptically and finally said, “A servant, then, to computers and paperwork! I think I had rather be an honest groom or cook!”

“Aren’t there cruel masters who exploit their servants?”

Damon shrugged. “No doubt, just as some men ill-treat their saddle horses and whip them to death. But a reasoning man may some day learn the error of his ways, and at the worst, others may restrain him. But there is no way to teach a machine wisdom after folly.”

Andrew grinned. “You know, you’re right. We have a saying, you can’t fight the computer, it’s right even when it’s wrong.”

“Ask Dom Esteban’s hall-steward, or the estate midwife Ferrika, if they feel ill-used or exploited,” Damon said. “You’re telepath enough to know if they’re telling the truth. And then, perhaps, you’ll decide you can honorably let some man earn his wages as your body-servant and your groom.”

Andrew shrugged. “No doubt I will. We have a saying, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Rome, I think, was a city on Terra; it was destroyed in a war or an earthquake, centuries ago, only the proverb remains.—”

Damon said, “We have a similar saying; it runs, Don’t try to buy fish in the Dry Towns.” He walked around the room be had chosen for his bedroom and Ellemir’s. “These draperies have not been aired since the days of Regis the Fourth! I’ll get the stewards to change them.” He pulled a bell-rope, and when the steward appeared, gave orders.

“We’ll have it done by tonight, my lord, so you and your ladies can move in when you like. And, Lord Damon, I was asked to let you know that your brother, Lord Serrais, has come to witness your wedding.”

“Very good, thank you. If you can find Lady Ellemir, ask her to come and approve what arrangements we have made,” Damon said. When the servant went away, he grimaced.

“My brother Lorenz! Such good will as he has for my wedding, I suspect, could be dropped into my eyes without pain! I had hoped for my brother Kieran, at least, or my sister Marisela, but I suppose I should be honored, and go to say a word of thanks to Lorenz.”

“Have you many brothers?”

“Five,” Damon said, “and three sisters. I was the youngest son, and my father and mother had already too many children when I was born. Lorenz—” He shrugged. “I suppose he is relieved that I have taken a bride of family so good that he need not haggle about patrimony and a younger son’s portion. I am not wealthy, but I have never wished for much wealth, and Ellemir and I will have enough for our needs. My brother Lorenz and I have never been overly friendly. Kieran — he is only three years older than I — Kieran and I are bredin; Marisela and I are only a year apart in age, and we had the same foster-mother. As for my other brothers and sisters, we are civil enough when we meet in Council season, but I suspect none of us would grieve over much if we never met again. My home has always been here. My mother was an Alton, and I was fostered near here, and Dom Esteban’s oldest son went with me into the Cadets. We swore the oath of bredin.” It was the second time he had used this word, which was the intimate or family form of brother. Damon sighed, looking into space for a moment.

“You were a cadet?”

“A very poor one,” Damon said, “but no Comyn son can escape it if he has two sound legs and his eyesight. Coryn was like all Altons, a born soldier, a born officer. I was something else.” He laughed. “There’s a joke in the cadet corps about the cadet with two right feet and ten thumbs. That was me.”

“Awkward squad all the way, huh?”

Damon nodded, savoring the phrase. “Punishment detail eleven times in a tenday. I’m right-handed, you see. My foster-mother — she was midwife to my mother — used to say I was born upside-down and ass-backward, and I’ve been doing everything that way ever since.”

Andrew, who had been born left-handed into a right-handed society and only on Darkover had found things arranged in a way that made sense to him, everything from silverware to garden tools, said, “I can certainly understand that.”

“I’m a bit short-sighted, too, which didn’t help, though it was a help in learning to read. None of my brothers have any clerical skills, and they can’t do much more than spell out a placard or scrawl their names to a deed. But I took to it like a rabbithorn to the snow, so when I finished in the cadets I went to Nevarsin, and spent a year or two learning to read and write and do some map-making and the like. That was when Lorenz decided I’d never make a man. When they accepted me at Arilinn, it only confirmed him in his decision: half monk, half eunuch, he used to say.” Damon was silent, his face set in lines of distaste. Finally he said, “But for all that he was no better pleased when they sent me from the Tower, a few years ago. For Coryn’s sake — Coryn was dead then, poor lad, killed in a fall from the cliffs — but for his sake, Dom Esteban took me into the Guards. I was never much of a soldier, though, hospital officer, cadet-master for a year or two.” He shrugged. “And that’s my life, and enough of that. Listen, the women are coming, we can show our wives around before I have to go down and try to be polite to Lorenz!”

Andrew saw, with relief, that the lonely, introspective sadness slid off his face as Ellemir and Callista came in.

“Come, Ellemir, see the rooms I have chosen for us.”

He took her through a door at the far end, and Andrew sensed, rather than heard, that he was kissing her. Callista followed them with her eyes and smiled. “I am glad to see them so happy.”

“Are you happy too, my love?”

She said, “I love you, Andrew. I do not find it so easy to rejoice. Perhaps I am naturally a little less light of heart. Come, show me the rooms we are to have.”

She approved of nearly everything, though she pointed out half a dozen pieces of furniture which, she said, were so old they were not safe to sit on, and called a steward, directing that they be taken away. She called the maids and gave directions about what things were to be brought from the household storerooms for bedroom and bath linens, and sent another to have her clothing brought and stored in the enormous clothes-press in her dressing room. Andrew listened in silence, finally saying, “You are quite a homemaker, Callista!”

Her laugh was delightful. “It is all pretense. I have been listening to Ellemir, that is all, because I do not want to sound ignorant in front of her servants. I know very little about such things. I have been taught to sew, because I was never allowed to let my hands sit idle, but when I watch Ellemir about the kitchens, I realize that I know less of housekeeping than any girl of ten.”

