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“Are you well again, daughter?”

“Much better, I think,” she said, and he motioned her to sit beside him, scanning her face carefully,

narrowing his eyes.

“You’re thinner. Zandru’s hells, girl, you look as if you’d been gnawed by Alar’s wolf! What ailed you,

or shouldn’t I ask?”

She had no idea what, if anything, Andrew or Damon might have told him. “Nothing very much. Awoman’s trouble.”

“Don’t give me that,” her father said bluntly, “you’re no sickling. Marriage doesn’t seem to agree with

you, my girl.”

She recoiled, saw in his face that he had picked up the recoil. He backed off quickly. “Well, well, child, I have known it a long time, the Towers do not easily let go their hold on those they have taken. Iremember well how Damon went for more than a year like a lost soul blundering in the outer hells.” Clumsily he patted her arm. “I won’t ask questions,
 
chiya
 
. But if that husband of yours is no good toyou…”

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Quickly she put out her hand to him. “No, no. It has nothing to do with Andrew, Father.”

He said, his frown skeptical, “When a bride of a few moons looks as you do, her husband is seldomblameless.”

Under his concentrated study she flushed, but her voice was firm. “On my word, Father, there has beenno quarrel, and Andrew is no way to blame.” It was the truth, but not the whole truth. There was no wayto tell the whole truth to anyone outside their closed circle, and she was not sure she knew it herself. Hesensed that she was evading him, but he accepted the barrier between them. “Well, well, the world willgo as it will, daughter, not as you or I would have it Have you breakfasted?”

“No, I waited to keep you company.”

She let him call servants and order them to bring her food, more than she wanted, but she knew he hadbeen shocked by her thinness and pallor. Like an obedient child, she forced herself to eat a little morethan she really wanted. His eyes dwelt on her face as she ate, and he said at last, more gently than washis custom, “There are times, child, when I feel that you daughters of Comyn who go into the Towerstake risks no less than those of our sons who go into the Guard, and fight along our borders… and it’sjust as inevitable, I suppose, that some of you should be wounded.”

How much did he know? How much did he understand? She knew he had said just about as much as hecould say without breaking one of the strongest taboos in a telepathic family. She felt obscurelycomforted, even through her embarrassment. It could not have been easy for him to go this far.

He passed her a jar of honey for her bread. She refused it, laughing. “Would you have me fat as a fowlfor roasting?”

“As fat, maybe, as an embroidery needle,” he scoffed. Her eyes on his face, she saw that he too was

thinner, drawn and worn, and his eyes seemed set deeper behind cheekbones and brow.

“Is there none here to keep you company, Father?”

“Oh, Ellemir is in and out, about the kitchens. Damon has gone to the village, to see to the families of the men who were frostbitten during the great storm, and Andrew is in the greenhouse, seeing what the frost has done there. Why not join him there, child? I am sure there is work enough for two.”

“And it is certain I am no help to Ellemir about the kitchens,” she said, laughing. “Later, perhaps. If the

sun is out they will be doing a great wash, and I must see to the linen rooms.”

He laughed. “To be sure. Ellemir has always said that she would rather muck out barns than use aneedle! But later maybe we can have some music again. I have been remembering how, when I wasyounger, I used to play a lute. Perhaps my fingers could get back their skill. I have so little to do, sittinghere all the day…”

The women of the household, and some of the men, had dragged out the great tubs and were washingclothes in the back kitchens. Callista found her presence superfluous and slipped away to the smallstill-room where she had made her own work. Nothing was as she had left it. She remembered that Damon had been working here during her illness, and, surveying the disorder he had left, she set to workto put everything to rights. She realized too that she must replenish stocks of some common medicinesand remedies, but while her hands were busy with some of the simplest herbal mixtures, separating theminto doses to be brewed for tea, she realized that there was a more demanding task before her: she must

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make some
 
kirian
 
.

She had thought when she left the Tower that she would never do this again; Valdir was too young toneed it and Domenic too old. Yet she realized soberly that whatever happened, no household oftelepaths should be without this particular drug. It was by far the most difficult of all the drugs she knewhow to make, having to be distilled in three separate operations, each to dispose of a different chemicalfraction of the resin. She had set everything to rights in the still-room and was taking out her distillingequipment when Ferrika came in and started, seeing her there.

“Forgive me for disturbing you,
 
vai domna
 
.”

“No, come in, Ferrika. What can I do for you?”

“One of the maids has scalded her hand at the wash. I came to find some burn salve for her.”

“Here it is,” Callista said, reaching a jar from a shelf. “Can I do anything?”

“No, my lady, it is nothing serious,” the woman said, and went away. After a little while she returned,

bringing back the jar.

“Is it a bad burn?”

Ferrika shook her head. “No, no, she carelessly put her hand into the wrong tub, that is all, but I thinkwe should keep something for burns in the kitchen and washing rooms. If someone had been severelyhurt it would have been bad to have to come up here for it.”

Callista nodded. “I think you are right. Put some into smaller jars, then, and keep it there,” she said. While Ferrika at the smaller table, began to do this, she frowned, opening drawer after drawer until Ferrika finally turned and asked, “My lady, can I help you to find something? If the Lord Damon, or Imyself, have misplaced something for you…”

Callista frowned. She said, “Yes, there were
 
kireseth
 
flowers here…”

“Lord Damon used some of those, my lady, while you were ill.”

Callista nodded, remembering the crude tincture he had made. “I have allowed for that, but unless hewasted or spoiled a great deal, there was far more than he could have used, stored in a bag at the backof this cabinet.” She went on searching cabinets and drawers. “Have you used any of it, Ferrika?”

