none (35 page)

Ferrika watched her with sympathy, but Callista was too inexperienced to realize it. She had been taughtto rely so wholly upon herself that now she was unable to turn to anyone else for advice or for comfort. After a time, Ferrika, seeing that Callista was lost in her own thoughts, went quietly away, and Callistatried to resume her work, but what she had heard left her so shaken that her hands would not obey her. Finally she replaced her materials, cleaned her equipment and went out, closing the door.

The men and maids had finished the washing, and in the rare bright sun, were out in the courtyards,pegging up sheets and towels, linens and garments, from lines strung everywhere. They were laughinggaily and calling jokes back and forth, tramping about in the mud and melting snow. The courtyard wasfull of wet flapping linens, blowing in the gusty wind. They looked merry and busy, but Callista knew fromexperience that if she joined them it would put a damper on their high spirits. They were used to Ellemir,but to the women of the estate—and even more to the men—she was still a stranger, exotic, to be fearedand revered, a Comyn lady who had been a
 
leronis
 
at Arilinn. Only Ferrika, who had known her as achild, was capable of treating her as another young woman like herself. She was lonely, she realized asshe watched the young girls and women running back and forth with armfuls of wet wash for the lines anddry sheets for the cupboards, making jokes and teasing one another.

She was lonely, belonging nowhere, she felt, not in the Tower, not among them.

After a time she went off to the greenhouses. Heaters were always kept inside the greenhouses, but shecould see that some of the plants near the window had been frostbitten, and in one of the buildings theweight of snow had broken several panes. Although it had been hastily boarded up, some fruit busheshad died. She saw Andrew at the far end, showing the gardeners how to cut away damaged vines,looking for live wood.

Page 132

She rarely
 
looked
 
at Andrew, being so accustomed to being aware of him in other ways. Now shewondered if Ellemir thought him handsome or ill-looking. The thought annoyed her disproportionately. She knew Andrew thought her beautiful. Not being a vain woman, and, because of the taboo which hadsurrounded her all her adult life, unaccustomed to masculine attention, this always surprised her a little. But now, she felt that since Ellemir was so lovely, and she was so thin and pale, he must certainly think Ellemir more beautiful.

Andrew looked up, smiled and beckoned to her. She came to his side, politely nodding to the gardener.

“Are these bushes all dead?”

He shook his head. “I think not. Killed to the root, maybe, but they’ll grow again this spring.” He addedto the man, “Mind you mark where you’ve cut them back, so you don’t plant anything else there anddisturb the roots.”

Callista looked at the cut bushes. “These leaves should be picked and sorted, and those which aren’tfrost-damaged must be dried, or we’ll have no seasoning for our roasts till spring!”

Andrew relayed the order. “A good thing you were here! I may be a good gardener, but I’m no cook,even on my world.”

She laughed. “I am no cook at all, on any world. I know something of herbs, that is all.”

The gardener bent to take away the cut branches, and behind his back Andrew bent to kiss her quicklyon the forehead. She had to steel herself not to move out of reach, as long habit and deep reflexesprompted. He was aware of the abortive movement and looked at her in pained surprise, then,remembering, sighed and smiled.

“I am glad to see you looking so well, my love.”

She said, sighing, feeling nothing in his kiss, “I feel like that bush there, killed down to the roots. Let’shope I’ll grow again in spring too.”

“Should you be out? Damon said you should rest again today.”

“Well, Damon has a bad habit of being right, but I feel like a mushroom in a dark cellar,” Callista said, “it’s so long since I’ve seen the sunlight!” She halted in a patch of sun, savoring the warmth on her face, while Andrew moved along, checking the rows of vegetables and pot-herbs. “I think everything here is still in good order, but I’m not familiar with these. What do you think, Callista?”

She came and knelt beside the low bushes, checking their roots. “I told Father years ago that he shouldnot plant the melons so close to the wall. It’s true that there’s more sunlight here, but there isn’t reallyenough insulation in a bad storm. This one will die before the fruit is ripe, and if this one survives”—shepointed—“the cold has killed the fruit. The rind may do for pickle, but it will not ripen and must be takenaway before it rots.” She called the gardener back to give orders.

“We will have to ask for some more seed from one of the lower lying farms. Perhaps Syrtis has been protected from the storm. They have good fruit trees and we can ask them for some melons, and some slips from their vines. And these should be taken to the kitchens. Some can be cooked before they spoil, others salted and put by.”

Page 133

As the men went to carry out the orders, Andrew slipped his hand between her arm and her body. Shetensed, went rigid, then quick color flooded her face.

“I am sorry. It is only a… a reflex, a habit…”

Back to square one
. All the physical reflexes, so slowly and carefully obliterated in the months sincetheir marriage, were returned in full strength. Andrew felt helpless and defeated. He knew that this hadbeen necessary to save her life, but seeing it actually in action again was another shock, and a severe one.

“Don’t look like that,” Callista begged. “It’s only for a little while!”

He sighed. “I know. Leonie warned me of this.” His face tightened, and Callista said edgily, “You reallyhate her, don’t you?”

“Not her. But I hate what she did to you. I can’t forgive that, and I never will.”

Callista felt a curious inward trembling, a shaking she could never quite control. She kept her voice evenwith an effort. “Be fair, Andrew. Leonie put no compulsion on me to be Keeper. I chose of my free will. She simply made it possible for me to follow that most difficult of paths. And it was also of my free willthat I chose to endure the… the pain of leaving. For
you
 
,” she added, looking straight at Andrew.

Andrew sensed that they were perilously close to a quarrel. With one part of himself he craved it, athunderclap which would clear the air. The thought came unbidden that with Ellemir that would be theway: a short, sharp quarrel, and a reconciliation which would leave them closer than ever.