“I feel the same way,” Andrew confessed. “Everything I learned in the Terran Zone is useless to me now.”

“But you know something of horse-breaking—”

Andrew laughed. “Yes, and in the Terran Zone that was considered an anachronism, a useless skill. I used to take Dad’s saddle horses and break them, but I thought when I left Arizona that I’d never ride again.”

“Does everyone on Terra walk, then?”

He shook his head. “Motor transit. Slidewalks. Horses were an exotic luxury for rich eccentrics.” He went to the window and looked out on the sunlit landscape. “Strange, that of all the known worlds of the Terran Empire, I should have come here.” A faint shudder went through him at the thought of how narrowly he could have missed what now seemed his fate, his life, the true purpose for which he had been born.

He wanted desperately to reach out and draw Callista into his arms, but as if his thought had somehow reached her, she went tense and white. He sighed and stepped a pace away from her.

She said, as if completing a thought that no longer interested her much, “Our horse-handler is already an old man, and without Father at hand, it may be up to you to teach the younger ones.” Then she stopped and looked up at him, twisting the end of one long braid.

“I want to talk to you,” she said abruptly.

He had never decided whether her eyes were blue or gray; they seemed to vary with the light, and in this light they were almost colorless. “Andrew, will this be too hard on you? To share a room when we cannot — as yet — share a bed?”

He had been warned of this when they first discussed marriage, that she had been conditioned so deeply that it might be a long time before they could consummate their marriage. He had promised her then, unasked, that he would never hurry her or try to put any pressure on her, that he would wait as long as necessary. He said now, touching her fingertips lightly, “Don’t worry about it, Callista. I promised you that already.”

Faint color crept slowly across her pale cheeks. She said, “I have been taught that it is… shameful to arouse a desire I will not satisfy. Yet if I stay apart from you, and do not rouse it, so that in turn your thoughts may act on me, then things may never be different at all. If we are together, then, slowly perhaps, things may be different. But it will be so hard on you, Andrew.” Her face twisted. She said, “I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

Once, once only, and with great constraint, and briefly, he had spoken of this with Leonie. Now, as he stood looking down at Callista, that brief meeting, difficult on both sides, came back to his mind as if again he stood before the Comyn leronis. She had come to him in the courtyard, saying quietly, “Look at me, Terran.” He had raised his eyes, unable to resist. Leonie was so tall that their eyes were on a level. She had said, in a low voice, “I want to see to what manner of man I am giving the child I love.” Their eyes had met, and for a long moment Andrew Carr felt as if every thought of his entire life had been turned over and rummaged through by the woman, as if in that one glance, and not a long one, she had drawn the very inmost part from him and left it to dangle there, cold and withering. Finally — it had not been more than a second or two, but it had seemed an age — Leonie had sighed and said, “So be it. You are honest and kind and you mean well, but have you the faintest idea of what a Keeper’s training means, or how hard it will be for Callista to lay it down?”

He had wanted to protest, but instead he had only shaken his head and said humbly, “How can I know? But I will try to make it easy for her.”

Leonie’s sigh had seemed ripped up from the very depths of her being. She had said, “Nothing you could do, in this world or the next, could make it easy for her. If you are patient and careful — and lucky — you may make it possible. I do not want Callista to suffer. And yet in the choice she has made, there will be much suffering. She is young, but not so young that she can put aside her training without pain. The training that makes a Keeper is long; it cannot be undone in a little while.”

Andrew had protested. “I know—” and Leonie had sighed again. “Do you? I wonder. It is not only a matter of delaying the consummation of your marriage for days, or perhaps for seasons; that will be only the beginning. She loves you, and is eager for your love—”

“I can be patient until she is ready,” Andrew had sworn, but Leonie had said, shaking her head, “Patience may not be enough. What Callista has learned cannot be unlearned. You do not want to know about that. Perhaps it is better for you not to know too much.”

He had said again, protesting, “I’ll try to make it easy for her,” and again Leonie had shaken her head and sighed, repeating, “Nothing you could do could make it easy. Chickens cannot go back into eggs. Callista will suffer, and I fear you will suffer with her, but if you are — if you both are lucky, you may make it possible for her to retrace her steps. Not easy. But possible.”

Indignation had burst out of him then. “How can you people do this to young girls? How can you destroy their lives this way?” But Leonie had not answered, lowering her head; and moving noiselessly away from him. When he blinked she was gone, as swiftly as if she had been a shadow, so that he began to doubt his sanity, began to wonder if she had ever been there at all, or if his own doubts and fears had constructed an hallucination.

Callista, standing before him in the room that — tomorrow — would be theirs to share, raised her eyes again, slowly, to his. She said in a whisper, “I did not know Leonie had come to you that way,” and he saw her hands clench tightly, so tightly that the small knuckles were white as bone. Then she said, looking away from him, “Andrew, promise me something.”

“Anything, my love.”

“Promise me. If you ever… desire some woman, promise me you will take her and not suffer needlessly…”

He exploded. “What kind of man do you think I am? I love you! Why would I want anyone else?”

“I cannot expect — It is not right or natural…”

“Look here, Callista,” and his voice was gentle, “I’ve lived a long time without women. I never found it did me all that much harm. A few, here and there, while I was knocking around the Empire on my own. Nothing serious.”

She looked down at the tips of her small dyed-leather sandals. “That’s different, men alone, living away from women. But here, living with me, sleeping in the same room, being near me all the time and knowing…” She ran out of words. He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her till she lost that rigid, lost look. He actually laid his hands on her shoulders, felt her tense under the touch, and let his hands drop to his sides. Damn anyone who could built pathological reflexes into a young girl this way! But even without the touch, he felt the grief in her, grief and guilt. She said softly, “You have no bargain in a wife, Andrew.”