The woman shook her head. “I have not touched it.” She was smoothing salve into a jar with a smallbone paddle. Watching her, Callista asked, “Do you know how to make
 
kirian
 
?”

“I know how it is done, my lady. When I trained in the Guild-house in Arilinn, each of us spent some time apprenticed to an apothecary to learn to make medicines and drugs. But I myself have never made it,” the woman said. “We had no use for it in the Guild-house, though we had to learn how to recognize it. You know that the… that some people sell the by-products of
kirian
 
distillation, illegally?”

“I had heard this, even in the Tower,” Callista said dryly.
 
Kireseth
 
was a plant whose leaves, flowers and stems contained various resins. In the Kilghard Hills, at some seasons, the pollen created a problem, having dangerous psychoactive qualities.
 
Kirian
 
, the telepathic drug which lowered the barriers of the mind, used the only safe fraction, and even that was used with great caution. The use of raw
kireseth
 
, or

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of the other resins, was forbidden by law in Thendara and Arilinn, and was regarded as criminal everywhere in the Domains. Even
kirian
 
was treated with great caution, and looked on with a kind of superstitious dread by outsiders.

As she counted and sorted filtering cloths, Callista thought, with a peculiar homesickness, of the farawayplains of Arilinn. It had been her home for so long. She supposed she would never see it again.

It could be her home again, Leonie had said… To dispel that thought, she asked, “How long did you livein Arilinn, Ferrika?”

“Three years,
 
domna
 
.”

“But you are one of our people from the estate, are you not? I remember that you and I and Dorian and

Ellemir all played together when we were little girls, and had dancing lessons together.”

“Yes, my lady, but when Dorian went to be married, and you to the Tower, I decided I did not want to stay at home all my life, like a plant grown fast to the wall. My mother had been midwife here, you remember, and I had, I thought, talent for the work. There was a midwife on the estate at Syrtis who had been trained in the Arilinn Guild-house, where they train healers and midwives. And I saw that under her care, many lived whom my mother would have consigned to the mercy of Avarra—lived, and their babies thrived. Mother said these newfangled ways were folly, and probably impious as well, but I went to the Guild-house at Neskaya and took oath there. They sent me to Arilinn to be trained. And I asked leave of my oath-mother to come here and take employment, and she agreed.”

“I did not know there was anyone at Arilinn from my home villages.”

“Oh, I saw you now and again, my lady, riding with the other
 
vai leroni
 
,” Ferrika said. “And once the
 
domna
 
Lirielle came to the Guild-house to aid us. There was a woman there whose inward parts were being destroyed by some dreadful disease, and our Guild-mother said that nothing could save her except neutering.”

“I had thought that illegal,” Callista said with a shudder, and Ferrika answered, “Why, so it is,
 
domna
 
, except to save a life. More than illegal, it is very dangerous as it is done under a surgeon’s knife. Many never recover. But it can be done by matrix—” She broke off with a rueful smile, saying, “But who am I to say that to you, who were Lady of Arilinn and know all such arts?”

Callista said, shrinking, “I have never seen it.”

“I was privileged to watch the
 
leronis
 
,” said Ferrika, “and I felt it would be greatly helpful to the women

of our world if this art was more widely known.”

With a shudder of revulsion, Callista said, “Neutering?”

“Not only that,
 
domna
 
, although, to save a life, that too. The woman lived. Though her womanhood was destroyed, the disease had also been burnt out and she was free of it. But there are so many other things which could be done. You did not see what Lord Damon did with the crippled men after the storm, but I saw how they recovered after—and I know how men recover when I have had to cut off their toes and fingers to save them from the black rot. And there are women for whom it is not safe to bear more children, and there is no safe way to make it impossible. I have long thought that partial neutering might be the answer, if it could be done without the risks of surgery. It is a pity, my lady, that the art of doing such things with a matrix is not known outside the Towers.”

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Callista looked dismayed at the thought, and Ferrika knew she had gone too far. She replaced the capon the jar of burn salve with strong fingers. “Have you found the
 
kireseth
 
that was missing, Lady Callista? You should ask Lord Damon if he put it somewhere else.” She put away the salve, glancedthrough the herbal teas Callista had divided into doses, and looked along the shelves. “We have no moreblackfruit root when this is gone, my lady.”

Callista looked at the curled scraps of root in the bottom of the jar. “We must send to the markets at Neskaya when the roads are clear. It comes from the Dry Towns. But surely we do not use it often?”

“I have been giving it to your father,
 
domna
 
, to strengthen his heart. For a time I can give him red-rush,

but for daily use this is better.”

“Send for it, then, you have the authority. But he has always been a strong, powerful man. Why do you

think he needs stimulants for his heart, Ferrika?”

“It is often so with men who have been very active,
 
domna
 
, swordsmen, riders, athletes, mountain guides. If some injury keeps them long abed, their hearts weaken. It is as if their bodies developed a need for activity, and when it is too suddenly withdrawn, they fall ill, and sometimes they die. I do not know why it should be so, my lady, I only know that very often it is so.”

This was her fault too, Callista thought in sudden despair. It was in fighting with the catmen that he lostthe use of his limbs. And, remembering how tender her father had been with her that morning, she wasseized by grief. Suppose he should die, when she had just begun to know him! In the Tower she hadbeen insulated from grief and joy alike. Now it seemed that the world outside was filled with so manysorrows she could not bear it. How could she ever have had the courage to leave?