But he could never do that with Callista. She had learned, with what suffering he could never guess, tokeep her emotions deeply guarded, hidden behind an impermeable barrier. He breached that wall at hisperil. He might now and then persuade her briefly to lower it or draw it aside, but it would always bethere and he could never risk destroying it without destroying Callista too. If she seemed hard andinvulnerable on the surface, he sensed that behind this she was more vulnerable than he could ever know.

“I won’t blame her, sweetheart, but I wish she could have been more explicit with us, with both of us.”

That was fair enough, Callista thought, remembering—like a bad dream, like a nightmare!—how she hadrailed at Leonie in the overworld. Still she felt compelled to say, “Leonie didn’t know.”

Andrew wanted to shout, well, why in hell didn’t she? That’s her business, isn’t it? But he dared notcriticize Leonie to her either. His voice was shaking. “What are we to do? Just go on like this, with youunwilling even to touch my hand?”

“Not unwilling,” she said, forcing the words past a lump in hre throat. “I
 
cannot
 
. I thought Damon had

explained it to you.”

“And the best Damon could do only made it worse!”

“Not worse,” she said, her eyes blazing again. “He saved my life! Be fair, Andrew!”

Andrew muttered, his eyes lowered, “I’m tired of being fair.”

“I feel that you hate me when you talk like that!”

Page 134

“Never, Callie,” he said, sobered. “I just feel so damnably helpless. What are we to do?”

She said, lowering her eyes and looking away from him, “I cannot think it is so hard for you. Ellemir—” But she stopped there, and Andrew, overcome with all the old tenderness, reached out for the deepercontact, wanting to reassure her, and himself, that it was still there, that it could endure through theseparation. It occurred to him that because of their deep-rooted cultural differences, even telepathy wasno guarantee against misunderstanding. But the closeness was there.

They must start from that. Understanding could come later.

He said gently, “You look tired, Callie. You mustn’t overdo on your first day out of bed. Let me takeyou upstairs.” And when they were alone in their room, he asked gently, “Are you reproaching me for Ellemir, Callista? I thought it was what you wanted.”

“It was,” she said, stammering. “It was only… only… it should make it easier for you to wait. Do we

have to talk about it, Andrew?”

He said soberly, “I think we do. That night—” And again she knew just what he meant. For all four ofthem, for a long time, “that night” would have only one meaning. “Damon said something to me thatstuck. All four of us telepaths, he said, and not one of us with enough sense to sit down and make surewe understood each other. Ellemir and I managed to talk about it,” he said, adding with a faint smile, “even though she had to get me half drunk before I could manage to break down and talk honestly toher.”

She said, not looking at him, “It has made it easier for you. Hasn’t it?”

He said quietly, “In a way. But it’s not worth it if it’s made you ashamed to look at me, Callista.”

“Not ashamed.” She managed to raise her eyes. “Not ashamed, no, it is only… I was taught to turn my thoughts elsewhere, so that I would not be… vulnerable. If you want to talk about it”—Evanda and Avarra forbid she should be less honest with him than Ellemir—“I will try. But I am not… not used to such talk or such thoughts and I may not… may not find words easily. If you will… will bear with that… then I will try.”

He saw that she was biting her lip, struggling to force her words through the barrier of herinarticulateness, and felt a deep pity. He considered sparing her this, but he knew that a barrier of silencewas the only barrier they might never be able to cross. At all costs—looking at her flushed cheeks andtrembling mouth, he knew the cost would be heavy—they must manage to keep a line of communicationopen.

“Damon said you must never be allowed to feel yourself alone, or think yourself abandoned. I can only

wonder, does this hurt you? Or make you feel… abandoned?”

She said, twisting her slender fingers in her lap. “Only if you had truly… truly abandoned me. Stoppedcaring. Stopped loving me.”

He thought that it was such an intimate thing, it could not help but bring him closer to Ellemir, make evenmore distance between Callista and himself.

His barriers were down, and Callista, following the thought, flared up in outrage. “Do you want me onlybecause you thought I would give you more pleasure in our bed than my sister?”

Page 135

He turned a dull red. Well, he had wanted directness; he had it. “God forbid! I never thought of it thatway at all. It’s only… if you think I am going to be wanting you any less, I would rather forget the wholething. Do you really think that because I sleep with Ellemir I have stopped wanting
you
 
?”

“No more than I have stopped wanting
you
 
, Andrew. But… but now we are equal.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Now your need of me is like mine for you.” Her eyes were level and tearless, but he sensed that inside she was weeping. “A… a thing of the mind and heart, a grief like mine, but not a… a torment of the body. I wanted you to be content, because”—she wet her lips, struggling against inhibitions which had lasted for years—“
 
that
was so terrible to me, to feel your need, your hunger, your loneliness. And so I tried to… to share it and I… I nearly killed you.” The tears spilled over, but she did not cry, flicked the tears away angrily. “Do you understand? It is easier for me when I need not feel
 
that
 
in you, so I would do anything, risk anything to quiet it…”

The desolation in her face made him want to weep too. He ached to take her in his arms and comforther, though he knew he could not risk anything but the lightest touch. Gently, almost respectfully, he liftedher slender hand to his lips and laid the lightest breath of a kiss on the fingertips. “You are so generousyou put me to shame, Callista. But there is no woman in the world who can give me what I want fromyou. I am willing to… to share your suffering, my darling.”

This was such a strange thought that she stopped and looked at him in amazement. He meant that, shethought with a queer excitement. His world’s ways were different, she knew, but in their terms he wasreally trying to be unselfish. It was the first awareness she had ever had of his total
 
alienness
 
, and itcame as a deep, wrenching shock. She had always seen only their similarities; now she was faced,shockingly, with their differences.