He replied gently, “I have the wife I want.”

Damon and Ellemir came into the room. Ellemir’s hair was tousled, her eyes shining; she had that glassy-eyed look which he associated with women aroused, excited. For the first time since he had seen the twins, he saw Ellemir as a woman, not merely as Callista’s sister, and found her sensually attractive to him. Or was it that for a moment he saw in her the way Callista might, one day, look at him? He felt a flicker of guilt. She was his promised wife’s sister, in a few hours she would be his best friend’s wife, and of all women, she was the one at whom he should not look with desire. He looked away as she collected herself, slowly coming back to ordinary awareness.

She said, “Callie, we must have new curtains brought in; these have not been aired or washed, since — since” — she groped for analogy — “since the days of Regis the Fourth.” Andrew knew that she had been in close contact with Damon, and smiled to himself.

Just before high noon a clatter of hooves sounded in the courtyard, a commotion like a small hurricane, riders, sounds, cries, noises. Callista laughed. “It is Domenic; no one else ever arrives with such a fury!” She drew Andrew down to the courtyard. Domenic Lanart, heir to the Domain of Alton, was a slight, red-haired boy, tall and freckled, astride an enormous gray stallion. He flung the reins to a groom, jumped down, grabbed Ellemir and hugged her exuberantly, then threw his arms around Damon.

“Two weddings for one!” he exclaimed, drawing them up the steps at his side. “You’ve been long enough about your wooing, Damon. I knew last year that you wanted her; why did it take a war to bring you to the point of asking her hand? Elli, will you have a husband so reluctant?” He turned his head from side to side, kissing both of them, then broke away and turned to Callista.

“And for you a lover insistent enough to win you from the Tower! I am eager to meet this marvel, breda.” But his voice was suddenly gentle, and when Callista presented him to Andrew, he bowed. For all the exuberant noise and boyish laughter, he had the manners of a prince. His hands were small and square, calloused like a swordsman’s.

“So you are to marry Callista? I suppose that crowd of old ladies and graywigs in the Council won’t like it, but it’s time we had some new blood in the family.” He stood on tiptoe — Callista was a tall woman, and for all his lanky height, Domenic was not, Andrew thought, quite full-grown yet — and brushed her cheek lightly with his lips. “Be happy, sister. Avarra’s mercy! You deserve it, if you can dare to marry like this, without Council permission or the catenas.”

“Catenas” she said scornfully. “I had as soon marry a Dry-Towner and go in chains!”

“Good for you, sister.” He turned to Andrew as they went into the hall. “Father said in his message that you were a Terran. I have talked with some of your people in Thendara. They seem good enough folk, but lazy. Good Gods, they have machines for everything, to walk on, to lift them up a flight of stairs, to bring them food at table. Tell me, Andrew, do they have machines to wipe themselves with?” He shouted boisterous boyish laughter, while the girls giggled.

He turned to Damon. “So you’re not coming back to the Guards, cousin? You’re the only decent cadet-master we’ve had in ages. Young Danvan Hastur’s trying his hand at it now, but it’s not working. The lads are all too much in awe of him, and anyway, he’s too young. It needs a man of more years. Any suggestions?”

“Try my brother Kieran,” Damon suggested, smiling. “He likes soldiering more than I ever did.”

“You were a damn good cadet-master, though,” Domenic Said. “I’d like you back, though I suppose it’s no job for a man, being a sort of he-governess to a pack of half-grown boys.”

Damon shrugged. “I was glad enough to have their liking, but I am no soldier, and a cadet-master should be one who can inspire his cadets with a love of a soldier’s trade.”

“Not too much love of it, though,” said Dom Esteban, who had listened with interest as they approached, “or he’ll harden them and make them brutes, not men. So you have come at last, Domenic, my lad?”

The boy laughed. “Why, no, Father, I am still carousing in a Thendara tavern. What you see here is my ghost.” Then the merriment slid off his face as he saw his father, thin, graying, his useless legs covered with a wolfskin robe. He dropped to his knees beside the wheelchair. He said brokenly, “Father, oh, Father, I would have come at any moment, if you had sent for me, truly—”

The Alton lord laid his hands on Domenic’s shoulders. “I know that, dear lad, but your place was in Thendara, since I could not be there. Yet the sight of you makes my heart more glad than I can say.”

“I too,” said Domenic, scrambling up and looking down at his father. “I am relieved to see you so well and hearty; reports in Thendara had you at the point of death, or even dead and buried!”

“It is not as bad as that,” Dom Esteban said, laughing. “Come sit here beside me, tell me all that goes on in Guard-hall and Council.” It was easy to see, Andrew thought, that this merry boy was the very light of his father’s eyes.

“I will, and gladly, Father, but this is a wedding day and we are here for merrymaking, and there is little mirth to that tale! Prince Aran Elhalyn thinks I am all too young to have command of the Guards, even while you lie here sick at Armida, and he whispers that tale night and day into the ears of Hastur. And Lorenz of Serrais — forgive me for speaking ill of your brother, Damon—”

Damon shook his head. “My brother and I are not on the best of terms, Domenic, so say what you will.”

“Lorenz, then, damn him for a warped scheming fox, and old Gabriel of Ardais, who wants the post for that bullying wretch of a son of his, are quick to sing the same chorus, that I am all too young to command the Guards. They are about Aran night and day with flattery and gifts that stop just that one step short of being bribes, to persuade him to name one of them Commander while you are here in Armida! Will you be back before Midsummer festival, Father?”

