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“I am content that she should have a year or two to be free of such cares. She is still very young.”

But later he asked Damon in private, “What in the world is an
 
emmasca
 
?”

“The word
 
used
 
to mean one of the ancient race of the forests. They never mingle with mankind now, but there is said to be
 
chieri
 
blood in the Comyn, especially in the Hellers; some of the Ardais and Aldaran have six fingers on either hand. I am not sure I believe that tale—any horse-breeder will tell you that a half-breed is sterile—but the story goes that there is
 
chieri
 
blood in the Comyn, that the
 
chieri
 
in days past mingled with mankind and mixed their blood. It was believed that a
 
chieri
 
could appear as a man to a woman, or as a woman to a man, being both, or perhaps neither. So they say that in the old days some of the Comyn too were
 
emmasca
 
, neither man nor woman, but neuter. Well, that was very long ago, but the tradition remains that these were the first Keepers, neither man nor woman. Later, when women took on the burden of being Keeper, they were made
 
emmasca
 
—surgically neutered—because it was thought safer for a woman to work in the screens if she had not the burden of womanhood. But in living memory—and I can say this positively, knowing the laws of Arilinn—no woman has been neutered, even at Arilinn, to work in the Towers. A Keeper’s virginity serves to guard her against the perils of womanhood.”

“I still don’t understand why that is,” Andrew said, and Damon explained. “It’s a matter of nerve alignment. The same nerves in the body carry both
 
laran
 
and sex. Remember that after we worked with the matrices we were all impotent for days? The same nerve channels can’t carry both sets of impulses at once. A woman doesn’t have that particular safety valve, so the Keepers, who have to handle such

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tremendous frequencies and coordinate all the other telepaths, have to keep their channels completely clear for
 
laran
 
alone. Otherwise they can overload their nerves and burn out. I’ll show you the channels sometime, if you’re interested. Or you can ask Callista about it.”

Andrew, didn’t pursue the subject. The thought of the way in which Callista had been conditioned stillroused an anger in him so deep that it was better not to think about it at all.

They rode to Armida after a long trip home, broken three times by bad weather which forced them tostay overnight in different places, sometimes housed in luxurious rooms, sometimes sharing a pallet on thefloor with the family’s younger children. Andrew, looking down at the lights of Armida across the valley,thought with a strange awareness, that he was truly coming home. Half a galaxy away from the worldwhere he was born, yet this was home to him, and Callista was there. He wondered if all men, havingfound a woman to give meaning to life, defined home in that way: the place where their loved one waswaiting for them. Damon, at least, seemed to share that feeling; he seemed as glad to return to Armida ashe had been, almost thirty days before, to leave it. The great sprawling stone house seemed familiar now,as if he had lived there always.

Ellemir ran down the steps to meet Damon in the courtyard, letting him catch her up in his arms with anexuberant hug. She looked cheerful and healthy, her cheeks bright with color, her eyes sparkling. But Andrew had no time to spare for Ellemir now, for Callista was waiting for him at the top of the steps, stilland grave. When she gave him her little half-smile, it somehow meant more to him than all Ellemir’soverflowing gaiety. She gave him both her hands, letting him raise them to his lips and kiss one after theother, then, her finger-tips still lying lightly in his, she led him inside. Damon bent and greeted
Dom
 
Esteban with a filial kiss on the cheek, turned to Dezi with a quick embrace. Andrew, more reserved,bowed to the old man, and Callista came to sit close beside him while he gave
Dom
 
Esteban a report ontheir journey.

Damon asked after the frostbitten men. The less hurt ones had recovered and been sent to their families’care; the seriously wounded ones, the ones he had healed with the matrix, were still recovering. Raimonhad lost two toes on his right foot; Piedro had never recovered feeling in the outer fingers of his left hand,but they were not wholly crippled, as had been feared.

“They are still with us,” Ellemir said, “because Ferrika must dress their feet night and morning with healing oils. Did you know Raimon is a splendid musician? Almost every night, we have him up in the hall to play for us to dance, the servant girls and the stewards, and Callista and Dezi and I dance too, but now that you are back with us…” She snuggled against Damon’s side, looking up at him with happy eyes.

Callista followed Andrew’s gaze and said softly, “I have missed you, Andrew. Perhaps I cannot show itas Elli does. But I am more glad than I can tell you, that you are here with us again.”

After dinner in the big hall,
Dom
 
Esteban said, “Shall we have some music, then?”

“I shall send for Raimon, shall I?” Ellemir said, and went to summon the men, and Andrew said softly,

“Will you sing for me, Callista?”

Callista glanced at her father for permission. He motioned to her to sing, and she took her small harp andstruck a chord or two.

How came this blood on your right hand,

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Brother, tell me, tell me…

Dezi made a formless sound of protest. Looking at his troubled face as she returned, Ellemir said, “Callista, sing something else!” At Andrew’s surprised, questioning look, she said, “It is ill luck for asister to sing that in a brother’s hearing. It tells the tale of a brother who slew all his kinfolk save onesister alone, and she was forced to pronounce the outlaw-word on him.”

Dom
Esteban scowled. He said, “I am not superstitious, and no son of mine sits in this hall. Sing,

Callista.”

Troubled, Callista bent her head over her harp, but she obeyed.

We sat at feast, we fought in jest,

Sister, I vow to thee,

A berserk’s rage came in my hand

And I slew them shamefully.

What will become of you now, dear heart,

Brother, tell me, tell me…

Andrew, seeing Dezi’s smoldering eyes, felt a wave of sadness for the boy, for the gratuitous insult
Dom
 
Esteban had put on him. Callista sought Dezi’s eyes as if in apology, but the youngster rose and went outof the room, slamming the door into the kitchens. Andrew thought he should do something, saysomething, but what?