A shadow passed over the crippled man’s face. “That must be as the Gods will have it, my son. Would the Guards be commanded, think you, by a man chair-bound, with legs of no more use than fish-flippers?”

“Better a lame commander than a commander who is no Alton,” Domenic said with fierce pride. “I could command in your name, and do all for you, if you were only there, to command as the Altons have done so many generations!”

His father gripped his hands, hard. “We shall see, my son. We shall see what comes.” But even that thought, Damon could see, had fired the Alton lord with a sudden hope and purpose. Would he, indeed, be able to command the Guards again from his chair, with Domenic at his side?

“Alas that we have now no Lady Bruna in our family,” Domenic said gaily. “Say, Callista, will you take up the sword as Lady Bruna did, and command the Guardsmen?”

She laughed, shaking her head. Damon said, “I do not know that tale,” and Domenic repeated it, smiling. “It was generations ago — how many I do not know — but her name is written in the rolls of Commanders, how Lady Bruna Leynier, when her brother, who was Lord Alton then, was slain, leaving a son but nine years old, took the lad’s mother in freemate marriage to protect her, as women may do, and ruled the Guards till he came of age to command. In the annals of the Guards, it says she was a notable commander too. Would you not have that fame, Callista? No? Ellemir?” He shook his head with mock sadness as they declined. “Alas, what has come to the women of our clan? They are not what they were in those days!”

Standing around Dom Esteban’s chair, the family resemblance was overwhelming. Domenic looked like Callista and Ellemir, though his hair was redder, his curls more riotous, his freckles a thick golden splotch instead of a faint gilt sprinkle. And Dezi, quiet and unregarded benind the wheeled chair, was like a paler reflection of Domenic. Domenic looked up and saw him there, giving him a friendly thump on the shoulder.

“So you are here, cousin? I heard you had left the Tower. I don’t blame you. I spent forty days there a few years ago, being tested for laran, and I couldn’t get away fast enough! Did you get sick of it too, or did they chuck you out?”

Dezi hesitated and looked away, and Callista interposed. “You learned nothing there of our courtesies, Domenic. That is a question which must never be asked. It is between a telepath and his own Keeper, and if Dezi chooses not to tell, it is inexcusably rude to ask.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Domenic good-naturedly, and only Damon noticed the relief in Dezi’s face. “It’s just that I couldn’t get out of the place fast enough, and wondered if you felt the same way. Some people like it. Look at Callista, she had nearly ten years of it, and others — well, it wasn’t for me.”

Damon, watching the two lads, thought with pain of Coryn, so like Domenic at this age! He seemed to taste again the half-forgotten days of his own boyhood, when he, the clumsiest of the cadets, had been accepted as one of them because of his sworn friendship with Coryn, who, like Domenic, had been the best liked, the most energetic and outrageous of them all.

That had been in the days before failure, and hopeless love, and humiliation had burned so deep… but, he thought, it was also before he knew Ellemir. He sighed and clasped her hand in his. Domenic, feeling Damon’s eyes on him, looked up and smiled, and Damon felt the weight of loneliness slip away. He had Ellemir, and he had Andrew and Domenic for brothers. The isolation and loneliness were gone forever.

Domenic took Dezi’s arm in a companionable way. “Look here, cousin, if you get tired of hanging around here at my father’s footstool, come to Thendara. I’ll get you a commission in the cadet corps — I can do that, can’t I, Father?” he asked. At Dom Esteban’s indulgent nod, he added, “They always need lads of good family, and anyone can see to look at you that you’ve got Alton blood, haven’t you?”

Dezi said quietly, “I have always been told so. Without it I could never have passed through the Veil at Arilinn.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter a damn in the cadets. Half of us are some nobleman’s bastard” — he laughed again uproariously — “and the rest of us poor devils are some nobleman’s legitimate son suffering and sweating to prove ourselves worthy of our parents! But I lived through three years of it, and you will too, so come to Thendara and I’ll find you something. Bare is back that has no brother, they say, and since Valdir’s with the monks at Nevarsin, I’ll be glad to have you with me, kinsman.”

Dezi’s face flushed a little. He said in a low voice, “Thank you, cousin. I will stay here while your father has need of me. After that, it will be my pleasure.” He turned quickly, attentively to Dom Esteban. “Uncle, what ails you?” For the old man had gone white and slumped against the back of his chair.

“Nothing,” Dom Esteban said, recovering himself. “A moment of faintness. Perhaps, as they say in the hills, some wild thing pissed on the ground for my grave. Or perhaps it is only that this is my first day upright after lying flat for so long.”

“Let me help you back to bed, then, Uncle, to rest until the wedding,” Dezi said. Domenic said, “I’ll come help,” and as they fussed around him, Damon noticed that Ellemir was watching them with a strange look of dismay.

“What is it, preciosa?”

“Nothing, a premonition, I don’t know,” said Ellemir, shaking, “but as he spoke I saw him lying like death here at this table—”

Damon recalled that now and again in the Altons, a flash of precognition accompanied the gift of laran. He had always suspected that Ellemir had more of the gift than she had ever been allowed to believe. But he stilled his unease and said lovingly, “Well, he is not a young man, my darling, and we are to make our home here. It stands within reason that we would some day see him laid to rest. Don’t let it trouble you, my beloved. And now, I suppose, I must go and pay my respects to my brother Lorenz, since he has chosen to honor my wedding with his presence. Do you suppose we can keep him and Domenic from coming to blows?”

And as Ellemir became enmeshed again in thoughts of guests and the celebration to come, her pallor lessened. But Damon wished he had shared her prevision. What had Ellemir seen?

Andrew watched, with a sense of unreality, as the wedding drew near. Freemate marriage was a simple declaration before witnesses, and it was to be made at the end of the dinner for the guests and neighbors from adjoining estates who had been invited to take part in the celebration. Andrew had no kinsmen or friends here, and although he had dismissed the lack easily enough, as the moment approached, he found he even envied Damon the presence of the dour-looking Lorenz, standing at his side for the solemn declaration which would make Ellemir, by law and custom, his wife. What was the proverb Damon had quoted? “Bare is back that has no brother.” Well, his was bare indeed.

Around the long table of the Great Hall of Armida, laid with the finest cloths and decked out with holiday ware, all the farmers, small-holders and noblemen within the day’s ride were gathered. Damon looked pale and tense, handsomer than usual in a suit of soft leather, dyed and richly embroidered, made in what Andrew had heard were the colors of his Domain. The oranga and green looked gaudy to Andrew. Damon reached his hand to Ellemir, who came around the table to join him. She looked pale and serious, in a green gown, her hair coiled into a silver net. Behind her two young girls — she had told Andrew they had been her playmates when she and Callista were children, one a noblewoman from a nearby holding, one a village girl from their own estates — came to stand behind her.

Damon said steadily, “My friends, nobles and gentlefolk, we have called you together to witness our pledging. Be you all witness that I, Damon Ridenow of Serrais, being freeborn and pledged to no woman, take as freemate this woman, Ellemir Lanart-Alton, with the consent of her kin. And I proclaim that her children shall be declared the legitimate heirs of my body, and shall share in my heritage and estate, be it large or small.”

Ellemir took his hand. Her voice sounded like a child’s in the huge room. “Be witness all of you that I, Ellemir Lanart, take Damon Ridenow as freemate, with consent of our kin.”

There was an outcry of applause and laughter, congratulations, hugs and kisses for both bride and groom. Andrew clasped Damon’s hands in his own, but Damon put his arms around Andrew for the embrace that was customary here, between kinsmen, his cheek briefly touching his friend’s. Then Ellemir pressed herself lightly against him, standing on tiptoe, her lips for a moment on his. For a moment, dizzied, it was as if he had received the kiss Callista had never yet given him, and his mind blurred. For a moment he was not sure which of them had actually kissed him. Then Ellemir was laughing up at him, saying softly, “It is too early for you to be drunk, Andrew!”

The newly married couple moved on, accepting other kisses, embraces, good wishes. Andrew knew that in a moment it would be his turn to make the declaration, but he must stand alone.

Domenic leaned close to him and whispered, “If you wish, I will stand as your kinsman, Andrew. It is only anticipating the fact by a few moments.”

Andrew was touched by the gesture, but hesitated to accept. “You know nothing of me, Domenic…”

“Oh, you are Callista’s choice, and that is quite enough testimony to your character,” Domenic said lightly. “I know my sister, after all.” He rose with him, seeming to accept it as settled. “Did you see the sour face on Dom Lorenz? It’s hard to imagine he’s Damon’s brother, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you’ve seen the woman he married! I think he envies Damon my pretty sister!” As they moved around the table, he murmured, “You can use the words Damon used, or any others which happen to occur to you — there is no set formula. But leave it to Callista to declare your children legitimate. Without offense, that is for the parent of higher rank to do or leave undone.”

Andrew whispered his thanks for the advice. Now he was standing at the head of the long table, facing the guests, dimly aware of Domenic behind him, of Dezi facing him across the long table, of Callista’s eyes steadily before him. He swallowed, hearing his own voice roughened and hoarse.

“I, Ann’dra” — a double name in Darkovan denoted at least minor nobility; Andrew had no lineage any of them would have recognized — “declare that in your presence, as witnesses, I take Callista Lanart-Alton as freemate, with consent of her kin…” It seemed to him that there should be something more than this. He remembered a sect on Terra which had performed their own marriages this way, before witnesses, and out of vague memory he paraphrased, translating the words from an echo in his mind:

“I take her to love and to cherish, in good times and bad, in poverty and wealth, in health and in sickness, while life shall last, and thus I pledge before you all.”

Slowly she came around the table to join him. She was wearing flimsy draperies of crimson embroidered with gold. The color quenched her pale hair, made her look paler still. He had heard that this was the color and the dress reserved for a Keeper. Leonie, behind her, was similarly garbed, solemn and unsmiling.

Callista’s quiet voice was, nevertheless, the voice of a trained singer. Soft as it was, it could be heard throughout the room. “I, Callista of Arilinn,” and her fingers tightened on his almost convulsively as she spoke the ritual title aloud for the last time, “having laid down my holy office forever with the consent of my Keeper, take this man, Ann’dra, as freemate. I further declare” — her voice trembled — “that should I bear him children they shall be held legitimate before clan and council, caste and heritage.” She added, and it struck Andrew that there was defiance in the words, “The Gods witness it, and the holy things at Hali.”

At that moment he saw Leonie’s eyes fixed on him. They seemed to hold a fathomless sadness, but he had no time to wonder why. He bent his head, taking Callista’s hands in his own, touching his lips lightly to hers. She did not shrink from the touch, but he knew that she was barricaded against it, that it did not truly reach her, that somehow she had managed to endure this ritual kiss here before witnesses, only because she knew it would have been scandalous if she did not. The desolation in her eyes was agony to him, but she smiled and murmured, “Your words were lovely, Andrew. Are they Terran?”

He nodded, but had no time to explain further, for they were swept into a round of hugs and congratulations like that which had encompassed Damon and Ellemir. Then they were all kneeling for Dom Esteban’s blessing, and for Leonie’s.