Later Raimon came hobbling into the hall on his canes and began to play a dance tune. The strainvanished as the men and women of the estate crowded into the center of the room, men in the outer ring,women in the inner, dancing a measure which wove into circles and spirals. One of the men brought out adrone-pipe, an unfamiliar instrument which, Andrew thought, made an unholy racket, for a couple ofothers to dance a sword-dance. Then they began to dance in couples, though Andrew noticed that mostof the younger women danced only with one another. Callista was playing for the dancers; Andrewbowed to Ferrika and drew her into the dance.

Later he saw Ellemir and Damon dancing together, her arms around his neck, her smiling eyes lifted toher husband’s. It reminded him of his attempts to dance with Callista, against custom, at their wedding. Well, nothing forbade it now. He went in search of Callista, who had yielded up her harp to another ofthe women and was dancing with Dezi. As they drew apart, he came toward them and held out his arms.

She smiled gaily and moved toward him, but Dezi stepped between them. He spoke in a voice whichcould not be heard three feet away, but there was no mistaking the sneering malice in his tone: “Oh, wecan’t let you two dauce together
yet
 
, can we?”

Callista’s hands dropped to her sides and the color drained from her face. Andrew heard a clatter ofbroken dishes and the shatter of a wineglass somewhere, under the terrifying impact of her mental cry ofpain. Evidently everyone in the room with a scrap of telepathic awareness had picked up her outrage. Andrew didn’t stop to think. His fist smashed, hard, into Dezi’s face, sending the boy reeling.

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Slowly Dezi picked himself up. He wiped the streaming blood from his lip, his eyes blazing fury. Then heflung himself at Andrew, but Damon had grabbed him around the waist, holding him back by force.

“Zandra’s hells, Dezi,” he breathed, “are you mad? Blood-feud for three generations has been declared

for an insult less than you have put on our brother!”

Andrew looked around the ring of staring, shocked faces until he saw Callista, her eyes staring and lostin her drawn face. Abruptly she put her hands up to her face, turned her back, and hurried out of theroom. She did not sob aloud, but Andrew could feel, like tangible vibration, the tears she could not shed.

Dom
Esteban’s angry voice, cut through the lengthening, embarrassed silence.

“The most charitable explanation of this, Deziderio, is that you have again had more to drink than you can handle! If you cannot hold your drink like a man, you had better limit yourself to
 
shallan
 
with your dinner, as the children do! Apologize to our kinsman, and go sleep it off!”

That was the best way to pass it off, Andrew thought. Judging by their confusion, most of the people inthe room did not even know what Dezi had said. They had simply picked up Callista’s distress.

Dezi muttered something—Andrew supposed it was an apology. He said quietly, “I don’t care whatinsults you put on me, Dezi. But what kind of man should I be if I let you speak offensively to my wife?”

Dezi glanced over his shoulder at
 
Dom
 
Esteban—to make sure they were out of earshot?—and said in alow, vicious tone, “Your wife? Don’t you even know that freemate marriage is legal only uponconsummation? She’s no more your wife than she is mine!” Then he went quickly past Andrew and outof the room.

All semblance of jollity had gone from the evening. Ellemir hastily thanked Raimon for his music andhurried out of the room.
 
Dom
 
Esteban beckoned Andrew and asked if Dezi had apologized. Andrew,averting his eyes—the old man was a telepath, how could he lie to him?—said uneasily that he had, andto his relief the old man let it pass. What could he do anyway? He could not declare blood-feud on hiswife’s half-brother, a drunken adolescent with a taste for insults that hit below the belt.

But was it true, what Dezi had said? In their own suite he put the question to Damon, who, though heshook his head looked troubled.

“My dear friend, don’t worry about it. No one would have any reason to question the legality of your marriage. Your intentions are clear, and no one is worrying about the fine points of the law,” he said, but Andrew felt that Damon had not even convinced himself. Inside their room he could hear Callista crying. Damon heard too.

“I would like to break our Dezi’s neck for him!”

Andrew felt the same way. With a few vicious words, the boy had taken all the joy out of their reunion.

Callista had stopped crying when he came in. She stood before her dressing table, slowly unfastening thebutterfly-clasp she wore at the nape of her neck, letting her hair fall down about her shoulders. Sheturned and said, wetting her lips, as if it were a speech she had rehearsed many times, “Andrew, I amsorry… I am sorry you were exposed to that. — It is
 
my
 
fault.”

She sat down before the table and slowly took up her carved ivory brush, running it slowly along the

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length of her hair. Andrew knelt beside her, wishing desperately that he could take her in his arms and comfort her. “Your fault, love? How are you to blame for that wretched boy’s malice? I won’t tell you to forget it—I know you can’t—but don’t let it trouble you.”

“But it is my fault.” Even in the mirror, she would not meet his eyes. “Because of what I am. It is my fault

that what he said was… true.”

He thought, poignantly, of the way in which Ellemir had snuggled into Damon’s arms, the way her armshad lain around Damon’s neck while they danced. He said at last, “Well, Callie, I won’t lie to you, it’snot easy. I won’t pretend that I’m enjoying the waiting. But I promised, and I’m not complaining. Leaveit now, love.”

Her small chin set in a stubborn line. “I can’t leave it like that. Can’t you understand that you… yourneed hurts me too, because I want you too, and I cannot, I don’t dare… Andrew, listen to me. No, letme finish, do you remember what I asked you, the day we were wedded? That if it were this hard foryou, to… to take another?”

He frowned at her in the mirror, displeased. “I thought we’d settled that once and for all, Callista. In God’s name, do you think I care for any of the maids or serving women?” Had it disturbed her, that hedanced with Ferrika tonight? Did she think…