It was quickly apparent, as the festivities began, that the real purpose of this celebration was for the nearby neighbors to meet and judge Dom Esteban’s sons-in-law. Damon, of course, was known by name and reputation to all of them: a Ridenow of Serrais, an officer in the Guards. Andrew, however, was pleasantly surprised at how he was welcomed and accepted, how little attention he attracted. He suspected — and later knew he was right — that in general whatever a Comyn lord did was assumed to be beyond question.

There was a lot of drinking, and he was quickly drawn into the dancing. Everyone joined in this, even the staid Leonie taking the arm of Lord Serrais for a measure. There were some boisterous games. Andrew was dragged into one which involved a lot of kissing, under confusing rules. In a quiet moment on the edge of the game, he voiced some of his confusion to Ellemir. Her face was flushed; he suspected that she had been drinking quite a lot of the sweet, heavy wine. She giggled. “Oh, it’s a compliment to Callista, that these girls should show that they find her husband desirable. And besides, they see no one from Midwinter to Midsummer but their own brothers and kinsmen; you’re a new face and exciting to them.”

That seemed reasonable enough, but still, when it came to playing kissing games with drunken girl children, many of whom were hardly into their teens, he suspected he was simply too old for this kind of party. He had never cared much for drinking anyhow, even among his own compatriots where he knew all the jokes. He looked longingly at Callista, but one of the unwritten rules seemed to be that a husband was not to dance with his own wife. Every time he came near her, others rushed between them and kept them apart.

It finally grew so obvious that he hunted up Damon to ask about it. Damon chuckled and said, “I had forgotten that you are a stranger to the Kilghard Hills, brother. You don’t want to cheat them of their fun, do you? It’s a game at weddings, to keep husband and wife apart so they cannot slip away and consummate their marriage in private, before being put to bed together. Then everybody can have the fun of making the kind of jokes that are traditional here at weddings.” He chuckled, and Andrew wondered suddenly what he was in for!

Damon followed his thoughts accurately and said, “If the marriages had been held in Thendara — they are more sophisticated there, and more civilized. But here they keep country customs and I’m afraid they’re very near to nature. I don’t mind all that much, myself, but then, I was fostered here. At my age I’ll take a little extra teasing — most men marry when they’re about Domenic’s age. And Ellemir was brought up in the hill-country, too, and she’s teased the bride at so many weddings, I suppose she’ll enjoy the fun as much as any of them. But I wish I could spare Callista this. She’s been… sheltered. And a Keeper giving up her place is fair game for dirty jokes; I’m afraid they’ll think up something really tough for her.”

Andrew looked at Ellemir, laughing and blushing in a crowd of girls. Callista was similarly surrounded, but she looked withdrawn and miserable. Andrew noticed, however, with relief that while many of the women were giggling, blushing, and shrieking with laughter, a substantial number of them — mostly the youngest ones — were like Callista, red-faced and shy.

“Drink up!” Domenic thrust a glass into Andrew’s hands. “You can’t be sober at a wedding, it’s disrespectful. Anyhow, if you didn’t get drunk, you might be too eager and mishandle your bride, eh, Damon?” He added some kind of joke about moonlight which Andrew failed to understand, but made Damon snort with shamed laughter.

“I see you are consulting Andrew for advice about later tonight. Tell me, Andrew, do your people have a machine for that too? No?” He pantomimed exaggerated relief. “That’s something! I was afraid we’d have to arrange a special demonstration.”

Dezi was staring at Damon with concentrated attention. Was the youngster drunk already? Dezi said, “I am glad you declared your intention of legitimating your sons, or are you? At your age, do you mean to tell me you have no sons, Damon?”

Damon said with a good-natured smile, a wedding being no time to take offense at intrusive questions, “I am neither monk nor ombredin, Dezi, so I suppose it is not impossible, but if I have, their mothers have neglected to inform me of their existence. But I would have welcomed a son, bastard or no.” Abruptly his mind touched Dezi’s; drunkenly, the boy had failed to barricade himself, and in the flood of bitterness Damon understood the one relevant thing, realizing for the first time what lay at the core of Dezi’s bitterness.

The boy believed himself to be Dom Esteban’s son, and never acknowledged. But would Esteban have done that to any son of his, however begotten? Damon wondered. He recalled that Dezi had laran.

Later, when he mentioned this to Domenic the other said, “I don’t believe it. My father is a just man. He acknowledged his nedestro sons by Larissa d’Asturien, and has settled property on them. He has been as kind to Dezi as to any kinsman, but if Dezi had been his son, he would surely have said so.”

“He sent him to Arilinn,” Damon argued, “and you know that no one except those of the pure Comyn blood may come there. It is not so at the other Towers, but Arilinn—”

Domenic hesitated. “I will not discuss my father’s doings behind his back,” he said at last, firmly. “Come and ask him.”

“Is this the time for such a question?”

“A wedding is the time for settling questions of legitimacy,” Domenic said firmly, and Damon followed him, thinking that this was very like Domenic, to have such a question settled as soon as it was raised.

Dom Esteban was sitting on the sidelines, talking to a painfully polite young couple who slipped away to dance as his son approached. Domenic asked it bluntly:

“Father, is Dezi our brother or not?”

Esteban Lanart looked down at the wolfskin covering his knees. He said, “It might well be so, my boy.”

Domenic demanded fiercely, “Why, then, is he not acknowledged?”

“Domenic, you don’t understand these things, lad. His mother—”

“A common whore?” Domenic demanded in dismay and disgust.

“What do you take me for? No, of course not. She was one of my kinswomen. But she…” Oddly, the rough old man colored in embarrassment. He said at last, “Well, the poor lass is dead now and cannot be shamed further. It was Midwinter festival, and we were all drunk, and she lay that night with me — and not with me alone, but with four or five of my cousins. So when she proved to be with child, none of us was willing to acknowledge the boy. I’ve done what I could for him, and it’s obvious to look at him that he has Comyn blood, but he could have been mine, or Gabriel’s, or Gwynn’s—”

Domenic’s face was red, but he persisted. “Still, a Comyn son should have been acknowledged.”

Esteban looked uncomfortable. “Gwynn always said he meant to, but he died before he got around to it. I have hesitated to tell Dezi that story, because I think it would hurt his pride worse than simple bastardy. I do not think he has been ill-used,” he said, defending himself. “I have had him here to live, I sent him to Arilinn. He has had everything of a nedestro heir save formal acknowledgment.”

Damon thought that over as he went back to the dancing. No wonder Dezi was touchy, troubled; he obviously sensed some disgrace which bastardy alone would not have given. It was disgraceful for a girl of good family to be promiscuous that way. He knew Ellemir had had lovers, but she had chosen them discreetly and one, at least, had been her sister’s husband, which was long-established custom. There had been no scandal. Nor had she risked bearing a child no man would acknowledge.

When Damon and Domenic had left him, Andrew went moodily to get another drink. He thought, with a certain grimness, that considering what lay ahead of him this night, he might do well to get himself as drunk as possible. Between the country customs Damon thought so much of a joke, and the knowledge that he and Callista could not consummate their marriage yet, it was going to be one hell of a wedding night.

On second thought he would have to walk a narrow line, drunk enough to blur his awareness of embarrassment, but sober enough to keep in mind his pledge to Callista, never to put the slightest pressure on her, or try to hurry her. He wanted her — he had never wanted any woman in his life as much as he wanted her — but he wanted her willingly, sharing his own desire. He knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t get the slightest pleasure out of anything remotely approaching rape; and in her present state, it couldn’t be anything but.

“If you do not get drunk, you might be overeager and mishandle your bride.” Damn Domenic and his jokes! Fortunately none of them except Damon, who understood the problem, knew what he was going through.

If they did know, they’d probably think it was funny! Andrew considered. Just one more dirty joke for a wedding!

Abruptly he felt distress, dismay… Callista! Callista in trouble somewhere! He hurried in her direction, letting his own telepathic sensitivity guide him.

He found her at one end of the hall, pinned against the wall by Dezi, who had one arm at either side of her so she could not dodge away and escape. He was leaning forward as if to kiss her. She twisted to one side and then the other, trying to avoid his lips, imploring him. “Don’t, Dezi, I do not want to defend myself against a kinsman—”

“We are not now in the Tower, domna. Come now, one real kiss…”

Andrew grabbed the boy by one shoulder and plucked him away, lifting him clear of the floor.

“Damn it, leave her alone!”

Dezi looked sullen. “It was but a jest between kinfolk.”

“A jest Callista seemed not to share,” Andrew said. “Get lost! Or I’ll—”

“You’ll what ?” Dezisneered. “Challenge me to a duel?”

Andrew looked down at the slight youngster, flushed, angry, obviously drunk. Abruptly his anger melted away. There was something to be said, he thought, for the Terran custom of a legal age for drinking. “Challenge, hell,” he said laughing, looking down at the angry boy. “I’ll put you over my knee and spank you for the nasty little boy you are. Now go away and sober up and stop bothering the grown-ups!”

Dezi gave Andrew a look like murder, but he went, and Andrew realized that for the first time since the declaration he was alone with Callista.

“What the hell was that all about?”

She was as crimson as her light draperies, but she tried to make a joke of it. “Oh, he said that now I was Keeper no more, I was free at last to give way to the irresistible passion he is sure he must arouse in any female breast.”

“I should have mopped up the floor with him,” Andrew said.

She shook her head. “Oh, no, I think he’s simply drunk a bit more than he can carry. And he is a kinsman, after all. It’s not unlikely he’s my father’s son.”

Andrew had, after all, half guessed this when he saw Domenic and Dezi side by side. “But would he so misuse a girl he believes to be his sister?”

“Half-sister,” Callista answered, “and in the hills, half-brothers and half-sisters can lie together if they will, or even marry, though it is considered luckier for them to bear no children so close akin. And horseplay and dirty jokes are expected at a wedding, so what he did was only rude, not shocking. I am too sensitive, and after all he is very young.”

She still looked shaken and distressed, and Andrew still thought he should have wiped the floor up with the boy; then, tardily, he wondered if he had been too hard on Dezi. Dezi wasn’t the first kid or the last to drink more than he could handle and make himself obnoxious.

He said gently, looking at her tired, strained face, “This will be over soon, love.”

“I know.” She hesitated. “You do know… the custom… ?”

“Damon told me,” he said wryly. “I gather they put us to bed together, with plenty of rough jokes.”

She nodded, coloring. “It is supposed to encourage the begetting of children, and in this part of the world that is very important to a young family, as you can imagine. So we, must simply… make the best of it.” She glanced at him, crimson, and said, “I am sorry. I know this will make it worse—”

He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t think so,” he said, smiling. “If anything, that kind of thing would tend to put me off anyhow.” He saw the flicker of guilt again in her face, and ached to comfort and reassure her.

“Look,” he said gently, “think of it this way: let them have their fun, but we can do as we please, and that will be our secret, as it should be. In our own time. So we can sit back and ignore their nonsense.”

She sighed and smiled at him. She said softly, “If you really think of it that way…”

“I do, love.”

“I’m so glad,” she said in a whisper. “Look, Ellemir is being pulled away by all the girls.” She added quickly, at his look of dismay, “No, they’re not hurting her, it’s only the custom that a bride should struggle and fight a little. It comes from the days when girls were married off without consent, but it’s only a joke now. See, Father’s body-servants have taken my father away, and Leonie will withdraw too, so the young folk can make all the noise they like.”

But Leonie was not withdrawing; she came and stood beside them, still and somber in her crimson draperies.

“Callista, child, do you want me to stay? Perhaps in my presence the jokes will be a little more restrained and seemly.”

Andrew could sense how much Callista longed for this, but she smiled and touched Leonie’s hand, the feather-touch customary among telepaths. “I thank you, kinswoman. But I… I must not start by cheating everyone of their fun. No bride ever died of embarrassment, and I am sure I shall not be the first.” And Andrew, looking at her, bravely steeled to endure without complaint whatever obscene horseplay they had created for a Keeper who gave up her ritual virginity, remembered the gallant girl who had made brave little jokes, even when she was a prisoner, alone and terrified in the caves of Corresanti.

It is for this that I love her so, he told himself.

Leonie said, very gently, “As you will, then, darling. Take my blessing.” She bowed gravely to them both and went away.

As if her withdrawal had loosed the floodgates, a tide of young men and girls came surging up to them in full flood.

“Callista, Ann’dra, you waste time here, the night is wearing away. Have you nothing better to do this night than talk?”

He saw Damon being pulled along by Dezi; Domenic grasped his own hand and he was drawn away from Callista, saw the flood of young girls surge up around her and conceal her from him. Someone shouted out, “We’ll make sure she’s ready for you, Ann’dra, so you needn’t defile these holy robes of hers!”

“Come along, both of you,” Domenic cried, in high good spirits. “These fellows would rather stay here drinking all night, I am sure, but now they must do their duty, a bride must not be kept waiting.”

He and Damon were hauled up the stairs, shoved into the living room of the suite they had prepared this morning. “Don’t get them mixed up now,” the Guardsman Caradoc called out drunkenly. “When the brides are twins, how is a mere husband, and drunk at that, to know if he lies in the arms of the right woman?”

“What difference does it make?” asked a strange young man. “That is for them to settle among themselves, is it not? And when the lamp is out, one woman is like another. If they are confused between left hand and right, what difference does it make?”

“We must start with Damon. He has lost so much time that he must make haste to do his duty to his clan,” Domenic said gaily. Damon was quickly stripped of his clothing and wrapped in a long robe. The bedroom door was opened with ceremony and Andrew could see Ellemir, thinly gowned in spider-silk, her copper hair unbound and streaming over her breasts. She was red-faced, giggling uncontrollably, but Andrew sensed that it was on the ragged edge of hysterical sobbing. It was enough, he thought. It was too much. Everyone should get out and leave them alone.

“Damon,” Domenic said solemnly, “I have made you a gift.”

Andrew saw with relief that Damon was just drunk enough to be good-natured. “That is kind of you, brother-in-law. What is your gift?”

“I have made you a calendar, marked with the days and the moons. If you do your duty this night, see, I have marked in crimson the date when your first son will be born!”

Damon was red with stifled laughter. Andrew could see that he would rather have thrown it at Domenic’s head, but he accepted it, let them ceremoniously help him into bed at Ellemir’s side. Domenic said something to Ellemir which made her duck down and smother her face in the sheets, then conducted the watchers to the door, with mock solemnity.

“And now, so that we may pass our night in peaceful drinking, undisturbed by whatever goes on beyond these doors, I have another gift for the happy couple. I shall set up a telepathic damper just inside your doors—”

Damon sat up in bed and flung a pillow at them, finally losing patience. “Enough is enough,” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here and leave us in peace!”

As if that had been what they were waiting for — perhaps it was — the whole crowd of men and women began to withdraw quickly toward the doors. “Really,” Domenic rebuked, drawing his face into reproving lines, “can you not contain your impatience a little longer, Damon? My poor little sister, at the mercy of such unseemly haste!” But he closed the door, and behind him Andrew heard Damon come to the door and bolt it. At least there was a limit to the jokes considered proper, and Damon and Ellemir were alone.

But now it was his turn. There was, he thought grimly, only one good thing about all this. By the time the drunken men were finished with their horseplay, he was going to be too tired — and too damn mad — for anything except sleep.

They thrust him into the room where Callista waited, surrounded by the young girls, friends of Ellemir, their own servants, young noblewomen from the surrounding countryside. They had taken away her somber crimson draperies, put her into a thin gown like Ellemir’s, her hair unbraided, streaming over her bare shoulders. She looked quickly up at him, and somehow it seemed to Andrew for a moment that she looked much younger than Ellemir: young, lost, and vulnerable.

He sensed that she was fighting to keep back tears. Shyness and reluctance were part of the game, but if she really broke down and cried, he knew, they would be ashamed and resentful of her for spoiling their fun. They would despise her for her inability to join in the game.

Children could be cruel, he told himself, and so many of these girls were only children. Young as she looked, Callista was a woman. She was, perhaps, never a child; she had her childhood stolen by the Tower… He steeled himself against whatever was coming, knowing that however rough it was for him, it was worse for Callista.

How soon can I get them out of here, he wondered, before she breaks down and cries, and hates herself for it? Why should she have to endure this nonsense?

Domenic took him firmly by the shoulders and turned him around, facing away from Callista.

“Pay attention,” he admonished. “We have not finished with you yet, and the women have not yet made Callista ready for you. Can you not wait a few minutes?” And Andrew let Domenic do as he would, preparing to give courteous attention to the jokes be did not understand. But he thought longingly of the time when he and Callista would be alone.

Or would that be worse? Well, whether or not there was this to get through, somehow, first. He let Domenic and the men lead him into the adjoining room.